was temporarily crippled by the elfbark I had consumed. I might long to Skill, but right now my mind was numbed to that ability.
‘I’ve put dinner to cook slow over a little fire, to keep from driving us out of the house. We’ve plenty of time.’ He paused, and then asked carefully, ‘And after you left the Old Blood folk, where did you go?’
I sighed. The wolf was right. Talking to the Fool did help me to think. But perhaps he made me think too much. I looked back through the years and gathered up the threads of my tale.
‘Everywhere. When we left there, we had no destination. So we wandered.’ I stared out across the water. ‘For four years, we wandered, all through the Six Duchies. I’ve seen Tilth in winter, when snow but a few inches deep blows across the wide plains but the cold seems to go down to the earth’s very bones. I crossed all of Farrow to reach Rippon, and then walked on to the coast. Sometimes I took work as a man, and bought bread, and sometimes the two of us hunted as wolves and ate our meat dripping.’
I glanced over at the Fool. He listened, his golden eyes intent on my story. If he judged me, his face gave no sign of it.
‘When we reached the coast, we took ship north, although Nighteyes did not enjoy it. I visited Bearns Duchy in the depth of one winter.’
‘Bearns?’ He considered that. ‘Once, you were promised to Lady Celerity of Bearns Duchy.’ The question was in his face but not his voice.
‘That was not of my will, as you recall. I did not go there to seek out Celerity. But I did glimpse Lady Faith, Duchess of Bearns, as she rode through the streets on her way to Ripplekeep Castle. She did not see me, and if she had, I am sure she would not have recognized the ragged wanderer as Lord FitzChivalry. I hear that Celerity married rich in both love and lands, and is now the Lady of Ice Towers near Ice Town.’
‘I am glad for her,’ the Fool said gravely.
‘And I. I never loved her, but I admired her spirit, and liked her well enough. I am glad of her good fortune.’
‘And then?’
‘I went to the Near Islands. From there, I wished to make the long crossing to the Out Islands, to see for myself the land of the folk who had raided and made us miserable for so long, but the wolf refused to even consider such a long sea journey.
‘So we returned to the mainland, and travelled south. We went mostly by foot though we took ship past Buckkeep and did not pause there. We journeyed down the coast of Rippon and Shoaks, and on beyond the Six Duchies. I didn’t like Chalced. We took ship from there just to get away from it.’
‘How far did you go?’ the Fool prompted when I fell silent.
I felt my mouth twist in a grin as I bragged, ‘All the way to Bingtown.’
‘Did you?’ His interest heightened. ‘And what did you think of it?’
‘Lively. Prosperous. It put me in mind of Tradeford. The elegant people and their ornate houses, with glass in every window. They sell books in street booths there, and in one street of their market, every shop has its own sort of magic. Just to walk down that way dizzied me. I could not tell you what kind of magic it was, but it pressed against my senses, giddying me like too strong perfume …’ I shook my head. ‘I felt like a backward foreigner, and no doubt so they thought me, in my rough clothes with a wolf at my side. Yet, despite all I saw there, the city couldn’t live up to the legend. What did we used to say? That if a man could imagine a thing, he could find it for sale in Bingtown. Well, I saw much there that was far beyond my imagining, but that didn’t mean it was something I’d want to buy. I saw great ugliness there, too. Slaves coming off a ship, with great cankers on their ankles from the chains. We saw one of their talking ships, too. I had always thought them just a tale.’ I grew silent for a moment, wondering how to convey what Nighteyes and I had sensed about that grim magic. ‘It wasn’t a magic I’d ever be comfortable around,’ I said at last.
The sheer humanity of the city had overwhelmed the wolf, and he was happy to leave as soon as I suggested it. I felt smaller after my visit there. I appreciated anew the wildness and isolation of Buck’s coast, and the rough militancy of Buckkeep. I had once thought Buckkeep the heart of all civilization, but in Bingtown they spoke of us as barbaric and rude. The comments I overheard stung, and yet I could not deny them. I left Bingtown a humbled man, resolved to add to my education and better discover the true width of the world. I shook my head at that recollection. Had I ever lived up to my resolve?
‘We didn’t have the money for ship passage, even if Nighteyes could have faced it. We decided to journey up the coast on foot.’
The Fool turned an incredulous face to me. ‘But you can’t do that!’
‘That’s what everyone warned us. I thought it was city talk, a warning from folk who had never travelled hard and rough. But they were right.’
Against all counsel, we attempted to travel by foot up the coastline. In the wild lands outside of Bingtown, we found strangeness that near surpassed what we had discovered beyond the Mountain Kingdom. Well is that coast called the Cursed Shores. I was tormented by half-formed dreams, and sometimes my wakened imaginings were giddy and threatening. It distressed the wolf that I walked on the edges of madness. I can offer no reason for this. I suffered no fevers nor any of the other symptoms of the illnesses that can unseat a man’s mind, yet I was not myself as we passed through that rough and inhospitable country. Vivid dreams of Verity and our dragons came back to haunt me. Even awake, I tormented myself endlessly with the foolishness of past decisions, and thought often of ending my own life. Only the companionship of the wolf kept me from such an act. Looking back, I recall, not days and nights, but a succession of lucid and disturbing dreams. Not since I had first travelled on the Skill-road had I suffered such a contortion of my own thoughts. It is not an experience I would willingly repeat.
Never, before or since, had I seen a stretch of coast as devoid of humanity. Even the animals that lived there rang sharp and odd against my Wit-sense. The physical aspects of this coast were as foreign to us as the savour of it. There were bogs that steamed and stank and burned our nostrils, and lush marshes where all the plant life seemed twisted and deformed despite its rank and luxuriant growth. We reached the Rain River, which the folk of Bingtown call the Rain Wild River. I cannot say what distorted whim persuaded me to follow it inland, but I attempted it. The swampy shores, rank growth, and strange dreams of the place soon turned us back. Something in the soil ate at Nighteyes’ pads and weakened the tough leather boots I wore until they were little more than tatters. We admitted ourselves defeated, but then added a greater error to our wayward quest when we cut young trees to fashion a raft. Nighteyes’ nose had warned us against drinking any of the river water, but I had not fully appreciated what a danger it presented to us. Our makeshift raft barely lasted to carry us back to the mouth of the river, and we both incurred ulcerating sores from the touch of the water. We were relieved to get back to good honest salt water. Despite the sting of it, it proved most healing to our sores.
Although Chalced has long claimed rightful domain of the land up to the Rain River, and has frequently asserted that Bingtown, too, lies within its reign, we saw no signs of any settlements on that coast. Nighteyes and I travelled a long and inhospitable way north. Three days past the Rain River, we seemed to leave the strangeness behind, but we journeyed another ten days before we encountered a human settlement. By then, regular washing in brine had healed much of our sores, and my thoughts seemed more my own, but we presented the aspect of a weary beggar and his mangy dog. Folk were not welcoming to us.
My footsore journey north through Chalced persuaded me that folk there are the most inimical in the world. I enjoyed Chalced fully as much as Burrich had led me to believe I would. Even their magnificent cities could not move me. The wonders of its architecture and the heights of its civilization are built on a foundation of human misery. The reality of widespread slavery appalled me.
I paused in my tale to glance at the freedom earring that hung from the Fool’s ear. It had been Burrich’s grandmother’s hard-won prize, the mark of a slave who had won freedom. The Fool lifted a hand to touch it with a finger. It hung next to