I tried to be methodical. While daylight served me, I painstakingly gathered every scattered scroll that had been flung into the yard. Some were hopelessly ruined with damp, others torn and trampled with muddy hooves, and some were no more than fragments. Mindful of Chade’s words, some I tried to smooth and roll up, even when they were but fragments, but most I ruthlessly consigned to the fire. I kicked through the snow until I was as certain as I could possibly be that no writing of mine remained in the yard.

Dusk was deep by then. Inside the cabin, I kindled a fire in the hearth, for light as well as heat. I began on the inside of the cabin. Most of my possessions went straight into the fire. Old work clothes, my writing tools, my bootjack, and other clutter and possessions burned in the hearth. I was kinder to Map’s things, knowing that a spinning top, long outgrown as a plaything, could still have meaning to him. I made a sack of an old cloak and filled it with those sorts of items. Then I sat down by the flames and painstakingly went through the scrolls from my rack. There were far more of them than I had expected, and far more than I could have carried back with me.

I chose first to save those I had not written myself. Verity’s map went into the case, of course, and was soon joined by scrolls I had acquired in my travels and some brought to me by Starling. A few of these were quite old and rare. I was grateful to find them intact and resolved to make copies of them when I returned to Buckkeep. But apart from those, my culling was fierce. Nothing that was the work of my pen was immune to my scrutiny. Scrolls of herbal knowledge with my meticulous illustrations fed the fire. That information was still in my head; if it was that important, I could write it down again. Into the bag, against my better judgment, went those scrolls that dealt not only with my time in the mountains, hut with my personal musings on my own life. A swift perusal of some of those left my cheeks burning. Juvenile and mawkish, self-pitying and full of grand assumptions about my own significance and declarations of things that I would never do again were these treatises. I wondered who I had been when I wrote them.

My writing on the Skill and the Wit went into the bag, as did my lengthy account of our journey through the Mountain Kingdom and into the realm of the Elderlings and the rise of Verity-as-Dragon. My attempts at poetry about Molly went into the flames, to burn in a final burst of passion. Writing I had done to help Hap learn his letters and numbers went after them. I winnowed my writings, and still there were too many. They underwent a second, harsher culling, and finally the scroll case would close.

Then I stood, closed my eyes, and tried to think: were there any still unaccounted for? I told myself it was a hopeless task. Some scrolls I had had the sense to destroy within days of writing them. Others I had given Starling to carry back to Chade. I could not decide if any were missing. Let any man try to recall all he might have written down over fifteen years of his life, and there would doubtless be some gaps. Had I ever committed to paper an account of my time with Black Rolf and the Old Bloods? I was sure I had written of those months, but had they been in a separate scroll, or was I recalling bits that had interjected themselves into other writings? I wasn’t sure. And I could not know what scrolls the pig-keeper had used to kindle his cookfire. I sighed. Surrender it. I had done as much as I could. In the future, I would he far more careful of what I encrusted to letters.

I went back out into the yard, and flipped the ends of the burning furniture into the fire. The rising wind and falling snow would soon smother it, but the charging buck was scorched to obliteration. The rest of it little mattered. I walked again though the little cabin that had been my home for so many years. I had left intact no personal article of my own. My presence here was erased. I thought of burning the cabin itself, and decided against it. It had stood here before I had come; let it still stand after I was gone. Perhaps some other needy man might come to make use of it.

I saddled Myblack again and led her out of the paddock. I loaded onto her the scroll-case and Hap’s bundled possessions. The last items I included were two tightly stoppered pots, one of ground elfbark and the other of carryme. Then I mounted and rode away from that piece of my life. The fire of my burning past sent odd shadows snaking ahead of us as we made our way into the storm’s resurgence.

SEVEN

Lessons

‘Where have you been?’ Dutiful demanded as he strode into the tower room. He shut the door firmly behind himself and then came to the middle of the room, his arms crossed on his chest. I stood up slowly from Verity’s chair. I had been watching the white tips of the waves. There was impatience and annoyance in my prince’s voice and a scowl on his face. It did not seem the most auspicious beginning to our relationship as tutor and student. I took a breath. A light hand, first. I spoke in a pleasant, neutral voice.

‘Good morning, Prince Dutiful.’

Just as a young colt might, he bridled. Then, I watched him gather himself. He took a breath and visibly began anew. ‘Good morning, Tom Badgerlock. It has been some time since I last saw you.’

‘Important business of my own took me away from Buckkeep for a time. It is settled now, and I fully expect that the rest of this winter, most of my time will be at your disposal.’

‘Thank you.’ Then, as if the last of his annoyance had to find vent somewhere, ‘I do not suppose I can ask more than that of you.’

I suppressed a smile and told him, ‘You could. But you would not get it.’

And then Verity’s smile broke on the boy’s face and he exclaimed, ‘Where did you come from? No one else in this keep would dare speak to me so.’

I purposefully misunderstood his question. ‘I had to spend a bit of time at my old home, packing up or disposing of my possessions. I hate to leave loose ends. It’s settled now. I’m here at Buckkeep, and I’m to teach you. So. Where shall we begin?’

The question seemed to unnerve him. He glanced around the room. Chade had added furnishings and clutter to the Seawatch tower since Verity had manned it as his Skill-outpost against the Red Ship Raiders. This morning I had made my own contribution, in the form of Verity’s map of the Six Duchies newly hung on the wall. In the centre of the room there was a large table of dark, heavy wood. Four massive chairs crouched around it. I pitied whatever men had had to haul them up the narrow, winding steps. Against one of the curved tower walls there was a scroll-rack stuffed with scrolls. I knew that Chade would claim they were in perfect order, but I had never been able to understand the logic behind how he grouped his scrolls. There were also several trunks, securely locked, that held a selection of Skillmistress Solicity’s scrolls on the Skill. Both Chade and I had judged them too dangerous to be left where the curious might paw through them. Even now, a man stood watch at the bottom of the tower steps. Access to this room was limited to Councillor Chade, the Prince and Queen. We would not chance losing control of this library again.