by Robin Hobb
He was mocking me. I was certain of it now. ‘Once, in perhaps a thousand years, there may come a man capable of making such a great change in the world. A powerful king, perhaps, or a philosopher, shaping the thoughts of thousands. But you and I, Fool? We are pawns. Ciphers.’
He shook his head pityingly. ‘This, more than anything else, is what I have never understood about your people. You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man’s fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man’s whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this nought of a human, this fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your lives away, like candles burning in a draught.’
‘Not all men are destined for greatness,’ I reminded him.
‘Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neighbour, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?’
‘This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’
‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider this thing, every moment of the heart’s beating. Otherwise, what is the point of arising each day?’
‘Fool, this is beyond me,’ I declared uneasily. I had never seen him so impassioned, never heard him speak so plainly. It was as if I had stirred grey-coated embers and suddenly found the cherry-red coal that glowed in their depths. He burned too brightly.
‘No, Fitz. I have come to believe it is through you.’ He reached out and tapped me lightly with Ratsy. ‘Keystone. Gate. Crossroads. Catalyst. All these you have been, and continue to be. Whenever I come to a crossroads, whenever the scent is uncertain, when I put my nose to the ground, and cast about and bay and snuffle, I find one scent. Yours. You create possibilities. While you exist, the future can be steered. I came here for you, Fitz. You are the thread I tweak. One of them, anyway.’
I felt a sudden chill of foreboding. Whatever more he had to say, I did not wish to hear it. Somewhere, far away, a thin howl arose. A wolf baying at mid-day. A shiver ran up me, setting up every hair on my body. ‘You’ve had your joke,’ I said, laughing nervously. ‘I should have known better than to expect a real secret from you.’
‘You. Or not you. Linchpin, anchor, knot in the line. I have seen the end of the world, Fitz. Seen it woven as plainly as I’ve seen my birth. Oh, not in your lifetime, nor even mine. But shall we be happy, to say that we live in the dusk rather than in the full night? Shall we rejoice that we shall only suffer, while your offspring will be the ones to know the torments of the damned? Shall this be why we do not act?’
‘Fool. I wish not to hear this.’
‘You had a chance to deny me. But thrice you demanded it, and hear it you shall.’ He lifted his staff as if leading a charge, and spoke as if he addressed the full Council of the Six Duchies. ‘The fall of the Kingdom of the Six Duchies was the pebble that started the landslide. The soulless ones moved on from there, spreading like a bloodstain down the world’s best shirt. Darkness devours, and is never satiated until it feeds upon itself. And all because the line of House Farseer failed. That is the future as it is woven. But wait! Farseer!’ He cocked his head and peered at me, considering as a gore-crow. ‘Why do they call you that, Fitz? What have your ancestors ever foreseen afar to gain such a name? Shall I tell you how it comes about? The very name of your house is the future reaching back in time to you, and naming you by the name that someday your house will deserve. The Farseers. That was the clue I took to my heart. That the future reached back to you, to your house, to where your blood-lines intersected with my lifetime, and named you so. I came here, and what did I discover? One Farseer, with no name at all. Unnamed in any history, past or future. But I have seen you take a name, FitzChivalry Farseer. And I shall see that you deserve it.’ He advanced on me, seized me by the shoulders. ‘We are here, Fitz, you and I, to change the future of the world. To reach out and hold in place the tiny pebble that could trigger the boulder’s tumbling.’
‘No.’ A terrible cold was welling up inside me. I shook with it. My teeth began to chatter, and the bright motes of light to sparkle at the edges of my vision. A fit. I was going to have another fit. Right here, in front of the Fool. ‘Leave!’ I cried out, unable to abide the thought. ‘Go away. Now! Quickly. Quickly!’
I had never seen the Fool astonished before. His jaw actually dropped open, revealing his tiny white teeth and pale tongue. A moment longer he gripped me, and then he let go. I did not stop to think of what he might feel at my abrupt dismissal. I snatched the door open and pointed out of it, and he was gone. I shut it behind him, latched it, and then staggered to my bed as wave after wave of darkness surged through me. I fell face-down on the coverlets. ‘Molly!’ I cried out, ‘Molly, save me!’ But I knew she could not hear me, and I sank alone into my blackness.
The brightness of a hundred candles, festoons of evergreen and swags of holly and bare, black winter branches hung with sparkling sugar candies to delight the eye and tongue. The clacking of the puppets’ wooden swords and the delighted exclamations of the children when the Piebald Prince’s head actually came flying off and arced out over the crowd. Mellow’s mouth wide in a bawdy song as his unattended fingers danced independently over his harp strings. A blast of cold as the great doors of the hall were thrown open and yet another group of merrymakers came into the Great Hall to join us. The slow knowledge stole over me that this was no longer a dream, this was Winterfest, and I was wandering benignly through the celebration, smiling blandly at everyone and seeing no one. I blinked my eyes slowly. I could do nothing quickly. I was wrapped in soft wool, I was drifting like an unmanned sailboat on a still day. A wonderful sleepiness filled me. Someone touched my arm. I turned. Burrich frowning and asking me something. His voice, always so deep, almost a colour washing against me when he spoke. ‘It’s all good,’ I told him calmly. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all good.’ I floated away from him, wafting through the room with the milling of the crowd.
