The duties of a King’s Man are simple. He must first maintain himself in excellent health of body. This will assure that when the king calls upon him to lend strength, he will have it. The King’s Man must have a close affinity to the one he serves; it is best if he has a true regard for the one who will draw Skill-strength from him, rather than simple respect and a sense of duty.
This regard should ideally extend in both directions. The Skill-user who calls upon a King’s Man to lend strength must keep the well-being of his partner in the forefront of his mind. For once the King’s Man has surrendered control of his body’s resources to the Skill-user, it will be beyond him to refuse. An experienced King’s Man can let his partner know when he feels he is approaching the maximum of what he can give. It is absolutely essential to the trust that is required in this relationship that the Skill-user respond to such a reminder.
On the Training of a King’s Man by Skillmistress Inkswell
We fell from the face of the pillar onto the snowy hilltop of the Witness Stones. The snow was deep and fresh, untracked and thigh-deep. It caught me as I stumbled, but did not fall, nor did I drop the Fool. Riddle still held to my arm as we emerged into deep dusk. I took a deep breath of cold air. ‘That was not near as hard as I feared it would be,’ I panted. I was winded, as if I’d run up a steep hill and my head pounded with a Skill-headache. But we had arrived intact. It seemed that only moments had passed and that I was awakening from a long sleep. Despite the headache, I felt rested. I had a memory of a starry blackness, in which the stars were below us as well as above, behind and before us. We stepped from that infinity to the snowy hillside near Buckkeep Castle.
Then Riddle dropped senseless into the snow beside me. He fell with terrible limpness, collapsing as if he had not a bone in his body. I held fast to the Fool as I dropped to one knee beside him. ‘Riddle? Riddle!’ I called him stupidly, as if he had only forgotten I was there and decided to fall on his face. I let the Fool’s legs drop to the snowy ground as I caught at the shoulder of Riddle’s shirt and tried to turn him face up. He did not respond to my voice or my touch. ‘Riddle!’ I shouted again, and with great relief heard an answering shout from down the hill.
I turned and looked behind me. A boy carrying a torch waded through the snow. Behind him, a team laboured to draw a sledge up the steep hill. By the wavering torchlight, I saw steam rising from their coats. A girl rode a horse behind them, and then the girl was suddenly Nettle, and at my shout she urged her mount to surge through the deep snow and pass the trudging team. She reached us before anyone else and flung herself from her horse and into the snow beside Riddle. As she put her arms around him and lifted him so that his head rested on her breast, she answered any questions I might ever have had about what he meant to her. Even in the fading light of the day, the flash of anger in her eyes was sharp as she demanded, ‘What did you do to him?’
I answered honestly. ‘I used him. And in my inexperience, more ruthlessly than I meant to, I fear … I thought he would stop me if I took too much.’ I felt like a stammering boy before her deep, cold anger. I bit back my useless apology. ‘Let us get them both onto the sledge and back to the keep and summon healers and the King’s Coterie. Later, you can say or do whatever you wish to me.’
‘I shall,’ she warned me heartily, and then lifted her voice, giving commands. Guards rushed to obey her, several of them exclaiming in dismay as they recognized Riddle. I trusted none of them with the Fool but carried him myself to the sledge, loaded him and clambered up afterwards to sit beside him.
The snow was slightly packed and the big horses made better time going down the hill than they had coming up. Even so, it seemed an eternity in the dark and cold as we approached the lighted towers of Buckkeep Castle. Nettle had given her horse over to someone else; she rode with Riddle, and if their relationship had been a secret, it was no longer. She spoke softly and urgently to him, and when he finally stirred and managed a feeble response she bent over him to deliver a heartfelt kiss.
The sledge did not even pause at the gates, but took us directly to the infirmary. The healers were waiting for us. I did not object as they took Riddle first, and again I carried the Fool myself. Nettle dismissed the guard and promised them news as soon as there was any. The room was long with a low ceiling and blessedly empty of other occupants. I wondered if it was the same room where I had once recovered from my Skill-pillar mishap. There were rows of cots, not so different from a barracks. Riddle had already been stretched out on a bed, and I was horribly relieved to hear him weakly protesting at being there. I set the Fool down carefully on a bed two cots away, knowing well that Nettle would need some space from me for some time. And Riddle, I thought glumly. I did not think I’d done permanent damage to him, but in my ignorance and my anxiety for the Fool, I had completely forgotten to have a care for how much of his strength I took. I’d used him roughly and I would deserve his anger. I was baffled by it. Had I needed that much from him to bring the Fool through the pillar?
At Nettle’s command, the healers had clustered around his bed. I was alone with the Fool as I stripped away his outer garments and let them fall in a smelly heap by his cot. What was revealed horrified me. Someone had given great attention to inflicting pain on him. Great care and a good amount of time had been devoted to it, I judged, for here were bones with the old breaks badly healed and gashes that had been hastily or perhaps deliberately badly bandaged, so that crooked ridges of scar tissue had formed where flesh had been unevenly pushed back together. A pattern of burn scars on his left upper arm might have been a word, but in no alphabet or language that I knew. His left foot was scarcely worthy of that name. It twisted in, a lump of flesh with knobs of bone, and the toes gone dusky.
The grime was as distressing as the damage. The Fool had always been a clean man, meticulous about his garments, his hair and his body. Dirt was ground into his skin, patterned where rain had fallen on him. Some of his clothing was so stiff with dirt that I expected it to crack as I peeled it away. He had an apple hidden in his jerkin. I let it fall to the floor with the rest. Rather than move him too much, I drew my sheath knife and cut away the worn fabric and tugged it gently from beneath him.
The smell was nauseating. His eyes were open to cracks and I judged him to be awake, but he did not move until I tried to remove his undergarment. Then he lifted both scarred hands to the neck of the dingy linen singlet and gripped the collar. ‘No,’ he said faintly.
‘Fool,’ I rebuked him, and tried to push his hands aside, but he gripped his garment more tightly and with greater strength than I had expected to encounter. ‘Please,’ I said softly, but he slowly shook his tattered head against the pillow. Pieces of his matted hair broke off when he did so, and I did not have the heart to challenge him. Let him take his secrets to the grave then, if that was what he wished. I would not disrobe him in front of the healers. I drew a clean woollen blanket over him. He sighed in relief.
