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.
Confined as I was to Buckkeep, I had little direct access to the talk of the common folk. A silence greeted my entry to the watchroom now. With, my restriction to the Keep had come gossip and speculation. The talk that had flown about me on the day I had failed to save the little girl from the Forged ones found new life. Few of the guard spoke to me of anything other than the weather or other pleasantries. While they did not make me a total pariah, I was banished from the easy conversations and rambling arguments that usually filled the watchroom. To talk to me had become bad luck. I wouldn’t inflict that on men and women I cared about.
I was still welcome about the stables, but I strove not to talk to any one person too much, or appear too close to any of the beasts. The stable workers were a morose lot these days. There was not enough work to busy them, so quarrels were more frequent. The stable hands were my major source of news and rumors. None of it was cheery. There were garbled stories of raids on Beams towns, gossip about brawls in the taverns and on the docks of Buckkeep Town, and accounts of folk moving south or inland as their means allowed. What talk there was of Verity and his quest was demeaning or ridiculing. Hope had perished. Like me, the folk of Buckkeep were waiting in suspense for disaster to come to their doorsteps.