King Shrewd sat on his throne, but I knew now that he was made of paper. The Fool sat on the step by his feet and clutched his rat sceptre like an infant clutches a rattle. His tongue was a sword, and as the King’s enemies drew closer to the throne, the Fool slew them, slashed them to bits and turned them back from the paper man on the throne.
And here were Verity and Kettricken on another dais, pretty as the Fool’s doll, each of them. I looked and saw they were both made of hungers, like containers made of emptiness. I felt so sad, I’d never be able to fill either of them, for they were both so terribly empty. Regal came to speak to them, and he was a big black bird, not a crow, no, not so merry as a crow, and not a raven, he hadn’t the cheery cleverness of a raven, no, a miserable eye-pecker of a bird, circling, circling, dreaming of them as carrion for himself to feast on. He smelled the carrion, and I covered my mouth and nose with a hand and walked away from them.
I sat down on a hearth, next to a giggling girl, happy in her blue skirts. She chattered like a squirrel and I smiled at her, and soon she leaned against me and began to sing a funny little song about three milkmaids. There were others sitting and st
anding about the hearth, and they joined in the song. We all laughed at the end, but I wasn’t sure why. And her hand was warm, resting so casually on my thigh.
Brother, are you mad? Have you eaten fishbones, are you burned by fever?
‘Huh?’
Your mind is clouded. Your thoughts are bloodless and sickly. You move like prey.
‘I feel fine.’
‘Do you, sir? Then I do, too.’ She smiled up at me. Chubby little face, dark eyes, curly hair peeking out from under her cap. Verity would like this one. She patted my leg companionably. A bit higher than she had touched me before.
‘FitzChivalry!’
I looked up slowly. Patience was standing over me, with Lacey at her elbow. I smiled to see her there. She so seldom came out of her rooms to socialize. Especially in winter. Winter was a hard time for her. ‘I shall be so glad when summer returns, and we can walk in the gardens together,’ I told her.
She looked at me silently for a moment. ‘I have something heavy I wish carried up to my rooms. Will you bring it for me?’
‘Certainly.’ I stood carefully. ‘I have to go,’ I told the little servant girl. ‘My mother needs me. I liked your song.’
‘Goodbye sir!’ she chirped at me, and Lacey glared at her. Patience’s cheeks were very rosy. I followed her through the ebb and press of folk. We came to the foot of the stairs.
‘I forget how to do these,’ I told her. ‘And where is the heavy thing you wish carried?’
‘That was an excuse to get you away from there before you completely disgraced yourself!’ she hissed at me. ‘What is the matter with you? How could you behave so badly? Are you drunk?’
I thought about it. ‘Nighteyes said I was poisoned by fishbones. But I feel fine.’
Lacey and Patience looked at me very carefully. Then they each took an arm, and guided me upstairs. Patience made tea. I talked to Lacey. I told her how much I loved Molly and that I was going to marry her as soon as the King said I could. She patted my hand and felt my forehead and asked what I’d eaten today and where. I couldn’t remember. Patience gave me tea. Very soon I puked. Lacey gave me cold water. Patience gave me more tea. I puked again. I said I didn’t want any more tea. Patience and Lacey argued. Lacey said she thought I’d be all right after I slept. She took me back to my room.
I woke up with no clear idea of what had been dream and what had been real, if anything. My entire recall of the evening’s events had the same distance as events that had happened years ago. This was compounded by the open staircase with its beckoning yellow light and the draught from it chilling my room. I scrabbled out of bed, swayed for a moment as a wave of dizziness overtook me and then slowly mounted the stairs, one hand always touching the cold stone wall to reassure myself that it was real. About midway up the steps, Chade came down to meet me. ‘Here, take my arm,’ he commanded, and I did.
He put his free arm around me and we went up the stairs together. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I told him. With my next breath, I told him, ‘King Shrewd is in danger.’
‘I know. King Shrewd is always in danger.’
We gained the top of the stairwell. There was a fire in his hearth, and a meal set out next to it on a tray. He guided me toward both.
‘I think I might have been poisoned today.’ A sudden shivering ran up me and I shuddered all over. When it passed, I felt more alert. ‘I seem to be waking up in stages. I keep thinking I’m awake, and then suddenly everything is clearer.’
