‘And that is bad?’ the old assassin asked genially. He began to rummage amongst the tea herbs on the high shelves. Those shelves had always been reserved for his most dangerous and potent concoctions. I smiled briefly as he clambered up on a stool, and wondered if he still supposed them safely out of my reach.

‘It could be dangerous. Once he surpasses me and begins to experiment with the Skill’s other powers, he will be venturing where I have no experience. I will not even be able to warn him of the dangers, let alone protect him.’ In disgust, I slid a Skill-scroll aside and pushed my awkward translation after it. There, too, Dutiful excelled me. The lad had Chade’s gift for alphabets and languages. My translations were a plodding word-by-word puzzling out, while Dutiful lead sentence by sentence and jotted the sense them down in concise prose. Years of absence from such work had blunted my language abilities. I wondered if I envied my pupil’s quickness. Would that make me a bad teacher?

‘Perhaps he got it from you,’ Chade observed thoughtfully

‘Got what?’

‘The Skill. We know that you touched minds with him from time he was very small. Yet you say the Wit is not a magic that allows that. Therefore, it must have been the Skill. Therefore perhaps you taught him to Skill when he was a tiny boy, or at least prepared his mind to be ready for it.’

I didn’t like the trend of his thoughts. Nettle instantly sprang to my mind and a wave of guilt swept through me. Had I endangered her as well? ‘You’re just trying to make it my own fault.’ I tried to make my tone light, as if that would chase away my sudden dread. I sighed and reluctantly pulled my translation work back in front of me. If I was to have any hope of continuing as Dutiful’s teacher, I needed to learn more of the Skill myself. This was a scroll that suggested a series of exercises that a student should be given to improve his focus. I hoped it would be useful to me.

Chade came to look over my shoulder. ‘Hmm. What did you think of the other scroll, the one on pain and the Skill?’

I glanced up at him, puzzled. ‘What other scroll?’

He looked annoyed. ‘You know the one. I left it out for you.’

I gave our littered table a meaningful glance. There were at least a dozen other scrolls and papers cluttering it. ‘Which one.’

‘It was one of these. I showed it to you, boy. I’m sure of it.’

I was equally certain he had not, but I held my tongue. Chade’s memory was failing him. I knew it. So did he, but he would not admit it. I had also discovered that even a mention of that possibility would throw him into a fury that was more unsettling to me than the notion that my old mentor was not as sharp as he had been. So I silently watched him poke through the jumble of writings until he came to a scroll with a decorative blue edge. ‘See. Here it is, right where I left it for you. You haven’t studied it at all.’

‘No. I haven’t.’ I admitted it easily, hoping to avoid the whole topic of whether or not he’d shown me the scroll. ‘What did you say it’s about?’

He gave me a disgusted glance. ‘It’s about pain related to Skilling. The sorts of headaches you have. It suggests some remedies, exercises as well as herbs, but it also says that in time you may simply stop having the headaches. But it’s the note towards the end that interested me. Treeknee says that some Skillmasters used a pain barrier to keep their students from experimenting on their own. He doesn’t say that it might he made strong enough to prevent a man Skilling at all. It interested me for two reasons. I wondered if Galen had done it to you. And I wondered if it might be a way to control Thick.’ I noticed he did not suggest it as a safety barrier for the Prince.

So we were back to Thick again. Well, the old man was right. Sooner or later, we’d have to deal with him. Still, ‘I’d be reluctant to use pain as a curb on any creature. Thick Skills out his music near constantly. Give him pain for doing that, block him from it… I don’t know what that would do to him.’

Chade made a dismissive noise. He had known I would not do it before he asked me. But I knew Galen would not have scrupled to hobble me in such a way. I wondered. Chade spread the scroll out before me, his gnarled ringers bracketing the passage in question. I read it over, but discovered little he had not already said. Then I leaned back in my chair. ‘I’m trying to remember when Skilling first started to hurt. It always left me wearied. The first time Verity drew strength from me, I fainted dead away. Any real effort with it left me almost sick with fatigue. But I don’t recall the Skill having an aftermath of pain until…’ I pondered for a time, then shook my head. ‘I can’t draw a line. The first time I Skill-walked, by accident, I woke trembling with weakness. I used the elfbark for it, then and in the times that followed. And after a time, the weakness after I’d Skilled began to be pain as well.’ I sighed. ‘No. I don’t think the pain is a barrier anyone put in me.’

Chade had wandered back to his shelves. He turned with two corked bottles in his hands. ‘Could it be because you have the Wit? Much is said in the scrolls about the dangers of using both magics.’

Was the old man trying to remind me of everything I didn’t know? I hated his questions. They were stark warnings that I was guiding my prince through unknown territory. I shook my head wearily. ‘Again, Chade, I don’t know. Perhaps if the Prince begins to have pain after Skilling, we can assume that.’

‘I thought you were going to separate his Wit from his Skill.’

‘I would if I knew how. All I can do is try to make him use the Skill in ways that force him to use it independently of the Wit. I don’t know how to make him separate the two magics any more than I know how to remove the Skill-command I set on him back when we were on the beach.’

He lifted one white eyebrow as he measured herbs into a teapot. ‘The command not to fight you?’

I nodded.

‘Well, it seems that should be a simple thing to me. Simply reverse it.’

I clenched my teeth. I did not say, ‘it only seems simple to you because you have neither magic and don’t know what you are talking about!’ I was weary, I told myself, and frustrated. I should not take it out on the old man. ‘I don’t quite know how I burned the command into him, and so I don’t quite know how to lift it. “Simply reverse it” is not simple at all. What would I command him? “Fight me?” Remember that Chivalry did the same thing to Skillmaster Galen. In anger, he burned a command into him. And he and Verity never puzzled out how to remove it.’

‘But Dutiful is your prince and your student. Surely that puts you on a different footing.’

‘I don’t see what that has to do with it,’ I told him, and tried not to sound short-tempered.

‘Well. Only that I think he might help you remove it.’ He shook a few drops of something into the teapot. He paused, then asked delicately, ‘Is the Prince aware of what you did to him? Does he know you commanded him not to fight you?’

‘No!’ I did let my temper show on that word. Then I took a breath. ‘No, and I’m ashamed I did it, and ashamed to admit to you that I’m afraid to tell him. In so many ways, I’m still getting to know him, Chade. I don’t want to give him reason to distrust me.’ I rubbed my brow. ‘We did not meet one another under the best circumstances, you know.’

‘I know, I know.’ He came to pat me on the shoulder. ‘So. What have you been doing with him?’

‘Mostly getting to know him. We’ve been translating scrolls together. And I “borrowed” some practice blades from the weapons sheds, and we’ve tried one another that way. He’s a good swordsman, if the number of bruises he has given me are a fair indication, then I think I lightened my Skill-command if not erased it.’

‘But you aren’t sure?’

‘Not really. When we spar, we aren’t truly trying to hurt one another. It’s a game, just as it is when we wrestle. Still, I’ve never noticed that he holds back at all, or allows me to win more easily.’