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‘Good night, Lord Golden, Huntswoman Laurel.’
After a moment or two of silence, I realized something. I had been expecting Laurel to leave so that I could secure the door behind her. I had wanted to tell the Fool about the basket and the dead rabbit. But Laurel and Lord Golden were waiting for me to leave. She was studying a tapestry on a wall with an intensity it did not merit, while Lord Golden contentedly contemplated the gleaming fall of Laurel’s hair.
I wondered if I should lock the outer door for them, then decided that would be an oafish act. If Lord Golden wanted it locked, he would do it. ‘Good night,’ I repeated, trying to sound sleepy and not awkward. I took a candle and went to my own chamber, shutting the connecting door gently behind me. I undressed and got into bed, refusing to let my mind wander beyond that closed door. I felt no envy, I told myself, only the sharper bite of my loneliness in contrast to what they might be sharing. I told myself I was selfish. The Fool had endured years of loneliness and isolation. Would I begrudge him the gentle touch of a woman’s hand now that he was Lord Golden?
Nighteyes? I floated the thought, light as a dry leaf on the wind.
The brush of his mind against mine was a comfort. I sensed oak trees and fresh wind blowing past his fur. I was not alone. Sleep, little brother. I hunt our prey, but I think nothing new will we learn until dawn.
He was wrong.
SEVENTEEN The Hunt (#ulink_5ceca76b-41a1-5f5c-a7c9-f007ac87a773)
Among the Old Blood, there are teaching tales that are intended as guides for the very young. They are simple stories that instruct a child in virtues by telling of the animals that exemplify an admirable quality. Those not of Old Blood might be surprised to hear the Wolf praised for his dedication to his family, or the Mouse for her wisdom in providing for the cold winter months ahead. The Gander who keeps watch while the rest of the flock feeds is praised for his unselfishness and the Porcupine for his forbearance in injuring only those who attack him first. The Cat’s attribute is independence. A tale is told of a woman who seeks to bond with a cat. The cat offers to try her companionship for a day or two, if the woman will seek to perform well the tasks given her. The tale relates the duties the cat tries the woman at, stroking her fur, amusing her with string, fetching her cream and so on. The woman complies cheerfully with each request and does each one well. At the end of that time, the Witted woman again proposes that they bond, for she felt they were obviously well suited to one another. The cat refuses, saying, ‘If I bonded with you, you would be the poorer, for you would lose that which you love best about me, for it is that I do not need you, yet I tolerate your company.’ It is, the Old Blood say, a cautionary fable, meant to warn a child not to seek a bond-beast who cannot take as much from the relationship as it gives.
Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales
Let me just see you.
You have. I have shown myself to you. Stop nagging me for that, and pay attention. You said you would learn this for me. You promised it to me. It is why I have brought you here, where there are no distractions. Be the cat.
It’s too hard. Let me see you with my eyes. Please.
When you are ready. When you can be the cat as easily as you are yourself. Then you will be ready to know me.
She was ahead of me. I toiled up the hill behind her, every bush catching at me, every dip and every stone catching at my feet. My mouth was dry. The night was cool, but as I pushed my way through the brush, dust and pollen rose to choke me. Wait!
Prey does not wait. A cat does not cry out ‘wait’ to the one she hunts. Be the cat.
For an instant, I almost caught a glimpse of her. Then the tall grass closed around her and she was gone. Nothing stirred, I heard no sound. I was no longer sure which way to go. The night was deep beneath the golden moon, the lights of Galeton lost behind me in the rolling hills. I took a breath, and then closed my mouth, resolving to breathe silently if it choked me. I moved forwards, a single gliding step at a time. I did not push branches out of my way, but swayed around them. I eased through the grass, striving to part it with my stride rather than push through it. I eased my weight from one carefully set footstep to the next. What had she bid me? ‘Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For Night is a cat.’ Very well, then. I was night, sleek and black and soundless. I halted under the sheltering branches of an oak. Its leaves were still. I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, striving to capture every bit of light I could. Slowly I turned my head. I flared my nostrils and then took in a deep silent breath through my mouth, trying to taste her on the air. Where was she, which way had she gone?
