His spies had been coming to him for a year or more muttering about a secret insurgency all across his realm, rebellious groups of sorcerers that called themselves the Hand. Eager to find his enemy, he had one such group investigated. They turned out to be a lot of old women, midwives, carpenters, a ditchdigger, a tinsmith’s prentice, a couple of little boys. Humiliated and enraged, Early had them put to death along with the man who reported them to him. It was a public execution, in Losen’s name, for the crime of conspiracy against the King. There had perhaps not been enough of that kind of intimidation lately. But it went against his grain. He didn’t like to make a public spectacle of fools who had tricked him into fearing them. He would rather have dealt with them in his own way, in his own time. To be nourishing, fear must be immediate; he needed to see people afraid of him, hear their terror, smell it, taste it. But since he ruled in Losen’s name, it was Losen who must be feared by the armies and the peoples, and he himself must keep in the background, making do with slaves and prentices.
Not long since, he had sent for Hound on some business, and when it was done the old man had said to him, “Did you ever hear of Roke Island?”
“South and west of Kamery. The Lord of Wathort’s owned it for forty or fifty years.”
Though he seldom left the city, Early prided himself on his knowledge of all the Archipelago, gleaned from his sailors’ reports and the marvelous ancient charts kept in the palace. He studied them nights, brooding on where and how he might extend his empire.
Hound nodded, as if its location was all that had interested him in Roke.
“Well?”
“One of the old women you had tortured before they burned the lot, you know? Well, the fellow who did it told me. She talked about her son on Roke. Calling out to him to come, you know. But like as if he had the power to.”
“Well?”
“Seemed odd. Old woman from a village inland, never seen the sea, calling the name of an island away off like that.”
“The son was a fisherman who talked about his travels.”
Early waved his hand. Hound sniffed, nodded, and left.
Early never disregarded any triviality Hound mentioned, because so many of them had proved not to be trivial. He disliked the old man for that, and because he was unshakable. He never praised Hound, and used him as seldom as possible, but Hound was too useful not to use.
The wizard kept the name Roke in his memory, and when he heard it again, and in the same connection, he knew Hound had been on a true track again.
Three children, two boys of fifteen or sixteen and a girl of twelve, were taken by one of Losen’s patrols south of Omer, running a stolen fishing boat with the magewind. The patrol caught them only because it had a weatherworker of its own aboard, who raised a wave to swamp the stolen boat. Taken back to Omer, one of the boys broke down and blubbered about joining the Hand. Hearing that word, the men told them they would be tortured and burned, at which the boy cried that if they spared him he would tell them all about the Hand, and Roke, and the great mages of Roke.
“Bring them here,” Early said to the messenger.
“The girl flew away, lord,” the man said unwillingly.
“Flew away?”
“She took bird form. Osprey, they said. Didn’t expect that from a girl so young. Gone before they knew it.”
“Bring the boys, then,” Early said with deadly patience.
They brought him one boy. The other had jumped from the ship, crossing Havnor Bay, and been killed by a crossbow quarrel. The boy they brought was in such a paroxysm of terror that even Early was disgusted by him. How could he frighten a creature already blind and beshatten with fear? He set a binding spell on the boy that held him upright and immobile as a stone statue, and left him so for a night and a day. Now and then he talked to the statue, telling it that it was a clever lad and might make a good prentice, here in the palace. Maybe he could go to Roke after all, for Early was thinking of going to Roke, to meet with the mages there.