to me first woke my suspicions. They started with occasional dreams when he was very small. He dreamed of a wolf bringing down a doe, and a man rushing up to cut her throat. In the dream, he was the man, and yet he could also see the man. That first dream excited him. For a day and a half, he spoke of little else. He told it as if it were something he had done himself.’ He paused. ‘Dutiful was only five at the time. The detail of his dream far exceeded his own experience.’
I still said nothing.
‘It was years before he had another such dream. Or, perhaps I should say it was years before he spoke to me of one. He dreamed of a man fording a river. The water threatened to sweep him away, but at the last he managed to cross it. He was too wet and too cold to build a fire to warm himself, but he lay down in the shelter of a fallen tree. A wolf came to lie beside him and warm him. And again, the Prince told me this dream as something that he himself had done. “I love it,” he told me. “It is almost as if there is another life that belongs to me, one that is far away and free of being a prince. A life that belongs to me alone, where I have a friend who is as close as my own skin.” It was then that I suspected he had had other such Skill-dreams, but had not shared them with me.’
He waited, and this time I had to break my silence.
I took a breath. ‘If I shared those moments of my life with the Prince, I was unaware of it. But, yes, those are true events.’ I halted, suddenly wondering what else he had shared. I recalled Verity’s complaint that I did not guard my thoughts well, and that my dreams and experiences sometimes intruded on his. I thought of my trysts with Starling and prayed I would not blush. It had been a very long time since I had bothered to set Skill-walls round myself. Obviously, I must do so again. Another thought came in the wake of that. Obviously, my Skill-talent had not degraded as much as I believed. A surge of exhilaration came with that thought. It was probably, I told myself viciously, much the same as what a drunk felt on discovering a forgotten bottle beneath the bed.
‘And you have shared moments of the Prince’s life?’ Chade pressed me.
‘Perhaps. I suspect so. I often have vivid dreams, and to dream of being a boy in Buckkeep is not so foreign from my own experience. But –’ I took a breath and forced myself on. ‘The important thing here is the cat, Chade. How long has he had it? Do you think he is Witted? Is he bonded to the cat?’
I felt like a liar, asking questions when I already knew the answers. My mind was rapidly shuffling through my dreams of the last fifteen years, sorting out those that came with the peculiar clarity that lingered after waking. Some could have been episodes from the Prince’s life. Others – I halted at the recollection of my fever dream of Burrich – Nettle, too? Dream sharing with Nettle? This new insight reordered my memory of the dream. I had not just witnessed those events from Nettle’s perspective. I had been Skill-sharing her life. It was possible that, as with Dutiful, the flow of Skill-sharing had gone both ways. What had seemed a cherished glimpse into her life, a tiny window on Molly and Burrich, was now revealed as her vulnerability before my carelessness. I winced away from the thought and resolved a stronger wall about my thoughts. How could I have been so incautious? How many of my secrets had I spilled before those most vulnerable to them?
‘How would I know if the boy was Witted?’ Chade replied testily. ‘I never knew you were, until you told me. Even then, I didn’t know what you were telling me at first.’
I was suddenly weary, too tired to lie. Who was I trying to protect with deceit? I knew too well that lies did not shield for long, that in the end they became the largest chinks in any man’s armour. ‘I suspect he is. And bonded to the cat. From dreams I’ve had.’
Before my eyes, the man aged. He shook his head wordlessly, and poured more brandy for both of us. I drank mine off while he drank his in long, considering sips. When he finally spoke, he said, ‘I hate irony. It is a manacle that ties our dreams to our fears. I had hoped you had a dream-bond with the boy, a tie that would let you use the Skill to find him. And indeed you do, but with it you reveal my greatest fear for Dutiful is real. The Wit. Oh, Fitz. I wish I could go back and make my fears foolish instead of real.’
‘Who gave him the cat?’
‘One of the nobles. It was a gift. He receives far too many gifts. All try to curry favour with him. Kettricken tries to turn aside those of the more valuable sort. She worries it will spoil the boy. But it was only a little hunting cat … yet it may be the gift that spoils him for his life.’
‘Who gave it to him?’ I pressed.
‘I will have to look back in my journals,’ Chade confessed. He gave me a dark look. ‘You can’t expect an old man to have a young man’s memory. I do the best I can, Fitz.’ His reproachful look spoke volumes. If I had returned to Buckkeep, resumed my tasks at his side, I would know these vital answers. The thought brought a new question to my mind.
‘Where is your new apprentice in all this?’
He met my gaze speculatively. After a moment he said, ‘Not ready for tasks such as these.’
I met his gaze squarely. ‘Is he, perhaps, recovering from, well, from a lightning strike from a clear sky? One that exploded an unused storage shed?’
He blinked, but kept control of his face. Even his voice remained steady as he ignored my thrust. ‘No, FitzChivalry, this task belongs to you. Only you have the unique abilities needed.’
‘What, exactly, do you want of me?’ The question was as good as surrender. I had already hastened to his side at his call. He knew I was still his. So did I.
‘Find the Prince. Return him to us, discreetly, and Eda save us, unharmed. And do it while my excuses for his absence are still believable. Get him home safely to us before the Outislander delegation arrives to formalize the betrothal to their princess.’
‘How soon is that?’
He shrugged helplessly. ‘It depends on the winds and the waves and the strength of their oarsmen. They have already departed the Out Islands. We had a bird to tell us so. The formality is scheduled for the new moon. If they arrive before that and the Prince is not here, I could, perhaps, fabricate something about his meditating alone before such a serious event in his life. But it would be a thin façade, one that would crumble if he did not appear for the ceremony.’
I reckoned it quickly in my head. ‘That’s more than a fortnight away. Plenty of time for a recalcitrant boy to change his mind and run home again.’
Chade looked at me sombrely. ‘Yet if the Prince has been taken, and we do not yet know by whom or why, let alone how we will recover him, then sixteen days seems but a pittance of time.’
I put my head in my hands for a moment. When I looked up, my old mentor was still regarding me hopefully. Trusting me to see a solution that eluded him. I wanted to flee; I wanted never to have known any of this. I took a steadying breath. Then I ordered his mind as he had once disciplined mine. ‘I need information,’ I announced. ‘Don’t assume I know anything about the situation, because it is likely I don’t. I need to know, first of all, who gave him the cat. And how does that person feel about the Wit, and the Prince’s betrothal? Expand the circle from there. Who rivals the gift-giver, who allies with him? Who at court most strongly persecutes those with the Wit, who most directly opposes the Prince’s betrothal, who supports it? Which nobles have most recently been accused of having the Wit in their families? Who could have helped Dutiful run, if run he did? If he was taken, who had the opportunity? Who knew his midnight habits?’ Each question I formulated seemed to beget another, yet in the face of that volley, Chade seemed to grow steadier. These were questions he could answer, and his ability to answer them strengthened his belief that together we might prevail. I paused for breath.
‘And I still need to report to you the events of those days. However, you seem to be forgetting that the Skill might save us hours of talk. Let me show you the scrolls, and see if they make more sense to you than they do to me.’
I looked around me, but he shook his head. ‘I do not bring the Prince here. This part of the castle remains a secret from him. I keep the Skill-scrolls