I felt a sudden weight, as if a brawny man had clapped both his hands to my shoulders and then sprung back from me. I spun around, but it was only Cat. She had dropped on me like a falling leaf, and then let herself drop to the ground. Now she crouched in the dry grass and ancient leaves under the tree. Belly to the ground, she looked up at me and then away. I crouched down beside her. ‘Which way, Cat? Which way did she go?’
Here. She is here. She is always here, with me.
After my love’s deep throaty voice, Cat’s thought in my mind was a reedy purr. I was fond of her, but to have her thoughts touch mine when I was longing instead for my love was almost intolerable. Gently I put her aside from me. I tried to ignore her injured protest that I should do so.
‘Here,’ I breathed. ‘I know she is close. But where?’
Closer than you know. But you shall never know me as long as you set the cat aside. Open to the cat. Be the cat. Prove yourself to me.
Cat flowed soundlessly away from me. I could not see where she had gone. She was night flowing into night, and it was like trying to discern the water you had poured into a stream. I drew a soundless breath and poised myself to follow, not just with my feet but with my heart. I pushed fear aside and opened myself to the cat.
Cat was back suddenly, easing out of the darkness to become a richer shadow. She pressed close against my legs. Hunted.
‘Yes. We hunt, we hunt for the woman, my love.’
No. We are hunted. Something scents us, something follows Cat-And-Boy through the night. Up. Climb.
She suited her words to her thoughts, flowing up the oak tree. Tree to tree. He cannot track us up here. Follow tree to tree. I knew that was what she was doing, and she expected me to follow. I tried. I flung myself at the oak, but the trunk was too large for me to shinny up and yet not coarse enough for my clawless fingers to find purchase. For an instant, I clung, but I could not climb. I slid back, nails bending and clothing snagging as the tree refused me. I could hear the predator coming now. It was a new sensation, one I did not like, to be hunted thus. I’d find a better tree. I turned and ran, sacrificing stealth for speed, but finding neither.
I chose to go uphill. Some predators, such as bears, could not run well on an uphill slope. If it was a bear, I could outdistance him. I could not think what else it might be that dared to hunt us. Another oak, younger and with lower branches, beckoned me. I ran, I leapt and caught the lowest branch. But even as I pulled myself up, my pursuer reached the bottom of the tree below me. And I had chosen foolishly. There were no other trees close by that I could leap to. The few that touched branches with mine were slender, unreliable things. I was treed.
Snarling, I looked down at my stalker. I looked into my own eyes looking into my own eyes looking into my own eyes –
I sat bolt upright, flung from sleep. Sweat sheathed me and my mouth was dry as dust. I rolled out of bed and stood, disoriented. Where was the window, where was the door? And then I recalled that I was not in my own cottage, but in a strange room. I blundered through the darkness to a washstand. I lifted the pitcher there and drank the tepid water in it. I dipped my hand in what little was left and rubbed it around on my face. Work, mind, I bade my struggling brain. It came to me. Nighteyes had Prince Dutiful treed somewhere in the hills behind Galeton. While I had slept, my wolf had found the Prince. But I feared that the Prince had discovered us as well. How much did he know of the Skill? Was he aware that we had been linked? Then all wondering was pushed aside. As the lowering storm is suddenly loosed by a bolt of lightning, so did the flash of light that seemed to fill my eyes herald the clanging of the Skill-headache that dropped me to my knees. And I had not a scrap of elfbark with me.
But the Fool might.
It was the only thought that could have brought me to my feet again. My groping hands found the door and I stumbled out into his chamber. The only light came from a small nest of dying coals in the hearth and the uncertain light of the night torches burning on the grounds outside the open window. I staggered towards his bed. ‘Fool?’ I called out softly, hoarsely. ‘Fool, Nighteyes has Dutiful treed. And …’
The words died on my lips. The dream had forced the earlier events of the night from my mind. What if that huddled shape beneath the blankets were not one body but two? An arm flung back a coverlet to reveal only one form occupying the great bed. He rolled to face me and then sat up. Concern furrowed his brow. ‘Fitz? Are you hurt?’
I sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, set one hand to each side of my head and pushed, trying to hold my skull together. ‘No. Yes. It’s the Skill, but we haven’t time for that. I know where the Prince is. I dreamed him. He was night-hunting with a cat in the hills behind Galeton. Then something was hunting us, and the cat went up one tree and I … the Prince went up another. And then he looked down and he saw Nighteyes under the tree. The wolf has him treed somewhere in those hills. If we go now, we can take him.’