A healer appeared at my elbow. ‘How was he injured? Is he bleeding?’ She was doing her best to control her distaste, but even I could barely abide his smell.
‘He has been tortured, and has journeyed far in great privation. Please, bring me warm water and some cloths. Let me clean him up a bit while you find him a good beef broth.’
I saw her swallow. ‘As an apprentice, the first cleaning of an injured man is one of my tasks.’
‘As his friend, it’s my task. Please.’
She struggled to conceal her relief. ‘May I remove these rags?’ she asked, and I nodded. She folded her lips, stooped to pick them up, and then hastened away with them.
As she went out the door at the end of the room, Chade came in. He was dressed very finely, in several shades of green, and I knew he had made some excuse to leave the gathering. Thick was with him in Buckkeep livery, and a woman I didn’t recognize. Perhaps she was a Skill-apprentice. A moment later, a guardsman opened the door and King Dutiful appeared with Kettricken but a step behind him. All motion in the room ceased. The erstwhile queen waved an impatient hand and strode past Chade. She halted at Riddle’s bedside. ‘Riddle was injured as well? I was not told of this!’
Nettle stood. Her jaw was set. Her voice was respectful when she managed to speak. ‘My Lady, I suggest that a private Skill-healing would be the best choice for both of these men. May I dismiss the healers?’
The apprentice had just reappeared with a bucket of steaming water and several clean cloths over her shoulder. She looked about doubtfully, but I took the liberty of waving her in. She managed an awkward curtsey as she passed King Dutiful without spilling her bucket and then hurried to my side. She set the bucket down and put the folded cloths tidily across the foot of the bed. Then she looked from me to the gathering of royalty in the infirmary. It was clearly an event she had never experienced before, and she was torn between curtseying and getting on with her work.
‘My king, if it please you, this is my place of both experience and expertise.’ The man speaking must have been the healing master. I could not tell if he objected to being dismissed because he believed he was most competent to do the required work or if he merely disliked someone usurping his place. I found I did not care, and found also that court niceties meant nothing to me. Let the healer argue with Nettle’s request all he wished; I thought I knew how it would be settled. I gestured the apprentice away and she stepped back gratefully. I ignored their genteel dispute as I set to work.
I moistened the cloth in warm water and set it gently to the Fool’s face. It came away brown and grey. I rinsed it and wiped at his face again. The thick yellow tears welled in his eyes again. I stopped. ‘Am I hurting you?’ I asked him quietly.
‘It has been so long since anyone touched me with kindness.’
‘Close your eyes,’ I bade him hoarsely, for I could not bear his blind stare. I wiped his face a third time. Dirt clung in every line of his face. Dried mucus caked his eyelids. I wanted to weep with pity for him. Instead I wrung the cloth out again. Behind me, folk were wrangling in the most courteous possible way. Their very politeness seemed infuriating. I wanted to turn and bellow at them all to leave or be quiet. The hopelessness of my task was becoming clear to me. He was stronger than I had first judged him, but his body was too broken. He had no reserves to burn. I’d brought him here in the hope of a Skill-healing, but as I slowly washed first one crumpled hand and then the other, the magnitude of his ills engulfed me. Unless we could rebuild his strength before we began, he would not survive a healing. And if we did not heal him soon, he would not live long enough to rebuild his strength. My thoughts chased themselves in a circle. I’d risked all of us to bring him to a healing he could not survive.
Kettricken was suddenly at my elbow. Ever gracious, she thanked the gawking apprentice healer before sending her on her way. Behind me, the room had quietened and I sensed that Nettle had won her way. The healers had left and her Skill-coterie was gathering around Riddle’s bed. Chade was talking about having seen such things before and assuring her that Riddle would be fine, he just needed a rich meal and a few days of sleep to put him right. Chade was arguing against Skill-intervention, favouring food and rest instead. Riddle had loaned more strength than he could afford, but he was a strong man, a doughty man, and she need not fear for him.
A small part of my mind wondered just how Chade knew it. How ruthlessly had he used Thick? Or was it Steady he had drained, and in what pursuit? Later. I would get to the bottom of that later. I knew from my experience with King-in-Waiting Verity that he was probably right. In my panic over the Fool, I had not given a thought to the possibility that I might so drain Riddle as to leave him witless and drooling. My friend and my daughter’s mate. I owed them both apologies. Later.
Because now Nettle had moved to the Fool’s bedside. She ran her eyes over him as if he were a horse she were considering buying. She glanced once at me and then away, in a manner curiously similar to how Bee avoided my eyes. She spoke to a young woman who had come to stand at her side. ‘What do you think?’ she asked her, in the manner of a teacher to a student.
The woman took a breath, extended her hands and moved them slowly over the Fool’s body without touching him. The Fool became very still, as if he sensed and resented her untouching of him. The woman’s hands made a second pass over him. Then she shook her head. ‘I see old damage that we may or may not be able to better heal. He does not appear to have any fresh injuries that put him in immediate danger of death. There is much that is both odd and wrong about his body. But I do not judge him in need of immediate Skill-intervention. In fact, thin as he is, I suspect it would do more harm than good.’ She wrinkled her nose then, and sniffed, the first sign that she felt any distaste for her patient. She stood awaiting Nettle’s judgment of her words.
‘I agree,’ the Skillmistress said softly. ‘You and the others may go now. I thank you for convening so swiftly.’
‘Skillmistress,’ the woman acknowledged her with a bow. Nettle moved with her, returning to Riddle’s bedside as the rest of the healing coterie quietly left the infirmary.
Kettricken was regarding the ruined man on the bed with close attention. The tips of her fingers covered her mouth as she bent over him. Then she straightened and fixed me with anxious blue eyes. ‘It isn’t him, is it?’ she begged. ‘It’s not the Fool.’
He stirred slightly and when he opened his sightless eyes, she flinched. He spoke in pieces. ‘Would that Nighteyes … were here to … vouch for me. My queen.’
‘Queen no longer. Oh, Fool.’
There was a hint of the old mockery in his voice as he said, ‘My queen, still. And I am still … a fool.’
