‘Could there be ginger-cakes?’ I asked, again without knowing I would speak. Ashamed, I hunched my head down between my shoulders and looked up at her.
She raised her brows at me and with concern asked, ‘Is there something going on here that I do not know about?’
Nettle looked hopelessly at Riddle. He kept silent. Nettle tried. ‘Bee believes that her father is still alive. She believes that he has sent—’
‘No.’ I had to interrupt. ‘No, he didn’t send Nighteyes. He came on his own, to me. And he asked me to come to see Queen Kettricken.’
The former queen was a fair-skinned woman. I did not think she could blanch whiter but she did. ‘I am no longer a queen,’ she reminded us.
‘You are ever a queen to him, but more than that, you are always the hunter with the bow who fed everyone in the dark times. He was glad to be beside you, and glad to run ahead of you and drive game for you, and to offer you what comfort he could when you were sad.’
Her lips trembled slightly. Then she said gently. ‘Your father told you tales of our time in the Mountains.’
I folded my arms tightly across my chest and pulled my head up straight. I must not appear mad or hysterical. ‘My lady, my father Fitz told me little of those times. Some, I know. But my Wolf Father tells me these things. He has words for you, before he returns to my father. To die, I think.’
‘Can this be so? How did the wolf’s spirit linger? How can he come to you? And where is Fitz? Still in far-off Clerres, and alive?’ Tragedy was in her eyes and drooped her mouth. She became an elderly woman.
I waited for the answer to rise in me. ‘No. He is at the quarry, in the Mountains. You know the place well. Where Verity carved his dragon. The Scentless One believed him dead. He was mistaken. Fitz is there, but very weak and riddled with worms. He will die soon, and I will die with him. I wished to see you one last time. To let you know how dear you were to me.’ I stopped speaking. I was surprised to find I was standing in front of Kettricken, holding both her hands in mine. The thought he conveyed to me now was only for me. Your mother was a good mate for Fitz. She gave him what he needed. But this is the woman I would have chosen for us. A baffling thought and not something to speak aloud. I pushed him back. ‘He is very earnest that you believe this.’ He offered a memory and I spoke it aloud. ‘He remembers this. Sometimes, on the hunt, your hands would get cold and stiff. You would take off your mittens and gloves, and warm your hands in the ruff of fur on his throat.’
Lady Kettricken flowed to her feet as if she were a slow fountain. She looked at Nettle. She was a silver-haired queen again. ‘We will need a tent, and warm things, for even in summer the Mountains are chill in the evening. You will take me there. And the Fool. Lord Golden. Whoever he is being today. Summon him as well. Today.’
‘Bring food!’ I said. Then the wolf told us the last thing I wanted to know. ‘He is infected with parasites that are eating him. Day by day he dwindles, and I do not know how long I have been gone from him.’ It was strange to hear myself say, ‘Ask Bee. She knows of such deaths. She has seen one.’
He faded to the back of my mind as if exhausted. I could understand that. Never had I felt him so intense. But he left me standing in the circle of three adults staring down at me in wary belief.
I doubled over, my hands over my mouth as I suddenly understood. The Traitor’s Death. Vindeliar had promised that to me. Had my father taken it for me?
Kettricken’s hands on my shoulders were like a raptor’s claws. ‘Stand up,’ she said sternly and forced me upright. ‘You will tell me what this means.’
Telling them of the messenger and her death was horrid. I wondered how much Beloved knew of it. The queen rang for refreshments. A servant brought tea and ginger-cakes. I ate a cake with tears fresh on my cheeks, and was astounded at how I savoured the scent and taste of it, while confessing a tale of bloody eyes, a butterfly cloak, and a midnight pyre. I had thought my father might have told Riddle or Nettle. Plainly, he had not. Nettle sank down and covered her face. ‘Oh, Da. How could you?’
I swallowed my bite of cake. ‘The death is unstoppable. So the messenger said. It is the death they reserved for traitors. Slow, painful and inevitable.’ I picked up another ginger-cake. They watched me do it. ‘He likes them!’ I said through my tears. I looked at the cake in my hands. ‘My father is dying horribly. We can’t stop that. But ginger still always tastes wonderful.’
‘It does,’ Kettricken agreed. She put another one into my hands.
I took a large bite of one and for that moment, the ginger and the sweetness was all there was. They were speaking over my head.
‘How could he not?’ Riddle said, and reminded Nettle of a previous messenger that had vanished, perhaps murdered, during a Winterfest years before the butterfly cloak incident. That made Nettle uncover her face and knit her brows as she connected the two accounts. Kettricken said nothing except, ‘It is what he would do. Not what he would choose, but what he felt he must do at the time. Still, Bee, I am sorry that you had to serve him so. But we are wasting time. Riddle. Go request all that we need. We will leave before sunset.’
Nettle held up a hand. ‘My lady, I implore prudence.’ She took a breath and glanced at me as if reluctant to speak in my hearing. Riddle winced for me as she said, ‘I love my sister, but I think we should approach this sensibly. She has suffered a great deal. I was older than she is when Burrich died, and still I had vivid dreams of him coming home to us. I do not think she is lying,’ and here she met my eyes, ‘but I fear she may be mistaken. Before we mount an expedition, let me send a coterie to see what the situation is. If they find him, they can bring him home! Remember that they will face a journey of days. They must take horses to the same leaning Skill-stone that Lady Shine showed us. I have ordered it righted and cleaned: as it has been used before, we consider it reliable. They will need calm and steady mounts for the passage. Once they have made the journey to the market-circle, I believe there is still a journey to the quarry?’
‘There is,’ Lady Kettricken admitted slowly. ‘At least we still have fine weather for it. It took us days in the winter. We had to hunt for our food, but this time, we will carry provisions. We shall do better without the snow, and I recall the way.’
‘My lady. When did you last go out riding?’
Her shoulders rounded and she looked at her curled hands. ‘But it is Fitz,’ she said softly.
‘And a coterie will reach him much faster than a full expedition. I will be sure that they take at least two who are skilled healers. In the event he is actually there, they will bring him home to us.’
Lady Kettricken made a final effort. ‘I have a map I have created, of the journey. It will speed us.’