‘No, we can’t. Use your common sense.’
‘I can’t. My head is cracking like an eggshell.’ I hunched forwards, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. ‘Why can’t we go get him?’ I asked piteously.
‘Walk your thoughts through it, my friend. We dress and creep out of this room, get past the stablefolk to take our horses out, ride through unfamiliar country by night until we come to where the Prince is up a tree with a wolf at the foot of it. One of us climbs the tree and forces the Prince down. Then we coax him to come back with us. Lord Golden miraculously appears at breakfast with, I imagine, a very disgruntled Prince Dutiful, or Lord Golden and his man simply disappear from Lady Bresinga’s hospitality without a word of explanation. In any case, in a few days a lot of very uncomfortable questions are going to be asked about Lord Golden and his man Tom Badgerlock, not to mention Prince Dutiful.’
He was right. We already suspected the Bresingas were involved in the Prince’s ‘disappearance’. Bringing him back to Galekeep would be foolish. We had to recover him in such a way that we could take him straight back to Buckkeep and no one the wiser. I pressed my fingers to my eyeballs. It felt as if the pressure inside my skull would force them out of their sockets. ‘What do we do then?’ I asked thickly. I didn’t even really want to know. I wanted to fall over on my side and huddle into a miserable ball.
‘The wolf keeps track of the Prince. Tomorrow, during our hunt, I will send you back for something I’ve forgotten. Once you are on your own, you will go to where the Prince is and persuade him to return to Buckkeep. I chose you a big horse. Take him with you immediately and return him to Buckkeep. I’ll find a way to explain your absence.’
‘How?’
‘I haven’t thought of it yet, but I will. Don’t be concerned about it. Whatever tale I tell, the Bresingas will have to accept for risk of offending me.’
I picked at the next largest hole in the plan. It was hard to keep my thoughts in order. ‘I … persuade him to come back to Buckkeep?’
‘You can do it,’ the Fool replied with great confidence. ‘You will know what to say.’
I doubted it, but had run out of strength to object. There were painfully bright lights behind my closed eyes. Knuckling them made them worse. I opened my eyes to the dim room, but zigzags of light still danced before my vision, sharding it. ‘Elfbark,’ I pleaded quietly. ‘I need it.’
‘No.’
My mind could not encompass that he had refused me. ‘Please.’ I pushed the word out. ‘The pain is worse than I can explain.’ Sometimes I could tell when a seizure was coming on. I hadn’t had one in a long time. Was I imagining that odd tension in my neck and back?
‘Fitz, I can’t. Chade made me promise.’ In a lower voice, as if he feared it was too little to offer, he added, ‘I’ll be here with you.’
Pain tumbled me in a wave. Fear mingled with it.
Should I come?
No. ‘Stay where you are. Watch him.’ I heard myself say the words out loud as I thought them. There was something I was supposed to worry about in that. I recalled it. ‘I need elfbark tea,’ I managed to say. ‘Or I can’t hold the limits. On the Wit. They’ll know I’m here.’
The bed moved under me as the Fool clambered out of it, a terrible jostling that pounded my brain against the inside of my skull. I heard him go to the washstand. A moment later, he was back, damp cloth in hand. ‘Lie back,’ he told me.
‘Can’t,’ I muttered. Any movement hurt. I wanted to get back to my own room, but could not. If I was going to have a fit, I didn’t want to do it in front of the Fool.
The cold cloth on my brow was like a shock. I retched with it, then took short panting breaths to get my stomach under control. I more felt than saw the Fool crouch down before me as I sat on the edge of the bed. He took my hand in gloved ones and his fingers fumbled over mine. An instant later, they bit down, pinching hard between the bones of my hand. I gave an inarticulate cry and tried to pull free of him, but as ever he was stronger than I expected.
‘Just for a moment,’ he muttered as if reassuring me. The pain in my hand became a racing numbness. A moment later, he seized my arm just above my elbow in both his hands, and again his fingers sought and then pinched down hard.
‘Please,’ I begged him, and tried to move away from him. He moved with me and the pain in my head was such I couldn’t escape. Why was he hurting me?
