Fool’s Errand (Tawny Man Trilogy Book One) by Robin Hobb (9)

I awoke in the night with a jolt. Malta. I had left the Fool’s mare picketed out on the hillside. The pony would come in, and likely had even put herself within the barn, but I had left the horse out there, all day, with no water.

There was only one thing to do about it. I arose silently and left the cabin, not closing the door behind me lest the shut of it awaken the Fool. Even the wolf I left sleeping as I walked out into the dark alone. I stopped briefly at the barn. As I suspected, the pony had come in. I touched her gently with my Wit-sense. She was sleeping and I left her where she was.

I climbed the hill to where I had picketed the horse, glad that I was not walking in the true dark of a winter night. The stars and the full moon seemed very close. Even so, my familiarity with my path guided me more than my eyes. As I came up on Malta, the horse gave a rebuking snort. I untied her picket line and led her down the hill. When the stream cut our path on its way to the sea, I stopped and let her drink.

It was a beautiful summer night. The air was mild. The chirring of night insects filled the air, accompanied by the sound of the horse sucking water. I let my gaze wander, filling myself with the night. Dark stole the colours of the grass and trees, but somehow their stark shades of black and grey made the landscape seem more intricate. The moisture in the cooler air awoke all the summer scents that had dozed by day. I opened my mouth and drew in a deep breath, tasting the night more fully. I gave myself up to my senses, letting go of my human cares, taking this moment of now and letting it stretch eternally around me. My Wit unfurled around me and I became one with the night splendour.

There is a natural euphoria to the Wit. It is both like and unlike the Skill. With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby me that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt even the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice’s note within a market’s roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgement: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit.

That rightness of unity washed through me, laving away the nastiness of the Skill-greed that had earlier befouled my soul. I took a deeper breath, and then breathed it out as if it were my last, willing myself to be part of this good, clean night.

My vision wavered, doubled, and then cleared. For a pent breath of time, I was not myself, was not on the summer hillside near my cabin, and I was not alone.

I was a boy again, escaped from confining stone walls and tangling bedclothes. I ran lightshod through a sheep pasture dotted with tufts of ungrazed weeds, trying vainly to keep up with my companion. She was as beautiful as the star-dotted night, her tawny coat spangled with darkness. She moved as unobtrusively as night herself did. I followed her, not with human eyes, but with the Wit-bond that joined us. I was drunk with love of her and love of this night, intoxicated with the heady rush of this wild freedom. I knew I had to go back before the sun rose. She knew, just as strongly, that we did not, that there was no better time than now to make our escape.

And in my next breath, that knowing was gone. The night still bloomed and beckoned around me, but I was a grown man, not a boy lost in the wonder of his first Wit-bond. I did not know who my senses had brushed, or where they were, nor why we had meshed our awarenesses so completely. I wondered if he had been as cognizant of me as I was of him. It did not matter. Wherever they were, whoever they were, I wished them well in their night’s hunting. I hoped their bond would last long and be deep as their bones.

I felt a questioning tug at the lead rope. Malta had quenched her thirst and had no wish to stand still while the insects feasted on her. I became aware that my own warm body had attracted a swarm of little blood-suckers as well. She swished her tail and I waved my hand about my head before we set off down the hill once more. I stabled her, and slipped softly back into the cabin, to seek out my own bed for the rest of the night. Nighteyes had stretched out, leaving me less than half the bed, but I did not mind. I stretched out beside him, and set my hand lightly on his ribs. The beating of his heart and the movement of his breath were more soothing than any lullaby. As I closed my eyes, I felt more at peace than I had in weeks.

I awoke easily and early the next morning. My interlude on the hillside seemed to have rested me more than sleep. The wolf had not fared so well. He still slept heavily, a healing sleep. I felt a twinge of conscience over that, but pushed it aside. Whatever I had done to his heart seemed to tax the resources of the rest of his body, but surely that was better than letting him die. I surrendered the bed to him and left him sleeping.

The Fool was not about, but the door was left standing open, a fair indication that he had gone out. I set a small fire, put on the kettle, and then took some time with washing up and shaving. I had just smoothed my hair back behind my ears when I heard the Fool’s footsteps on the porch. He entered with a basket of eggs on his arm. When I looked up from drying my face, he stopped in his tracks. A wide grin spread slowly over his face.

‘Why, it’s Fitz! A bit older, a bit more worn, but Fitz all the same. I had wondered what you looked like under that thatch.’

I glanced back into the mirror. ‘I suppose I don’t take much pains with my appearance any more.’ I grimaced at myself, then dabbed at a spot of blood. As usual, I had nicked myself where the old scar from my time in Buckkeep’s dungeons seamed my face. Thank you, Regal. ‘Starling told me that I look far older than my years. That I could return to Buckkeep Town and never fear that anyone would recognize me.’

