The Golden Fool ttm-2

by Robin Hobb

  I cut her off before she could say anything more. ‘Perhaps “Lord Golden’s secret” is not what you think it is. Or perhaps you have lived among Jamaillians for too long,’ I suggested, offended.

  At my sour look, she had only laughed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘You might as well trust me. “Lord Golden” has, for years now. Believe in my friendship for both of you, and know that, like you, I can keep a friend’s secrets when they deserve to be kept.’ She turned her head and regarded me as a bird looks at a worm. ‘But some secrets beg to be betrayed. The secret of undeclared love is like that. Amber is a fool not to voice her feelings for you. It does neither of you any good to ignore such a secret.’ She stared into my eyes earnestly, her hand still gripping my wrist.

  ‘I don’t know what secret you refer to,’ I replied stiffly, even as I wondered uneasily just how many of my secrets the Fool had shared with her. At that moment, two serving maids appeared at the end of the hall and continued towards us, gossiping merrily.

  She had dropped my wrist, sighed for me and shook her head in mock pity. ‘Of course you don’t,’ she replied, ‘and you won’t even see what is put right on the table before you. Men. If it was raining soup, you’d be out there with a fork.’ She slapped me on the back, and then our ways parted, much to my relief.

  After that, I began to long to have things out with the Fool. Like an aching tooth, I jiggled over and over what I would say to him. The frustration was that he excluded me from his bedchamber, even as he seemed to welcome Jek in for private talks. Not that I rapped at his door and demanded entrance. I had been maintaining a sullen silence towards him, waiting hungrily for him to demand just what ailed me. The problem was that he did not. He seemed focused elsewhere; it was as if he did not notice my silence or my surliness. Is there anything more provoking than waiting for someone to open the lowering quarrel? My mood became ever darker. That Jek believed the Fool was some woman named Amber did nothing to soothe my irritation. It only made the situation ever more bizarre.

  In vain, I tried to distract myself with other mysteries. Laurel gone. In the dwindling days of winter, I had noticed her absence. My discreet inquiries as to where the Huntswoman was led me to rumours that she had gone to visit her family.

  Under the circumstances, I doubted that. When asked bluntly, Chade informed me that it was not my concern if the Queen had decided to send her huntswoman out of harm’s way. When I asked where, he gave me a scathing look. ‘What you don’t know is less danger for you and for her.’

  ‘And is there more danger, then, that I should know of?’

  He considered for a moment before replying, then sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know. She begged a private audience with the Queen. What was said there, I don’t know, for Kettricken refuses to tell me. She gave some foolish promise to the Huntswoman that it would remain a secret between the two of them. Then, Laurel was gone. I don’t know if the Queen sent her away, or if she asked permission to leave, or if she simply fled. I have told Kettricken that it is not wise to leave me uninformed about this. But she will not budge from her promise.’

  I thought of Laurel as I had last seen her. I suspected she had gone forth to fight the Piebalds in her own way. What that could be, I had no idea. But I feared for her. ‘Have we had any word about Laudwine and his followers?’

  ‘Nothing that we know is absolutely true. But three rumours might as well be the truth, as the saying goes. And there are plentiful rumours that Laudwine has recovered from the injury you dealt him, and that he will once more take up the reins of power over the Piebalds. The closest we have to good news is that some may dispute his right to lead them. We can only hope that he has problems of his own.’

  And so I hoped, fervently, but in my heart I did not believe it.

