“Oh. I see. And you know so much of Forged folk, do you, more than those who have been robbed by them?”
Her tart words caught me off balance and it was a moment or two before I could speak. Molly knew nothing of Chade and me, let alone of my side trip with him to Forge. To her, I was an errand boy for the keep, working for the stablemaster when I wasn’t fetching for the scribe. I couldn’t betray my firsthand knowledge, let alone how I had sensed what Forging was.
“I’ve heard the talk of the guards, when they’re around the stables and kitchens at night. Soldiers like them have seen much of all kinds of folk, and they’re the ones who say that the Forged ones have no friendships, no family, no kinship ties at all left. Still, I suppose if one of them took to robbing travelers, others would copy him, and it would be almost the same as a band of robbers.”
“Perhaps.” She seemed mollified by my comments. “Look, let’s climb up there to eat.”
“Up there” was a shelf on the cliff’s edge rather than the breakwater. But I assented with a nod, and the next handful of minutes were spent in getting ourselves and our basket up there. It required more arduous climbing than our earlier expeditions had. I caught myself watching to see how Molly would manage her skirts, and taking opportunities to catch at her arm to balance her, or take her hand to help her up a steep bit while she kept hold of the basket. In a flash of insight I knew that Molly’s suggestion that we climb had been her way of manipulating the situation to cause this. We finally gained the ledge and sat, looking out over the water with her basket between us, and I was savoring my awareness of her awareness of me. It reminded me of the clubs of the Springfest jugglers as they handed them back and forth, back and forth, more and more and faster and faster. The silence lasted until a time when one of us had to speak. I looked at her, but she looked aside. She looked into the basket and said, “Oh, dandelion wine? I thought that wasn’t any good until after midwinter.”
“It’s last year’s . . . it’s had a winter to age,” I told her, and took it from her to work the cork loose with my knife. She watched me worry at it for a while, and then took it from me, and drawing her own slender sheath knife, she speared and twisted it out with a practiced knack that I envied.
She caught my look and shrugged. “I’ve been pulling corks for my father for as long as I can remember. It used to be because he was too drunk. Now he doesn’t have the strength in his hands anymore, even when he’s sober.” Pain and bitterness mingled in her words.
“Ah.” I floundered for a more pleasant topic. “Look, the Rainmaiden.” I pointed out over the water to a sleek-hulled ship coming into the harbor under oars. “I’ve always thought her the most beautiful ship in the harbor.”
“She’s been on patrol. The cloth merchants took up a collection. Almost every merchant in town contributed. Even I, although all I could spare was candles for her lanterns. She’s manned with fighters now, and escorts the ships between here and Highdowns. The Greenspray meets them there and takes them farther up the coast.”
“I hadn’t heard that.” And it surprised me that I had not heard such a thing up in the keep itself. My heart sank in me, that even Buckkeep Town was taking measures independent of the King’s advice or consent. I said as much.
“Well, folk have to do whatever they can if all King Shrewd is going to do is click his tongue and frown about it. It’s well enough for him to bid us to be strong when he sits secure up in his castle. It isn’t as if his son or brother or little girl will be Forged.”
It shamed me that I could think of nothing to say in my king’s defense. And shame stung me to say, “Well, you’re almost as safe as the King himself, living here below in Buckkeep Town.”
Molly looked at me levelly. “I had a cousin, apprenticed out in Forge Town.” She paused, then said carefully, “Will you think me cold when I say that we were relieved to hear he had only been killed? It was uncertain for a week or so, but finally we had word from one who had seen him die. And my father and I were both relieved. We could grieve, knowing that his life was simply over and we would miss him. We no longer had to wonder if he was still alive and behaving like a beast, causing misery to others and shame to himself.”
I was silent for a bit. Then: “I’m sorry.” It seemed inadequate, and I reached out to pat her motionless hand. For a second it was almost as if I couldn’t feel her there, as if her pain had shocked her into an emotional numbness the equal of a Forged one. But then she sighed and I felt her presence again beside me. “You know,” I ventured, “perhaps the King himself does not know what to do either. Perhaps he is at as great a loss for a solution as we are.”