The Fool made a small sound of disgust as he set the eggs on the table. ‘Starling is, as usual, wrong on both counts. For the number of years and lives you have lived, you look remarkably young. It’s true that experience and time have changed your features; folk recalling the boy Fitz would not see him grown to a man in you. Yet, some of us, my friend, would recognize you even if you were flayed and set afire.’

‘Now there’s a comforting thought.’ I set the mirror down and turned to the task of making breakfast. ‘Your colour has changed,’ I observed a moment later as I broke eggs into a bowl. ‘But you yourself don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you.’

The Fool was filling the teapot with steaming water. ‘It’s the way of my kind,’ he said quietly. ‘Our lives are longer, so we progress through them more slowly. I’ve changed, Fitz, even if all you see is the colour of my flesh. When last you saw me, I was just approaching adulthood. All sorts of new feelings and ideas were blossoming in me, so many that I scarce could keep my mind on the tasks at hand. When I recall how I behaved, well, even I am scandalized. Now, I assure you, I am far more mature. I know that there is a time and place for everything, and that what I am destined to do must take full precedent over anything I might long to do for myself.’

I poured the beaten eggs into a pan and set them at the fire’s edge. I spoke slowly. ‘When you speak in riddles, it exasperates me. Yet when you try to speak clearly of yourself, it frightens me.’

‘All the more reason why I should not speak of myself at all,’ he exclaimed with false heartiness. ‘Now. What be our tasks for the day?’

I thought it out as I stirred the setting eggs and pushed them closer to the fire. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly.

He looked startled at the sudden change in my voice. ‘Fitz? Are you all right?’

I myself could not explain the sudden lurch in my spirits. ‘Suddenly, it all seems so pointless. When I knew Hap was going to be here for the winter, I always took care to provide for us both. My garden was a quarter that size when the boy first came to me, and Nighteyes and I hunted day to day for our meat. If we did not hunt well and went empty for a day or so, it did not seem of much consequence. Now, I look at all I have already set by and think, if the boy is not here, if Hap is wintering with a master while he starts to learn his trade, why, then I already have plenty for both Nighteyes and me. Sometimes it seems that there’s no point to it. And then I wonder if there’s any point left to my life at all.’

A frown divided the Fool’s brows. ‘How melancholy you sound. Or is this the elfbark I’m hearing?’

‘No.’ I took up the shirred eggs and brought them to the table. It was almost a relief to speak the thoughts I’d been denying. ‘I think it was why Starling brought Hap to me. I think she saw how aimless my life had become, and brought me someone to give shape to my days.’

The Fool set down plates with a clatter, and dished food onto them in disgusted splats. ‘I think you give her credit for thinking of something beyond her own needs. I suspect she picked up the boy on an impulse, and dumped him here when she wearied of him. It was just lucky for both of you that you helped each other.’

I said nothing. His vehemence in his dislike for Starling surprised me. I sat down at the table and began eating. But he had not finished.

‘If Starling meant for anyone to give shape to your days, it was herself. I doubt that she ever imagined you might need anyone’s companionship other than hers.’

I had an uncomfortable suspicion he was right, especially when I recalled how she had spoken of Nighteyes and Hap on her last visit.

‘Well. What she thought or didn’t think scarcely matters now. One way or another, I’m determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do –’

‘Once you do, you’ll be free to take up your own life again. I’ve a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.’

‘You’ve “a feeling”?’ I asked him dryly. ‘Is this a Fool’s feeling, or a White Prophet’s feeling?’

‘As you never seemed to give credence to any of my prophecies, why should you care?’ He smiled archly at me and began eating his eggs.

‘A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.’

He swallowed. ‘It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn’t want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.’

‘And what is it, exactly, that we must do?’

‘Exactly?’ he queried with a raised eyebrow.

‘Exactly. And precisely,’ I challenged him.

‘Oh, very well, then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.’ He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot towards his hairline as he widened his eyes at me.

I lowered my brow into my hands. But he was grinning like a maniac and I could not contain my own smile. ‘Again? I don’t recall that we did it the first time.’

‘Of course we did. You’re alive, aren’t you? And there is an heir to the Farseer throne. Hence, we changed the course of all time. In the rutted path of fate, you were a rock, my dear Fitz. And you have shifted the grinding wheel out of its trough and into a new track. Now, of course, we must see that it remains there. That may be the most difficult part of all.’

‘And what, exactly and precisely, must we do to ensure that?’ I knew his words were bait for mockery, but as ever, I could not resist the question.