  There was little to lighten my life elsewhere. The Prince had not come to the Skill tower on the morning of the Narcheska’s departure. I thought little of that. He had had a late night and his presence was demanded early on the docks. But on the two mornings since then, I had waited in vain for him. I had arrived at our appointed hour, and waited, labouring over some scroll translations alone, and then I left. He sent me no word of explanation. After simmering in my own anger through the second morning, I made a firm decision that I would not contact him. It was, I told myself firmly, not my place. I tried to put myself in the Prince’s skin. How would I have felt if I had found that Verity had given me a Skill-command to be loyal? I knew too well how I felt about Skillmaster Galen fogging my mind and masking my Skill-talent from me. Dutiful had a right to both his anger and his royal contempt of me. I’d let them run their course. When he was ready, I’d give him the only explanation I could: the truth. I had not meant to bind him to obey me, only to stop him from attempting to kill me. I sighed at the thought and bent over my work again. It was evening and I was sitting up in Chade’s tower. I had been there since afternoon, waiting for Thick. It was yet another meeting that he had missed. As I had pointed out to Chade, there was little he or I could do if the half-wit would not voluntarily come to meet me. Still, I had not wasted my time. In addition to several of the older and more obscure Skill-scrolls that we were deciphering piecemeal, Chade had given me two old scrolls that dealt with Icefyre, the God Runes’ dragon. They both dealt with legends, but he hoped I could sift whatever seed of truth had begun them. He had already dispatched spies to the Out Islands. One had sailed secretly aboard the Narcheska’s vessel, ostensibly working his way across to visit relatives there. His true mission was to reach Aslevjal, or at least to discover as much about that isle as could be learned, and to report back to Chade with it. The old man feared that having committed himself to the quest, Dutiful must actually go. But he was determined the Prince would go well prepared and well accompanied. ‘I myself may go with him,’ Chade had informed me at our last-chance encounter in the tower. I had groaned, but managed to keep it a silent one. He was too old for such a trip. By an amazing effort of will, I managed to keep those words to myself also. For I knew what would follow any protest. ‘Who, then, do you think I should send?’ I was no more in favour of visiting Aslevjal myself then I was for Chade going. Or Prince Dutiful, for that matter

  I pushed the scroll to one side and rubbed my eyes. It was interesting, but I doubted that anything there was going to the Prince for his quest. From what I knew of our stone dragons, even from what the Fool had told me of the Bingtown dragons, it seemed highly unlikely to me that there was a dragon deep in a glacier on an Outislander isle. Far more likely that a ’slumbering dragon’ was fancifully blamed for earthquakes and glaciers calving. Besides, I’d had enough of dragons for a time. The more I worked on the scroll, the more troubling thoughts of the veiled Bingtowner menaced my sleep. Yet I could wish those were my only concerns.

  My eyes fell on a heavy pottery bowl, upside down on the corner of the table. There was a dead rat under it. Well, there was most of a dead rat under. I’d taken it from the ferret last night. From a sound sleep, a Wit-scream of hideous pain had awakened me. It was not the ordinary snuffing of a small creature’s life. Anyone with the Wit had to become inured to those constant ripples. Usually, little creatures went like popping bubbles. Among animals, death is a daily chance one takes in the course of living. Only a human bonded to a creature could have given such a roar of dismay, outrage and sorrow over a creature’s death.

  Once jolted awake by it, I had given up all hope of going back to sleep. It was as if my wound of losing Nighteyes had suddenly been torn afresh. I had arisen and, loath to awaken the Fool, had instead come up to the tower. On the way I had encountered the ferret dragging the rat. It had been the largest, most glossily healthy rat I had ever seen. After a chase and a tussle, the ferret had surrendered it to me. There was no way I could prove that this dead rat had been someone’s Wit-beast, but my suspicions were strong. I had saved it to show it to Chade. I knew we had a spy sneaking about within the keep’s walls. Laurel’s lynched sprig of laurel was proof enough of that. Now. it seemed
possible that the rat and his Wit-partner had not only penetrated to the royal residence, but knew something of our hidden lairs. I hoped that old man would come to the tower this evening.

  I now turned to the two old Skill-scrolls, we’d been piecing together. They were more challenging than the Icefyre vellums and yet more satisfying to work on. Chade believed, that they were part of the same work, based on the apparent age of the vellum and the style of lettering used. I believed they were two separate works based on the choice of words and the illustrations. Both were faded and cracked, with portions of words or whole sentences unreadable. Both were in an archaic lettering that gave me headaches. Beside each scroll was a clean piece of vellum, with Chade’s and my line-for-line translations of the two. Looking at them, I realized that my handwriting predominated now. I glanced at Chade’s latest contribution. It was a sentence that began, ‘The use of elfbark’. I frowned at that, and found the corresponding line in the old scroll. The illustration beside it was faded, but it was definitely not elfbark. The word Chade had translated as ‘elfbark’ was partially obscured by a stain. But squinting at it, I had to agree that ‘elfbark’ did seem the most likely configuration of the letters. Well, that made no sense. Unless the illustration did not pertain to that part of the text. In which case, the piece I had translated might be all wrong. I sighed.

