I winced. I had not informed Chade that the Prince had not been coming to them. I hedged at first, reminding him, ‘I’ve been reluctant to let him do any actual Skilling while the scaled Bingtowner is still here. So we had only been studying the scrolls—’

Then I suddenly saw little sense in withholding the truth, and no future at all in lying to Chade. ‘Actually, he hasn’t come to any of his lessons since the farewell banquet. I think he’s still angry at discovering I’d placed a Skill-command on him.’

Chade scowled at the news. ‘Well. I’ll take steps to correct him. Regardless of how ruffled his feathers are, he had best put himself to that task. Tomorrow, he will be there. I will arrange that he will be able to spend an extra hour with you each morning and not be missed. Now. As to Thick. You must get to the task of teaching him, Fitz, or at least getting him to obey you. I leave how you do that to you, but I suggest that bribes will work better than threats or punishments. Now. On to our next task: how do you propose that we begin looking for other Skill candidates?’

I sat down and crossed my arms on my chest. I tried to hold in anger as I asked, ‘Then you’ve found a Skillmaster to teach other candidates if you find them?’

He knit his brows at me. ‘We have you.’

I shook my head. ‘No. I teach the Prince at his request. And you’ve coerced me into trying to teach Thick. But I am not a Skillmaster. Even if I had the knowledge to be one, I would not be one. I cannot. You are asking me for a lifetime commitment. You’re asking me to take on an apprentice who would eventually assume the duties of Skillmaster when I died. There is no possible way I could take on a class of students and instruct them in the Skill without revealing to all of them who I am. I won’t do that.’

Chade stared at me, mouth slightly ajar at my contained anger. It seemed to give my words momentum.

‘Furthermore, I’d prefer that you let me settle my quarrel with the Prince in my own way. It will go better so. It’s a personal matter, between him and me. As for when and where I will be able to teach Thick? Never and nowhere,’ I said shortly. ‘He doesn’t like me. He’s unpleasant, ill-mannered and smelly. And, if you haven’t noticed before, he’s a half-wit. A bit dangerous to trust him with the Farseer magic. But even if he weren’t all those things, he has rejected all my efforts to teach him anything.’ That was true, I defended it to myself. He had quickly terminated all of my half-hearted attempts at conversation, leaving me in a cloud of Skilled insults. ‘And he’s strong. If I push him, he may take that dislike of me to a violent level. Frankly, he scares me.’ If I had thought to provoke Chade to anger, I failed. He slowly sat down across from me and took a sip from his wine glass. He regarded me silently for a moment, then shook his head. ‘This won’t do, Fitz,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I know that you doubt you can instruct the Prince and create a coterie for him in the time we have, but as it is something we must do, I have faith you will find a way.’

‘You are convinced the Prince needs a coterie at his side before he undertakes this quest. I’m not even sure this is a real quest, let alone that a coterie will be able to assist him troop of soldiers with shovels.’

‘Nevertheless, sooner or later the Prince will need a coterie, we might as well begin to create one now.’ He learned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I’ve an idea of how to find likely candidates.’

I stared at him silently. He blithely ignored my refusal to be Skillmaster. His next words incensed me.

‘I could simply ask Thick. He located Nettle easily. Perhaps if he put his mind to it and was rewarded for each success, he could find others.’

‘I really want nothing to do with Thick,’ I said quietly.

‘A shame,’ Chade replied as softly. ‘For I’m afraid this is no longer a matter for discussion between you and me. Let me say this plainly: it is your queen’s command for us. We met for several hours this morning, discussing Dutiful and his quest. She shares my opinion that he must have a coterie to accompany him. She asked what candidates we had. I told her Thick and Nettle. She wishes their training to begin at once.’

I crossed my arms on my chest and held my silence in. I was shocked, and not just by Nettle being included. I knew that in the Mountain Kingdom babes such as Thick must have been were usually exposed shortly after birth. I had surmised that she would be dismayed at the thought of such a man serving her son. In fact, I had be been relying on her to refuse him. Once more, my queen had surprised me.

When I was sure I could speak in a steady voice, I asked, ‘Has she sent for Nettle yet?’

‘Not yet. The Queen wishes to handle this matter herself, with great tact. We know that if she requests this, Burrich may refuse again. If she commands it, well, neither of us can decide what response he might make to that. She wishes both Burrich and the girl to agree to this. And thus the precise way to phrase the summons will demand thought, but right now, the Bingtown delegation takes every spare moment she has. When they have departed, she will invite both Burrich and Nettle here to explain the need of both of them. And perhaps Molly as well.’ Very carefully he added, ‘Unless, of course, you would like to broach the matter to them for the Queen. Then Nettle could begin her lessons sooner.’

I took a breath. ‘No. I would not. And Kettricken should not waste her time considering how to approach them. Because I won’t teach Nettle to Skill.’

‘I thought you might feel that way. But feelings no longer have anything to do with it, Fitz. It is our queen’s command. We have no choice except to obey.’

I slid down in my chair. Defeat rose like bile in the back of my throat. So. There it was. The command of my queen was that my daughter be sacrificed to the need of the Farseer heir. Her peaceful life and the security of her home were as nothing before the needs of the Farseer throne. I’d stood here before. Once, I would have believed I had no choice except to obey. But that had been a younger Fitz.

I took a moment and considered it. Kettricken, my friend, the wife of my uncle Verity was a Farseer by virtue of marriage. The vows I had sworn as a child and a youth and as a young man bound me to the Farseers, to serve as they commanded me, even to giving up my life. To Chade, my duty seemed clear. But what was a vow? Words said aloud with good intentions of keeping them. To some, they were no more than that, words that could be discarded when the situation or the heart changed. Men and women who had vowed faithfulness to one another dallied with others or simply abandoned their mates. Soldiers under oath to a lord deserted in the cold and Jean winters. Noblemen vowed to one cause cast off their obligations when another side offered them more advantage. So. Truly, was I bound to obey her? I found that my hand had strayed to the little fox pin inside my shirt.

There were a hundred reasons I did not wish to obey her, reasons that had nothing to do with Nettle. The Skill, I had told Chade before, was a magic better left dead. Yet I had allowed myself to be persuaded to teach Dutiful. Reading the Skill-scrolls had not made me more secure in my decision to teach him. The scope of the Skill that I had glimpsed from these forgotten scrolls was vaster than anything Verity had ever dared imagine. Worse, the more I read, the more I realized that what we had was not the skill library, but only the remaining fragments of it. We had the scrolls that spoke of the duties of instructors, and the scrolls that delineated the most sophisticated uses of the Skills. There must have been other Scrolls, ones that spoke of the basics and how a Skill-user could build his abilities and control to the level demanded for the most advanced purposes. But we did not have those ones. El alone knew what had become of them. The bits and pieces of Skill-knowledge that I had glimpsed had convinced me that the magic offered abilities almost on a footing with the powers of the gods. With the Skill, one could injure or heal, blind or enlighten, encourage or crush. I did not think I was wise enough to wield such authority, let alone decide who should inherit it. The more Chade read, the more eager and avid he became for the magic that had been denied to him by his illegitimate birth. He frightened me, often, with his enthusiasm for all the Skill seemed to offer. It frightened me in a different way that he insisted on venturing into the magic alone. That he had lately said nothing made me hope he had had no success.