'You have entrusted us with Prince Dutiful. This we little expected you would do, despite the word that was sent to us. Yet I was determined that if you gave us a hostage that indicated you had true respect for us, we would do the same. We give you Web. He is of the oldest Old Blood, an unmingled bloodline and the last of that heritage. We have no nobility amongst ourselves, no kings nor queens. But from time to time we do have one such as Web. He does not rule us, but he does listen to us, and we listen to him. Mind that you treat all my people well, but Web treat as if he were your prince.
It seemed a very strange introduction to me. I knew little more about the man than I had when she started speaking, and yet all the Old Blood behaved as if she had bestowed a gift upon us. I saved it up to expound on to Chade.
I thought of Skilling ahead to Thick to ask him to tell Chade what the Queen had done, but I decided against it. The little man often scrambled messages, and I did not want Chade spurred into rash action. I’d seen enough of that for one day. As our two groups parted, leaving the Prince and Laurel sitting their horses and surrounded by armed Witted, the rain suddenly came pelting down. The woman who had spoken called after us, ‘Three days! Return my people unharmed in three days!’
The Queen turned back and nodded to her gravely. The reminder had scarcely been needed. It already seemed far too long a time to entrust the well-being of our prince to them.
Marshcroft did his best to form up his troops protectively about the Old Bloods, but they were more than we had expected and his guard was spread thin. I was towards the end of the procession, riding behind the woman who led her Wit-cow. I had thought the bearded man would insist on some sort of honoured place in the formation, perhaps riding alongside the Queen. Instead, Web rode towards the rear, right in front of me. I glanced back for a final glimpse of my prince sitting his horse in the freezing rain. When I looked forward again, I found the man watching me.
‘Braver than I thought a boy of his years would be. Tougher than I thought a prince would be,’ Web observed to me. The guardsman to my right scowled, but I nodded gravely. Web held my eyes for a time before he looked away. I felt uneasy that he had singled me out for his words.
Before we reached Buckkeep, I was soaked through. The rain turned to a sloppy snow, making the trail treacherous and slowing our progress. The guards at the gate admitted us without question or delay, but as we rode past, I saw one’s eyes widen and read his lips as he whispered to his fellow, ‘The Prince is gone!’ So the rumour fled before us into Buckkeep.
In the courtyard, Marshcroft assisted the Queen’s dismount. Chade was there to meet us. He lost control for an instant when he realized the Prince had not returned. His sharp green gaze sought me immediately. I avoided meeting it, as much because I had no information for him as because I did not want folks to connect us. It was not difficult. The courtyard had become a place of trampled snow and mud, full of milling folk and animals. The milk-cow’s distressed intermittent mooing mingled with the general discord of voices. There were folk from our stables waiting to take our beasts and those of our guests, but they had not been prepared for the pregnant cow, nor for a soaking and masked woman who would not leave her animal but feared to enter our stables alone.
At length both Web and I volunteered to accompany her. I found an empty stall and made her weary cow as comfortable as she could be made in an unfamiliar place. The woman, Sally, said little to either of us, instead seeming completely concerned for the cow’s welfare. But Web was affable and talkative, not just to me, but to the horses in their stalls and the stable boys that I sent running for water and fresh hay. I introduced myself as Tom Badgerlock of the Queen’s Guard.
‘Ah,’ he said, and nodded as if confirming something he had already suspected. ‘You would be Laurel’s friend, then. She spoke well of you, and commended you to my attention.’
On that unnerving note, he turned back to his exploration of the stables. He seemed interested in all that was going on around him, asking questions not just about how many animals were stabled here, but what sort of a horse was that and had I been a guardsman long and did I look forward to a set of dry clothes and something hot to drink as much as he did?
I was taciturn in my response without being rude, but it was still a relief to escort them into the keep and up to the east wing where the Queen had decided to quarter all her Old Blood guests. Those quarters offered them privacy from the rest of the keep folk. There was a large room where they could dine together unmasked, once the food was set out and the serving folk were banished. They all seemed very concerned that their identities remain hidden. All save Web. I escorted him and the cow-woman up to the floor where the bedchambers were. There a maid greeted them and asked them to follow her. Sally left without a backwards glance, but Web clasped wrists with me heartily and told me that he expected we’d have a chance to talk again soon. He wasn’t three steps away from me before he was asking the chambermaid if she enjoyed her work and had she lived at the castle long and wasn’t it a shame the spring day had ended in such a downpour.
My duties discharged, this wet and weary guardsman went immediately to the guardroom. There, all was in an uproar as the Queen’s decision was discreetly discussed at the top of our lungs. The hall was packed, not only with the guards who had just come in but with all who wanted to hear the tale at first hand. It was too late for that, however. Amongst guardsmen, tales multiply faster than rabbits. As I wolfed down stew and bread and cheese, I heard how we had been surrounded by a force of three score Witted ones with bows, swords and at least one wild boar, tusking and snorting and eyeing us all the while. I had to admire the last addition to the tale. At least the man shouting out his account most loudly told how brave and cool our prince had been.
Still dripping and cold, I left the guardroom and headed down a corridor that led past the kitchens and towards the pantries. In a quiet moment, I slipped inside Thick’s small room, and from thence into the hidden corridors of the keep. I fled to my workroom as swiftly as I could and changed into dry clothes, spreading my wet ones to drip over the tables and chairs. The tiny note from Chade said merely, ‘Queen’s private council room’. From the splattered ink, I deduced he had been in high temper when he penned it.
And so I made another hurried dash through the twisting labyrinth. I cursed its construction, wondering if the men who had built it had been as short as the ceilings seemed to indicate, even as I knew that no one had ever planned this whole maze. Rather it utilized not only gaps between walls but abandoned servants’ stairs as well as bits added deliberately in the course of repairing the old keep. I was out of breath when I reached the secret entrance to the Queen’s private chambers. I halted to catch my breath before knocking, and became aware of the fierce argument on the other side of the concealed door.
‘And I am the Queen!’ Kettricken stated in fierce reply to whatever Chade had said. ‘As well as his mother. In either capacity, do you think I would risk heir or son if I had not thought it of the highest importance?’
I didn’t hear Chade’s reply. But Kettricken’s was clear and almost strident. ‘No, it has nothing to do with my “damnable Mountain upbringing”. It has to do with me forcing my nobles to treat with the Old Bloods as if they had something to lose. You witnessed how they trivialized my efforts before. Why? Because it cost them nothing to leave things as they were. The injustice did not bother them. None of their sons or wives were at stake. They had never lain awake at night, fearing that someone they cared about would be found out as Witted and murdered for it. But I have. I will tell you something, Chade. My son is in no more danger as hostage to the Witted than he was yesterday, here in the keep, where proof of his Wit could have turned his own dukes against him.’