  The wine rack swung open. Chade entered, followed by Thick bearing a tray of food and drink. ‘Good evening,’ I greeted them, and carefully set my work to one side.

  ‘Good evening, Tom,’ Chade greeted me.

  ‘Evening, master,’ Dogstink. Thick echoed him.

  Don’t call me that. ‘Good evening, Thick. I thought you and I were going to meet here earlier today.’

  The half-wit set the tray down on the table and scratched himself. ‘Forgot,’ he said with a shrug, but his little eyes narrowed as he said it.

  I gave Chade a glance of resignation. I had tried, but the old man’s surly stare seemed to say I had not tried hard enough. I tried to think of a way to be rid of Thick so I could discuss the rat with Chade.

  ‘Thick? Next time you bring up wood for the fire, could you bring an extra load? Sometimes in the evening, it gets quite cold up here. I gestured at the dwindling flames. I’d had to let it die down as there was no more wood to fuel it.

  Cold dogstink. The thought reached me clearly but he simply stood and stared at me slackly as if he had not understood my words.

  ‘Thick? Two loads of firewood tonight. All right?’ Chade spoke him a bit more loudly than was needed and saying each word clearly. Could he not sense how much that annoyed Thick? The man was simple, but not deaf. Nor stupid, really.

  Thick nodded slowly. ‘Two loads.’

  ‘You could go get it right now, Chade told him.

  ‘Now,’ Thick agreed. As he turned to go, he gave me a brief glance from the corner of his eyes. Dogstink. More work.

  I waited until he had gone before I spoke to Chade. He had set the tray on the table opposite the scrolls. ‘He doesn’t try to assault me with the Skill any more. But he uses it to insult me, privately. He knows you cannot hear him. I don’t know why he dislikes me so much. I’ve done nothing to him.’

  Chade lifted one shoulder. ‘Well, you will both just have to get past that and work together. And you must begin soon. The Prince must have some sort of Skill-coterie to accompany him on this quest, even if it’s only a serving-man he can draw strength from. Court Thick, Fitz, and win him. We need him.’ When I met his words with silence, he sighed. Glancing about, he offered, ‘Wine?’

  I indicated my cup on the table. ‘No, thank you. I’ve been drinking hot tea this evening.’

  ‘Oh. Very good.’ Chade walked around the table to see what I was working on. ‘Oh. Did you finish the Icefyre scrolls?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not yet. I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful in them. They seem to be very vague about the actual dragon. Mostly accounts of earthquakes that proved that the dragon would punish someone if he didn’t do what was just, and so the man realizes that he had best behave in a righteous way.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you should finish reading them. There might be something in there, some hidden mention of a detail that could be useful.’

  ‘I doubt it. Chade, do you think there even is a dragon? Or might not this be Elliania’s ploy to delay her marriage, by sending the Prince off to slay something that doesn’t exist?’

  ‘I am satisfied that some sort of creature is encased in ice on Aslevjal Isle. There are a number of passing mentions of it being visible in some of the very old scrolls. A few winters of very deep snowfalls and an avalanche seem to have obscured it. But for a time travellers in that area would go far out of their way to stare into the glacier and speculate on what they were seeing inside it ‘

  I leaned back in my chair. ‘Oh, good. Perhaps this will be more a task for shovels and ice saws than for a prince and a sword.’

  A smile flickered briefly over Chade’s face. ‘Well, if it comes to moving ice and snow swiftly, I think I’ve come up with a better technique. But it still needs refinement.’

  ‘So. That was you on the beach last month?’ I had heard rumours of another lightning blast, this one witnessed by several ships out in the harbour. The explosion had happened in the deep of night during a snowstorm. It befuddled all who spoke of it. No one had seen lightning streak through the sky, nor would expect to on such a night. But no one could deny hearing the blast. A sizeable amount of stone and sand had been moved by it.

