Twelve: Suspicions

The caravan struggles through a hungover morning. Starling warns “Tom” to hide his white hair and hints the King’s Guard seeks a scarred, white-streaked Witted man. That night she sings of Antler Island and Fitz’s legend, stirring rumors. At a sinkhole camp, Tassin confronts Fitz, accuses him of being the Bastard, and tries to extort coin; later Starling privately proposes traveling to the Mountains, implying she knows his identity but wants a song, not a bounty.

Fitz stays with the caravan to avoid confirming suspicions. At a watering place, six King’s Guards under Bolt arrive and commandeer the camp. Fitz keeps close to Madge’s wagon and hovers near the cooking, quietly setting the stage for poison. Before dawn, the Guards seize him for inspection; Bolt recognizes Fitz by an old bite scar and has him shackled despite Fitz’s denials. Madge washes her hands of him; Fitz attempts a desperate run but is felled and chained.

At daybreak, Bolt questions and beats Fitz, but a guard reminds him the bounty requires Fitz alive. The troop mounts to return to Tradeford; Fitz rides bound and battered. Soon Arno collapses and dies, and others sicken. Bolt, wary and weakening, forces the pace as vomiting and dehydration spread. Joff falls; the troop makes a miserable camp with most guards incapacitated.

By dawn, multiple guards are dead. Bolt, still suspecting poison yet blaming bad water, tries to cut Fitz’s throat with Fitz’s own knife. Fitz smashes Bolt’s face with his shackles and drives him back with the Wit, and Bolt dies. A young guard, delirious, offers water and the key for a cure; when Fitz admits it was poison, the youth hurls the key away and dies driving off the horses.

Fitz painstakingly finds the lost key, frees himself, and scavenges gear, recovering Burrich’s earring and his poisons, clothing, food, and tools. Too weak for pursuit and with the horses gone, he sets out on foot toward the previous waterhole. A faint, hesitant Wit-contact with Nighteyes confirms they both live, giving Fitz thin strength to continue.