‘It’s quite simple.’ He ate a bite of eggs, enjoying my suspense. ‘Very simple, really.’ He pushed the eggs around on his plate, scooped up a bite, then set his spoon down. He looked up at me, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was solemn. ‘I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.’

‘And the thought of my survival makes you sad?’ I demanded in perplexity.

‘Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.’

I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. ‘I still don’t understand you,’ I replied irritably.

‘Yes, you do,’ he contradicted me implacably. ‘I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back on the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?’

His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. ‘Well. And when is that ever not true?’ I demanded of him.

There have been very few times in my life when I have been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overset his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. ‘Of course that is true,’ he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, ‘Of course it is!’

Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. ‘Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?’

Infectious as his fey mood was, I still managed to shake my head. ‘I have no idea if you are right or wrong.’

‘Then take my word for it. I am right. For am I not the White Prophet? And are not you my Catalyst, who comes to change the course of all time? Look at you. Not the hero, no. The changer. The one who, by his existence, enables others to be heroes. Ah, Fitz, Fitz, we are who we are and who we ever must be. And when I am discouraged, when I lose heart to the point of saying, “but why cannot I leave him here, to find what peace he may?”, then, lo and behold, you speak with the voice of the Catalyst, and change my perception of all that I do. And enable me to be once more what I must be. The White Prophet.’

I sat looking up at him. Despite my efforts, a smile twisted my mouth. ‘I thought I enabled other people to be heroes. Not prophets.’

‘Ah, well.’ He leapt lightly to the floor. ‘Some of us must be both, I fear.’ He gave himself a shake, and tugged his jerkin straight. Some of the wildness went out of him. ‘So. To return to my original question. What are our tasks today? My turn to give you the answer. Our first task today is to give no thought to the morrow.’

I took his advice, for that day at least. I did things I had not been giving myself permission to do, for they were not the serious tasks that provided against the morrow, but the simple work that brought me pleasure. I worked on my inks, not to take to market and sell for coin, but to try to create a true purple for my own pleasure. It yielded no success that day; all my purples turned to brown as they dried, but it was a work I enjoyed. As for the Fool, he amused himself by carving on my furniture. I glanced up at the sound of my kitchen knife scraping across wood. The movement caught his eye. ‘Sorry,’ he apologized at once. He held the knife up between two fingers to show me, and then carefully set it down. He got up from his chair and wandered over to his saddlepack. After a moment of digging, he tugged out a roll of fine bladed tools. Humming to himself, he went back to the table and set to on the chairs. He went bare-fingered to his task, tugging off the fine glove that usually masked his Skill-hand. As the day progressed, my simple chairs gained leafy vines twining up their backs, and occasional little faces peeping out of the foliage.

When I looked up from my work in mid-afternoon, I saw him come in with chunks of seasoned wood from my woodpile. I leaned back from my desk to watch him as he turned and considered each one, studying them and tracing their grain with his Skill-fingers as if he could read there secrets hidden to my eyes. At length he selected one with a knee in it and started in on it. He hummed to himself as he worked, and I left him to it.

Nighteyes woke once during the day. He clumped down from my bed with a sigh and tottered outside. I offered him food when he returned but he turned his nose up at it. He had drunk deeply, all the water he could hold, and he lay himself down with a sigh on the cool floor of the cabin. He slept again, but not as deeply.

And so I passed that day in pleasure, which is to say, in the sort of work I wanted to do rather than the work that I thought I ought to be doing. Chade came often to my mind that day. I wondered, as I seldom had before, at how the old assassin had passed his long hours and days up in his isolated tower before I had come to be his apprentice. Then I sniffed disdainfully at that image of him. Long before I had arrived, Chade had been the royal assassin, bearing the King’s Justice in the form of quiet work wherever it needed to go. The sizeable library of scrolls in his apartments and his endless experiments with poisons and deadly artifice were proof that he had known how to occupy his days. And he had had the welfare of the Farseer reign to give him a purpose in life.

Once, I, too, had shared that purpose. I had shrugged free of it to have a life of my own. Odd, that in the process I had somehow wrenched myself free of the very life I had thought to have to myself. To gain the freedom to enjoy my life, I had severed all connections with that old life. I had lost contact with all who had loved me and all I had loved.

That wasn’t the complete truth, but it suited my mood. An instant later, I realized I was wallowing in self-pity. My last three attempts at a purple ink were drying to brown, though one did have a very nice shade of rose to the brown. I set aside that scrap of paper, after making notes on it as to how I had got the colour. It would be good ink for botanical illustrations, I thought.

I unfolded my legs from my chair and rose, stretching. The Fool looked up from his work. ‘Hungry?’ I asked him.

