He should not have been Skilling. He was. The shutters of the window were open and he leaned out on the sill. Wind and snow swirled throughout the room, speckling his dark hair and dark blue shirt and jerkin. He was breathing in deep, long steady breaths, a cadence somewhere between a very deep sleep and that of a runner at rest and catching his wind. He seemed oblivious of me. “Prince Verity?” I said softly.

He turned to me, and his gaze was like heat, like light, like wind in my face. He Skilled into me with such force that I felt driven out of myself, his mind possessing mine so completely that there was no room left to be myself in it. For a moment I was drowning in Verity, and then he was gone, withdrawing so rapidly that I was left stumbling and gasping like a fish deserted by a high wave. In a step he was beside me, catching my elbow and steadying me on my feet.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was not expecting you. You startled me.”

“I should have knocked, my prince,” I replied, and then gave a quick nod to him that I could stand. “What’s out there, that you watch so intently?”

He glanced aside from me. “Not much. Some boys on the cliffs, watching a pod of whales sporting. Two of our own boats, fishing halibut. Even in this weather, though not enjoying it much.”

“Then you are not Skilling for Outislanders….”

“There are not any out there, this time of year. But I keep a watch.” He glanced down at my forearm, the one he had just released, and changed the subject. “What happened to you?”

“That’s what I came to see you about. Forged ones attacked me. Out on the face of the ridge, the one where the spruce-hen hunting is good. Near the goatherd’s shed.”

He nodded quickly, his dark brows knitting. “I know the area. How many? Describe them.”

I quickly sketched my attackers for him and he nodded briefly, unsurprised. “I had a report of them, four days ago. They should not be this close to Buckkeep this soon; not unless they are consistently moving in this direction, every day. Are they finished?”

“Yes. You expected this?” I was aghast. “I thought we had wiped them out.”

“We wiped out the ones who were here then. There are others, moving in this direction. I have been keeping track of them by the reports, but I had not expected them to be so close so soon.”

I struggled briefly, got my voice under control. “My prince, why do we simply keep track of them? Why do not we … take care of this problem?”

Verity made a small noise in his throat and turned back to his window. “Sometimes one has to wait, and let the enemy complete a move, in order to discover what the full strategy is. Do you understand me?”

“The Forged ones have a strategy? I think not, my prince. They were—”

“Report to me in full,” Verity directed me without looking at me. I hesitated briefly, then launched into a complete retelling. Toward the end of the struggle, my account became a bit incoherent. I let the words die on my lips. “But I did manage to break his grip on me. And all three of them died there.”

He did not take his eyes from the sea. “You should avoid physical struggles, FitzChivalry. You always seem to get hurt in them.”

“I know, my prince,” I admitted humbly. “Hod did her best with me—”

“But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other talents. And those are the ones you should be putting to use to preserve yourself. Oh, you’re a competent swordsman; but you’ve not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you always seem to revert to in a fight.”

“I was not offered the selection of weapons,” I said, a bit testily, and then added, “my prince.”

“No. You won’t be.” He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. “Yet I’m afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?”

“As you have been told, sir,” I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen’s guard.

He turned to regard me levelly. “The rumor I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumor reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly.”