She seated herself gracefully on a low stool on the other side of the Fool’s bedside. She did not look at me as she began to carefully fold back the elaborate sleeves of her gown. ‘What happened to them?’ she demanded of me. She took a clean cloth from the foot of the bed, dipped it in the water and with no sign of distaste, she lifted his hand and began to wash it. A memory long buried rose to the top of my mind. Queen Kettricken, washing the bodies of the slain Forged Ones, making them our own people again and restoring them before burial. She had never hesitated.
I spoke quietly. ‘I know little of what befell the Fool. Obviously he has been tortured, and he has come a long way to find us. What happened to Riddle was me. I was in haste and alarmed, and I used his strength to bring the Fool through the Skill-pillars. I have not drawn on someone for strength in such a situation before. I probably used more than he could easily spare, and I can only hope I have done no permanent harm to him.’
‘My fault,’ the Fool said quietly.
‘No, mine. How could it possibly be your fault?’ I spoke almost roughly.
‘The strength. From him. Through you. To me.’ He took a breath. ‘I should be dead. I’m not. I feel stronger than I have in months, despite … what happened today. You gave me some of his life.’
It made sense. Riddle had not only given me strength to bring Fool through the pillar, he had let me take life from him to give raw strength to the Fool. Gratitude warred with shame. I glanced at Riddle. He was not looking at me. Nettle sat by his bed on a low stool, holding both his hands in hers. Was there any possible way for me to repay that debt? I thought not.
I turned back to the Fool. He was blind. He could not see that as Kettricken worked carefully to clean the crooked fingers of his hands, tears were running down her cheeks. Those clever hands with those long fingers, juggling wooden balls or wisps of silk, making a coin appear, waggling insultingly or waving expressively to illustrate some tale he was telling. Reduced now to swollen knuckles and broken stick fingers. ‘Not your fault,’ Kettricken said quietly. ‘I suspect Riddle knew what he gave. He’s a giving man.’ A long pause. ‘He deserves what he has earned,’ she said, but gave no more indication of what she meant by that. Instead, she sighed. ‘You need more than this. You need a hot bath, Fool. Is privacy still your obsession?’
He made a small sound that might have been a laugh. ‘Torture strips one of all dignity. Pain can make you shriek, or beg, or soil yourself. There is no privacy when your enemies own you and have no compunction, no human compunction at all about what they will do to you. So, among my friends, yes. Privacy is still an obsession. And a gift from them. A restoration in small part of what dignity I once had.’ It was a long speech and it wheezed to an end.
Kettricken did not argue, nor ask him if he could bathe himself. She simply asked, ‘Where would you be? Lord Golden’s old chambers? Fitz’s childhood bedroom? Chade’s old lair?’
‘Are all those rooms empty?’ I asked, surprised.
She looked at me levelly. ‘For him, other people can be moved.’ She rested a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘He got me to the Mountains. Alive. I will never forget that.’
He lifted a crooked hand to cover hers. ‘I will choose discretion. As I seldom have before. I would have quiet to recover, if I may. In Chade’s den. And be known neither as Lord Golden, nor as Fool.’ He turned his hazed eyes and asked, ‘Do I smell food?’
He did. The apprentice healer was back, a rag wrapped around the bale of a lidded pot. The lid jiggled as she walked, letting brief wafts of beefy aroma fill the room. A serving-boy came behind with bowls, spoons, and a basket of bread rolls. She stopped at Riddle’s bed to serve him and I was relieved to see him recovered enough to be propped up in bed and offered hot food. He looked past Nettle, met my gaze, and gave me a crooked smile. Undeserved forgiveness. Friendship defined. I slowly nodded to him, trusting him to understand.
I knew it would be harder to win Nettle’s pardon.
The apprentice girl came to fill a bowl for the Fool. ‘Can you sit up to eat?’ I asked him.
‘Probably the only thing that could make me try,’ he wheezed. As Kettricken and I lifted him and moved pillows to cushion him upright, he added, ‘I’m tougher than you think, Fitz. Dying, yes. But I’ll fight it off as long as I can.’
I did not reply to that until the apprentice and her assistant had finished serving the food. As they moved away, I leaned closer and suggested, ‘Eat as much as you can. The more strength you gain and the quicker you do it, the sooner we can attempt a Skill-healing for you. If you wish it.’
Kettricken held the spoon to his lips. He tasted it, sucked the broth in noisily, near moaned with pleasure and then begged, ‘Too slow. Let me drink from the bowl. I am so hungry.’
‘It’s hot,’ she warned him, but held the bowl to his mouth. His clawlike hands guided hers and he slurped the scalding soup from the edge of the bowl, trembling with his need to get nourishment inside him.
‘It’s him,’ Chade said. I looked up to see him standing at the foot of the Fool’s bed.
‘It is,’ I confirmed.
He nodded, brows drawn. ‘Riddle managed a partial report before Nettle chased me off. He’ll be all right, Fitz, small thanks to you. This is an example of where your ignorance can hurt us. If you had returned to Buckkeep to study with the rest of the King’s Own Coterie, you would have had better control of your Skill-use of him.’
It was the last thing I wished to discuss just then. ‘You’re right,’ I said, and in his shocked silence that followed my capitulation, I added, ‘The Fool would like to be lodged in our old study-room. Can that be arranged? A fire built, clean linens, a fresh robe, a warm bath and simple, hot food?’
He did not flinch at my list. ‘And salves. And herbs for restorative teas. Give me a bit of time. I’ve an evening of diplomacy and negotiation to dance through yet. And I must ask Kettricken to return with me to that. When I send a page, carry him up to Lady Thyme’s old room, via the servants’ stair. You’ll find the wardrobe there has a false back now. Enter there. I’m afraid I must return to the welcoming festivities right away. But I’ll see you either very late tonight or very early tomorrow.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. He nodded gravely.
Even in my gratitude, I knew that there would eventually be a price for Chade’s favours. There always was.