He considered a moment. ‘I could eat. Let me cook. The food you make fills the stomach but does little more than that.’

He set aside the figurine he was working on. He saw me glance at it, and covered it, almost jealously. ‘When I’m finished,’ he promised, and began a purposeful ransacking of my cupboards. While he was tsk-ing over my lack of any interesting spices, I wandered outside. I crossed the stream, which could have led me gently down to the beach. Idly I walked up the hill, past both horse and pony grazing freely. At the crest of the hill I walked more slowly until I reached my bench. I sat down on it. Only a few steps away, the grassy hill gave way to sudden slate cliffs and the rocky beach below them. Seated on my bench, all I could see was the wide vista of ocean spread out before me. Restlessness walked through my bones again. I thought of my dream of the boy and the hunting cat out in the night and smiled to myself. Run away from it all, the cat had urged the boy, and the thought had all my sympathy.

Yet, years ago, that was what I had done, and this was what it had brought me. A life of peace and self-sufficiency, a life that should have satisfied me; yet, here I sat.

A time later, the Fool joined me. Nighteyes, too, came at his heels, to lay down at my feet with a martyred sigh. ‘Is it the Skill-hunger?’ the Fool asked with quiet sympathy.

‘No,’ I replied, and almost laughed. The hunger he had unknowingly waked in me yesterday was temporarily crippled by the elfbark I had consumed. I might long to Skill, but right now my mind was numbed to that ability.

‘I’ve put dinner to cook slow over a little fire, to keep from driving us out of the house. We’ve plenty of time.’ He paused, and then asked carefully, ‘And after you left the Old Blood folk, where did you go?’

I sighed. The wolf was right. Talking to the Fool did help me to think. But perhaps he made me think too much. I looked back through the years and gathered up the threads of my tale.

‘Everywhere. When we left there, we had no destination. So we wandered.’ I stared out across the water. ‘For four years, we wandered, all through the Six Duchies. I’ve seen Tilth in winter, when snow but a few inches deep blows across the wide plains but the cold seems to go down to the earth’s very bones. I crossed all of Farrow to reach Rippon, and then walked on to the coast. Sometimes I took work as a man, and bought bread, and sometimes the two of us hunted as wolves and ate our meat dripping.’

I glanced over at the Fool. He listened, his golden eyes intent on my story. If he judged me, his face gave no sign of it.

‘When we reached the coast, we took ship north, although Nighteyes did not enjoy it. I visited Bearns Duchy in the depth of one winter.’

‘Bearns?’ He considered that. ‘Once, you were promised to Lady Celerity of Bearns Duchy.’ The question was in his face but not his voice.

‘That was not of my will, as you recall. I did not go there to seek out Celerity. But I did glimpse Lady Faith, Duchess of Bearns, as she rode through the streets on her way to Ripplekeep Castle. She did not see me, and if she had, I am sure she would not have recognized the ragged wanderer as Lord FitzChivalry. I hear that Celerity married rich in both love and lands, and is now the Lady of Ice Towers near Ice Town.’

‘I am glad for her,’ the Fool said gravely.

‘And I. I never loved her, but I admired her spirit, and liked her well enough. I am glad of her good fortune.’

‘And then?’

‘I went to the Near Islands. From there, I wished to make the long crossing to the Out Islands, to see for myself the land of the folk who had raided and made us miserable for so long, but the wolf refused to even consider such a long sea journey.

‘So we returned to the mainland, and travelled south. We went mostly by foot though we took ship past Buckkeep and did not pause there. We journeyed down the coast of Rippon and Shoaks, and on beyond the Six Duchies. I didn’t like Chalced. We took ship from there just to get away from it.’

‘How far did you go?’ the Fool prompted when I fell silent.

I felt my mouth twist in a grin as I bragged, ‘All the way to Bingtown.’

‘Did you?’ His interest heightened. ‘And what did you think of it?’

‘Lively. Prosperous. It put me in mind of Tradeford. The elegant people and their ornate houses, with glass in every window. They sell books in street booths there, and in one street of their market, every shop has its own sort of magic. Just to walk down that way dizzied me. I could not tell you what kind of magic it was, but it pressed against my senses, giddying me like too strong perfume …’ I shook my head. ‘I felt like a backward foreigner, and no doubt so they thought me, in my rough clothes with a wolf at my side. Yet, despite all I saw there, the city couldn’t live up to the legend. What did we used to say? That if a man could imagine a thing, he could find it for sale in Bingtown. Well, I saw much there that was far beyond my imagining, but that didn’t mean it was something I’d want to buy. I saw great ugliness there, too. Slaves coming off a ship, with great cankers on their ankles from the chains. We saw one of their talking ships, too. I had always thought them just a tale.’ I grew silent for a moment, wondering how to convey what Nighteyes and I had sensed about that grim magic. ‘It wasn’t a magic I’d ever be comfortable around,’ I said at last.

