The Golden Fool ttm-2

by Robin Hobb

  Then the Skill-onslaught from Dutiful nearly dropped me to my knees. Find Civil Bresinga. He is in great danger. Please, Tom, go now. I think he’s down in Buckkeep Town. The Prince sent the urgent demand out like a flood. Somewhere, I was dimly aware that Thick’s music stopped in astonishment.

  I found my wits and channelled a thought back to him. I am not far from him. He is in danger, but it is not as great as you think. How did you know?

  An agonized outpouring of thought trampled my brain. His cat told me. Civil brought him to me tied in a sack and asked me to keep him in my room and not let him out, no matter what. That was the favor he wanted earlier. He said he had to do something where he could not take the cat with him. Tom, don’t wait. The cat says the danger is real, very real. They’ll kill him.

  I’ll protect him. I made the promise and then slammed my Skill-walls up to keep him out. Then I was off and running, circling the small house. Odd, how one’s perceptions change in an instant. Civil had gone into this confrontation expecting to die. He had planned it. That was why he had taken his Wit-beast to Dutiful, to save the small cat’s life lest he go down fighting for his partner. My ugly sword was in my hand as I shouldered the cottage door open. A man went down, his entrails spilling out between his fingers. He had not been armed or threatening me, merely in my way. I blocked against the rebounding pain of his injury as I charged into the room.

  In a single glance. I knew Civil was right. Laudwine sat at the table, a glass of wine before him, watching Padget strangle the boy. Padget enjoyed it. He was a powerful enough man to have made a quick end of the boy if he had so desired. Instead he gripped Civil’s throat from behind him, and held the boy off the ground, feet kicking, as he slowly squeezed. Civil’s face was bright red, his eyes standing out as his fingernails tore hopelessly at Padget’s leather-bound forearms. A nasty little dog, a shorthaired feist of some kind, was jigging merrily around them, snapping at Civil’s dangling feet. The sight woke the red rage of battle in me. In an instant, I felt my chest swell with it and heard the thunder of my own heart. All other considerations fled. I’d kill them both.

  Laudwine was leaning back in his chair, watching the performance, as I made my abrupt entrance. With no panic in his voice, he ordered Padget tersely to ‘Finish him’ and rose, drawing a short sword in one smooth motion to meet my attack. Then he recognized me and his face changed. From the comer of my eye, I saw Padget’s fingers clamp in the flesh of the boy’s throat.

  I could have deflected Laudwine’s sword-lunge or saved Civil’s life, but not both. The table was between Civil and me. I took a running stride, pushed off, and landed on top of the table on one knee. I shoved my bloodied blade past Civil and deep into Padget’s chest. Simultaneously, I felt the bite of Laudwine’s sword. It went into the muscles on the right side of my back between my hip and my ribs. I screamed and rolled away from it, tearing my flesh from his blade. I struck back at him, but there was no strength to my blow. I wallowed off the table, my right leg folding under me. It was fortuitous, for it meant that Laudwine’s follow-up thrust was high and missed me. I took breath and shrieked, ‘Run!’ at Civil. The boy had folded bonelessly to the floor when Padget let go of him to clutch at his chest. Civil still sprawled there, clutching at his neck and whistling frantic breaths into his lungs. Padget had gone to his knees, clutching at the flow of bright blood from his chest while his Wit-beast yipped brainlessly around him.

  Laudwine towered over me as he stepped around the table, sword in his left hand. I rolled under the table, yelping when my injury hit the floor. On the other side, I scrabbled to my feet. The table was between us, but Laudwine was a tall man and had a long reach even with the short sword. I leaned back to avoid the first pass of his blade. ‘I’m going to kill you, you traitor bastard,’ he promised with savage satisfaction.

  The words woke the wolf in me. The pain was not banished; it simply became unimportant. Kill first; lick your wounds later. And make your snarl larger than his. ‘I won’t kill you,’ I promised pleasantly. ‘I’m just going to lop off your other hand and let you live.’ The look of horror that flickered through his eyes told me that my words had bitten to the bone. I caught the edge of the table and flipped it up on its end, then shoved it into him. The tabletop leaned against him and I slammed against it. He stumbled backwards over something, Padget or his yapping Wit-dog. He would have to drop his sword to break his fall. Foolishly, though, he held onto it as he went down. I pressed my advantage, shoving the table onto him so that his legs were trapped under it as he fell.

