Fortune s Fool

by Mercedes Lackey

  If he couldn’t then—no. He could not in all conscience do something like that. The Kingdom, and his family, depended on his Luck. He couldn’t do anything that would diminish it, not and feel anything but guilty.

  But if he could…

  Well, this was not the time to daydream. For once, when he’d been told to stay away, he was happy about it. He was at his favorite place, it was the middle of summer, and a pretty girl was interested in him.

  Leaving aside the fact that she certainly was some sort of magical creature, and there was a possibility, however remote, that she had come here to kill him…

  Coming ashore again, on the deserted beach, Katya busied herself at first in fussing with her costume. Sasha had liked her in red, would he like her in blue? It didn’t take much magic to change the colors. But she was stalling for time, feeling nervous, and finally she had to laugh at herself. She had faced all manner of dangers and never been half as nervous as this!

  Do I tell him who I am? What I am? It only seemed fair. She resolved that she would, but she would have to pick the right time to do so. It wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to just blurt out.

  But at least, being what he was, he would believe her. With anyone else there was the very real possibility that they wouldn’t. Humans, she had noticed, didn’t much like the idea of magic that intruded on their lives. They much preferred it to be somewhere else. Magic, and those who wielded it, took the power of most everything out of their hands, and no one liked to feel powerless. At least, that was what she thought was the reason.

  She had come ashore some distance from their meeting place, and once she was satisfied with how she looked, she began the walk with the gulls and terns crying overhead. Once she had the spot in sight, she ran up the beach to the cluster of boulders where they had first met, steeling herself for disappointment. He might have forgotten. He might have had to leave this village. He might have made the promise idly, without ever really meaning to fulfill it.

  But as she neared the rocks, she heard the merry sound of the balalaika and felt her feet grow lighter.

  He was waiting for her!

  She rounded the large boulder, and there he was! He was standing up this time, leaning against the rock as he played. He grinned when he saw her and ended the dance tune with a flourish.

  “Well met, Katya!” he said, laughing. “I have come better provisioned this time! Have you eaten?”

  “Only breakfast,” she replied, and felt her eyes widen as he pulled a basket out from behind a smaller rock.

  “Then I shall be more than happy to share my midday meal with you,” he told her, eyes dancing. “Though I warn you, it is only tavern fare. Good, but nothing like lark’s tongues and roast peacock.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone heartless enough to silence a lark for the sake of eating its tongue!” she exclaimed, as she settled down on the soft sand next to him while he spread out a cloth and began to unpack the basket onto it. “Nor can I imagine wanting to take a beautiful peacock out of the world just to have a moment of devouring it.”

  “Well, in that, we are one, Katya. I had much rather have plain good food that doesn’t require taking beauty from the world to get it.” He finished unpacking the basket. “There we are. My hostess’s good honest bread, a very nice goat cheese, lovely onions as sweet as you’d like, and a bit of cold hare that we won’t inquire too closely about.” He winked, and she grinned, knowing that he must suspect the hare was poached, but wasn’t going to say or do anything about it.

  “I’m sorry there isn’t any fish—” he began, but she shook her head as she reached for a piece of the substantial dark bread he tore off for her. It was fresh, and had a wonderful, slightly nutty scent to it.

  “Oh no, really I get more than enough fish at home!” The cheese was soft and creamy, and just strong enough to offset the bite of the little green onions. “This is lovely!”

  He watched her eat with evident enjoyment, and made good work of the food himself. She savored each bite; the common food of Nippon was based on rice, not bread, and though it was good, she had missed the baked stuffs she usually enjoyed in the Drylands. Cheese, well they did get cheese beneath the sea, but it was all firm stuff, and of course every bite was flavored with the salt water. This was—delightful.

  She tried not to be greedy. But it came to her, as it did so often when she was on the Drylands, how tired she was of the taste of salt. Everything there tasted of salt. Fruit, even. Maybe if she never came to the Drylands again, she would get used to it, but she never seemed to.

