by Robin Hobb
"Dinner was insufferable," I told him. I did not bother with candles. My headache had not been entirely a fiction. I sat, then lay back on my bed with a sigh. "I do not know what Buckkeep is coming to, nor what I can do about it."
"Perhaps what you have already done is enough?" the Fool ventured.
"I've done nothing noteworthy lately," I informed him. "Unless you count knowing when to stop talking back to Regal."
"Ah. That's a skill we're all learning, then," he agreed morosely. He drew his knees up to his chin, rested his arms atop them. He took a breath. "Have you no news, then, that you'd care to share with a Fool? A very discreet Fool?"
"I've no news to share with you that you would not already know, and probably sooner than I did." The darkness of the room was restful. My headache was easing.
"Ah." He paused delicately. "Shall I, perhaps, ask a question? To be answered or not as you see fit?"
"Save your breath and ask it. You know you shall, whether I give you permission or no."
"Indeed, there you are right. Well then. The question. Ah, I surprise myself, I blush, I do. FitzChivalry, have you made a fitz of your own?"
I sat up slowly on my bed and stared at him. He did not move nor flinch. "What did you ask me?" I demanded quietly.
He spoke softly, almost apologetically now. "I must know. Is Molly carrying your child?"
I sprang at him from the bed, caught him by the throat, and dragged him up to his feet. I drew back my fist, and then stopped, shocked by what the firelight revealed on his face.
"Batter away," he suggested quietly. "New bruises will not show much atop the old ones. I can creep about unseen for a few more days."
I snatched my hand back from him. Strange, how the act I had been about to commit now seemed so monstrous when I discovered someone else had already done it. As soon as I released him, he turned away from me, as if his discolored and swollen face shamed him. Perhaps the pallor of his skin and his delicate bone structure made it all the more horrifying to me. It was as if someone had done this to a child. I knelt by the fire and began to build it up.
"Didn't get a good enough look?" the Fool asked acidly. "I'll warn you, it gets no better by giving more light to it."
"Sit on my clothes chest and take your shirt off," I told him brusquely. He didn't move. I ignored that. I had a small kettle for tea water. This I set to heat. I lit a branch of candles and set them atop the table, and then took out my small store of herbs. I did not keep that many in my room; I wished now I had Burrich's full store to draw on, but I was sure that if I left to go to the stables, the Fool would be gone when I returned. Still, those I kept in my room were mostly for bruises and cuts and the types of injuries my other profession exposed me to most often. They would do.
When the water was warm, I poured some into my washbasin and added a generous handful of herbs, crushing them as I did so. I found an outgrown shirt in my clothing chest and tore it into rags. "Come into the light." This I phrased as a request. After a moment he did so, but moving hesitantly and shyly. I looked at him briefly, then took him by the shoulders and sat him down atop my clothing chest. "What happened to you?" I asked, awed by the damage to his face. His lips were cut and swollen, and one eye swollen near closed.
"I've been going about Buckkeep, asking bad-tempered individuals if they've fathered bastards lately." His one good eye met my glare straight on. Red webbed the white of it. I found I could neither be angry with him, nor laugh.
"You should know enough medicine to take better care of something like this. Sit still now." I made the rag into a compress, held it gently but firmly to his face. After a moment he relaxed. I sponged away some dried blood. There wasn't much; he had obviously cleaned himself up after this beating, but some of the cuts had continued to ooze blood. I ran my fingers lightly down the lines of his jaw, and around his eye sockets. At least no bone seemed damaged. "Who did this to you?" I asked him.
"I walked into a series of doors. Or the same one several times. It depends on which door you ask." He spoke glibly for someone with mashed lips.
"That was a serious question," I told him.
"As was mine."
I glared at him again and he dropped his eyes. For a moment neither of us spoke as I searched out a pot of salve Burrich had given me for cuts and scrapes. "I'd really like to know the answer," I reminded him as I took the lid off the pot. The familiar biting scent rose to my nostrils, and I suddenly missed Burrich with an amazing intensity.
