“Change while I talk,” he instructed me, and his voice was fraught with emotion. I was already dragging on the boots.

“I had bits of Skilling from Sildwell before I asked Nettle to help me. All of it was disturbing. He could find no sign of Lady Bee or Lady Shun. ‘They are unknown here,’ he said at one point. Or seemed to say, through a fog and a roaring. He described a ‘great fire’ and I think he told me that your folk there seemed unconcerned by it. You experienced what it was like, trying to receive his thoughts.”

“When?” I demanded. How dare he hide this from me! “How long ago?”

He stared at me, his anger rising to meet mine. “Moments before I asked Nettle for help. Did you think I would wait?” He handed me a very plain sword in a leather sheath. There was dust on it, and the belt that held it was stiff. I buckled it round me without comment. I drew it out, looked at it, and sheathed it again. Plain but very well made.

“Give me that,” Chade suggested, and I realized I was still wearing the sword crown. I pulled it free and handed it to him. He tossed it on his bed. I dragged the woolen shirt over my head and shoved my arms out the sleeves. As I swept the cloak over my shoulders, I told him, “Tell the Fool why I’ve gone. He’ll understand.”

“Skill to me as soon as you arrive there. Please.”

“I shall.”

I did not care who turned as I passed or who stared after me as I pounded down the great stair, through the halls of Buckkeep Castle, and out into the courtyard where a boy held the reins of a fine roan mare. Her eyes were bright with intelligence, her long legs straight and strong. “Thank you,” I called as I seized her reins and mounted. As I wheeled her toward the gate, the lad shouted something about Lord Derrick’s horse, and I saw that a long-legged black was being led toward the steps. I’d taken the wrong horse. But too late. Nothing would turn me back now.

“Go!” I told her, voice and heels, and leaned forward.

Chapter Eleven

Withywoods

To Prince FitzChivalry

Sir. For many years I have held your secret as closely as you have held mine. My king entrusted it to me that I might better understand all that you did in that difficult time. My pride had been gravely injured by the ruses that you and your friend Lord Golden had played upon me. I would let you know that for years now I have better understood your role in those events. I do not forget all you have done for me. I recall well that but for you I would not be alive today. I write to you to remind you that I remain ever in your debt, and that if there is ever any way in which I can serve you, I beg that you will ask it of me.

Please know I make this offer with all sincerity.

Lord Civil Bresinga

The roan mare lifted herself into a gallop and we were through the gate before anyone had a chance to either challenge us or wave us through. She was a spirited creature and seemed to relish the idea of a night gallop. Her Wit shimmered between us, seeking a confirmation from me that we would become the best of friends. But my heart was frozen with fear and I held myself small and still. Her hooves threw up chunks of packed snow from the carriageway, and the wind of our passage squeezed my face in an icy grip. A cart trail turned off toward the Witness Stones. The snowy road was less packed, and her pace slowed despite my efforts to hurry her. I blessed the brief break in the storms that let the moon and starlight reflect from the snowy fields. I pressed her and as the trail became just a rumpling in the deep snow, she lunged and surged through it. Long before we reached the stones, I had made my decision. Regal’s apprentices and journeymen had taken horses through Skill-pillars before. True, some had lost their wits doing it, but I was far more seasoned at the Skill than they had been. And my need was far greater.

At the summit of the hill, I pulled her in, let her breathe, and then reined her close to the stones. Roan. With me. I pressed my Wit against all her senses, and it shocked me when she welcomed me. She tossed her head and showed me one white-rimmed eye as I slapped the stone with a bared hand and simultaneously wheeled her in. For a long moment she leapt through a starlit sky, and then we plunged out and she landed, stiff-legged and heaving under me, on the top of Gallows Hill. A three-day journey done in an instant. Wind and falling snow had erased almost every trace of my previous passage. The roan tossed her head, eyes and nostrils wide. Her strange exhilaration swept through me. I fought through a wave of vertigo before I found both common sense and my Wit, then wrapped her in reassurance and comfort, praised her, and promised her warmth and oats and fresh water. I walked her down the snowy hill. A small bit of patience now would pay off in the stamina to finish the ride.