The sheer humanity of the city had overwhelmed the wolf, and he was happy to leave as soon as I suggested it. I felt smaller after my visit there. I appreciated anew the wildness and isolation of Buck’s coast, and the rough militancy of Buckkeep. I had once thought Buckkeep the heart of all civilization, but in Bingtown they spoke of us as barbaric and rude. The comments I overheard stung, and yet I could not deny them. I left Bingtown a humbled man, resolved to add to my education and better discover the true width of the world. I shook my head at that recollection. Had I ever lived up to my resolve?

‘We didn’t have the money for ship passage, even if Nighteyes could have faced it. We decided to journey up the coast on foot.’

The Fool turned an incredulous face to me. ‘But you can’t do that!’

‘That’s what everyone warned us. I thought it was city talk, a warning from folk who had never travelled hard and rough. But they were right.’

Against all counsel, we attempted to travel by foot up the coastline. In the wild lands outside of Bingtown, we found strangeness that near surpassed what we had discovered beyond the Mountain Kingdoms. Well is that coast called the Cursed Shores. I was tormented by half-formed dreams, and sometimes my wakened imaginings were giddy and threatening. It distressed the wolf that I walked on the edges of madness. I can offer no reason for this. I suffered no fevers nor any of the other symptoms of the illnesses that can unseat a man’s mind, yet I was not myself as we passed through that rough and inhospitable country. Vivid dreams of Verity and our dragons came back to haunt me. Even awake, I tormented myself endlessly with the foolishness of past decisions, and thought often of ending my own life. Only the companionship of the wolf kept me from such an act. Looking back, I recall, not days and nights, but a succession of lucid and disturbing dreams. Not since I had first travelled on the Skill-road had I suffered such a contortion of my own thoughts. It is not an experience I would willingly repeat.

Never, before or since, had I seen a stretch of coast as devoid of humanity. Even the animals that lived there rang sharp and odd against my Wit-sense. The physical aspects of this coast were as foreign to us as the savour of it. There were bogs that steamed and stank and burned our nostrils, and lush marshes where all the plant life seemed twisted and deformed despite its rank and luxuriant growth. We reached the Rain River, which the folk of Bingtown call the Rain Wild River. I cannot say what distorted whim persuaded me to follow it inland, but I attempted it. The swampy shores, rank growth, and strange dreams of the place soon turned us back. Something in the soil ate at Nighteyes’ pads and weakened the tough leather boots I wore until they were little more than tatters. We admitted ourselves defeated, but then added a greater error to our wayward quest when we cut young trees to fashion a raft. Nighteyes’ nose had warned us against drinking any of the river water, but I had not fully appreciated what a danger it presented to us. Our makeshift raft barely lasted to carry us back to the mouth of the river, and we both incurred ulcerating sores from the touch of the water. We were relieved to get back to good honest saltwater. Despite the sting of it, it proved most healing to our sores.

Although Chalced has long claimed rightful domain of the land up to the Rain River, and has frequently asserted that Bingtown, too, lies within its reign, we saw no signs of any settlements on that coast. Nighteyes and I travelled a long and inhospitable way north. Three days past the Rain River, we seemed to leave the strangeness behind, but we journeyed another ten days before we encountered a human settlement. By then, regular washing in brine had healed much of our sores, and my thoughts seemed more my own, but we presented the aspect of a weary beggar and his mangy dog. Folk were not welcoming to us.

My footsore journey north through Chalced persuaded me that folk there are the most inimical in the world. I enjoyed Chalced fully as much as Burrich had led me to believe I would. Even their magnificent cities could not move me. The wonders of its architecture and the heights of its civilization are built on a foundation of human misery. The reality of widespread slavery appalled me.

I paused in my tale to glance at the freedom earring that hung from the Fool’s ear. It had been Burrich’s grandmother’s hard-won prize, the mark of a slave who had won freedom. The Fool lifted a hand to touch it with a finger. It hung next to several others carved of wood, and its silver network caught the eye.

‘Burrich,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘And Molly. I ask you directly this time. Did you ever seek them out?’

I hung my head for a moment. ‘Yes,’ I admitted after a time. ‘I did. It is odd you should ask now, for it was as I crossed Chalced that I was suddenly seized with the urge to see them.’