Kettricken rose with a rustling of skirts. ‘I, too, must return to the feasting hall.’ I turned my head and for the first time that night, I really looked at her. She was dressed in shades of blue silk, with white lace drapery over her kirtle and skirts. Her earrings were blue and silver and the silver coronet she wore include a network of pale topazes over her brow. My astonishment must have shown for she smiled deprecatingly. ‘They are our trading partners; they are gratified to see me wearing the products of that trade, and the compliment to them makes my king’s negotiations with them easier.’ She smiled as she added, ‘And I assure you, Fitz, my adornments are simple compared to what our young queen wears tonight!’
I smiled at her. ‘I know you favour simpler garb, but in truth, its beauty does you great justice.’
The Fool spoke softly. ‘Would that I could see you.’ He clutched the empty soup bowl. Without a word, Kettricken wiped broth from the corner of his mouth.
I wanted to tell him that we would heal him and he would see again. In truth, I was wishing that I had taken Chade up on his repeated offers of learning more about the Skill. I looked at the Fool and wondered if we could straighten bones healed crooked, return light to his eyes and lift the grey pallor from his skin. How much of his health could we restore?
‘I do wish it,’ he said suddenly. ‘The Skill-healing. I do not desire it. I dread it. But I wish for it to be done. As quickly as possible.’
I spoke the truth reluctantly. ‘Right now, we would be as likely to kill you as heal you. There is so much … damage. And you are weakened by all that has been done to you. Despite the strength I stole for you.’ Kettricken was looking at me, the question in her eyes. It was time to tell them both I didn’t know the answer. ‘I do not know how much the Skill can restore you. It is a magic that ultimately obeys your body. It can prompt your body to repair what is wrong, much faster than your body would do if left alone. But things that your body has already repaired, a broken bone for example, well, I do not know if it will straighten an old break.’
Kettricken spoke quietly. ‘When the coterie healed you, I understood that many old hurts were healed as well. Scars vanished.’
I didn’t want to remind her that such an unrestrained healing had nearly killed me. ‘I think we will have to take this in stages. And I don’t want the Fool to lift his hopes too high.’
‘I need to see,’ he said suddenly. ‘Above all else, I need to see, Fitz.’
‘I can’t promise you that,’ I said.
Kettricken stepped back from the bed. Her eyes were bright with tears but her voice was steady as she said, ‘I fear I must return to the trade negotiations.’ She glanced at the entrance to the infirmary. Chade awaited her there.
‘I thought it was a feast, with minstrels singing, and then dancing?’
‘So it might appear, but it is all a negotiation. And tonight, I am still the Queen of the Mountain Kingdom and hence a player in all the Six Duchies wishes to win. Fool, I cannot tell you how I feel. Full of joy to see you again, and full of sorrow to see all that has befallen you.’
He smiled, stretching his cracked lips. ‘I am much the same, my queen.’ He pursed his smile ruefully and added, ‘Except for the seeing part.’
It wrung a laugh from the queen that was half-sob. ‘I will return as soon as I may.’
‘But not tonight,’ he told her gently. ‘Already I am so weary I can scarce keep my eyes open. But soon, my queen. Soon, if you please.’
She dropped him a curtsey, and then fled in a rustling of long skirts and tapping heels. I watched her go.
‘She has changed much, and not at all,’ he observed.
‘You sound much better.’
‘Food. A warm bed. A clean face and hands. The company of friends. These things heal much.’ He yawned suddenly, and then added with trepidation, ‘And Riddle’s strength. It is a peculiar thing, this borrowing of strength, Fitz. Not that different from how I felt when you put your own life back into me. It is a buzzing, restless energy inside me, a life borrowed rather than earned. My heart does not like it, but my body yearns for more of it. If it were a cup before me, I do not think I could resist the desire to drain it dry.’ He took a slow breath and was quiet. But I could almost sense how he savoured the sensation of extra life flowing through him. I recalled the battle madness that used to come on me, and how I would find myself fighting on, savagely and joyously, spending effort long after I knew my body was exhausted. It had been exhilarating. And the collapse that followed had been complete. That false strength, once burned, demanded repayment. I knew dread.
The Fool spoke again. ‘Still, I was not lying. Much as I long for a warm bath, I do not think I can remain awake much longer. I cannot recall the last time I was so warm, or my belly so full.’
‘Perhaps I should take you up to Lady Thyme’s chamber, then.’
‘You’ll carry me?’
‘I have before. You weigh hardly anything and it seems the easiest thing to do.’
He was silent for a time. Then he said, ‘I think I can walk. At least part of the way.’
It puzzled me, but I didn’t argue with him. Almost as if our words had summoned him, a page entered the infirmary. He had flakes of snow still on his hair and shoulders, and carried a lantern. He looked around and then called, ‘Tom Badgerlock? I’ve come to fetch Tom Badgerlock.’
‘I’m here,’ I told him. As I turned to him, Nettle suddenly left Riddle’s bedside. She gripped my sleeve and pulled me to one side. She looked up at me, her face so like her mother’s in that moment that I felt Molly had returned from the grave to reproach me. ‘He says I’m not to hold you accountable, that he volunteered.’
‘No. I asked him. He knew that if he didn’t help me, I’d try it alone. And I am accountable. And I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
I bowed my head to that. After a moment, she added, ‘People love you far more than you deserve, Tom Badgerlock. But you don’t even believe that they love you at all.’ I was still pondering that when she added, ‘And I am one of those people.’
‘Nettle, I’m so—’
‘Say it again, and I’ll hit you. I don’t care who is watching. If I could ask one thing of you, it would be that you never say those stupid words again.’ She looked away from me to the Fool. ‘He’s your friend, since childhood.’ Her tone said she understood that he was a rare creature.
‘He was. He is.’
‘Well. Go take care of him, then. Riddle will be fine when he has rested.’ She put her hands to her temples and rubbed them. ‘And Bee? My sister?’
‘I left her with FitzVigilant. I think she’ll be fine. I don’t intend to be away for long.’ As I said those words, I wondered how long I would be away. Would I stay here while the Fool rebuilt his strength until we could attempt a full Skill-healing? Should I try to go back in the morning, via the stones, and then return in a few days? I was torn. I longed to be in both places.
‘If she’s with Lant, she’ll be fine.’ I was not at all sure I agreed with her judgment, but it seemed a very poor time to tell her that. The relief in Nettle’s voice made me wonder if I had misjudged the young scribe. Then she woke guilt in me by adding, ‘We should send a bird to tell them that you arrived here safely.’