  On his back, with Padget’s body under his, he swung his sword at me, but the cut had no strength behind it. I avoided it and his backslash, then jumped on top of the table and pinned him to the floor with it. With a two-handed grip, I shoved my sword down into his chest. He screamed, and I heard the battle-scream of a war-horse echo him. The sword slipped and then twisted as I leaned my body weight on it, sliding it between his ribs and into his vitals. He was still yelling, so I pulled it out and stabbed him again. This time I put it in his throat.

  Outside in the street, I heard people shouting questions and something like distant thunder. A horse neighed furiously. Someone cried out, ‘That horse has gone crazy!’ and someone else yelled, ‘Call the city guard!’ From the sounds, I decided that Laudwine’s horse was kicking the wall out of the shed in an attempt to get loose and reach Laudwine’s side. He was dying on the floor, his heart still pumping his life’s blood out of his throat, his eyes still full of fury and fear. I had a sudden flash of insight. I turned to Civil. ‘No time to help you. Get up and get out, through the back. Avoid the guard and get back to Buckkeep. Tell Dutiful everything. Everything, you understand?’

  The boy’s eyes were wide and running tears, but whether from fear, shock, or his recent strangulation, I could not tell. Padget’s feist came after me as I headed towards the door. I steeled my heart, turned, and crushed the little animal with a stamp of my foot. It yelped sharply and was still. Did Padget depart with its death? I wasn’t sure. But as I staggered into the street, I saw Laudwine’s war-horse lunge against the framework of the shed that trapped it. Across the narrow street, the goatherd’s children were clustered in his open doorway, staring. The horse’s huge shod hooves had splintered the planks in his fury to escape. It had weakened the structure of the old shed, so that it was now collapsing sideways around him, actually making it more difficult for the horse to fight his way through the wall.

  But he wasn’t just a horse. Not any more. My Wit-sense of him was confusing, a sensation of both man and horse embodied in one. I saw the stallion pull back from the opening he had made and suddenly appraise his situation with a man’s intelligence. I couldn’t give him time to work out an escape. I ignored the people gawking in the street and ran towards the horse, yelling wordlessly. The war-horse tried to rear up and bring his deadly front hooves into use, but the shed was low-roofed, never intended to stable an animal of that size. The action only exposed his chest and I braced the hilt of my weapon against my own chest as I thrust it into him and rammed it as deep as I could make it go.

  The animal screamed and a wash of Wit-fury and hatred near breached my walls, repelling me. I was flung backwards, leaving my blade trapped in his chest. He surged forward against the splintered walls, screaming his fury. But for the shed entrapping him, I know he would have killed me before he died. As it was, he collapsed at last, blood coursing from his mouth and nostrils as the city guard arrived. Their torches streamed in the winter night and sent confusing shadows leaping over me like springing wolves.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ the sergeant demanded, and then as we recognized one another, he snarled, ‘This is the second time you’ve caused trouble in my streets. I don’t like it.’

  I tried to think of an explanation, but my right leg abruptly folded under me and I collapsed into the trampled snow. ‘There’s two dead in here!’ someone shouted. I rolled my head to see a white-faced girl in a guard’s uniform eme
rge from Laudwine’s cottage. I blinked and strained to see through the darkened streets. Civil’s horse had gone.

  Either it had bolted, or the boy had made his escape. I tried to move, and was suddenly aware of the hot, wet flow of blood down my side. I clutched at my injury.

  ‘Get up!’ the sergeant barked at me.

  ‘I can’t,’ I managed to gasp. I lifted my hands and showed him the blood on them. ‘I’m hurt.’

  He shook his head in angry frustration, and I knew he longed to add to my injuries. He was a man who took his duties personally. ‘What happened here?’