"As would I." He flinched slightly under my touch as I applied the salve. I knew it stung. I also knew it worked.
"Why do you ask such a question of me?" I finally demanded.
He considered a moment. "Because it is easier to ask of you than to ask Kettricken if she carries Verity's child. As far as I can determine, Regal has shared his favors only with himself of late, so that dismisses him. You or Verity, then, must be the father."
I looked at him blankly. He shook his head sadly for me. "Cannot you feel it?" he asked in a near whisper. He stared off in the distance dramatically. "Forces shift. Shadows flutter. Suddenly there is a rippling in the possibilities. A reordering of the futures, as destinies multiply. All paths diverge, and diverge again." He looked back to me. I smiled at him, thinking he jested, but his mouth was sober. "There is an heir to the Farseer line," he said quietly. "I am certain of it."
Have you ever missed a step in the dark? There is that sudden feeling of teetering on the edge, and no knowledge of how far you may fall. I said, far too firmly, "I have fathered no child."
The Fool regarded me with a skeptical eye. "Ah," he said with false heartiness. "Of course not. Then it, must be Kettricken who is carrying."
"It must," I agreed, but my heart sank. If Kettricken were pregnant, she would have no reason to conceal it. Whereas Molly would. And I had not been to see Molly in several nights. Perhaps she had news for me. I felt suddenly dizzied, but I forced myself to take a long calming breath. "Take your shirt off," I told the Fool. "Let's see your chest."
"I've seen it, thank you, and I assure you it's fine. When they popped the bag over my head, I presume it was to provide a target. They were most conscientious about striking nowhere else."
The brutality of what they had done to him sickened me into silence. "Who?" I finally managed to ask.
"With a bag over my head? Come now. Can you see through a bag?"
"No. But you must have suspicions."
He canted his head at me in disbelief. "If you do not know what those suspicions are already, then you are the one with your head in a bag. Let me cut a bit of a hole for you. `We know you are false to the King, that you spy for Verity the pretender. Send him no more messages, for if you do, we shall know of it.'" He turned to stare into the fire, swung his heels briefly, thunk, thunk, thunk, against my clothing chest.
"Verity the pretender?" I asked in outrage.
"Not my words. Theirs," he pointed out.
I forced my anger down, tried to think. "Why would they suspect you spy for Verity? Have you sent him messages?"
"I have a King," he said softly. "Although he does not always remember he is my king. You must look out for your king. As I am sure you do."
"What will you do?"
"What I have always done. What else can I do? I cannot stop doing what they command me to stop, for I have never begun it."
A creeping certainty shivered up my spine. "And if they act again?"
He gave a lifeless laugh. "There is no point to my worrying about it, for I cannot prevent it. That is not to say I look forward to it. This," he said, with a half gesture toward his face. "This will heal. What they did to my room will not. I shall be weeks picking up that mess."
The words trivialized it. A terrible hollow feeling welled up in me. I had been in the Fool's tower chamber once. It had been a long climb up a disused staircase, past the dust and litter of years, to a chamber that looked out over the parapets and contained a garden of wonder. I thought of the bright f
ish swimming in the fat pots, the moss gardens in their containers, the tiny ceramic child, so meticulously cared for, in its cradle. I closed my eyes as he added to the flames, "They were most thorough. Silly me. To think there was such a thing as a safe place in the world."
I could not look at him. Save for his tongue, he was a defenseless person whose only drive was to serve his king. And save the world. Yet someone had smashed his world. Worse, I suspected the beating he had taken was in revenge for something I had done.
"I could help you set it to rights," I offered quietly.
He shook his head tightly, quickly twice. "I think not," he said. Then he added in a more normal voice, "No offense intended."
"None taken."
I bundled the cleansing herbs with the pot of salve and the leftover rags from my shirt. He hopped off my clothes chest. When I offered them to him, he took them gravely. He walked to the door, stiffly despite his claims that they had only damaged his face. At the door he turned. "When you know for certain, you will tell me?" He paused significantly. His voice dropped. "After all, if this is what they do to a King's fool, what might they do to a woman carrying a King-in-Waiting's heir?"