‘Don’t struggle,’ he begged me. ‘Trust me. I think I can help. Trust me.’ Again his hands moved, this time to my shoulder, and again those relentless fingers jabbed down hard. I gasped, and then his hands were on either side of my neck, his fingers pressing in and up as if he wished to detach my head. I grasped his wrists but could find no strength in my hands. ‘A moment,’ he begged me again. ‘Fitz, Fitz, trust me. Trust me.’
Then something went out of me. My head dropped forwards on my chest, lolling on my neck. The pain was not gone, but it was much diminished. I fell over on my side and he rolled me onto my back. ‘There. There,’ he said, and for a moment I stared into blessed darkness. Then the gloved hands were back, thumbs on my brow, spread fingertips seeking spots on my temples and the sides of my face, and then they pressed mercilessly, his smallest fingers digging in at the hinge of my jaw.
‘Take a breath, Fitz,’ I heard him tell me, and I then realized that I was not breathing. I gasped for air, and everything suddenly eased. I wanted to weep for relief. Instead, I sank instantly into a bottomless sleep. I dreamed a strange dream. I dreamed I was safe.
I came to a hazy wakefulness before dawn. I took a deep breath, and realized I was in the Fool’s bed. I think he had just arisen. He was moving quietly about the room, selecting clothing for himself. I think he felt me watching him, for he came back to the bedside. He touched my brow, pushing my head back onto the pillow. ‘Go back to sleep. You have a little more time to rest, and I think you need it.’ Two gloved fingers traced twin lines from the top of my head to the bridge of my nose. I slept again.
When next I woke, it was because he was gently shaking me. My servant-blue clothing was laid out on the bed beside me. He was already fully dressed. ‘Time to hunt,’ he told me when he saw I was awake. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry.’
I moved my head cautiously. I ached all along my spine and neck. I sat up stiffly. I felt as if I had been in a fistfight … or had a seizure. There was a sore spot inside my cheek as if I’d bitten it. I looked away from him as I asked, ‘Did I have a fit last night?’
A small silence preceded his words. He kept his voice casual. ‘A small one, perhaps. You tossed your head about and trembled for a time in your sleep. I held you still. It passed.’ He did not want to speak of it any more than I did.
I dressed slowly. My whole body ached. My left arm bore the marks of the Fool’s fingers, small dark circles of bruising. So I had not imagined the strength of his grip. He saw me inspecting my arm, and winced sympathetically. ‘It leaves bruises, but sometimes it seems to work,’ was all he offered by way of explanation.
Hunt mornings at Galekeep were very similar to hunt mornings at Buckkeep Castle. Suppressed excitement tingled in the air. Breakfast was a hurried affair, taken standing in the courtyard and the painstaking efforts of the kitchen folk were scarcely noticed. I had only a mug of beer for I dared face no more than that. I did, however, have the foresight to do as Laurel had noted, and store some food in my saddle-pack and make sure my water-skin was freshly filled. I glimpsed Laurel in the hubbub of folk, but she was very busy, talking to at least four people at once. Lord Golden strolled through the crowd, greeting each person with a warm smile. Lord Grayling’s daughter was always at his elbow. Sydel’s smile and chatter were constant, and Lord Golden replied with attentive courtesy. Did young Civil look a bit irritated with that?
The horses were brought, saddled and gleaming from the stables. Myblack seemed unimpressed with the excitement in the air, and again I wondered at her seeming lack of spirit. The gathering seemed oddly muted to me, and then I smiled to myself. There was no excited baying to lift the heart and infect the horses with excitement. I missed hounds. The hunters and their attendants mounted, and then the cats were brought forth on their leads.
The cats were sleek, short-coated creatures, with elongated bodies. Their heads appeared small to me at first glance. Their coats were tawny, but in certain angles of the light, subdued dappling could be distinguished. Each cat’s long, graceful tail seemed to harbour an independent life. They padded through the thronging horses as calmly as dogs among sheep. These were the gruepards, and they knew very well what the milling, mounted folk meant. With little guidance each cat sought out its mounted master. I watched in stunned surprise as leads were loosed, and each cat leapt nimbly into place. I watched Lady Bresinga turn in her saddle to mutter fond words to her cat, while Civil’s gruepard put a heavy paw on his shoulder and pulled the boy back so the cat could bump faces with him. I waited in vain for some manifestation of the Wit. I was almost certain both the Bresingas possessed it, but it was controlled to an extent I had not imagined possible. Under the circumstances, no matter how I longed for the touch, I dared not quest out towards Nighteyes. His silence to me was so absolute it was like an absence. Soon, I promised myself, soon.