  I gasped for breath, and blessed the goatherd’s son who ran barefoot out of his door, shouting confusedly that the horse went crazy and tried to kick his way out of the shed and then I came out and killed it. The snow grew wet and warm under my back and I felt the night closing in from the edges of my vision.

  Tom? The Prince’s frantic Skill trickled through my crumbling walls. Tom, are you hurt?

  Go away!

  The sergeant leaned over me, demanding, ‘What went on in there?’

  I couldn’t think of a lie. I told the truth. ‘The horse went crazy. I had to kill it.’

  ‘Yes, we know that. But what happened to the men in the house?’

  Tom? Are you hurt?

  I tried to Skill back to Dutiful, but pain was running over me in pounding waves now. I tried to move away from it, but a great spike of it nailed me down to the snowy street. A crowd was gathering around us. I scanned their faces, looking in vain for someone who would help me. They all just stared, eyes and mouths wide as they pointed and shouted explanations to one another. Then I glimpsed a face I did know. For just an instant, she stepped closer to me, and the look on her face seemed genuinely concerned. Henja, the Narcheska’s servant, scowled down at me. Then, as my eyes met hers, she turned away suddenly from me and melted back into the crowd.

  Chade! She’s still here, she’s here in Buckkeep Town. For an instant I knew how important that was. It was essential that Chade know it. Then pain washed all other concerns away from me. I was dying.

  Stop, Make it stop. You’re ruining the music. Thick’s distress pounded me like a surf on a beach.

  ‘Answer me!’

  No lies left, no truth left. I looked up at the sergeant and tried to speak. Then I was slipping, sliding away from them all into the dark. Keep watch, Nighteyes, I begged him, but there was no answer and no wolf stood over me.

  TWENTY

  Coterie

  The people of the Six Duchies have always been an independent folk. The very fact that the Kingdom remains divided into six separate duchies, all loyal to the Farseer monarchy but presided over by their own nobles, speaks to that autonomous spirit. Each duchy represents the separate annexation of apiece of territory, usually by warfare. In many instances, the Farseer conqueror was wise enough to leave some of the indigenous nobility in place. This is particularly true of both Farrow and Beams. An advantage to this system is that laws are adapted to the particular situation of each duchy, as well as to the long-standing custom of the inhabitants. One example of this concession to self-rule is that the larger cities and towns frequently have not only their own city guards to keep order, but finance this militia by a system of taxes on commerce and punitive fines on lawbreakers.

  — Fedwren’s Six Duchies Governance

  Tom.

  Tom.

  Tom.

  At first it didn’t bother me. I was down so deep that the sea itself could not reach me. All was dark and as long as I stayed still, the pain couldn’t find me. Then the word crept slowly into the forefront of my mind. It was like a hammer thudding dully in my skull.

  Not Tom. I told it in annoyance. Go away.

  Not Tom? And the avid interest in Dutiful’s thought pushed me to the edge of wakefulness. Reflexively I slammed up my walls against the boy’s curiosity. An instant later, extreme discomfort drained away all my will and strength for Skilling. I was lying on my belly on what was supposed to be a straw mattress. There wasn’t enough straw in it to matter. The cold of the stone floor seeped up through it. I was stiff and cold everywhere except on the small of my back. That burned. And when I tried to move, the pain savaged me. I groaned weakly and heard the scuff of footsteps.

  ‘You awake?’

  I moved a hand vaguely and opened my eyes to slits. Even the dim light seemed like an assault. I peered at the man above me. A short man, dressed in scruffy clothes with his hair wild about his face stared down at me. His nose and cheeks were the red of the perpetual drinker.

  ‘Healer sewed you up. He said to tell you, don’t move any more than you have to.’ I grunted an assent and the man grinned and said, ‘Hardly needed to tell you that, right?’

  I grunted again. Now that I was fully awake, the extent of my pain was making itself known. I wondered what my situation was, but my mouth was too dry to speak. The chatty fellow seemed affable; perhaps he was the healer’s assistant? I moved my mouth and when I could, took a deep breath and croaked out, ‘Water?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. He went to the door. I followed him with my eyes. I noticed now that the small window in the stout door was barred. He shouted through it, ‘Hey! The hurt fellow is awake. He wants water!’