"They wouldn't dare," I said fiercely.
He snorted disdain. "Wouldn't they? I no longer know what they would or would not dare, FitzChivalry. Neither do you. I'd find a sounder way to latch my door, if I were you. Unless you wish to find your head in a bag as well." He gave a smile that wasn't even a shadow of his usual mocking grin, and slipped out again. I walked to the door after he had left it, and dropped the bar into place. I leaned my back against it and sighed.
"It's all very well for the rest of them, Verity," I said aloud to the silent room. "But for myself, I think you should turn yourself about right now and ride home. There's more afoot than Red-Ships, and somehow I misdoubt that Elderlings would be much help against the other threats we face."
I waited, hoping to feel some sort of acknowledgment or agreement from him. There was nothing. My frustrations whirled in me. I was seldom certain of when Verity was aware with me, and never sure if he sensed the thoughts I wished to send him. I wondered again at why he did not direct Serene as to the actions he wished taken. He had Skilled to her all summer about Red-Ships; why was he so silent now? Had he Skilled to her already, and she concealed it? Or revealed it, perhaps, to Regal only. I considered it. Perhaps the bruises on the Fool's face reflected Regal's frustration at finding Verity aware of what was going on in his absence. Why he had chosen the Fool as the culprit was anyone's guess. Perhaps he had simply chosen him as a vent for his rage. The Fool had never avoided offending Regal. Or anyone else.
Later that night, I went to Molly. It was a dangerous time to go, for the Keep was abuzz with extra folk and extra servants taking care of them. But my suspicions would not let me stay away. When I tapped on the door that night, Molly asked through the wood, "Who is it?"
"It's me," I replied incredulously. She had never asked before.
"Oh," she replied, and opened the door. I slipped inside and bolted it behind me as she crossed to the hearth. She knelt before it, adding wood it didn't need and not looking at me. She was dressed in her blue servant's dress, and her hair was still bundled up. Every line of her body warned me. I was in trouble again.
"I'm sorry I haven't been here much lately."
"So am I," Molly said shortly.
She wasn't leaving me much in the way of openings. "A lot has been going on, and they've been keeping me pretty busy."
"With what?"
I sighed. I already knew where this conversation was going. "With things I can't talk to you about."
"Of course." For all the calmness and coolness in her voice, I knew her fury was raging just beneath the surface. The slightest wrong word would set it off. So would not saying anything. So my question might as well be tackled head-on.
"Molly, the reason I came tonight—"
"Oh, I knew there had to be some special reason for you to finally drop by. The only thing that really surprises me is myself. Why am I here? Why do I come straight to my room after my duties each day and wait, on the off chance that you might show up? There are other things I could be doing. There are minstrels and puppet shows aplenty lately. Prince Regal sees to that. I could be at one of the lesser hearths with the other servants, enjoying their company. Instead of up here alone. Or I could be getting some work done. Cook lets me use the kitchen when it's not a busy time. I have wicking and herbs and tallow; I should be using them while the herbs still have their full potency. But no, I am up here, on the off chance that you'll remember me and want to spend a few moments with me.
I stood like a rock in the battering waves of her words. There was nothing else I could do. Everything she said was true. I looked at my feet while she caught her breath. When she spoke again, the anger had faded from her voice, to be replaced with something worse. Misery and discouragement.
"Fitz, it's just so hard. Every time I think I have accepted it, I turn a corner and catch myself hoping again. But there's never going to be anything for us, is there? Never going to be a time that belongs just to us, never going to be a place that is just ours." She paused. She looked down, biting on her lower lip. When she spoke, her voice trembled. "I've seen Celerity. She's beautiful. I even made an excuse to speak to her… I asked if they needed more candles for their rooms… She spoke back, shyly, but courteously. She even thanked me for being concerned, as few here thank servants. She's… she's nice. A Lady. Oh, they'll never give you permission to marry me. Why would you want to marry a servant?"
