Fool's Fate

Swift glared at him. Riddle spoke thoughtlessly into the tense silence. “I did not know the Witted had any rules about bonding with animals. I thought they could bond with any creature, for an hour or a year.”

“A false perception,” Web said heavily, “that many folk not of Old Blood have about us. It is bound to happen, when one people must keep their ways secret and unseen. But it leads to the idea that we use animals and then discard them. It makes it easier for folk to think we would bid a bear savage a man's family, or send a wolf to kill a flock of sheep. The Wit-bond is not a man taking mastery over an animal. It is a joining founded on mutual respect, for life. Do you understand that, Swift?”

“I meant no harm,” he replied stiffly. There was no repentance or apology in his voice.

“Neither does the child who plays with fire and burns a cottage down. Meaning no harm is not enough, Swift. If you would be Old Blood, then you must respect our rules and ways all the time, not just when it suits you.”

“And if I don't?” Swift asked sullenly.

“Then call yourself a Piebald, for that is what you will be.” Web drew in a heavy breath and then sighed it out. “Or an outcast,” he said softly. I felt that he tried not to look at me as he spoke those last words. “Why any man would wish to remain apart from his own, I do not know.”

Chapter 11

WUISLINGTON

The attachment that the women have to their clan lands is remarkable. They often refer to tales that the earth itself is made from Eda's flesh and bones while the sea belongs to El. All land belongs to the women of the clan; the men born into a clan may tend the land and help with the harvest, but the women determine the distribution of the harvest and also decree what crops will be planted and where and in what proportions. It is not merely a matter of ownership, but a matter of Eda's worship.

Men may be buried anywhere, and most often are given to the sea. But all women must be buried within their own clan fields. The graves are honored for seven years, during which time the burial field is left fallow. After that, they are plowed again, and the first harvest from such a field is served in a special feast.

While the Outislander men are wanderers and may remain away from their home ports for years, the women tend to stay close to the lands of their birth. In marriage, they expect their husbands to reside with them. If an Outislander woman dies away from her clan lands, extraordinary efforts will be made to return her body to her clan fields. To do otherwise is both great shame and serious sacrilege for the woman's clan. The clans will willingly go to war to repatriate a woman's body to her home.

— “AN ACCOUNT OF TRAVEL IN A BARBAROUS LAND,”
BY SCRIBE FEDWREN

We were guests at Wuislington at the Narcheska's mothershouse for twelve days. It was a strange hospitality they offered us. Chade and Prince Dutiful were allotted sleeping space on the benches in the lower level of the house. The Witted coterie was housed alongside the guardsmen outside the walls. Thick and I continued in our cottage, with Swift and Riddle as frequent visitors. Every day, Chade sent two of the guards into the village to purchase victuals. They brought a share to us in the cottage, some to the guards, and the rest back to the mothershouse. Although Blackwater had promised to feed us, Chade had chosen this tactic shrewdly. To be seen as dependent on the Narwhal mothershouse largesse would be seen as a weakness and a foolish lack of planning.

There were good aspects to our extended stay. Thick began to recover his health. He still coughed and was short of breath if he went for a walk, but he slept more naturally, took an interest in his surroundings, ate and drank, and generally recovered some of his spirits. He still held it against me that I had forced him to travel there in a ship and that he would eventually have to leave in the same way. Every effort at casual conversation that I made always seemed to lead us back to that bone of contention. Sometimes it seemed easier not to speak to him at all, but then I sensed his anger for me as a simmering displeasure. I hated that things had become uncomfortable between us when I had worked so hard to gain his trust. When I said as much to Chade during one of our brief meetings, he dismissed it as necessary. “It would be far worse if he blamed it on Dutiful, you see. In this, you will have to be the whipping boy, Fitz.” I knew it was so, and yet his words were no comfort.

Riddle spent several hours daily with Thick, usually when Chade wanted me to keep an unobtrusive eye on Dutiful. Web and Swift often came to the cottage. Swift seemed chastened by Web's rebuke and appeared generally more respectful to both Web and myself. I kept the lad busy with daily lessons and demanded that he practice his bow as well as his swordsmanship. Thick would come to sit outside the cottage and watch our mock battles in the sheep enclosure. He always cheered for Swift, bellowing his pleasure every time the boy landed a blow with the bound swords we used. I confess that bruised my feelings as much as Swift's thwacks bruised my flesh. It was my own skills more than his that I wished to keep sharp, but teaching the boy not only gave me an excuse to practice, it also allowed me to demonstrate my proficiency to the Outislanders. They did not gather to watch, but from time to time I would glimpse a lad or two perched on a nearby wall, eyeing us. I resolved that if I must be spied upon, I would see that the reports of me were that I was not easy prey. I did not think that their scrutiny was casual curiosity.