We set out for the hills where Avoin promised us good ground birds and much sport in the taking of them. I rode at the back with the other attendants, breathing dust. Despite the early hour, the day already promised to be unseasonably warm. The fine dust of our passing hung thick in the still air. The soil of the hills was strange stuff, for once the thin surface turf was broken by a trail, the trail became a track of fine powdery soil. I soon wished for a kerchief to cover my mouth and nose, and the hanging dust discouraged conversation. The hooves of the horses were muffled by the stuff, and with the absence of baying dogs, I felt that we rode in near silence. Soon we left the riverside and the trail behind us and rode across the face of the sun-drenched hill through crisping grey-green brush. We wended our way through rolling hills and draws that all looked deceptively alike.
The hunters were well ahead of us and moving steadily when we crested a hill. I think the flock of birds we rousted there surprised even Avoin, but everyone reacted quickly. I was too far back to see if a signal released the cats, or if the beasts simply reacted to the game. These were large, heavy-bodied birds that ran, wings open and beating, before they could lift from the ground. Several never made it into the air, and I saw at least two brought down on the wing by the leaping gruepards. The speed of the cats was heart-stopping. They flowed from their cushions, leaping to the ground impactlessly and shooting after the fleeing birds with a speed like a striking snake. One cat actually brought down two birds, seizing one in her jaws even as her clutching paws clasped one to her breast. I had noticed four or five boys on ponies riding behind us. They came forwards now, game-bags open, to take up the prey. Only one gruepard was reluctant to relinquish her kill, and I understood that she was a young hunter, her training still incomplete.
The birds were shown to Lord Golden before they were bagged. Sydel, who had been riding beside him, pushed her horse closer to see the trophies and exclaim over them. He took tail feathers from several of the birds, and then summoned me to his side. As I accepted the trophy feathers from him, he instructed me, ‘Put them in the case right away, so they are not marred.’
‘The case?’
‘The feather-case. I showed it to you when we were packing at Buckkeep … Sa’s Breath, man, you have not left it behind, have you? Ah! Well, you shall have to go back for it. You know the one, of tooled red leather with a felted wool lining. It is most likely amongst my things at Galekeep, unless you have left it at Buckkeep. Here, give Huntswoman Laurel the feathers to carry until you return. Make haste now, Tom Badgerlock. I need that case!’ Lord Golden did not disguise his irritation at his servant’s clumsiness. There was, indeed, such a case amongst Lord Golden’s belongings, but he had never told me it was a feather case, nor told me to bring it. I managed to look suitably chastened at my negligence as I bobbed my head to his orders.
So simply was I cut free from the hunt. Obedient to my master, I wheeled my horse and touched heels to Myblack. I put two rolling hills between the hunting party and us before I reached out cautiously to Nighteyes. I come.
Better late than never, I suppose, was the grudging reply.
I pulled in my horse and sat still. Wrongness flooded me. I closed my eyes, and saw through the wolf’s. It was a nondescript area, just like every hill and dale I had ridden through that morning. Oak trees in the draws and dusty scrub brush and yellow grass on the hillsides. But I knew where he was somehow and how to get to where he was. It was as Nighteyes described it: I knew where I itched before I scratched. I also knew, without his telling me, that there was a reason for his stillness. I quested towards him no more, but simply put heels to Myblack and leaned forwards to urge her on. She was a runner for level terrain, not these rolling hills, but she did well enough. I soon looked down on the dale where I knew Nighteyes waited.
I longed to rush straight down to him. His stillness was as ominous as flies buzzing round blood. I forced myself to cut a wide path around the dale and go slowly, reading the ground and breathing deep for any scents that might linger. I found the tracks of two shod horses, and a moment later cut the same tracks going in the opposite direction. Horses had come and gone from the copse of oak trees, and not long ago. I could restrain myself no longer. I rode into the welcoming shade of the trees as if I were running my head into a snare. Nighteyes.
Here. Hush.
He lay, panting heavily, in the dry shade of the oaks. Old leaves were stuck to the bloody gashes on his muzzle and flank. I flung myself from my horse and ran to him. I set my hands to his coat and his thoughts flowed silently into mine in the quietest possible sharing of the Wit.
