Long years ago, when Skillmistress Solicity had died, all these scrolls had passed into the control of Galen, her apprentice. He had claimed her post as Skillmaster, even though his training had been incomplete. He had supposedly ‘completed’ the training of both Prince Chivalry and Prince Verity, hut Chade and I suspected that he had deliberately truncated their education in the Skill. Thereafter, he had trained no others, until the time when King Shrewd had demanded that he create a coterie. And during all Galen’s time as Skillmaster, access to those scrolls had been denied to all. Eventually, he disputed that such a library had ever even existed. When he died, no trace of them had been found.

Somehow, they had passed to Regal the Pretender. Eventually, with Regal’s death, they were recovered and had been returned to the Queen and thence into Chade’s safekeeping. Both Chade and I suspected that once the library had been substantially larger. Chade had advanced the theory that many of the choicest scrolls that had to do with Skill, dragons and Elderlings had been sold off to Out Island traders in the early days of the Red Ship raids. Certainly neither Regal nor Galen had felt any great loyalty to the Coastal Duchies that suffered from the raiders. Perhaps they would not have scrupled to traffic with our tormentors, or their go-betweens. The scrolls would undoubtedly have brought a good sum of coin into Regal’s hands. At a time when the Six Duchies treasury had come close to being depleted, Regal had never seemed to lack money with which to entertain himself and court the loyalty of the Inland dukes. And the Red Ship Raiders had gained their knowledge of the Skill and the possible uses of the black Skill-stone from somewhere. It was even possible that somewhere, in one of those straying scrolls, they had found the knowledge of how to Forge folk. But it was not likely that Chade or I would ever be able to prove it.

The Prince’s voice pulled my straying attention back to the present. ‘I thought you would have planned it all out. Where to begin and all.’ The uncertainty in the boy’s voice was wrenching.

I longed to reassure him, but decided to be honest with him instead.

‘Pull up a chair and join me here,’ I suggested to him. I resumed Verity’s old seat.

For a moment he stared at me as if puzzled. Then he crossed the room, seized one of the heavy chairs and lugged it over to place it beside mine. I said nothing as he sat in it. I had not forgotten our relative ranks, but I had already decided that within this room, I would treat him as my student rather than my prince. For an instant I hesitated, wondering if my candid words might not undermine my authority over him. Then I took a breath and spoke them.

‘My prince, roughly a score of years ago I sat in this room on the floor by your father’s feet. He sat here, in this chair, and he looked out over the water and Skilled. He used his talents mercilessly, against both the enemy and the health of his own body. From here, he used the strength of his mind to reach out, to find Red Ships and their crews before they could touch our shores, and confound them. He made the sea and the weather our ally against them, confusing navigators to send the enemy ships onto rocks, or persuading captains to a false confidence that bid them steer straight into storms.’

‘I am sure that you have heard of Skillmaster Galen. He was supposed to create and train a Skill-coterie, a unified group of Skill-users who would provide their strength and talent to aid King-in-Waiting Verity against the Red Ships. Well, he did create a coterie, but they were false, their loyalty bound to Regal, Verity’s ambitious younger brother. Instead of aiding your father’s efforts, they hindered him. They delayed messages, or failed to deliver them at all. They made your father look incompetent. For the sake of breaking the loyalty of his dukes to him, they delivered our people into the hands of the raiders, to be killed or Forged.’

The Prince’s eyes were locked onto my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out of the tall windows and over the grey and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. ‘I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, hut no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.’

‘I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father labored most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him. That was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill-strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.’

I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. ‘When he left on his quest, did you go with him?’

I shook my head and answered truthfully. ‘No. I was young and he forbade it.’

‘And you didn’t try to follow him later?’ He was incredulous, his imagination tired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.

It was hard to say the next words. ‘No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.’ I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.

He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. ‘I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.’

I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, ‘I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered and impetuous.’ I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. ‘I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls… I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?’

‘I understand. And of the Wit?’

I had not wanted to discuss that today. ‘Well. I came to my Wit-magic much as you did yours, stumbling into it by chance when I bonded with a puppy. I was a man grown before I met anyone who tried to put my random knowledge of my magic into a coherent framework. Again, time was my enemy. I learned much from him, but not all there was to know… far short of that, to be truthful. So, again, I will teach you what I know. But you will be learning from a flawed instructor.’

‘Your confidence is so inspiring,’ Dutiful muttered darkly. Then, a moment later, he laughed. ‘A fine pair we shall make, stumbling along together. Where do we begin?’

‘I am afraid that we shall have to begin by first moving backwards. You must be untaught some of what you have learned by yourself. Are you aware that when you attempt to Skill, you are mingling the Wit with that magic?’

He stared at me blankly.

After a moment of discouragement, I said briskly, ‘Well. Our first step will be to untangle your magics from one another.’ As if I knew how. I was not even certain that my own magics operated independently of one another. I shoved the thought aside. ‘I’d like to proceed with teaching you the basics of Skilling. We’ll set aside the Wit for now, to avoid confusion.’