"You are not a servant to me," I said quietly. "I never think of you that way."
"Then what am I? I am not a wife," she pointed out quietly.
"In my heart, you are," I said miserably. It was a pitiful comfort to offer her. It shamed me that she accepted it, and came to rest her forehead on my shoulder. I held her gently for a few moments, then pulled her into a warmer embrace. As she nestled against me I said softly into her hair, "There's something I have to ask you."
"What?"
"Are you… with child?"
"What?" She pulled back from me, to look up into my face.
"Are you carrying my child?"
"I… no. No, I'm not." A pause. "What makes you ask such a thing all of a sudden?"
"It just occurred to me to wonder. That's all. I mean—"
"I know what you mean. If we were married, and I weren't pregnant by now, the neighbors would be shaking their heads over us."
"Really?" Such a thing had never occurred to me before. I knew that some folk wondered if Kettricken were barren, as she had not conceived in over a year of marriage, but a concern over her childlessness was a public issue. I had never thought of neighbors watching newlyweds expectantly.
"Of course. By now, someone would have offered me a tea recipe from their mother's telling. Or powdered boar's tusk to slip into your ale at night."
"Oh really?" I gathered her closer to me, grinning foolishly.
"Um." She smiled back up at me. The smile faded slowly. "As it is," she said quietly, "there are other herbs I take. To be sure that I do not conceive."
I had all but forgotten Patience scolding me that day. "Some herbs like that, I've heard, can make a woman ill, if she takes them for long."
"I know what I'm doing," she said flatly. "Besides, what is the alternative?" she added with less heart.
"Disaster," I conceded.
She nodded her head against me. "Fitz. If I had said yes tonight. If I were pregnant… what would you have done?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought about it."
"Think about it now," she begged me.
I spoke slowly. "I suppose I'd… get a place for you, somehow, somewhere." (I'd go to Chade, I'd go to Burrich, and I'd beg for help. Inwardly I blanched to think of it.) "A safe place. Away from Buckkeep. Upriver, maybe. I'd come to see you when I could. Somehow, I'd take care of you."
"You'd set me aside is what you're sayin
g. Me, and our… my child."
"No! I'd keep you safe, put you where no one would point shame at you or mock you for having a child alone. And when I could, I'd come to you and our child."
"Have you ever considered that you could come with us? That we could leave Buckkeep, you and I, and go upriver now?"
"I can't leave Buckkeep. I've explained that to you every way I know how."
"I know you have. I've tried to understand it. But I don't see why."
"The work I do for the King is such that—"
"Stop doing it. Let someone else do it. Go away with me, to a life of our own."
"I can't. It's not that simple. I wouldn't be allowed to just leave like that." Somehow, we had come uncoupled. Now she folded her arms across her chest.
"Verity's gone. Almost no one believes he's coming back. King Shrewd grows more feeble each day, and Regal prepares himself to inherit. If half of Regal's feelings for you are what you say they are, why on earth would you wish to stay here with him as king? Why would he want to keep you here? Fitz, can't you see that it's all tumbling apart? The Near Islands and Ferry are just the beginning. The Raiders won't stop there."
"All the more reason for me to stay here. To work and, if need be, fight for our people."
"One man can't stop them," Molly pointed out. "Not even a man as stubborn as you. Why not take all that stubbornness and fight for us instead? Why don't we run away, up the river and inland, away from the Raiders, to a life of our own? Why should we have to give up everything for a hopeless cause?"
I couldn't believe what I was hearing from her. If I had said it, it would have been treason. But she said it as if it were the commonest sense. As if she and I and a child that didn't exist yet were more important than the King and the Six Duchies combined. I said as much.
"Well," she asked me, looking at me levelly. "It's true. To me. If you were my husband and I had our child, that's how important it would be to me. More important than the whole rest of the world."