  If anyone replied, I didn’t hear. He came away from the window and sat down on a stool beside my pallet. I became gradually more aware of my surroundings. Stone walls. A pot in the corner. A scattering of straw on the floor. Aha. My friend was my fellow prisoner. Before I could follow that thought any further, he began talking again. ‘Well. You killed three men and a horse, eh? Pretty good fight, I bet. Wish I could have seen it. Me, I got in a fight last night, too. But I didn’t kill no one. Got in a fight with a tall skinny guy, all scarred like the Pocked Man. Wasn’t no fault of mine. I was talking, perhaps a bit loud, and you know what he said to me? He said, “Shut your mouth and don’t say nothing. That’s always the best advice for a fellow like you. Fellow like you talks and thinks he’s explaining things, but he’s just making a mess of it. He should leave the talking to his friends.” Then he hit me, and I hit him back. And the guards came and arrested me and here I am, in the same predicament as you.’

  I managed to nod that I understood his message. He was one of Chade’s little birds. Chade wanted me to keep my mouth shut and wait. I wondered if he knew how badly hurt I was. I wondered if Civil had gone back to Buckkeep Castle. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t need to wonder. I let my eyes sag shut, gathered my pitiful strength and reached out feebly. Dutiful?

  Tom! Are you all right? His Skilling wavered through my mind like words inked on wet paper. The thought ran and faded even as I tried to grip it.

  I tried to take a deep breath and centre myself. Pain jabbed deep. I breathed more shallowly and reached out hesitantly. No. Laudwine stabbed me in the back, and I’m in jail. I killed him and someone named Padget. And, this is important. Tell Chade I saw Henja in the crowd. She’s still in Buckkeep Town.

  Yes, he knows that. I told him. It was the last thing you Skilled out, that Henja was there. Why is that important?

  I pushed his question aside. I didn’t know the answer to it, and I had more pressing questions of my own. What is going on? Why am I still here? Did Civil come back to you?

  Yes, yes he did. Listen, now, and don’t interrupt me. The boy’s excitement and fear were rattling him. His Skilling clattered at me like hooves on cobblestones. I knew he feared I’d lose consciousness again. Chade says,’say nothing’. He’s working out a story for you. The whole town and the castle are buzzing about what happened in Buckkeep Town. There hasn’t been a triple murder in Buckkeep Town in years, if ever, and that is how people are gossiping about it. So many people saw you kill the horse that, well, that it’s going to be impossible to say you didn’t kill Laudwine and his man. So, well, Chade’s working on a reason why it wouldn’t be murder. But he can’t just come and get you out of there. You see why, don’t you?

 
I see why. There must be no connection between Chade and a bodyguard who committed a triple murder, no link between the Queen and the man who killed the Old Blood delegates, no bond between the Prince and the assassin who had done his bidding. I saw. I had always seen. Don’t worry about me. The thought was cold.

  I could tell Dutiful was trying to control his fear, but it stained his Skilling with dread. His worries whispered past his guard: what if Chade couldn’t think of a tale, what if I died of a septic wound, sweet Eda, he killed them all, men and beast, who is Tom Badgerlock, really, who was he, to kill like that. To shut off his fears I closed my walls to him. I was too weary to Skill anyway, and he’d told me all I needed to know just now. I felt myself separating, not just from Dutiful, but from all of them. I sealed myself up inside my own skin. I was Tom Badgerlock, a servant at Buckkeep, in jail, guilty of murdering three people and killing a fine horse. That was all I was.

  The guard came to the window, warned my fellow prisoner back from the door, and then ventured inside with a bucket and a dipper. He set it down by my pallet. I looked at his boots through my lowered eyelashes. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s awake.’

  ‘Well, he was for a minute there. Didn’t say much, only “water”.’

  ‘If he wakes up again, you call out. Sergeant wants to talk to him.’

  ‘To be sure, I will. But hasn’t my wife come yet to pay my fine? You sent a boy to tell her, didn’t you?’

  ‘I told you we did. Yesterday. If she comes with the coin, you’ll be out.’

  ‘Any chance of some food here?’