I glanced at the Fool. He had struggled to a sitting position and draped the blanket around his shoulders. He looked pathetically feeble, and older than me by a hundred years.
‘I’ll do it,’ Nettle said before I could ask. ‘Do you want me to ask a guardsman to help you move your friend?’
‘I think we can manage alone,’ I said.
She nodded quietly. ‘I sensed that. You don’t want many folk to know he is here. For the life of me, I don’t know why. But I’ll respect your love of secrecy. Well, most of the servants are busy with the feast, so if you are cautious, you should be able to get him moved without being noticed.’
So I took the Fool to Lady Thyme’s old chambers. It was a lengthy process, cold and wet for both of us as he insisted on hobbling across the courtyard to the door on his own. He cloaked his shoulders in the blanket and his feet were still bound in rags. Wind and snow swept past us as we made our limping way. Using the servants’ passageways meant that we had to take the long way round to everything. He took my arm for the climb up the narrow stairways and leaned on me more heavily with every step. The boy guiding us kept looking back at both of us in wonder and suspicion. At some point, I realized my garments were stained with the Fool’s blood. I offered him no explanation.
At the door to Lady Thyme’s old chambers, the page halted and offered me a large key on a heavy loop of blue cord. I took it and the small lantern he carried and told him to go. He went with alacrity. ‘Lady Thyme’ had not existed for decades but the rumour that she haunted these chambers still had not faded. That masquerade suited Chade, and he maintained it still.
The room we entered was dim and fusty. A stand of candles on a dusty table gave off a poor light. The room smelled of disuse and ancient cloying perfume. And old woman. ‘I’m going to just sit down,’ the Fool announced and nearly missed the chair I pulled out for him. He did not sit down so much as crumple into a heap. He sat still, breathing.
I opened the wardrobe and was confronted by a packed bank of ancient gowns and shifts. They smelled as if they had never been laundered. Muttering about Chade’s idiocy, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled under the clothes to feel along the back panel. I rapped, pushed and pried until suddenly the panel swung open. ‘We’ll have to crawl through,’ I informed the Fool sourly. He didn’t reply.
He had fallen asleep where he was. It was difficult to rouse him, and then I all but dragged him through the low hatch in the wardrobe. I helped him to Chade’s old chair before the fire, and then crawled back to latch the door to Lady Thyme’s room from the inside and extinguish the candles. By the time I had closed the entrance and returned to the Fool’s side, he was nodding off again. I woke him again and asked him, ‘Bath or bed?’
The tub of water, still steaming slightly, was scenting the room with lavender and hyssop. A straight-backed chair was beside the tub. A low table held a towel, a pot of soft soap, a wash-rag, a cotton tunic and a blue wool robe in the old style, and some thick stockings. They would serve. The Fool was unfolding himself like a battered Jumping Jack. ‘Bath,’ he muttered and turned his blind face toward me.
‘It’s this way.’ I took his stick-arm in my hand and put my other arm around him. I walked him to the chair. He dropped into it so heavily that he nearly overset it and sat still, breathing. Without asking, I knelt and began to unwrap the long winding of rags that bound his feet. They smelled dreadful and stuck together so that I had to peel them away. I breathed through my mouth when I spoke.
‘Beside you is a table with all you need to wash yourself. And clothing for afterwards.’
‘Clean clothing?’ he asked, as if I had given him a stack of gold. He groped and his hand rose and fell like a butterfly as it touched the bounty there. He lifted the pot of soap, smelled it, and made a small heartbreaking sound. He set it down carefully. ‘Oh Fitz. You cannot imagine,’ he said brokenly. Then his bony arm lifted, and his crooked hand shooed me away.
‘Call me if you need me,’ I conceded. I took a candle and moved to the scroll-racks at the far end of the room. He listened to my footfalls and did not look pleased when I halted at the end of the room, but that was as much privacy as I was granting him. I had no desire to discover him, drowned but modest, in the tub. I rummaged through the scrolls on the racks there and found one on the Rain Wilds, but when I took it to the table I found that Chade had already arranged reading material for me. Three scrolls on the proper way to prepare and use a ‘King’s Man’ were set out for me. Well, and he was right. I’d best learn it. I carried them over to Chade’s old bed, lit a branch of candles there, kicked off my boots, propped the pillows and settled to read.
I was a third of the way through the first one, tediously written and overly detailed, about selecting a candidate who could share strength before I heard the gentle splash of water as the Fool eased into the tub. For a time, all was silent. I read my scroll, and periodically looked up to be sure he had not fallen asleep and sunk in the tub to drown. After a long soak, he began the slow process of washing himself. He made small sounds of both pain and eased muscles. He took his time about it. I was on the third scroll, a more useful one that gave specific symptoms that a King’s Man might be exceeding his limits, including information on how to feed strength back into a man, should that be necessary, when I heard him heave a great sigh and then there followed the sounds of someone exiting a tub. I did not look toward him. ‘Can you find the towels and robe?’
‘I’ll manage,’ he said shortly.
I’d finished reading the scroll and was struggling to stay awake when I heard him say, ‘I’ve lost my bearings. Where are you?’
‘Over here. On Chade’s old bed.’
Even freshly bathed and attired in clean garments, he still looked terrible. He stood, the old blue robe hanging on him like slack canvas on a derelict ship as he clung to the back of the chair. What hair he had left was still weighted with water; it scarcely reached past his ears. His blind eyes were terrible dead things in his gaunt living face. His breathing sounded like leaking bellows. I rose and took his arm to guide him to the bed.
‘Fed, clean, and warm. New garments. A soft bed. If I were not so weary, I’d weep with gratitude.’
‘Go to sleep instead.’ I opened the bedding for him. He sat down on the edge of it. His hands patted the clean linens, moved up to the plump pillow. It was an effort for him to swing his legs up onto the bed. When he lay back on the pillows, I did not wait, but covered him as if he were Bee. His hands gripped the top edge of the coverlet.
‘Will you stay here for the night?’ It was a question rather than a request.
‘If you wish.’
‘I do. If you don’t mind.’
I stared at him unabashedly. Freed of grime, the lines of inflicted scars on his face were perfectly etched. ‘I don’t mind,’ I said quietly.
