LITMIR.BIZ

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sat for a time not speaking, trying to fit his exotic tale into my mind. I could not doubt him; he had told me far too many other strange things in our years together. And yet, believing him made so many of my own experiences suddenly take on new shapes and significance. I tried to focus on what his tale meant to Bingtown and the Six Duchies now.

      ‘Do Chade and Kettricken know any of what you’ve told me?’

      Slowly he shook his head. ‘At least, not from me. Perhaps Chade has other sources. But I’ve never spoken of this to him.’

      ‘Eda and El, why not? They treat with the Bingtowners blindly, Fool.’ A worse thought struck me. ‘Did you tell any of them about our dragons? Do the Bingtown Traders know the true nature of the Six Duchies dragons?’

      Again he shook his head.

      ‘Thank Eda for that. But why haven’t you spoken of these things to Chade? Why have you concealed them from everyone?’

      He sat looking at me silently for so long that I thought he would not answer. When he did speak, it was reluctantly. ‘I am the White Prophet. My purpose in this life is to set the world into a better path. Yet … I am not the Catalyst, not the one who makes changes. That is you, Fitz. Telling what I know to Chade would most definitely change the direction of his treating with the Bingtowners. I cannot tell if that change would aid me or hinder me in what I must do. I am, right now, more uncertain of my path than I have ever been.’

      He stopped speaking and waited, as if he hoped I would say something helpful. I knew nothing to say. Silence stretched between us. The Fool folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them. ‘I think that I may have made a mistake. In Bingtown. And I fear that in my years in Bingtown and … other places, that I did not fulfil my destiny correctly. I fear I went awry, and that hence all I do now will be warped.’ He suddenly sighed. ‘Fitz, I feel my way forward through time. Not a step at a time, but from moment to moment. What feels truest? Up until now it has not felt right to speak of these things to Chade. So I have not. Today, now, it felt as if it was time you knew these things. So I have told them to you. To you, I have passed on the decision. To tell or not to tell, Changer. That is up to you.’

      It felt odd to have Nighteyes’ name for me spoken aloud by a human voice. It prodded me uncomfortably. ‘Is this how you always have made these crucial decisions? By how you “feel”?’ My tone was sharper than I intended, but he did not flinch.

      Instead he regarded me levelly and asked, ‘And how else would I do it?’

      ‘By your knowing. By omens and signs, portentous dreams, by your own prophecies … I don’t know. But something more than simply by how you feel. El’s balls, man, it could be no more than a bad serving of fish that you’re “feeling”.’ I lowered my face into my hands and pondered. He had passed the decision on to me. What would I do? It suddenly seemed a more difficult decision than when I had been rebuking the Fool for not telling. How would knowing these things affect Chade’s attitude towards Bingtown and a possible alliance? Real dragons. Was a share of a real dragon worth a war? What would it mean not to ally, if the Bingtowners prevailed, and then had a phalanx of dragons at their command? Tell Kettricken? Then there were the same questions, but very different answers were likely. A sigh blasted out of me. ‘Why did you give this decision to me?’

      I felt his hand on my shoulder and looked up to find his odd half-smile. ‘Because you have handled it well before, when I’ve previously done it to you. Ever since I went hunting for a boy out in the gardens and told him, “Fitz fixes a feist’s fits. Fat suffices”.’

      I goggled at him. ‘But you’d told me you’d had a dream, and so come to tell me it.’

      He smiled enigmatically. ‘I did have a dream. And I wrote it down. When I was eight years old. And when the time felt right, I told it to you. And you knew what to do with it, to be my Catalyst, even then. As I trust you will now.’ He sat back in his chair.

      ‘I had no idea of what I was doing, then. No concept of how far the consequences would reach.’

      ‘And now that you do?’

      ‘I wish I didn’t. It makes it harder to decide.’

      He leaned back in his chair with a supercilious smile. ‘See.’ Then he leaned forward suddenly. ‘How did you decide how to act back then, in the garden? On what you would do?’

      I shook my head slowly. ‘I didn’t decide. There was a course of action and I took it. If anything decided me, it was based on what I thought would be best for the Six Duchies. I never thought beyond that.’

      I turned my head an instant before the wine rack moved, revealing the passage behind it. Chade entered. He looked out of breath and harassed. His eyes fell on the brandy. Without a word, he walked to the table, lifted my glass and drained it. Then he took a breath and spoke. ‘I thought I might find you two hiding out here.’

      ‘Scarcely hiding,’ I objected. ‘We were having a quiet discussion where we were sure things would remain private.’ I got up from my chair and he sank into it gratefully. Evidently he had hastened up the secret steps into the tower.

      ‘Would that Kettricken and I had kept our audience with the Bingtown Traders similarly private. Folk are already talking and the kettle already simmering.’

      ‘About whether or not to ally with them and join their war with Chalced. Let me guess. Shoaks is willing to launch the warships tomorrow.’

      ‘Shoaks I could deal with,’ Chade replied irritably. ‘No. It’s more awkward than that. Scarcely had Kettricken returned to her chambers, scarcely had we begun to sort out between us what Bingtown is really asking and offering than a page knocked at the door. Peottre Blackwater and the Narcheska required an immediate meeting with us. Not requested: required.’ He paused to let us ponder that. ‘The message was conveyed most urgently. So, what could we do but comply? The Queen feared that the Narcheska had taken some new offence at something Dutiful had done or said. But when they were admitted to her private audience chamber, Peottre informed us that he and the Narcheska were most distressed that the Six Duchies was receiving the ambassadors from the Bingtown Traders. They both seemed extremely agitated. But the most interesting part was when Peottre declared firmly that if the Six Duchies entered into any sort of alliance with “those dragon-breeders”, he would terminate the entire betrothal.’

      ‘Peottre Blackwater and the Narcheska came to you about this, not Arkon Bloodblade?’ I clarified.

      At almost the same moment, the Fool asked with intense interest, ‘Dragon-breeders? Blackwater called them “dragon-breeders”?’

      Chade glanced from one to the other of us. ‘Bloodblade wasn’t there,’ he replied to me, and to the Fool, ‘Actually, it was the Narcheska who used that term.’

      ‘What did the Queen say?’ I asked.

      Chade took in a long breath. ‘I had hoped she would say that we needed a moment to confer. But evidently Kettricken felt more short-tempered about the previous day’s humiliation of Prince Dutiful than I thought. Sometimes I forget she is a mother as well as a queen. She rather stiffly told the Narcheska and her uncle that the Six Duchies arrangements with the Bingtown Traders will be determined by the Six Duchies’ best interests, not by threats. From anyone.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘And they left the audience chamber. The Narcheska seemed in high dudgeon, walking stiff-backed as a soldier. Blackwater hunched like a man heavily burdened.’

      ‘They’re scheduled to return to the Outislands soon, aren’t they?’

      Chade nodded heavily. ‘A few days from now. All of this happens just in time to leave everything out of balance. If the Queen does not return an answer to the Bingtowners soon, then when the Narcheska departs, the whole betrothal will be left in uncertainty. All of that work to solidify our relations gone to waste or worse. Yet I feel there must be no haste in returning an answer to the Bingtown Traders. This whole offer must be considered carefully. This talk of dragons …

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