  It was possible to get cooked foods and even baked things in her father’s Kingdom, but you had to leave the Palace grounds to do so. Elsewhere, people could use magic to cook food and even to make little pockets of air where you could have something baked and eat it, too, if you were the sort that could breathe air as Katya was—a gift that was rare outside of the Sirens, the mer-folk, and the seal-people. But Katya never seemed to have the time to go to one of these places anymore….

  And anyway, everything still tasted of salt.

  She realized he was watching her with a little half smile on his face.

  She stopped eating. “What is it?” she asked. “What have I done?”

  “Done? Nothing,” he said pleasantly. “I’m just trying to figure out what sort of magical creature you are, Katya.”

  She froze, and he went on. “There are not a lot of human sea creatures in Led Belarus Tradition, except maybe a swan maiden—swan maidens do land on the ocean. But you haven’t a suggestion of anything feathery about you, and anyway, swan maidens travel in flocks. So that means you must be outside the Led Belarus Tradition, and I’ll admit you have me stumped.” He scratched his head and grinned ruefully. “All I know about are the mer-folk and you haven’t a tail. Well, and the Sirens, but you haven’t tried to drown me, or sing at me to make me love you, so I think I’m safe there.”

  She opened and closed her mouth several times. It was taking her a moment to compose herself. Finally, “I’m the Sea King’s daughter,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Really! And what brings you to Led Belarus, Princess?”

  “Don’t call me that,” she said, blushing. “Call me Katya. And—you are what brings me.”

  Now it was his turn to open and close his mouth, as if about to say something, then thinking better of it. “Me!” he said finally. “But I’m not important. Well—”

  “You’re a Fortunate Fool, and a Songweaver,” she replied, cutting him off. “And you’re the Seventh Son of the King of Led Belarus. But it isn’t so much you yourself that brought me here. It was what you’re doing.”

  He blinked, and nodded. “But all I’m doing is making things peaceful—” he said feebly.

  Katya laughed, and popped a grape in her mouth. “Too peaceful! Or so my father said. He was afraid that things here were about to turn very bad, the calm before the storm, you see. But then I met you and I heard you, and I realized you were a Songweaver, so then, of course, it was all right.”

  “I’m a—” He hesitated. “I’m a what?”

  “A Songweaver. It’s not moving big magics, like a Bard can. It’s smaller things.” She paused, not sure where to go with this explanation.

  But he—oh he was a quick one. “Spinning songs for good harvests and fine weather. Catching evil things and singing them out by making them all too visible to both ordinary folks and their own enemies. Or just singing them out by making it too cheerful for them, because happiness is poison to them. That’s what I do with ghosts, when they’re vicious haunts….”

  “Exactly!” She nodded with relief. “And you can make your songs do more than any other Songweaver I’ve ever seen or heard of, because you’re a Fortunate Fool.”

  “Oho! That’s the explanation!” He seemed pleased. “I had wondered. I thought the reason that the songs were working was only because I am a Fortunate Fool.”

  She wiped her hands off with a napkin and shook her hea
d. “No, it’s the two things working together. By themselves, each is good, but together you make your own luck.”

  “Within reason,” he added for her.

  She nodded. “Within reason. You can sing a ghost out of existence because you can make it unable to resist the pull of the other side. Ghosts are always in a kind of tug-of-war within themselves, and you just add a little push. But you couldn’t sing a demon out of existence.”

  “But!” he said, raising a finger. “I can recognize one when I see him, and I can sing that a priest comes along at just the right time.”

  “And so you can,” she agreed. “There’s how the powers are working together.”

  “There’s the powers working with my brain!” he corrected, tapping his finger on his temple. “So you came because your father sent you. But you’ve come back.”

  “My father has no need of me just now,” she temporized.