He closed his filmed-over eyes. ‘Do you remember … a time I asked you to stay beside me for the night?’
‘In the Elderling tent. On Aslevjal.’ I remembered. We were both quiet for a time, and then the silence stretched out longer. I thought he had fallen asleep. I was suddenly exhausted. I walked around to the other side of the bed, sat down on the edge of it and then stretched out beside him, as carefully as if he were infant Bee. My thoughts went to her. What a day I had given her! Would she sleep well tonight or battle nightmares? Would she stay in her bed or creep off to hide herself behind the wall of my study? Strange little mite of a girl. I had to do better by her. I meant to, with every drop of my heart’s blood, I meant to, but it seemed things always got in the way. And here I was, days away from her, trusting her care to a man I scarcely knew. And had insulted.
‘No questions?’ the Fool asked of the dim room.
He was the one, I thought, who should have questions. Starting with, ‘why did you stab me?’ ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Soon.’ He sighed the weight of the world away. ‘You take me on such faith, Fitz. Years pass, I step back into your life, and you kill me. And then save me.’
I didn’t want to talk about how I had knifed him. ‘Your messenger reached me.’
‘Which one?’
‘A pale girl.’
He was silent and then spoke in a voice full of sorrow. ‘I sent seven pairs of messengers to you. Over eight years, I sent them to you. And only one got through?’
Seven pairs. Of fourteen messengers, one had reached me. Perhaps two. A great wave of dread rose in me. What had he fled, and did it still pursue him? ‘She died soon after reaching me. Those who chased her had shot some sort of parasite into her, and they were eating her from the inside.’
He was silent for a long time. ‘They love that sort of thing. Slow pain that inevitably gets worse. They love it when those they torment hope and beg for death.’
‘Who loves it?’ I asked quietly.
‘The Servants.’ All life had gone from his voice.
‘The servants?’
‘They used to be servants. When the Whites existed, their ancestors served the Whites. The prophet folk. My ancestors.’
‘You’re a White.’ There was little written of them, and what I knew, I had learned mostly from the Fool. Once, they had lived alongside and among humanity. Long-lived and gifted with prophecy and the ability to see all futures. As they had dwindled and interbred with humans, they had lost their unique characteristics, but every few generations, one such as he was born. A true White, such as the Fool, was a rarity.
He made a small sound of scepticism in his throat. ‘So they would have you believe. And me. The truth is, Fitz, that I am a creature with enough White blood in me that it manifests almost completely.’ He took a deep breath as if to say more and then sighed deeply instead.
I was confused. ‘That wasn’t what you told me years ago.’
He turned his head on the pillow, as if he could look at me. ‘That wasn’t what I believed, years ago. I didn’t lie to you, Fitz. I repeated to you the lie I had been told, the lie I believed all my life.’
I told myself I had never believed it anyway. But I had to ask him, ‘Then, you are not a White Prophet? And I am not your Catalyst?’
‘What? Of course I am. And you are! But I am not a full White. No full Whites have walked this world for hundreds of years.’
‘Then … the Black Man?’
‘Prilkop? Far older than me, and probably of purer blood. And like the Whites of old, as he aged, he darkened.’
‘I thought he darkened as he was able to fulfil his mission as a White Prophet? That as much as he was successful in setting the world on a better path, so he darkened?’
‘Oh, Fitz.’ He sounded weary and sad. After a long pause, he said, ‘I don’t know. That’s what the Servants took from me. Everything I thought I knew, every certainty. Have you ever stood on a sandy beach when the tide is coming in? Felt the waves come up around your feet and suck the sand from under you? That’s my life now. With every day, I feel I sink deeper into uncertainty.’
A hundred questions filled my mind. And I suddenly knew that, yes, I had believed that he was a prophet and I was his Catalyst. I had believed it, and I had endured the things he had foretold for me, and I had trusted. And if it had all been a lie, a deception practised on him that he had perpetuated upon me in turn? No. That was what I could not believe. It was what I must not believe.
‘Is there anything more to eat? Suddenly, I’m hungry again.’
‘I’ll see.’ I rolled off the bed and went to the hearth. Whoever Chade had dispatched had been thorough. There was a covered pot on the kettle-hook, swung to the edge of the coals where it would stay warm but not burn. I hooked it over the hearth and peeked in. A chicken had been stewed down to a morass of thready flesh in a thick brown broth. Onion and celery and parsnip mingled together in a friendly sauce. ‘Stewed chicken,’ I told him. ‘Shall I bring you some?’
‘I’ll get up.’
His answer surprised me. ‘Earlier today, when I brought you here so quickly, I thought you balanced on the knife’s edge of death. Now you sound almost like yourself.’
‘I’ve always been tougher than I looked.’ He sat up slowly and swung his legs out, feet groping for the floor. ‘But don’t deceive yourself. I doubted I would have survived more than a couple more nights in the cold. I scarcely remember the last few days. Cold and hunger and pain. No difference between night and day, save that nights were colder.’ He stood and swayed. ‘I don’t know where you are,’ he complained helplessly.
‘Stand still,’ I bade him, as if he could do otherwise. I put a small table near Chade’s old chair, and then guided the Fool to his seat. I found dishes and cutlery on a shelf; Lady Rosemary kept a much more orderly lair than Chade had. I brought him a bowl of the chicken and a spoon, and then found a bottle of brandy and some cups. ‘How hungry are you?’ I asked, eyeing what was left in the pot. My own appetite had wakened at the smell of the food. The toil of the Skill-journey I had mostly transferred to Riddle, but it had still been a long and taxing time since I’d last eaten.
‘Eat something,’ the Fool replied, having sensed my dilemma.
I dished out food for myself and sat down in Lady Rosemary’s chair with my bowl on my knee. The Fool lifted his head. ‘Do I smell brandy?’
‘It’s to the left of your bowl.’
He set down his spoon and a tremulous smile claimed his mouth. ‘Brandy with Fitz. By a fire. In clean clothes. With food. One last time, and almost I could die happy.’
‘Let’s avoid the dying part, and have the rest.’
