“They were all dressed in pale colors. Even Bee was wrapped in something white. But I saw the edge of something. Something red. Like the dress the lady was wearing earlier.”
Chade dragged in a ragged breath, a sound of dread, or hope. “You saw her earlier?” he pressed the boy.
He gave a single nod. “Bee and I were hiding behind the hedge. The raiders had herded all our folk out of the manor and into the courtyard in front of the house. Bee hid the children in the wall, but when she went to follow them after we hid the tracks, they’d shut the door. So she went with me. And we hid behind the hedge and went to see what was happening. The soldiers were shouting at everyone, telling them to sit down, even though they were in house-clothes and the wind was blowing and the snow was falling on them. When we saw them like that, I thought Scribe Lant was dead. He was facedown in the snow, and it was red all around him. And Lady Shun was there with the others, in a torn red dress, with two of the housemaids. Caution and Scurry.”
I saw those words hit Chade. A torn dress. Deny what it might mean but the knowledge would still burrow into him like a worm. Her dress torn, and then she was carted away like plunder. At the very least, there had been violence. Rape was likely. Damage done. He swallowed audibly. “Are you certain?”
Perseverance paused before he answered. “I saw something red on the sleigh. That’s all I can be certain about.”
Thick entered without knocking, with FitzVigilant behind him. “I don’t like this place,” he announced to us. “They all sing the same song, No, no, no, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.”
“Who does?” I asked him, startled.
He stared at me as if I were the half-wit. “Everyone!” He flung his arms wide. Then he looked around the room and pointed at Perseverance. “Everyone except him. He makes no song. Chade says, Don’t make your music loud. Keep your music inside a box. But they are not keeping their song in a box and it makes me sad.”
My gaze met Chade’s. We shared the same suspicion. “Let me listen for a moment,” I said to Thick.
“For a moment?” Thick exclaimed, outraged. “You listened and listened. When I got here, you were listening to it so much you couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t feel you. And you are doing it again, right now.”
I touched my fingers to my lips. He scowled at me, but was still. I listened, not with my ears but with my Skill. I heard Thick’s music, the constant Skill-sending that was so much a part of him that I now blocked it without even thinking about it. I closed my eyes and sank deeper into the Skill-current. And there I found it, the roaring whisper of a hundred minds reminding each other not to think about it, not to remember who had died, not to remember the screams or the flames or the blood on the snow. I pressed on the whispers and behind them I could glimpse what they hid from themselves. I retreated. I opened my eyes and found Chade watching me.
“He’s correct,” Chade confirmed quietly.
I nodded.
The Skill is popularly believed to be the magic of the royal Farseer line. And perhaps it is true that in our bloodlines it runs stronger and more potent. But when a summoning goes out that will reach only those who already possess the Skill to a useful degree, it is answered as often by a shoemaker or a fisherman as it is by a duke’s son. I had long suspected that all people possessed at least a rudimentary level of this magic. Molly was unSkilled, yet how often had I seen her rise and go to Bee’s crib moments before the child woke. The man who “had a bad feeling” at the moment that his soldier son was wounded or the woman who opened the door before her suitor could knock all seemed to be utilizing the Skill, even if they were unaware of it. Now the unspoken agreement that no one would remember the terrible events that had happened at Withywoods hummed like a hive of angry bees once I let myself be aware of it. All the folk of Withywoods, shepherds, arbor- and orchard-folk and house-servants, breathed the same forgetfulness. The fury simmered with their ardent desire that no one come to Withywoods, that no one wake them to what had befallen them. It flooded me with their lost hopes and dreams.
“They have to be made to remember,” Chade said softly. “It is our only hope for recovering our daughters.”
“They don’t want to,” I protested.
“Yah,” Thick agreed morosely. “Someone told them not to, and then made it seem like a good idea. They don’t want to remember. They all keep telling each other, Don’t remember, don’t remember.”
Once aware of it, I could not clear it from my senses. It was a ringing in my ears.