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I held her close to me. “It’s all my fault.” I did not even know I had spoken aloud until she drew back from me, to look up in puzzlement.

“Your fault? Did you do something wrong?”

“No. I am no traitor. But I am a bastard. And I’ve let that spill over onto you. Everything Patience warned me of, everything Ch— everyone warned me about, it’s all coming true. I’ve got you caught up in it.”

“What is happening?” she asked softly, eyes wide. Her breath suddenly caught. “You said . . . the guard wouldn’t let you out the gate. That you can’t leave Buckkeep? Why?”

“I don’t know, exactly. There’s a lot I don’t understand. But one thing I do know. I have to keep you safe. That means staying away from you, for a time. And you from me. Do you understand?”

A glint of anger came into her eyes. “I understand you’re leaving me alone in this!”

“No. That’s not it. We have to make them believe that they’ve scared you, that you’re obeying them. Then you’ll be safe. They’ll have no reason to come after you again.”

“They have scared me, you idiot!” she hissed at me. “One thing I know. Once someone knows you’re afraid of him, you’re never safe from that person. If I obey them now, they will come after me again. To tell me to do other things, to see how far I’ll obey them in my fear.”

These were the scars her father had left on her life. Scars that were a kind of strength, but also a vulnerability. “Now is not the time to stand up to them,” I whispered. I kept looking over her shoulder, expecting that at any moment the guard would come to see where we had vanished. “Come,” I said, and led her deeper into the maze of warehouses and outbuildings. She walked silently beside me for a ways, then suddenly jerked her hand from mine.

“It is time to stand up to them,” she declared. “Because once you start putting it off, you never do it. Why should not this be the time?”

“Because I don’t want you caught up in this. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want people saying you are the Bastard’s whore.” I could barely force the words from my mouth.

Molly’s head came up. “I have done nothing I’m ashamed of,” she said evenly. “Have you?”

“No. But—”

“ ‘But.’ Your favorite word,” she said bitterly. She walked away from me.

“Molly!” I sprang after her, seized her by the shoulders.

She spun and hit me. Not a slap. A solid punch in the mouth that rocked me back and put blood in my mouth. She stood glaring, daring me to touch her again. I didn’t. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t fight back. Only that I didn’t want you caught up in it. Give me a chance to fight this my way,” I said. I knew blood was running over my chin. I let her look at it. “Trust that given time, I can find them and make them pay. My way. Now. Tell me about the men. What they wore, how they rode. What did the horses look like? Did they speak like Buck folk, or Inlanders? Did they have beards? Could you tell the color of their hair, their eyes?”

I saw her trying to think, saw her mind veer away from thinking about it. “Brown,” she said at last. “Brown horses, with black manes and tails. And the men talked like anybody else. One had a dark beard. I think . . . It’s hard to see face down in the dirt.”

“Good. That’s good,” I told her, though she had told me nothing at all. She looked down, away from the blood on my face. “Molly,” I said more quietly. “I won’t be coming . . . to your room. Not for a while. Because . . .”

“You’re afraid.”

“Yes!” I hissed. “Yes, I’m afraid. Afraid they’ll hurt you, afraid they’ll kill you. To hurt me. I won’t endanger you by coming to you.”

She stood still. I could not tell if she was listening to me or not. She folded her arms across her chest, hugged herself. . .

“I love you too much to see that happen.” My words sounded weak, even to myself.

She turned and walked away from me. She still hugged herself, as if to keep herself from flying apart. She looked very alone, in her draggled blue skirts with her proud head bowed. “Molly Redskirts,” I whispered after her, but I could no longer see that Molly. Only what I had made of her.

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Neatbay

...

THE POCKED MAN Is the legendary harbinger of disaster for the folk of the Six Duchies. To see him, striding down the road, is to know that disease and pestilence will soon come to call. To dream of him is said to be a warning of a death to come. Often the tales of him show him appearing to those deserving of punishment, but sometimes he is used, most often in puppet shows, as a general omen of disaster to come. A marionette of the Pocked Man, hung dangling across the scenery, is a warning to all in the audience that soon they will witness a tragedy.