One evening as we camped well away from the road, I felt my sleep seized by a powerful dream. Perhaps the images came to me because in some corner of her heart, Molly kept still a place for me. Yet I did not dream of Molly as a lover dreams of his beloved. I dreamed of myself, I thought, small and hot and deathly ill. It was a black dream, a dream all of sensations without images. I lay curled tight against Burrich’s chest, and his presence and smell were the only comforts I knew in my misery. Then unbearably cool hands touched my fevered skin. They tried to lift me away, but I wiggled and cried out, clinging to him. Burrich’s strong arm closed around me again. ‘Leave her be,’ he commanded hoarsely.

I heard Molly’s voice from a distance, wavering and distorted. ‘Burrich, you’re as sick as she is. You can’t take care of her. Let me have her while you rest.’

‘No. Leave her beside me. You take care of Chiv and yourself.’

‘Your son is fine. Neither of us is ill. Only you and Nettle. Let me take her, Burrich.’

‘No,’ he groaned. His hand settled on me protectively. ‘This is how the Blood Plague began, when I was a boy. It killed everyone I loved. Molly, I couldn’t bear it if you took her away from me and she died. Please. Leave her beside me.’

‘So you can die together?’ she demanded, her weary voice going shrill.

There was terrible resignation in his voice. ‘If we must. Death is colder when it finds you alone. I will hold her to the last.’

He was not rational, and I felt both Molly’s anger and her fear for him. She brought him water, and I fussed when she half-sat him up to drink it. I tried to drink from the cup she held to my mouth, but my lips were cracked and sore, my head hurt too badly and the light was too bright. When I pushed it away, the water slopped on my chest, icy cold and I shrieked and began to wail. ‘Nettle, Nettle, hush,’ she bade me, but her hands were cold when she touched me. I wanted nothing of my mother just then, and knew an echo of Nettle’s jealousy that another child claimed the throne of Molly’s lap now. I clutched at Burrich’s shirt and he held me close again and hummed softly in his deep voice. I pushed my face against him where the light could not touch my eyes, and tried to sleep.

I tried so desperately to sleep that I pushed myself into wakefulness. I opened my eyes to my breath rasping in and out of my lungs. Sweat cloaked me, but I could not forget the tightness of my hot, dry skin in the Skill-dream. I had wrapped my cloak about me when I lay down to sleep; now I fought clear of its confines. We had chosen to sleep away the deep of the night on a creek bank; I staggered to the water and drank deeply. When I lifted my face from the water, I found the wolf sitting very straight and watching me. His tail neatly wrapped all four of his feet.

‘He already knew I had to go to them. We set out that night.’

‘And you knew where to go, to find them?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I knew nothing, other than that when they first left Buckkeep, they had settled near a town called Capelin Beach. And I knew the, well, the “feel” of where they lived then. With no more than that, we set out.

‘After years of wandering, it was odd to have a destination, and especially to hurry towards it. I did not think about what we did, or how foolish it was. A part of me admitted it was senseless. We were too far away. I’d never get there in time. By the time I arrived, they would be either dead or recovered. Yet having begun that journey, I could not deviate from it. After years of fleeing any who might recognize me, I was suddenly willing to hurl myself back into their lives again? I refused to consider any of it. I simply went.’

The Fool nodded sympathetically to my account. I feared he guessed far more than I willingly told him.

After years of denying and refusing the lures of the Skill, I immersed myself in it. The addiction clutched at me and I embraced it in return. It was disconcerting to have it come back upon me with such force. But I did not fight it. Despite the blinding headaches that still followed my efforts, I reached towards Molly and Burrich almost every evening. The results were not encouraging. There is nothing like the heady rush of two Skill-trained minds meeting. But Skill-seeing is another matter entirely. I had never been instructed in that application of the Skill; I had only the knowledge I had gained by groping. My father had sealed off Burrich to the Skill, lest anyone try to use his friend against him. Molly had no aptitude for it that I knew. In Skill-seeing them, there could be no true connection of minds, but only the frustration of watching them, unable to make them aware of me. I soon found that I could not achieve even that reliably. Disused, my abilities had rusted. Even a short effort left me exhausted and debilitated by pain, and yet I could not resist trying. I strove for those brief connections and mined them for information. A glimpse of hills behind their home, the smell of the sea, black-faced sheep pastured on a distant hill – I treasured every hint of their surroundings, and hoped they would be enough to guide me to them. I could not control my seeing. Often I found myself watching the homeliest of tasks, the daily labour of a tub of laundry to be washed and hung, herbs to be harvested and dried, and yes, beehives to tend. Glimpses of a baby Molly called Chiv whose face reflected Burrich’s features cut me with both jealousy and wonder.