  ‘On the beach?’ Chade asked me as if mystified.

  ‘Let it go,’ I conceded, almost with relief. I had no wish to be included in his experiments with his exploding powder.

  ‘As we must,’ Chade agreed, For we have other things to discuss, things of much greater importance. How is the Prince progressing with his Skill lessons?’

  I winced. I had not informed Chade that the Prince had not been coming to them. I hedged at first, reminding him, ‘I’ve been reluctant to let him do any actual Skilling while the scaled Bingtowner is still here. So we had only been studying the scrolls—’

  Then I suddenly saw little sense in withholding the truth, and no future at all in lying to Chade. ‘Actually, he hasn’t come to any of his lessons since the farewell banquet. I think he’s still angry at discovering I’d placed a Skill-command on him.’

  Chade scowled at the news. ‘Well. I’ll take steps to correct him. Regardless of how ruffled his feathers are, he had best put himself to that task. Tomorrow, he will be there. I will arrange that he will be able to spend an extra hour with you each morning and not be missed. Now. As to Thick. You must get to the task of teaching him, Fitz, or at least getting him to obey you. I leave how you do that to you, but I suggest that bribes will work better than threats or punishments. Now. On to our next task: how do you propose that we begin looking for other Skill candidates?’

  I sat down and crossed my arms on my chest. I tried to hold in anger as I asked, ‘Then you’ve found a Skillmaster to teach other candidates if you find them?’

  He knit his brows at me. ‘We have you.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. I teach the Prince at his request. And you’ve coerced me into trying to teach Thick. But I am not a Skillmaster. Even if I had the knowledge to be one, I would not be one. I cannot. You are asking me for a lifetime commitment. You’re asking me to take on an apprentice who would eventually assume the duties of Skillmaster when I died. There is no possible way I could take on a class of students and instruct them in the Skill without revealing to all of them who I am. I won’t do that.’

  Chade stared at me, mouth slightly ajar at my contained anger. It seemed to give my words momentum.

  ‘Furthermore, I’d prefer that you let me settle my quarrel with the Prince in my own way. It will go better so. It’s a personal matter, between him and me. As for when and where I will be able to teach Thick? Never and nowhere,’ I said shortly. ‘He doesn’t like me. He’s un
pleasant, ill-mannered and smelly. And, if you haven’t noticed before, he’s a half-wit. A bit dangerous to trust him with the Farseer magic. But even if he weren’t all those things, he has rejected all my efforts to teach him anything.’ That was true, I defended it to myself. He had quickly terminated all of my half-hearted attempts at conversation, leaving me in a cloud of Skilled insults. ‘And he’s strong. If I push him, he may take that dislike of me to a violent level. Frankly, he scares me.’ If I had thought to provoke Chade to anger, I failed. He slowly sat down across from me and took a sip from his wine glass. He regarded me silently for a moment, then shook his head. ‘This won’t do, Fitz,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I know that you doubt you can instruct the Prince and create a coterie for him in the time we have, but as it is something we must do, I have faith you will find a way.’

  ‘You are convinced the Prince needs a coterie at his side before he undertakes this quest. I’m not even sure this is a real quest, let alone that a coterie will be able to assist him troop of soldiers with shovels.’

  ‘Nevertheless, sooner or later the Prince will need a coterie, we might as well begin to create one now.’ He learned back in his chair and crossed his arms on his chest. ‘I’ve an idea of how to find likely candidates.’

  I stared at him silently. He blithely ignored my refusal to be Skillmaster. His next words incensed me.

  ‘I could simply ask Thick. He located Nettle easily. Perhaps if he put his mind to it and was rewarded for each success, he could find others.’

  ‘I really want nothing to do with Thick,’ I said quietly.

  ‘A shame,’ Chade replied as softly. ‘For I’m afraid this is no longer a matter for discussion between you and me. Let me say this plainly: it is your queen’s command for us. We met for several hours this morning, discussing Dutiful and his quest. She shares my opinion that he must have a coterie to accompany him. She asked what candidates we had. I told her Thick and Nettle. She wishes their training to begin at once.’