*

The days of winter dragged agonizingly slow. With every passing hour, I was braced for something to happen. I never walked into a room without surveying it first, ate no food I had not seen prepared, drank only the water I drew from the well myself. I slept poorly. The constant watchfulness told on me in a hundred ways. I was snappish to those who spoke to me casually, moody when I checked on Burrich, reticent with the Queen. Chade, the only one to whom I could have unburdened myself, did not summon me. I was miserably alone. I dared not go to Molly. I kept my visits to Burrich as brief as possible for fear of bringing my troubles down on him. I could not openly leave Buckkeep to spend time with Nighteyes, and I feared to leave by our secret way lest I be watched. I waited and I watched, but that nothing further happened to me became a sophisticated torture of suspense.

I did call on King Shrewd daily. I watched him dwindle before my eyes, saw the Fool become daily more morose, his humor more acid. I longed for savage winter weather to match my mood, but the skies continued blue and the winds calm. Within Buckkeep, the evenings were noisy with gaiety and revel. There were masked balls, and summonings of minstrels to compete for fat purses. The Inland Dukes and nobles ate well at Regal’s table, and drank well with him late into the night.

“Like ticks on a dying dog,” I said savagely to Burrich one day as I was changing the dressing on his leg for him. He had made comment that it was no trick to stay awake on his night guard duty at Kettricken’s door, for the noise of the revelry would have made it difficult to sleep.

“Who’s dying?” he asked.

“All of us. One day at a time, we’re all dying. Did no one ever tell you that? But this is healing, and surprisingly well for all you’ve done to it.”

He looked down at his bared leg and cautiously flexed it. The tissue pulled unevenly, but held. “Maybe the gash is closed up, but it doesn’t feel healed inside,” he observed. It was not a complaint. He lifted his brandy cup and drained it off. I eyed it narrowly. His days had a pattern now. Once he left Kettricken’s door in the morning, he went to the kitchen and ate. Then he came back to his room and began drinking. After I appeared and helped him change the bandaging on his leg, he would drink until it was time for him to sleep. And wake up in the evening, just in time to eat and then go guard Kettricken’s door. He no longer did anything in the stables. He had given them over to Hands, who went about looking as if the job were a punishment he hadn’t deserved.

Every other day or so, Patience sent Molly up to tidy Burrich’s room for him. I knew little of these visits other than that they happened, and that Burrich, surprisingly, tolerated them. I had mixed feelings about them. No matter how much Burrich drank, he always treated women graciously; yet the emptied brandy bottles in a row could not but remind Molly of her father. Still, I wished them to know one another. One day I told Burrich that Molly had been threatened because of her association with me. “Association?” he had asked sharply.

“Some few know that I care for her,” I admitted gingerly.

“A man does not bring his problems down on a woman he cares for,” he told me severely.

I had no reply to that. Instead I gave him the few details Molly had recalled about her attackers, but they suggested nothing to him. For a time he had stared off, right through the walls of his room. After a time he picked up his cup and drained it. He spoke carefully. “I am going to tell her that you are worried about her. I am going to tell her that if she fears danger, she must come to me. I am more in a position to deal with it.” He looked up and met my eyes. “I am going to tell her that you are wise to stay away from her, for her sake.” As he poured himself another drink he had added quietly to the tabletop, “Patience was right. And she was wise to send her to me.”

I blanched to consider the fill implications of that statement. For once, I was smart enough to know when to be quiet. He drank his brandy down, then looked at the bottle. Slowly, he slid it across the table toward me. “Put that back on the shelf for me, will you?” he requested.

Animals and winter stores continued to be drained from Buckkeep. Some were sold off cheaply to Inland Duchies. The very finest of the hunting and riding horses were barged up the Buck, to an area near Turlake. Regal announced this as a plan to preserve our best breeding stock far from the ravages of the Red-Ships. The mutter of the folk in Buckkeep Town, so Hands told me, was that if the King could not hold his own castle, what hope was there for them? When a shipment of fine old tapestries and furniture were sent upriver as well, the murmur became that soon the Farseers would abandon Buckkeep entirely, without even a fight, without even waiting for an assault. I had the uncomfortable suspicion the rumor was correct.

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