In vain, I tried to distract myself with other mysteries. Laurel was gone. In the dwindling days of winter, I had noticed her absence. My discreet inquiries as to where the Huntswoman was had led me to rumors that she had gone to visit her family. Under the circumstances, I doubted that. When bluntly asked, Chade informed me that it was not my concern if the Queen had decided to send her Huntswoman out of harm’s way. When I asked where, he gave me a scathing look. “What you don’t know is less danger for you and for her.”

“And is there more danger, then, that I should know of?”

He considered a moment before answering, then sighed heavily. “I don’t know. She begged a private audience with the Queen. What was said there, I don’t know, for Kettricken refuses to tell me. She gave some foolish promise to the Huntswoman that it would remain a secret between the two of them. Then, Laurel was gone. I don’t know if the Queen sent her away, or if she asked permission to leave, or if she simply fled. I have told Kettricken that it is not wise to leave me uninformed about this. But she will not budge from her promise.”

I thought of Laurel as I had last seen her. I suspected she had gone forth to fight the Piebalds in her own way. What that could be, I had no idea. But I feared for her. “Have we had any word about Laudwine and his followers?”

“Nothing that we know is absolutely true. But three rumors might as well be the truth, as the saying goes. And there are plentiful rumors that Laudwine has recovered from the injury you dealt him, and that he will once more take up the reins of power over the Piebalds. The closest we have to good news is that some may dispute his right to lead them. We can only hope that he has problems of his own.”

And so I hoped, fervently, but in my heart I did not believe it.

There was little to lighten my life elsewhere. The Prince had not come to the Skill tower on the morning of the Narcheska’s departure. I thought little of that. He had had a late night, and his presence was demanded early on the docks. But on the two mornings since then, I had waited in vain for him. I arrived at our appointed hour, I waited, laboring over scroll translations alone, and then I left. He sent me no word of explanation. After simmering in my own anger through the second morning, I made a firm decision that I would not contact him. It was, I told myself firmly, not my place. I tried to put myself in the Prince’s skin. How would I have felt if I had found that Verity had given me a Skill command to be loyal? I knew too well how I felt about Skillmaster Galen fogging my mind and masking my Skill talent from me. Dutiful had a right to both his anger and his royal contempt of me. I’d let them run their course. When he was ready, I’d give him the only explanation I could: the truth. I had not meant to bind him to obey me, only to keep him from attempting to kill me. I sighed at the thought and bent over my work again.

It was evening and I was sitting up in Chade’s tower. I had been there since afternoon, waiting for Thick. It was yet another meeting that he had missed. As I had pointed out to Chade, there was little he or I could do if the half-wit would not voluntarily come to meet me. Still, I had not wasted my time. In addition to several of the older and more obscure Skill scrolls that we were deciphering piecemeal, Chade had given me two old scrolls that dealt with Icefyre, the God’s Runes’ dragon. They both dealt with legends, but he hoped I could sift whatever seed of truth had begun them. He had already dispatched spies to the Out Islands. One had sailed secretly aboard the Narcheska’s vessel, ostensibly working his way across to visit relatives there. His true mission was to reach Aslevjal, or at least to discover as much about that isle as could be learned, and to report back to Chade with it. The old man feared that having committed himself to the quest, Dutiful must actually go. But he was determined the Prince would go well prepared and well accompanied. “I myself may go with him,” Chade had informed me at our last chance encounter in the tower. I had groaned, but managed to keep it a silent one. He was too old for such a trip. By an amazing effort of will, I managed to keep those words to myself also. For I knew what would follow any protest: “Who, then, do you think I should send?” I was no more in favor of visiting Aslevjal myself than I was for Chade going. Or Prince Dutiful, for that matter.

I pushed the Icefyre scroll to one side and rubbed my eyes. It was interesting, but I doubted that anything there was going to prepare the Prince for his quest. From what I knew of our stone dragons, even from what the Fool had told me of the Bingtown dragons, it seemed highly unlikely to me that there was a dragon asleep in a glacier on an Outislander isle. Far more likely that a “slumbering dragon” was fancifully blamed for earthquakes and glaciers calving. Besides, I’d had enough of dragons for a time. The more I worked on the scroll, the more troubling thoughts of the veiled Bingtowner menaced my sleep. Yet I could wish those were my only concerns.