  “And neither has mine. I think we have been granted a rare moment of idleness!” he said cheerfully. “Perhaps it’s the fortune of the fool!” Then he laughed. “You’ve no notion how good it is to keep company with someone who understands what I do besides my family.”

  She shook her head. “I have the same problem. No one is to know I am my father’s eyes and ears, or they might be more reticent around me.”

  He sighed. “Welladay. There you have it. But for now, we are on holiday! So what would you care to do, Katya, Sea King’s daughter?”

  She settled her back against the boulder. “I should like to hear you sing.”

  It was about the middle of their third day together that Sasha realized that he was courting this young woman. Possibly she had known it earlier, but if so she had given no sign.

  He said nothing, however. He didn’t want to do or say anything that might make her take offense, and young women could take offense at the oddest things. She might only want to be friends. Or she might think that he was not courting her, but trying to seduce her—

  Well I am, he thought, as he lay in his bed in the inn and stared up at the ceiling in the dark. But my intentions are honorable!

  He would not think of what his brothers might say. He would not think of what his Father would do. All of them should know better anyway. The Fortunate Fool always went away from home and returned with an exotic bride, more often than not, it was a magical one to boot! They should all be expecting it by now.

  Could he win her?

  He certainly hoped so, because he could not imagine feeling this way about any other young lady, ever again. It was not just that she was beautiful, kind, clever, and intoxicating. It was not that he was madly in love. If anything, he was sanely in love. If ever two creatures were suited for each other—

  They were out riding at the moment that he came to this conclusion; she was up behind him on a pillion. Now, his regular saddle didn’t have a pillion pad, but true to the nature of his luck, there had been one left behind at the inn so long ago that no one quite recalled who had left it or why. Not that it mattered. It was his luck. So he was able to suggest to her that they go riding inland, and she readily agreed.

  This was not a part of Led Belarus where they were likely to run into either trouble or people. It was, in fact, hunting lands belonging to one of the boyars, a man who hated to hunt. The people of the fishing village poached it with impunity. There might be a gamekeeper somewhere about, but if there was, Sasha had never seen him.

  Sasha really wasn’t at all sure who or what lived in this forest, besides the possible gamekeeper. He only had one hope—that the unicorns weren’t around.

  He felt his heart sink when he caught a flash of white through the trees.

  “What’s that?” Katya asked, crushing his hope that she hadn’t seen it.

  “I don’t know,” he temporized, because he actually didn’t know, he only guessed it was a unicorn.

  “There it is again!” she exclaimed, as the path curved, and there was the briefest possible glimpse of a white flank.

  Oh, this was bad. This was very bad. How was he to explain the unicorns to her? Oh he could probably sing them away but—

  They rounded another turn in the path, and ahead, the path led straight into a beautiful glade. Sun poured down into the pocket meadow, golden and sweet as honey. The sound of gurgling water was just audible, along with the song of a lark. Lush, deep green grass carpeted the ground, and in the middle of this tiny paradise, haloed by the sun, stood—

  A white doe.

  Relief made him flush. Thank heavens.

  “Oh!” Katya said, as the deer turned her mild eyes on them and nodded. “Oh! She’s lovely!”

  She was more than lovely. Sasha quickly ran through all the lore in his head. A white stag could sometimes be a guide, but a white doe—

  He dismounted, and slowly walked toward the beautiful creature. She let him approach. He got within a few feet of her, then stopped. “Are you under a curse or a spell?” he asked.

  Slowly, the doe nodded.

  “Can it be broken?” Sasha asked, as he heard Katya behind him respond to that answer with a swift intake of breath. Again, the doe nodded.

  “Does it have to be a Prince of the Royal House?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be no. Because all of the White Doe stories had a period of sorrow and trial to them, and he was hoping his brothers would be spared that. And oh no—he had chosen his bride, if it could be done, if Katya would have him, and in no way was he going to be this girl’s rescuer. To his intense relief, the doe shook her head. “Any boyar will do, then?” he asked, and was rewarded with a nod.