Eventually I found a village called Capelin Beach. I found the deserted cottage where my daughter had been born. Other folk had lived here since then; no recognizable trace of them remained to my eyes, but the wolf’s nose was keener. Nevertheless, Molly and Burrich were long gone from there, and I knew not where. I dared not ask direct questions in the village, for I did not want anyone to bear word to Burrich or Molly that someone was looking for them. Months had passed in my journeying. In every village I passed, I saw signs of new graves. Whatever the sickness had been, it had spread wide and taken many with it. In none of my visions had I seen Nettle; had it carried her off as well? I spiralled out from Capelin Beach, visiting inns and taverns in nearby villages. I became a slightly daft traveller, obsessed with bee-keeping and professing to know all there was to know on the topic. I started arguments so others would correct me and speak of beekeepers they had known. Yet all my efforts to hear the slightest rumour of Molly were fruitless until late one afternoon I followed a narrow road to the crest of the hill, and suddenly recognized a stand of oak trees.

All my courage vanished in that instant. I left the road and skulked through the forested hills that flanked it. The wolf came with me, unquestioning, not even letting his thoughts intrude on mine as I stalked my old life. By early evening, we were on a hillside looking down on their cottage. It was a tidy and prosperous stead, with chickens scratching in the side yard and three straw hives in the meadow behind it. There was a well-tended vegetable garden. Behind the cottage were a barn, obviously a newer structure, and several small paddocks built of skinned logs. I smelled horse. Burrich had done well for them. I sat in the dark and watched the single window glow yellow with candlelight, and then wink to blackness. The wolf hunted alone that night as I kept my vigil. I could not approach and I could not leave. I was caught where I was, a leaf on the edge of their eddy. I suddenly understood all the legends of ghosts doomed to forever haunt some spot. No matter how far I roamed, some part of me would always be chained here.

As dawn broke, Burrich emerged from the cottage door. His limp was more pronounced than I recalled it, as was the streak of white in his hair. He lifted his face to the dawning day and took a great breath, and for one wolfish instant, I feared he would scent me there. But he only walked to the well and drew up a bucket of water. He carried it inside, then returned a moment later to throw some grain to the chickens. The smoke of an awakened fire rose from the chimney. So. Molly was up and about also. Burrich went out to the barn. As clear as if I were walking beside him, I knew his routine. After he had checked every animal, he would come outside. He did, and drew water, packing bucket after bucket into the barn.

My words choked me for an instant. Then I laughed aloud. My eyes swam with tears but I ignored them. ‘I swear, Fool, that is when I came closest to going down to him. It seemed as unnatural a thing as I had ever done, to watch Burrich work and not toil alongside him.’

The Fool nodded, silent and rapt beside me.

‘When he came out, he was leading a roan stallion. It astonished me. “Buckkeep’s best” shouted every line of his body. His spirit was in the arch of his neck, his power in his shoulders and haunches. My heart swelled in me just to see such a horse, and to know he was in Burrich’s keeping rejoiced me. He turned the horse loose in a paddock, and then hauled yet more water to the trough there.

‘When he next led Ruddy out, much of the mystery was cleared for me. I did not know, then, that Starling had hunted him down and seen to it that both his horse and Sooty’s colt were given over to him. It was just good to see man and horse together again. Ruddy looked to have settled into good-natured stability; even so, Burrich did not paddock him next to the other stud, but put him as far away as possible. He hauled more water for Ruddy, then gave him a friendly thump and went back into the cottage.

‘Then Molly came out.’

I took another breath and held it. I stared out at the ocean, but that was not what I saw. The image of she who had been my woman moved before my eyes. Her dark hair, once wild and blowing to the wind, was braided and pinned sedately to her head, a matron’s crown. A little boy toddled unsteadily after her. Basket on her arm, she moved with placid grace towards the garden. Her white apron draped her swelling pregnancy. The swift and slender girl was gone, but I found this woman no less attractive. My heart yearned after her and all she represented: the cosy hearth and the settled home, the companionship of the years to come as she filled her man’s home with children and warmth.

‘I whispered her name. It was so strange. She lifted her head suddenly, and for one sharp moment I thought she was aware of me. But instead of looking up to the hill, she laughed aloud, and exclaimed, “Chivalry, no! Not good to eat.” She stooped slightly, to pull a handful of pea flowers from the child’s mouth. She lifted him, and I saw the effort it cost her. She called back to the cottage, “My love, come fetch your son before he pulls the whole garden up. Tell Nettle to come and pull some turnips for me.”

‘Then I heard Burrich call back, “A moment!” An instant later, he stood in the doorway. He called over his shoulder, “We’ll finish the washing up later. Come help your mother.” I watched him cross the yard in a few strides and snatch up his son. He swung him high, and the child gave a whoop of delight as Burrich landed him on his shoulder. Molly set a hand upon her belly and laughed with them, looking up at them both with delight in her eyes.’

