“Ah, what do I want you to call me now? I see. An entirely different question.” Mockery made music in his voice.

I drew a breath and made my question as plain as possible. “What'is your name, your real name?”

“Ah.” His manner was suddenly grave. He took a slow breath. “My name. As in what my mother called me at my birth?”

“Yes.” And then I held my breath. He spoke seldom of his childhood. I suddenly realized the immensity of what I had asked him. It was the old naming magic: if I know how you are truly named, I have power over you. If I tell you my name, I grant you that power. Like all direct questions I had ever asked the Fool, I both dreaded and longed for the answer.

“And if I tell you, you would call me by that name?” His inflection told me to weigh my answer.

That gave me pause. His name was his, and not for me to bandy about. But, “In private, only. And only if you wished me to,” I offered solemnly. I considered the words as binding as a vow.

“Ah.” He turned to face me. His face lit with delight. “Oh, but I would,” he assured me.

“Then?” I asked again. I was suddenly uneasy, certain that somehow he had bested me yet again.

“The name my mother gave me, I give now to you, to call me by in private.” He took a breath and turned back to the fire. He closed his eyes again but his grin grew even wider. “Beloved. She called me only 'Beloved.'”

“Fool!” I protested.

He laughed, a deep rich chuckle of pure enjoyment, completely pleased with himself. “She did,” he insisted.

“Fool, I'm serious.” The room had begun to revolve slowly around me. If I did not go to sleep soon, I would be sick.

“And you think I am not?” He gave a theatrical sigh. “Well, if you cannot call me 'Beloved,' then I suppose you should continue to call me 'Fool.' For I am ever the Fool to your Fitz.”

“Tom Badgerlock.”

“What?”

“I am Tom Badgerlock now. It is how I am known.”

He was silent for a time. Then, “Not by me,” he replied decisively. “If you insist we must both take different names now, then I shall call you 'Beloved.' And whenever I call you that, you may call me 'Fool.'” He opened his eyes and rolled his head to look at me. He simpered a lovesick smile, then heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Good night, Beloved. We have been apart far too long.”

I capitulated. Conversation was hopeless when he got into these moods. “Good night, Fool.” I rolled over in my bed and closed my eyes. If he made any response, I was asleep before he uttered it.

The Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool

The Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool

The Tawny Man 1 - Fools Errand

Chapter VI

THE QUIET YEARS

I was born a bastard. The first six years of my life, I spent in the Mountain Kingdom with my mother. I have no clear recollections of that time. At six, my grandfather took me to the fort at Moonseye, and there turned me over to my paternal uncle, Verity Farseer. The revelation of my existence was the personal and political failure that led my father to renounce his claim to the Farseer throne and retire completely from court life. My care was initially given over to Burrich, the Stablemaster at Buckkeep. Later, King Shrewd saw fit to claim my loyalty, and apprentice me to his court assassin. With the death of Shrewd, by the treachery of his youngest son, Regal, my loyalty passed to King Verity. Him I followed and served until the time I witnessed him pour his life and essence into a dragon of carved stone. Thus was Verity as Dragon animated, and thus were the Six Duchies saved from the depredations of the Red Ship Raiders of the Out Islands, for Verity as Dragon led the ancient Elderling dragons as they cleansed the Six Duchies of the invaders. Following that service to my King, injured in both body and spirit, withdrew from court and society for fifteen years. believed I would never return.

In those years, attempted to write a history of the Six Duchies, and an accounting of my own life. In that time, I also obtained and studied various scrolls and writings on a wide variety of topics. The disparity of these pursuits was actually a concerted effort on my part to track down the truth. strove to find and examine the pieces and forces that had determined why my life had gone as it had. Yet the more I studied and the more I entrusted my thoughts to paper, the more truth eluded me. What life showed me, in my years apart from the world, was that no man ever gets to know the whole of a truth. All had once believed of all my experiences and myself, time alone illuminated anew. What had seemed clearly lit plunged into shadow, and details had considered trivial leapt into prominence .