  Thanks be to the blessed saints. He thought about the man whose hunting lands these were. What he knew of Boyar Arkadij was all good. He was a kind man, good to his peasants—as witness the fact that poachers here went unpunished—faithful in his loyalty to the King, solitary by nature. Perhaps that was why the doe appeared here.

  “I will send a message to the boyar whose forest this is,” he told the doe. “I think you will like him. I suggest you start showing yourself near the hunting lodge in this forest as soon as possible.”

  The doe bowed her head and delicately pawed the ground. Sasha smiled as the doe reared a little, then whirled on her hind feet and vaulted off into the shadows under the trees so lightly he did not even hear a rustle of branches.

  “Well,” he said, looking around at the perfect little glade. “This looks like as good a place as any for our lunch, no?”

  Katya had known from the moment her father had asked her if she fancied Sasha that she was falling in love with him. Since he’d begun making moves she could only interpret as courtship almost immediately, she could see no reason why she shouldn’t. Traditionally, they were a very good match. The Fortunate Fool never, in any of the tales that she had ever heard, was paired up with an ordinary girl, not even a Princess unless she had some sort of magic about her or was the captive of a magical villain. He always found a wife who was a swan maiden, or a captive of some evil creature, or enchanted into the form of a bird, or a deer or—

  That was why she realized, after Sasha himself had clearly figured it out, that the pure white doe must be exactly the latter. And her heart sank as she came to that conclusion.

  But then Sasha had questioned it, and when he’d asked about how the curse could be lifted, then promised to tell the boyar who owned these lands about the poor thing, her heart had risen again.

  She helped him to unpack the pannier they had brought with them, and set out a meal. There was far more food in there than two people could ever eat in a day, but Sasha explained to her that he always tried to pack a great deal of food, in case he should meet a little old lady begging, because such little old ladies popping up in the path of princes were almost always witches. That was even more the case when the Prince was a Fortunate Fool. Mostly they just gave him their blessing and let him ride on if he fed them, but once he had been sent to a treasure, and once he had been sent to the aid of an old hermit.

  “
That was a very kind thing you did just now, Sasha,” she said, going to the stream and returning with both their cups filled with water. She could hardly get enough of pure water when she was on Drylands. It was almost intoxicating in its sweetness, after the heavy salt of sea water. Sasha found that very amusing, she imagined, though he never said anything.

  “Kind? I suppose so.” He helped himself to a boiled egg and began to peel it. “I was just hoping she hadn’t come for me, or for one of my brothers. She won’t have an easy time of it. The boyar will break the curse, I am sure, but whatever cursed her will know that the curse has been broken and come here to plague her. Something bad will happen to her, and she and her boyar will have to work through it before they can be happy.” He shook his head. “Usually the firstborn child is stolen, and the witch makes it look as if the mother has murdered it. Often the girl is actually at the stake to be burned before the truth is discovered. There is a lot of grief, pain, and fear before the proper people are found and punished. I don’t want that kind of trouble in my family.”

  She nodded soberly. He sighed. “That’s the thing, you see. There is a lot I can do…but there is a lot more that I can’t. I’m not powerful enough to make it so that poor girl won’t have to endure that suffering. I can make a choice of paths for The Tradition, but I can’t send it out of its chosen path once it’s in. There are too many things I can’t do. I can sing a ghost into the afterlife, or a demon to sleep, but I can’t cure someone’s illness, nor do anything at all about boyars that are mean-spirited and cruel to their peasants. It’s—” he looked down at the half-peeled egg in his hands, as if surprised to see it there “—it’s frustrating.”

  She felt a surge of pity for him, as well as a burst of affection. How could you not love a man like this one? His heart was so big….

  And with all that he did for people, he himself was treated as the fool, the nuisance, the fellow best gotten out of the way when something important was going on. Even though his family knew what he was. They still discounted him,