It was a summer of misery, and not just for me. While I was lonely and bitter and outgrowing all my clothes, while I snapped and snarled at any foolish enough to speak to me and drank myself insensible several times a week, I was still aware of how the Six Duchies were racked. The Red-Ship Raiders, bolder than ever before, harried our coastline. This summer, in addition to threats, they finally began to make demands. Grain, cattle, the right to take whatever they wished from our seaports, the right to beach their boats and live off our lands and people for the summer, their choice of our folk for slaves … each demand was more intolerable than the last, and the only thing more intolerable than the demands were the Forgings that followed each refusal by the King.
Common folk were abandoning the seaport and waterfront towns. One could not blame them, but it left our coastline even more vulnerable. More soldiers were hired, and more, and so the levies were raised to pay them, and folk grumbled under the burden of the taxes and their fear of the Red-Ship Raiders. Even stranger were the Outislanders who came to our shore in their family ships, their raiding vessels left behind, to beg asylum of our people, and to tell wild tales of chaos and tyranny in the Out Islands, where the Red-Ships now ruled completely. They were a mixed blessing, perhaps. They were cheaply hired as soldiers, though few really trusted them. But at least their tales of the Out Islands under Red-Ship domination were harrowing enough to keep anyone from thinking of giving in to the Raiders’ demands.
About a month after my return, Chade opened his door to me. I was sullen over his neglect of me and went more slowly up his stairs than ever I had before. But when I got there, he looked up from crushing seeds with a pestle with a face full of weariness. “I am glad to see you,” he said, with nothing of gladness in his voice.
“That’s why you were so swift to welcome me back,” I observed sourly:
He stopped his grinding. “I’m sorry. I thought perhaps you would need a time alone, to recover yourself.” He looked back to his seeds. “It has not been an easy winter and spring for me, either. Shall we try to put the time behind us, and go on?”
It was a gentle, reasonable suggestion. I knew it was’ wise.
“Have I any choice?” I asked sarcastically.
Chade finished grinding his seed. He scraped it into a finely woven sieve and put it over a cup to drip. “No,” he said at last, as if he had considered it well. “No, you don’t, and neither do I. In many things, we have no choice.” He looked at me, his eyes running up and down me, and then poked at his seed again. “You,” he said, “will stop drinking anything but water or tea for the rest of the summer. Your sweat stinks of wine. And for one so young, your muscles are lax. A winter of Galen’s meditations has done your body no good at all. See that you exercise it. Take it upon yourself, as of today, to climb to Verity’s tower four times a day. You will take him food, and the teas I will show you how to prepare. You will never show him a sullen face, but will always be cheerful and friendly. Perhaps a while of waiting on Verity will convince you that I have had reasons for my attention not being centered on you. That is what you will do each day you are at Buckkeep. There will be some days when you will be fulfilling other assignments for me.
It had not taken many words from Chade to awaken shame in myself. My perception of my life crashed from high tragedy to juvenile self-pity in a matter of moments. “I have been idle,” I admitted.
“You have been stupid,” Chade agreed. “You had a month in which to take charge of your own life. You behaved like … a spoiled brat. I have no wonder that Burrich is disgusted with you.”