Chade nodded gravely. ‘I suspect it was the ash residue. You weren’t thinking when you tidied King Shrewd’s room for him. Many times the burned residue of a herb concentrates the potency of the herb. You got it all over your hands and then sat there eating pastries. There was little I could do. I thought you would sleep it off. What possessed you to go downstairs?’
‘I don’t know.’ Then, ‘How do you always know so much?’ I asked peevishly as he pushed me down into his old chair. He took my usual perch on the hearthstones. Even in my fuddled state, I noticed how fluidly he moved, as if he had somewhere abandoned the cramps and aches of an old man’s body. There was wind-burnt colour to his face and arms as well, the tan fading the pocks’ stigma. I had once noticed his resemblance to Shrewd. Now I saw Verity in his face as well.
‘I have my little ways of finding things out.’ He grinned at me wolfishly. ‘How much do you remember of Winterfest tonight?’
I winced as I considered it. ‘Enough to know that tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.’ The little servant girl suddenly popped up in my memory. Leaning on my shoulder, her hand on my thigh. Molly. I had to get to Molly tonight and somehow explain things to her. If she came to my room tonight, and I wasn’t there to answer her knock … I started up in my chair, but then another shiver ran up over me. It felt almost like a skin being peeled off me.
‘Here. Eat something. Puking your guts out wasn’t the best thing for you, but I’m sure Patience meant well. And under other circumstances, it could have been a life-saver. No, you idiot, wash your hands first. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?’
I noticed then the vinegar-water set out beside the food. I washed my hands carefully to remove every trace of whatever had clung to them, and then my face, amazed as how much more alert I suddenly felt. ‘It’s been like an extended dream, all day … is this what Shrewd has been feeling?’
‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps not all those burning herbs down there are what I think they are. It was one of the things I wanted to discuss with you tonight. How has Shrewd been? Has this come on him suddenly? How long has Wallace been calling himself a healer?’
‘I don’t know.’ I hung my head in shame. I forced myself to report to Chade just how lax I had been in his absence. And how stupid. When I was finished, he did not disagree with me.
‘Well,’ he said heavily. ‘We can’t undo, we can only salvage. Too much is happening here to sort at one sitting.’ He looked at me consideringly. ‘Much of what you tell me does not surprise me. Forged ones converging still on Buckkeep, the King’s illness lingering. But King Shrewd’s health has declined much more swiftly than I can account for, and the squalor in his rooms makes no sense to me. Unless …’ He did not finish the thought. ‘Perhaps they believe that Lady Thyme was his only defender. Perhaps they think we no longer care; perhaps they believe him an isolated old man, an obstacle to be removed. Your carelessness has drawn them out, at least. And having drawn them out, perhaps we can cut them off.’ He sighed. ‘I thought I could use Wallace as a tool, lead him subtly through the advice of others. He has little knowledge of herbs of his own; the man is a dabbler. But the tool I left carelessly lying about, perhaps another employs now. We shall have to see. Still. There are ways to stop this.’
I bit my tongue before I could utter Regal’s name. ‘How?’ I asked instead.
Chade smiled. ‘How were you rendered ineffective as an assassin in the Mountain Kingdom?’
I winced at the memory. ‘Regal revealed my purpose to Kettricken.’
‘Exactly. We shall shine a bit of daylight on what goes on in the King’s chambers. Eat while I talk.’
And so I did, listening to him as he outlined my assignments for the next day, but also noting what he chose to feed me. The flavour of garlic predominated, and I knew his confidence in its purifying abilities. I wondered just what I had ingested, and also how much it coloured my recollection of my conversation with the Fool. I flinched as I recalled my brusque dismissal of him. He would be another I would have to seek out tomorrow. Chade noticed my preoc
cupation. ‘Sometimes,’ he observed obliquely, ‘you have to trust people to understand you are not perfect.’
I nodded, then suddenly yawned immensely. ‘Beg pardon,’ I muttered. My eyelids were suddenly so heavy I could barely keep my head up. ‘You were saying?’
‘No, no. Go to bed. Rest. It’s the real healer.’
‘But I haven’t even asked you where you’ve been. Or what you’ve been doing. You move and act as if you’d lost ten years of age.’
Chade puckered his mouth. ‘Is that a compliment? Never mind. Such questions would be useless anyway, so you may save them for another time, and be frustrated then when I refuse to answer them. As to my condition … well, the more one forces one’s body to do, the more it can do. It was not an easy journey. Yet I believe it was worth the hardship.’ He held up a halting hand as I opened my mouth. ‘And that is all I am going to say. To bed, now, Fitz. To bed.’
I yawned again as I rose, and stretched until my joints popped. ‘You’ve grown again,’ Chade complained admiringly. ‘At this rate, you’ll even top your father’s height.’
‘I’ve missed you,’ I mumbled as I headed toward the stair.
‘And I you. But we shall have tomorrow night for catching up. For now, bed for you.’
