He was very close-mouthed about the other news of the keep. What little I squeezed out of him worried me. The Queen was still in negotiations with the Bingtown Traders, but had graciously given the Dukes of Shoaks and Farrow permission to pressure Chalced along their borders as they wished. There would be no formal declaration of warfare, but the normal harrying and raiding that went on along that boundary would be increased, with her tacit blessings. There was little new in this: the slaves of Chalced had known for generations that they could claim freedom if they could manage to escape to the Six Duchies. Once free, they often turned against their old masters, raiding across the border the flocks and herds that once they had tended. For all that, trade between Chalced and duchies remained lively and prosperous. For the Six Duchies to side openly with Bingtown could put an end to that.
The Bingtown war with Chalced had horribly disrupted Chade’s flow of spy information from that area. He had to rely on second- and third-hand accounts and, as with all such heavily-handled information, there were contradictions. We were both sceptical of the ‘facts’ we received. Yes, the Bingtown Traders had a dragon-breeding plantation far up the Rain Wild River. One, or perhaps two, full-grown dragons had been seen in flight. They were variously described as blue, silver or blue and silver. The Bingtown Traders fed the dragons, and in return, the dragons guarded Bingtown Harbour. But they would not fly out of sight of shore, which was why the Chalcedean ships still were able to menace and plunder Bingtown’s trading fleet. The dragon-breeding farm was tended by a race of changelings, half-dragon and half-human. It was in the midst of a beautiful city, where wondrous gems glowed from the walls at night. The humans who also dwelt there preferred to live in lofty timber castles high in the tops of immense trees.
Such information more frustrated than enlightened us. ‘Do you think they lied to us when they told us about the dragons?’ I asked him.
‘They likely told us their truth,’ Chade replied tersely. ‘That is the whole purpose of spies: to give us the other truths of the story, so that from all of them, we can cobble together our own truth. There is not enough meat here to make a meal from, only enough to torment us. What can we deduce for certain from these rumours? Only that a dragon has been seen, and that something peculiar is going on somewhere on the Rain Wild River.’
And that was as much as he would say on that subject. But I suspected he knew far more than he admitted, and that he had other irons in the fire than the ones he discussed with me. So my days passed in sleep, study and rest. Once, when rustling through Chade’s scrolls for one I recalled on the history of Jamaillia, I found the feathers from the treasure-beach. I stood looking at them in the dimness, and then carried them over to Chade’s worktable and examined them there in a better light. Just touching them was unsettling. They stirred to life memories of my days on that desolate beach, and awoke a hundred questions.
There were five feathers in all, about the size of the curving feathers in a cockerel’s tail. They were carved in extreme detail, so that each separate rib of the feather lay against the next. They I seemed to be made from wood, though they weighed oddly heavy in my hands. I tried several blades against them; the sharpest one made only a fine silvery scratch. If this was wood, it was near as hard as metal. Some trick of their carving seemed to catch the light strangely. The feathers were plain and grey and yet, seen from the tail of my eye, color seemed to run over them. They had no discernible smell. Setting my tongue to one gave me a faint taste of brine followed by bitterness. That was all.
And having tested all of my senses against them, I surrendered to the mystery. I suspected they would fit the Fool’s Rooster Crown. I wondered again whence that strange artefact had originated. He had unwrapped it from a length of fabric so wondrous that it could only have come from Bingtown. Yet the old wooden circlet seemed too humble to have come from a city of marvels and magic. When he had shown the ancient crown to me, I had recognized it immediately, having seen it once before, in a dream. In my vision, it had been colourfully painted and bright feathers had stood up above the circlet to nod in the breeze. A woman had worn it, pale even as the Fool had been pale then, and the folk of some ancient Elderling city had paused in their celebration to listen and laugh at her mocking words. I had interpreted her status as a jester. Now I wonder if I had missed a subtler meaning. I looked at them, spread like a fan, and a sudden shiver ran over me. They linked us, I knew with a sudden chill. They linked the Fool and me, not only to one another, but to another life. Hastily I wrapped them in a cloth and hid them under my pillow.
I could not decide what it meant that the feathers had come to me; but I did not want to discuss them with Chade. The Fool might have the answers, I suspected, and yet I felt a shamed reluctance to take them to him. There was not only the gulf of our present quarrel between us, but the fact that I had had them for so long and hadn’t spoken of them to him. I knew that neither of those things would be improved by waiting longer, yet I truly felt too weak to present them to him. So I slept with them under my pillow each night.
In the deeps of my third night in the workroom, Nettle invaded my sleep. She came as a weeping woman. In my dream, a statue stood in a stream of the tears she had shed. Her tears were a silvery gown that she wore, and her mourning was a fog around her. I stood for a time, watching her cry. Each silver tear that ran down her cheeks splashed into a thread of gossamer that became part of her raiment before it turned into the stream that flowed past her. ‘What is wrong?’ I asked the apparition at last.
But she only continued to weep. I approached her, and finally put my hand on her shoulder, expecting to encounter cold stone. Instead she turned to me with eyes that were grey as fog. Her eyes were made of tears. ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please talk to me. Tell me why you weep?’
And suddenly she was Nettle. She leaned her brow on my shoulder and wept on. Always before, when I had encountered her in dreams, I had had the feeling she was seeking for me. This time I sensed that I had come to her, drawn by her sorrow into some other place that was usually private to her. I think my coming surprised her. Yet I was not unwelcome, only unlocked for.
What is it? Even in my sleep, I knew I Skilled to her.
‘They quarrel. Even when they do not speak, their quarrel hangs like cobwebs in the room. Every word anyone says gets tangled in the quarrel. They act as if I cannot love them both, as if I must choose between them. And I cannot.’
Who quarrels?
‘My father and my brother. They came home safely, as you said they would. But as soon as they got down from the horse, I felt the storm hanging between them. I don’t know what it is about. My father refuses to speak of it, and he has forbidden my brother to tell me. It is something shameful and dark and horrid. Yet my brother wishes to do it. He desires it with all his heart. I cannot imagine why. Swift has always been such a good boy; quiet and meek and obedient. What can he have discovered that he longs to do and my father so abhors?’
I could almost feel her mind groping towards dark suspicions. She longed to know what had so disgraced her gentle brother in her father's eyes. Her imagination could not conjure anything sufficiently evil that a boy of his years could possibly do. That led her towards the idea that her father was being irrational. Yet that concept, too, was untenable for her. And so her speculation wobbled between two unacceptable ideas. And all the while tension in the household grew heavier and heavier.