They worked together against me.
The boy and the cat? I was surprised that he was surprised at that. The boy and the cat were Wit-bonded. Of course they would act together.
The cat and the horseman who brought the horses. I was watching the boy up the tree the whole while. I sensed nothing from him, not even that he called to the cat for help. But just after dawn broke, the damned cat attacked me. Dropped right out of a tree onto me, and I hadn’t even known she was coming. She must have travelled tree to tree like a squirrel. She clung like a burr. I thought I was winning when I flung her to the ground, but she wrapped her front paws around me and tried to disembowel me with her hind claws. Nearly succeeded, too. Just then, the man came up with the horses. The boy climbed down into the saddle, and then like a flash the cat was on the horse behind him. They galloped off and left me here.
Let me see your belly.
Water, first, before you poke at me.
Myblack annoyed me by dancing away from me twice before I caught her reins. I tied her securely to a bush after that, and then brought both water and food to Nighteyes. I let him drink from my cupped hands, and then we shared the food between us. I wanted to wash the blood from the gashes I could see, but I knew he wouldn’t allow it. Leave them to close themselves. I’ve already licked them clean.
At least, let me see the ones on your belly.
He was not happy about it, but he complied. The damage was much worse there, for the cat had obviously pulled him close, and his belly lacked the thick fur that had somewhat protected his back. They were not clean slashes, but jagged tears that were already festering. The only good aspect was that the claws had not penetrated the wall of his belly. I had feared to see bulging entrails; all I saw was lacerated flesh. I cursed myself for not having any salve to comfort the wounds. It had been too long since I had had to worry about things such as this; I had grown careless in the precautions I took.
Why didn’t you call for me to come and help you?
You were too far away to get here in time. And – uneasiness tinged his thoughts – I thought they wanted me to call you. The man on the big horse and the cat. They listened, as if my call to you were game they sought to beat out of hiding.
Not the Prince.
No. My brother, there is something very strange here. He was surprised when the horseman came with the extra mount. Yet I sensed the cat was not, the cat expected the man and the horses. The Prince does not perceive all that his bond-partner does. He goes blindly into his bond. It is … uneven. One commits and the other accepts the commitment, but does not return it in full. And the cat is … wrong.
He could make it no clearer than that to me. I sat for a time, my fingers buried deep in his coat, pondering what to do next. The Prince was gone. Someone he had not summoned had arrived to carry him away from the wolf, at precisely the moment that the cat was diverting the wolf. Carry him away to where?
I chased them for a time. But it is as you said. I cannot keep up with a running horse any more.
You never could.
Well. Neither could you. You couldn’t even keep up with a running wolf for long.
True. That’s very true. I smoothed his coat, and tried to pluck a dead leaf from one of his scabs.
Leave that alone! I’ll bite your hand off! And he could have. Fast as a snake, he seized my wrist in his jaws. He squeezed it, then let me go. It isn’t bleeding, so leave it alone. Stop picking at me and go after them.
And do what?
Begin by killing the cat. It was a vindictive suggestion with no heart in it. He knew as well as I did what it would do to the Prince if we killed his bond-animal.
I do. A pity he does not share your scruples about killing your bond-brother.
He doesn’t know you are bonded to me.
They knew I was bonded to somebody, and would have liked to discover just whom. That knowledge did not dissuade them from hurting me. I sensed his thoughts racing ahead of mine, pondering a situation I had not deciphered yet. Be careful, Changer. I recognize this pattern of old. You think this is a game of some kind, with limits and rules. You seek to bring the Prince back as a mother carries an errant cub back to the den. You have not even considered that you might have to injure him, or kill the cat to do so. Even farther from your thoughts is that they might kill you to prevent you from taking the Prince back. So I change my advice to you. Do not go after them now, alone. Give me until this evening to get past my soreness. And when we track them, let us take the Scentless One with us. He is clever, in a human sort of way.
Do you think the Prince has that in him? To kill me before letting me take him back to Buckkeep? The thought appalled me. Yet, I had been younger than Prince Dutiful when I first killed on Chade’s orders. I had not especially enjoyed it, but I had not deeply pondered the right or wrong of it. Chade was my conscience then, and I had trusted his discretion. I wondered. Was there such a person in the Prince’s life, someone whose counsel was enough to make him suspend his own judgement?
