For a moment, I was stymied. Then I replied, “But if the Wit had not been held a shameful thing, none of that would have been true. If you had spoken of it as Old Blood and taught me why I must not bond, if the Wit had been held in esteem as the Skill is, then all would have been well.”
His face darkened with rising blood, and for a moment I glimpsed Burrich's old temper. Then, with a patience that only time could have taught him, he said quietly, “Fitz. It is a thing I was taught from the time my grandmother first discovered the taint in me. The Wit is shameful magic, and it shames a man to practice it. Now, you talk of people who practice it openly and find no disgrace in it. Well, I have heard of places where men marry their sisters and have children, where women go about with their breasts showing, where it is not accounted shameful to discard your mate simply because her youth has faded. Yet, would you teach your children that these behaviors are good? Or would you teach them to live as you yourself were taught?”
Chade startled me when he spoke. “There are unspoken rules to every society. Most of us never question them. But surely, Burrich, you must have at some time wondered about what you were taught. Did you never decide that you would determine for yourself if the magic was worth having?”
Burrich turned to regard Chade with his clouded eyes. What did he see? A shape, a shadow, or only his Wit-sense of the old man?
“I always knew it was worth having, Lord Chade. But I was an adult, and I knew the cost of it. Your prince out there; what price would he have to pay for his useful, worthwhile magic if it became known that he was Witted? You deny he has it to shield him from hatred and prejudice. Do you fault me that I tried to shield Chivalry's son?”
Chade looked down at the work of his hands and didn't answer. He had finished. Six containers, everything from flasks to saltboxes, were filled with his explosive powder and resting in kettles or pots. “I'm ready,” he said. He lifted his gaze to me and smiled a strange smile. “Let's go and free the dragon.”
I could not read his green eyes. I could not decide if he truly intended to free the dragon from the ice or meant to blast it to pieces. Perhaps he himself didn't know. But as if his resolve were contagious, I suddenly felt tight with the need to end this.
“How dangerous is this?” Burrich asked.
“Just as dangerous as it was last night,” Chade replied testily.
Burrich put out a hand and ran his fingertips lightly across the pots. “Not six times as dangerous?” he asked. “How will you do it? Will one man set them all, or six?”
Chade thought a moment. “Six men, each to get a kettle fire going. And then Fitz, to go down the line putting the containers in each pot.”
I nodded to the wisdom of that. Six men each judging their own time to put the powder in and flee might end up running into one another. “I'll do it.”
I carried three of the pots and Chade carried the other three. Burrich brought the sack of fuel and a smaller kettle of coals from the guards' hoarded night fire. The day seemed very bright to me as we walked up the hill. It was warm, for that place, and the sun glinted off the glistening ice. As we walked up the hill together, Burrich asked me, “Are you sure Nettle is safe now? I do not understand the risk she took, but it seems to have frightened all of you.”
I swallowed and admitted my guilt. “I asked her to go into the dragon's dream and wake him. Her strongest Skill-talent is the manipulation of dreams. I never paused to consider that it might be dangerous, that the dreams of a dragon might be a far different challenge than the dreams of a man.”
“Yet still she went?” There was quiet pride in Burrich's voice.
“Yes, she did. Because I asked her. I'm ashamed that I risked her.”
He was silent for several strides then said, “So. She knows you, and knows you well enough to trust you. For how long?”
“I'm not sure. It's a hard thing to explain, Burrich.” I felt a flush rise but forced myself to speak on. “I used to . . . look in on you. Not often. Only when it got so . . . It was wrong of me.”
His silence was long. Then he said, “That must have been a special torment for you. For the most part, we have been happy.”
I took a deep breath. “Yes. It was. Yet I never realized I was involving Nettle to do it. She was my . . . I don't know, my focus point, I suppose. After a time, she became aware of me. She knew me through her dreams of me, as a, as a wolf-man.” I halted, flustered.
Burrich almost kept the amusement out of his voice as he said, “Well. That accounts for some very odd nightmares, when she was small.”