His smile grew stronger. ‘For a time, old friend. For a time. Whatever you did to me before we entered the stones, and Riddle’s sacrifice, then food and warmth and rest have pulled me back from that brink. But we shall not deceive one another. I know the rot I carry inside myself. I know you saw it.’ He lifted a clawlike hand to scratch his scarred cheek. ‘It isn’t a happenstance, Fitz. They deliberately created that within me, just as they etched my face with scars and tore the Skill from my fingertips. I do not fancy that I have escaped. They set a slow death to work inside me and then pursued me as I tottered away, striving to see that I always exerted myself to exhaustion each day, always threatening those who might aid me. I fancy I travelled faster and further than they thought I would, but even that may be a fantasy. They plot in convolutions far beyond what you or I could imagine, for they have a map of the maze of time, drawn from a hundred thousand prophecies. I do not ask why you stabbed me because I already know. They set it in motion, and waited for you to do their evil will. They sought to hurt you as much as to kill me. No one’s fault but theirs. Yet, you are still the Catalyst, and you turn my dying into an infusion of strength.’ He sighed. ‘But perhaps even that is their will, that you find me and bring me here. Is this a pebble, Fitz, that triggers the avalanche? I don’t know. I long to see as I once did, long to pick my way through a swirling mist of possibilities. But that is gone, lost to me when you brought me back from the dead.’
I could not think of anything to say to that. I had long ago learned that with both the Fool and Chade, the quickest way to provoke silence was to ask too many questions. Left alone, they always shared more with me than perhaps they intended. And so I ate a portion of the chicken and drank Chade’s brandy and wondered about the Servants and his unexpected son and even the messengers he had sent who had not reached me.
He finished the chicken in the pot, clattering his spoon about inside the dish to be sure that he’d had every bite. I refilled his brandy cup. ‘There is broth on the left side of your mouth,’ I told him quietly. It had given me great pain to see him eat both so ravenously and so untidily. When I took his bowl away, I wiped the spatters and drips from the table. I had hoped not to shame him, but as he wiped his face he admitted, ‘I eat like a starved dog. A blind, starved dog. I’m afraid I’ve learned to get as much food into me as quickly as I could. It’s hard to unlearn something so deliberately taught to me.’ He sipped from his cup and leaned his head back on the chair. His eyes were closed, but it was only when his lax hand twitched and his cup nearly fell that I realized he was falling asleep where he sat.
‘Back to bed,’ I told him. ‘If you eat and rest for a few days, perhaps we can begin small healings to set you back on the path to health.’
He stirred and when I took his arm, he tottered to his feet. ‘As soon as we can, please begin. I must get stronger, Fitz. I must live and I must defeat them.’
‘Well. Let’s begin by getting a night’s sleep,’ I suggested to him.
I guided him back to the bed and saw him well covered. I tried to be quiet as I tidied the room and added wood to the fire. I refilled my brandy cup. It was blackberry brandy, and of a much better quality than I’d ever been able to afford when I was a youngster. Nonetheless, the lingering taste of berries and blossoms put me in mind of those days. I sank down into Chade’s chair with a sigh and stretched out my feet toward the fire.
‘Fitz?’
‘I’m here.’
‘You haven’t asked me why I came back. Why I came seeking you.’ His voice was drenched with weariness.
‘The messenger said you were looking for your son. Your unexpected son.’
‘Without much hope, I fear. I dreamed I had found him, there in that market town.’ He shook his head. His voice sank low. I strained to hear his words. ‘He is what they want. The Servants. They thought I knew he existed. For quite a time they questioned me, trying to wring from me a secret I did not know. And when finally they told me, plainly, what they sought, I still knew nothing of him. They didn’t believe that, of course. Over and over, they demanded to know where he was and who had borne him. For years, I insisted it was impossible. I even asked them, “If such a child existed, would I leave him?” But they were so certain, I came to believe they must be right.’
He fell silent. I wondered if he had fallen asleep. How could he, in the midst of such a harrowing tale? When he spoke again, his voice was thick. ‘They believed I lied to them. That is when they … took me.’ He stopped speaking. I heard how he fought for a steady voice when he said, ‘When first we returned, they honoured Prilkop and me. There were long evenings of feasting and they encouraged us, over and over, to tell every moment of what we had seen and done. Scribes took it all down. It … it went to my head, Fitz. To be so honoured and praised. Prilkop was more reserved. Then one day, he was gone. They told me he had decided to visit the place of his birth. But as months passed, I began to suspect that something was wrong.’ He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘I hope he escaped or is dead. It’s terrible to imagine they have him still. But that is when their endless questioning of me began. And then, after they revealed what they sought and I still had no answers for them, they took me one night from my apartments. And the torment began. At first, it was not so bad. They insisted I knew, and that if I fasted long enough or endured cold long enough, I would remember something, a dream or an event. So I began to believe them. I tried to remember. But that was when I first sent messengers out, to warn those who might know to hide such a child until I came for him.’
A mystery solved. The missive sent to Jofron and her wariness of me all made sense now.
‘I thought I had been so discreet. But they found out.’ He sniffed. ‘They took me back to where they had been holding me. And they brought me food and drink and asked me nothing. But I could hear what they did to those who had aided me. Oh, Fitz. They were scarcely more than children!’ He choked suddenly and then wept harshly. I wanted to go to him but I had no comfort for him. And I knew that he wanted no sympathetic words or kindly touch just then. He wanted nothing of what he had not been able to give to those victims. So I wiped the tears silently from my own cheeks and waited.
He coughed at last and said in a strained voice. ‘Still. There were those who stayed loyal to me. From time to time, they would get a message to me, to let me know that another two had escaped and set out to warn my friends. I wanted to tell them to stop, but I had no way to respond to their messages. The Servants began on me in earnest in those years. Times of pain followed by periods of isolation. Starvation, cold, the relentless light and heat of the sun, and then such clever torture.’
He stopped talking. I knew his story was not finished, but I thought he had told me as much as he could bear to tell now. I stayed where I was, listening to the flames, to a log settling in the fire. There were no windows in this chamber but I heard the distant howl of wind past the chimney top and knew that the storm had risen again.