I stopped speaking. I could no longer see the ocean. Tears blinded me like a fog.

I felt the Fool’s hand on my shoulder. ‘You never went down to them, did you?’

I shook my head mutely.

I had fled. I had fled the sudden gnawing envy I felt, and I fled lest I glimpse my own child and have to go to her. There was no place down there for me, not even on the edges of their world. I knew that. I had known it since first I knew they would marry. If I walked down to that door, I would carry destruction and misery with me.

I am no better than any other man. There was bitterness in me, and anger at both of them, and the stark loneliness of how fate had betrayed us all. I could not blame them for turning to each other. Neither did I blame myself for the anguish I felt that by that act, they had excluded me forever from their lives. It was done, and over and regrets were useless. The dead, I told myself, have no rights to regret. The most I can claim for myself is that I did walk away. I did not let my pain poison their happiness, or compromise my daughter’s home. That much strength, I found.

I drew a long breath and found my voice again. ‘And that is the end of my tale, Fool. Next winter caught us here. We found this hut and settled into it. And here we have been ever since.’ I blew out a breath and thought over my own words. Suddenly none of it seemed admirable.

His next words rattled me. ‘And your other child?’ he asked quietly.

‘What?’

‘Dutiful. Have you seen him? Is not he your son, just as much as Nettle is your daughter?’

‘I … no. No, he is not. And I have never seen him. He is Kettricken’s son and Verity’s heir. So Kettricken recalls it, I am sure.’ I felt myself reddening, embarrassed that the Fool had brought this up. I set my hand to his shoulder. ‘My friend, only you and I know of how Verity used me … my body. When he asked my permission, I misunderstood his request. I myself have no memory of how Dutiful was conceived. You must recall; I was with you, trapped in Verity’s misused flesh. My king did what he did to get himself an heir. I do not begrudge it, but neither do I wish to remember it.’

‘Starling does not know? Nor even Kettricken?’

‘Starling slept that night. I am sure that if she even suspected, she would have spoken of it by now. A minstrel could not leave such a song unsung, however unwise it might be. As for Kettricken, well, Verity burned with the Skill like a bonfire. She saw only her king in her bed that night. I am certain that if it had been otherwise …’ I sighed suddenly and admitted, ‘I feel shamed to have been a party to that deception. I know it is not my place to question Verity’s will in this, but still …’ My words trickled away. Not even to the Fool could I admit the curiosity I felt about Dutiful. A son, mine and not mine. And as my father had chosen with me, so had I with him. To not know him, for the sake of protecting him.

The Fool set his hand on top of mine and squeezed it firmly. ‘I have spoken of this to no one. Nor shall I.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So. Then you came to this place, to settle yourself in peace. That is truly the end of your tale?’

It was. Since the last time I had bid the Fool farewell, I had spent most of my days either running or hiding. This cottage was my selfish retreat. I said as much.

‘I doubt that Hap would see it that way,’ he returned mildly. ‘And most folks would find saving the world once in their lifetime a sufficient credit and would not think to do more than that. Still, as your heart seems set on it, I will do all I can to drag you through it again.’ He quirked an eyebrow at me invitingly.

I laughed, but not easily. ‘I don’t need to be a hero, Fool. I’d settle for feeling that what I did every day had significance to someone besides myself.’

He leaned back on my bench and considered me gravely for a moment. Then he shrugged one shoulder. ‘That’s easily done, then. Once Hap is settled in his apprenticeship, come find me at Buckkeep. I promise, you’ll be significant.’

‘Or dead, if I’m recognized. Have not you heard how strong feelings run against the Witted these days?’

‘No. I had not. But it does not surprise me, no, not at all. But recognized? You spoke of that worry before, but in a different light. I find myself forced to agree with Starling. I think few would remark you. You look very little like the FitzChivalry Farseer that folk would recall from fifteen years ago. Your face bears the tracks of the Farseer bloodline, if one knows to look for them, but the court is an in-bred place. Many a noble carries a trace of that same heritage. Who would a chance beholder compare you to; a faded portrait in a darkened hall? You are the only grown man of your line still alive. Shrewd wasted away years ago, your father retired to Withywoods before he was killed, and Verity was an old man before his time. I know who you are, and hence I see the resemblance. I do not think you are in danger from the casual glance of a Buckkeep courtier.’ He paused, then asked me earnestly, ‘So. I will see you in Buckkeep before snow flies?’

‘Perhaps,’ I hedged. I doubted it, but knew better than to waste breath arguing with the Fool.

‘I shall,’ he decided resolutely. Then he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Let’s back. Supper should be ready. And I want to finish my carving.’