FIFTEEN
Quarrel
In the Out Islands, there are but three places worthy of a traveller’s time. The first of these is the Ice Boneyard on Perilous Island. This is a place where the Outislanders have for centuries interred their greatest warriors. Women are customarily buried within the confines of their own family’s lands. Mingling one’s blood, flesh and bones with the poor soil most holdings farm is considered to be the last sharing offered to their families. Men, on the other hand, are customarily offered to the sea. Only the very greatest of their heroes are interred within the glacier field on Perilous Island. The monuments that cover each grave are of sculpted ice. The oldest ones are weathered past recall, though from time to time they seem to be renewed by the folk of the island. In an effort to stave off the inevitable polishing away of the ice, the monuments are carved many times life-size. The creatures depicted are usually the hero’s clan sign. Thus the visitor will discover here immense bears, dooming seals, gigantic otters and a fish that would fill an oxcart.
The second place worthy of a visit is the Cave of the Winds. Here resides the Oracle of the Outislanders. Some say she is a young and nubile maid who walks forth naked despite the icy winds. Others say she is a crone, aged beyond imagining, and always clothed in a heavy garment of bird skins. Still others say she is one and the same. She does not venture forth to greet every traveller who comes to her door. Indeed, this one had no sight of her. The ground all around the cave’s mouth for several acres is littered with offerings to the Oracle. Even to stoop to touch one is rumoured to bring death.
The third place worth the traveller’s effort is the immense ice island of Aslevjal. Whereas many of the isles of the Out Islands are saddled with glaciers, Aslevjal is immersed in one. It can only be approached at a low tide that bares a hem of black and rocky beach on the east side of the island. From there, one must ascend the flank of the glacier with rope and axe. Guides to assist one in doing so can be hired at Island Rogeon. They are expensive, but greatly lessen the risk of the climb. The path to the Glacier Monster is a treacherous one. What appears solid ice may be but snowflakes blown across a crevasse to form a deceptive crust. Yet despite the cold, hardship and danger, it is worth the risk to confront the Monster trapped within the ice. Upon arrival, expect your assistants to spend some time sweeping the latest layer of snow from the icy window on the beast. Once cleared, the traveller can gape his fill. Although little more than the creature’s back, shoulder and wings are visible, and the view is hazy, the size of the Monster cannot be disputed it. As each year the ice hazes more, this strange site will eventually vanish from all but mans memory.
— Travels in the North Lands — Cron Hevcoldwell
For perhaps an hour after Thick had gone, I sat staring into the freshly-fuelled fire. My conversation with the man had left me heavy of heart. He bore such a burden of sadness, all for the cruelty of folk who could not tolerate his difference. A whistle. A red whistle. Well, I would do my best to see that he got one, regardless of whether it made him more receptive to learning to Skill.
I sat for a time longer, wondering what the Queen would say to Chade when he offered my bargain. I regretted it now: not that I had decided to ask for it, but that I had not told him I would make the request myself. It seemed cowardly to send the old man in my stead, as if I feared to stand before her. Well. It could not be changed now.
After a time of brooding on that, I recalled the little scrolls I had tucked into my cuff. One by one, I tugged them out. They were written on bark-paper, crisp and stiff as it aged, and already reluctant to unfurl. I coaxed one carefully open on the table and weighted it flat. Then I had to bring a branch of candles near it before I could make out the crabbed and faded handwriting. The first one I opened was one Chade had not mentioned to me. It simply said, ‘Grim Lendhorn and his wife Geln of Buckkeep Town are both Witted. He keeps a hound and she has a terrier.’ This signed only with the sketch of a piebald horse. There was nothing to indicate when it had been sent. I wondered if it had been sent directly to the Queen, or if this were an example of the sort of betrayals they posted to expose Old Bloods who did not wish to ally themselves with the Piebalds. I’d have to ask Chade.
The second scroll I managed to unfurl was the one he had mentioned to me that day. It was the freshest, and not as reluctant to uncoil. It simply said, ‘The Queen says that to be Witted is no crime. For what, then, were these folk executed?’ And there followed the list of names. I read them, noticing at least two family groups who had died together. I clenched my teeth and hoped they were not children, though how such a death might be easier for a grown man or an oldster, I could not say. There was only one name on the list that I thought I recognized, and even then I told myself I was not certain it was the same woman. Relditha Cane might not be the same as Rellie Cane. There had been a woman of that name among the Old Blood folk who lived near Crowsneck. I had met her several times at Black Rolf’s house. I had suspected that Rolf’s wife Holly had thought that Rellie and I might fancy one another, but Rellie had never been more than coolly courteous to me. It probably wasn’t her, I lied to myself, and tried not to imagine her curly brown hair shrivelling when the flames touched it. There was no signature or symbol of any kind on the scroll.
The last scroll was rolled so tight it seemed almost solid. Likely it was the oldest. As I forced it open it broke in pieces: two, three, and eventually five. I regretted doing it, but it was the only way to read it. If it had stayed coiled much longer, it would have crumbled into bits, never to be read again.
After I had read it, I wondered if that had not been Chade’s hope and intention.
This had been the scroll that had come before the Prince vanished. This was the message that had precipitated Chade sending a rider to my door with the urgent demand that I come to Buckkeep at once. He had told me what the unsigned threat had said. Now I read the words for myself. ‘Do what is right and no one else ever need know. Ignore this warning, and we will take action of our own.’
What Chade had left out were the words that preceded those. The ink had soaked into the bark paper unevenly and the curled surface made it hard to read. Stubbornly, I pieced it together. Then I sat back and tried to remember how to breathe.
‘The Witted Bastard lives. You know it and so do we. He lives and you shield him from harm, because he has served you. You protect him even as you let honest men and women die simply because they have the Old Blood. They are our wives, our husbands, our sons our daughters, our sisters, and our brothers. Perhaps you will stop the slaughter when we show you what it is like to lose one of your own. How close must the cut be to you before you bleed as we do? We know much of what the minstrels do not sing. The Wit runs still in the Farseer bloodline. Do what is right, and no one else ever need know. Ignore this warning and we will take action of our own.’ There was no signature of any kind.
Very slowly I came back to myself. I pondered all that Chade had wrought, and why he had deliberately withheld this threat to me from my knowledge. The moment the Prince vanished, the moment he knew the threat was serious, he had sent for me. He had led me to believe that the Piebalds had sent a note threatening the Prince before his disappearance. Certainly, this scroll could be read that way. But the more covert threat was to me. Had he called me close to protect me, or to shield the Farseer reign from scandal? Then I pushed Chade’s actions from my thoughts and leaned forward once again to peruse the faded ink on the bark. Who had sent this? The Piebalds seemed to take delight in signing their missives with their stallion emblem. This was unsigned, as was the one that listed the dead. I put them side by side. Some of the letters were similar. The same hand could have written them. The one signed by the Piebalds was written boldly, in larger letters and more flourishes. A different person could have written it, yet that would prove little. The choice of paper for all was the same. Not surprising: good paper was expensive, but anyone could strip bark paper from a birch. It did not mean the notes came from only one source, or even two. I tried theories against one another. Even before the Prince was taken, there been two factions of the Witted striving to put an end to the Persecution of their fellows? Or did I think so only because I so longed for it to be true? Bad enough that Black Rolf and his friends had suspected who I was, and therefore surmised that the Witted Bastard hadn’t died in Regal’s dungeon. I did not want the Piebalds to know that FitzChivalry lived.