The Fool began whispering. It took a short time for my hearing to sort his words from the storm wind. ‘… believed them. He existed, somewhere. They stopped asking me questions about him, but they kept on hurting me. When they stopped that … I suspected the Servants had found him. I didn’t know if they would keep him to use, or destroy him to thwart him from changing the world. If they did or didn’t, they’d never tell me. Funny. So many years ago, I sent to you to find my son for me. And one of those messengers was the one to get through. Too late to save my son. Years too late.’ His voice was running down, draining off into sleep.
I spoke softly, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep but too curious to contain my question. ‘Years ago, you gave up? The messenger took years to reach me?’
‘Years,’ he said wearily. ‘Years ago, when I still had hope. When I still believed the Servants could be shown a better way. If I could get to the boy first.’ His voice fell silent. I stared into the flames, and Bee came into my thoughts. She’d be asleep in her bed by now. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, if the pigeons flew swiftly, Revel would let her know that a bird had arrived and that I was safe at Buckkeep. I should take paper tonight and write her a letter and send it by messenger. I needed to explain to her why I’d left her so suddenly and that I might be gone longer than I’d first expected. I toyed with the idea of sending for her. Every child should experience a Winterfest at Buckkeep Castle! But then I realized she could not possibly arrive in time for that. I also could not think of anyone I’d trust enough to take her on a long winter journey from Withywoods to Buckkeep. Next year, I promised myself. Next year, we’d leave Withywoods in plenty of time and ride to Buckkeep Castle, just her and me.
The plan gave me such pleasure until I suddenly thought of the Fool and his unexpected son in that context. He had never known his child. Did that mean he had never dreamed of sharing things with him? I spoke to the fire. ‘The messenger couldn’t tell me where to look for the child. And I had no idea of how old the boy might be.’
‘Nor did I. Nor where. Only that there were so many, many prophecies that seemed to speak of such a child. The Servants seemed so sure that such a child must exist. They asked me in every way they could imagine. They would not believe I did not know of such a child. They would not believe I could no longer see where or who such a child might be.’ He groaned suddenly and moved abruptly in the bed. ‘It has been so long … my belly. Oh.’ He coiled briefly and then rolled to the edge of the bed. ‘Is there a garderobe in this chamber?’ he asked desperately.
His stomach made terrible noises as I guided him to the narrow door. He remained inside for so long that I began to be concerned for him. Then the door opened and he groped his way out. I took his arm and guided him back to the bed. He crawled weakly onto the bed and I covered him. For a time, he simply breathed. Then he said, ‘Maybe there never was such a son. That is my desperate hope. That he never existed, so they never found him, never destroyed him, never took him as their gamepiece.’ He groaned again and shifted restlessly on the bed. ‘Fitz?’
‘I’m right here. Do you want anything? Brandy? Water?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Go to sleep. You need rest. Tomorrow, we will both be more intelligent about what you eat. I have to build you up before the coterie can attempt a healing.’
‘I’m stronger than I look. Stronger now than when you found me.’
‘Perhaps. But I no longer take risks unless I must.’
A long silence. The brandy and the food were affecting me. The weariness of the day suddenly wrapped me. I walked to the other side of the bed and kicked off my boots. I shed my outer garments and burrowed into the big bed beside the Fool. The featherbed was deep and soft. I shouldered deeper into it and closed my eyes.
‘Fitz.’
‘What?’
‘Would you kill for me?’
I didn’t need to think about it. ‘Yes. If I had to. But you’re safe here, Fool. The stout walls of Buckkeep Castle are all around you. And I am at your side. No one knows where you are. Sleep without fear.’
‘Would you kill for me if I asked you to?’
Was his mind wandering that he had repeated his question. I spoke soothingly. ‘You wouldn’t have to ask me to. If someone were threatening you, I’d kill him. Simple as that.’ I didn’t tell him to go to sleep. It isn’t that easy, after you’ve experienced torture. There were still nights when I woke with a jolt, thinking myself back in Regal’s dungeon. The smallest thing could trigger a sudden rush of terror; the smell of a certain kind of charcoal, a creak like a rope tightening, a clang that sounded like a cell door slamming. Even just the dark. Just being alone. In the dark, I reached out and set my hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re safe. I’ll keep watch if you want me to.’
‘No.’ He reached up and put his bony hand on top of mine. The logs in the fire crackled softly and I listened to him breathe. He spoke again.
‘That isn’t what I meant. It’s the message I sent with the last four messengers. The favour I hated to ask. I was ashamed to ask it, ashamed to ask anything of you after I had used you so mercilessly. But there was no one else I could ask, anywhere. I tried to do it myself. They’d stopped questioning me. They’d begun to leave me alone. And one day, they were careless. Perhaps. I escaped. I thought I escaped. I found friends and took shelter and rested. I knew what I had to do. Knew what must be done, and I prepared for it as well as I could. And I tried. But they were expecting me. They caught me and the ones who had given me shelter and aid. They took me back and that time, they didn’t bother with finesse or questions. Just brutality. Breaking my bones. Taking my sight.’
‘What had you done?’ My breath felt short.
‘I tried and botched it badly. They mocked me. They told me I’d always fail. But you wouldn’t. You’d know how. You had all the training. And you were good at it.’
The warmth of the bed could not dispel the chill that was building in me. I shifted away but his hand suddenly gripped mine, tight as death. ‘You were good at it, once. At killing people. Chade trained you and you were good at it.’
‘Good at killing people,’ I said in a wooden voice. Those words did not make sense when I said them aloud. Good at creating death. A silence thicker than darkness separated us.
He spoke again. Desperation filled his voice. ‘I hate to ask it. I know you have set it out of your life. But I must. When I am rested, when I explain it to you, you will understand. They have to be stopped, and only death will do it. There is only you between them and what they would do. Only you.’
I did not speak. He was not himself. The Fool would never have asked this of me. He was blinded and ill and in pain. He had lived in terrible fear. He still feared. But he was safe now. As he became better, his mind would clear. He’d be himself again. He’d apologize. If he even remembered this conversation.
‘Please, Fitz. Please. They must be killed. It’s the only way to stop them.’ He took in a painful gasp of air. ‘Fitz, would you assassinate them? All of them. Put an end to them and the horrible things they are doing?’ He paused and added the words I’d dreaded hearing. ‘Please. For me.’