"I am saying that I want the same things you do. I wish to be with the one I love, to raise our child with her." I met her eyes. "Tell me I can have that. It is all I have ever wanted."

She met my eyes squarely. "I cannot make you that promise, FitzChivalry. She is too important for simple love to claim her."

The words struck me as both utterly absurd and completely true. I bowed my head in what was not assent. I stared a hole into the floor, trying to find other choices, other ways.

"I know what you will say next," Kettricken said bitterly. "That if I claim your child for the throne, you will not help me find Verity. I have considered long and well, knowing that this will sever me from your help. I am prepared to seek him out on my own. I have the map. Somehow, I shall…"

"Kettricken." I cut into her speech with her name said quietly, bereft of her title. I had not meant to. I saw it startled her. I found myself slowly shaking my head. "You do not understand. Were Molly standing here before me with our daughter, still I would have to seek my king. No matter what is done to me, no matter how I am wronged. Still, I must seek Verity."

My words changed the faces in the room. Chade lifted his head and looked at me with fierce pride shining in his eyes. Kettricken turned aside, blinking at tears. I think she may have felt slightly ashamed. To the Fool, I was once more his Catalyst. In Starling there bloomed the hope that I might still be worthy of a legend.

But in me there was the overriding hunger for the absolute. Verity had shown it to me, in its pure physical form. I would answer my king's Skill-command and serve him as I had vowed. But another call beckoned me now as well. The Skill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Mountains

One might suppose that the Mountain Kingdom, with its sparse hamlets and scattered folk, was a new realm but recently gathered together. In truth, its history far predates any of the written records of the Six Duchies. To call this region a kingdom is truly a misnomer. In ancient times, the diverse hunters, herders, and farmers, both nomadic and settled, gradually gave their allegiance to a Judge, a woman of great wisdom, who resided at Jhaampe. Although this person has come to be called the King or Queen of the Mountains by outsiders, to the residents of the Mountain Kingdom, he or she is still the Sacrifice, the one who is willing to give all, even life, for the sake of those who are ruled. The first Judge who lived at Jhaampe as now a shadowy figure of legend, her deeds known only by the songs of her that Mountain folk still sing.

Yet old as those songs are, there is an even older rumor of a more ancient ruler and capital city. The Mountain Kingdom, as we know it today, consists almost entirely of the wandering folk and settlements on the eastern flanks of the Mountains. Beyond the Mountains lie the icy shores that border the White Sea. Some few trade routes still meander through the sharp teeth of the Mountains to reach the hunting folk who live in that snowy place. To the south of the Mountains are the unsettled forests of the Rain Wilds, and somewhere the source of the Rain River that is the trade boundary of the Chalced States. These are the only lands and folks that have been truly charted beyond the Mountains. Yet there have always been legends of another land, one locked and lost in the peaks beyond the Mountain Kingdom. As one travels deeper in the Mountains, past the boundaries of the folk who owe allegiance to Jhaampe, the land becomes even more rugged and unyielding. Snow never leaves the taller peaks, and some valleys host only glacial ice. In some areas, it is said that great steams and smokes pour up from cracks in the mountains and that the earth may tremble quietly or wrench itself in violent shakings. There are few reasons for anyone to venture into that region of scree and cliffs. Hunting is easier and more profitable on the greener slopes of the mountains. There is insufficient grazing to lure any shepherd's flocks.

Regarding that land, we have the usual tales that distant lands spawn. Dragons and giants, ancient tumbledown cities, savage unicorns, treasure hoards and secret maps, dusty streets paved with gold, valleys of eternal spring where the water rises steaming from the ground, dangerous sorcerers spell-locked in caves of gems and ancient sleeping evils embedded in the earth. All are said to reside in the ancient, nameless land beyond the boundaries of the Mountain Kingdom.

Kettricken truly had expected me to refuse to help her search for Verity. In the days of my convalescence she had determined she would seek for him on her own, and to that end she had mustered supplies and animals. In the Six Duchies, a queen would have had the royal treasury to draw on, as well the enforced largesse of her nobles. Such was not the case in the Mountain Kingdom. Here, while King Eyod remained alive, she was no more than a younger relative of the Sacrifice. While it was expected that she would succeed him someday, it gave her no right to command the wealth of her people. In truth, even were she Sacrifice, she would have not had access to riches and resources. The Sacrifice and his immediate family lived simply within their beautiful dwelling. All of Jhaampe, the palace, the gardens, the fountains, all belonged to the folk of the Mountain Kingdom. The Sacrifice did not want for anything, but neither did he possess excess.

So Kettricken turned not to royal coffers and nobles eager to curry favor, but to old friends and cousins for what she needed. She had approached her father, but he had told her, firmly but sadly, that finding the King of the Six Duchies was her concern, not that of the Mountain Kingdom. Much as he grieved with his daughter over the disappearance of the man she loved, he could not divert supplies from defending the Mountain Kingdom from Regal of the Six Duchies. Such was the bond between them that she could accept his refusal with understanding. It shamed me to think of the rightful Queen of the Six Duchies turning to the charity of her relatives and friends. But only when I was not nursing my resentment toward her.

She had designed the expedition to her convenience, not mine. I approved of little of it. In the few days before we departed, she deigned to consult me on some aspects of it, but my opinions were overridden as often as they were listened to. We spoke to one another civilly, without the warmth of either anger or friendship. There were many areas where we disagreed, and when we did, she did as she judged wisest. Unspoken but implied was that my judgment in the past had been faulty and shortsighted.

I wanted no beasts of burden that might starve and freeze. Block as I might, the Wit left me vulnerable to their pain. Kettricken, however, had procured half a dozen creatures that she claimed did not mind snow and cold, and browsed rather than grazed. They were jeppas, creatures native to some of the remoter parts of the Mountain Kingdom. They reminded me of long necked goats with paws instead of hooves. I had small faith that they would be able to carry enough to make them worth the nuisance of dealing with them. Kettricken told me calmly that I would soon get used to them.

It all depends on how they taste, Nighteyes suggested philosophically. I was prone to agree with him.

Her choice of companions for the expedition irked me even more. I saw no sense to her risking herself, but on that point I knew better than to argue. I resented Starling's going, once I discovered what she had bargained to be allowed to go. Her reason was still to find a song that would make her reputation. She had bought her place in our group by her unspoken trade that only if she were allowed to go would she make written record that Molly's child was mine also. She knew I felt she had betrayed me, and wisely avoided my company after that. With us would go three cousins of Kettricken's, all big, stoutly muscled folk well practiced in traveling through the Mountains. It would not be a large party. Kettricken assured me that if six were not enough to find Verity, then six hundred would not suffice. I agreed with her that it was easier to supply a smaller party; and that often they traveled faster than large groups.