Tawny Man 02 - Golden Fool

by Robin Hobb

  ‘Per what’s a birdie agonna do t’you?’ one drunkenly demanded of a less courageous fellow. ‘Shittapon you, praps? You oughta be ‘customed to that, Reddy. That woman of yers does it oft enough.’

  And that made for a brief and very cramped fistfight at that end of the table. When the combatants had been ejected by their fellows into the chilly night, Web declared that he’d had all the ale and stories he could hold for one evening, but he’d be pleased to join them again tomorrow, if he were welcome. To my dismay, Blade and several others heartily decided he was welcome, Witted or not, yes, and his bird, too.

  ‘Well, my Risk’s not one for coming within walls, nor for flight by dark. But I’ll see you get a chance to meet her tomorrow, if you’ve a mind.’

  As we parted from them and crossed the castle to the east apartments, it gradually came to me that Web had probably done more to further the cause of the Witted tonight than all the talk of the earlier day had. Perhaps he truly was a gift to us.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Negotiations

  One man armed with the right word may do what an army of swordsmen cannot.

  Mountain proverb

  I reported on Web to Chade, of course, and in turn he reported to the Queen. And thus at the next day’s meeting, in front of the Six Duchies representatives, she made certain that Web had the first opportunity to speak. I crouched behind the wall, my eye to the crack and listened to him. She introduced him to the delegates before he spoke, saying that he represented the oldest of the Old Blood lines, and that she desired that he be treated with all courtesy. Yet when she yielded her audience to him, he assured them all that he was only a humble fisherman who happened to be descended of parents far wiser than he would ever be. Then, with an abruptness that left me gasping, he introduced his proposals for ending the unjust persecution of the Witted. He spoke as much to the Witted as he did to our queen as he suggested that perhaps her best method to begin to bring the two groups together would be to admit some Witted into her own household.

  As he spoke, he sounded more like a Jhaampe wise-man settling a dispute than a spokesman for the Old Blood. My queen’s eyes shone as she listened to him. I caught not just Chade, but at least two of the Six Duchies men, nodding thoughtfully at what he proposed. Step by step, he revealed the reasoning behind his suggestion. He attributed much of the unjust persecution to fear, and much of the fear to ignorance. The ignorance he blamed on the Witted’s need to remain hidden for their own safety. Where better to begin an end to ignorance than in the Queen’s own household? Let an Old Blood woman with birding-skills assist in the mews, and a Witted dog-boy come to help her Huntswoman. Let her have a Witted page or maid, for no other reason than to let folk discover that they were no different from unWitted pages and maids. Let other nobles see that these folk did no harm to her household or to others, but rather prospered them. The Queen would, of course, commit to their protection from persecution until others had been won firmly to the cause. The Old Blood thus placed would take oath to initiate no strife.

  Then, with a smoothness which left me gasping, he offered his own services to the Queen. This he did as courteously and correctly as any court-trained noble’s son, so that I wondered uneasily if he had truly come of a fishing family. Down on one knee he sank before her, and begged to be allowed to remain at Buckkeep when the others departed. Let him live in the keep, and both learn and teach. Carefully keeping the secret of the Prince’s Wit when speaking before her Six Duchies councillors, he nonetheless offered himself as ‘a rough tutor, admittedly but one who would love to educate the Prince in how our folk live and in our customs, that he might know this group of his subjects more thoroughly’.

  Chade objected. ‘But if you do not return to your folk as we promised, will not some say we kept you hostage against your will?’ I suspected my old mentor did not desire an Old Blood man counselling the Prince.

  Web chuckled at his concern. ‘All in the room have witnessed that I offer myself. If after they leave me here, you choose to chop and burn me, well, then let it be said that it was due to my own wooden-headedness, that I trusted wrong. But I do not think that will be so. Will it, my lady?’

  ‘Of a certainty, not!’ Queen Kettricken declared. ‘And whatever else may come of these meetings, I will count it a benefit that I have added such a clear-minded fellow to my household men.’

  His careful pondering of the situation and his suggestions had taken all the morning. When it was time for the noon meal, Web declared that he would eat with his new friends in the guardroom and then introduce them to his bird. Before Chade could suggest that would not be wise, the Queen announced that indeed she and Chade and her Six Duchies councillors would join him there, for she too wished see his Risk.

  How I longed to be present for that, not just to witness it, but also to see the reaction of the guards when they found themselves honoured with the Queen at their table. It could not damage Web’s standing with him that he had brought about such a thing. And I did not doubt that more would come to meet his bird if the Queen herself did not fear his Wit-beast.

  But I was trapped in my watching-place, being Chade’s eyes when he was not in the room. I saw the Old Bloods unmask after their food had been brought in. As before, Boyo and Silvereye spoke loudly of injustices done and the need for retribution, but theirs were not the only voices raised. Some spoke of Web’s performance with amazement. I heard at least one woman say to another that, having met Kettricken, she would not mind entrusting a son to her to be her page, for she had heard that all children in the Keep were given a chance to learn both numbers and writing. And a young man, clearly a minstrel from his voice, wondered aloud what it would be like to sing the Old Blood songs at the Queen’s own hearth, and if such a thing would not truly be the best way to teach the unWitted that his people were neither fearsome nor monstrous.

  A crack had been opened. Tomorrow’s possibilities were gaining strength, growing in the light of Web’s optimism. I wondered if they could grow enough to cast their shadows over the weeds of yesterday’s wrongs.

  The afternoon, however, was a disappointment, long and tedious. When the Queen and her councillors returned with Web, Boyo rose to claim his turn to speak. Forewarned about him by Chade and myself, Kettricken listened calmly as he detailed first all the generalized wrongs the Farseers had ever done to the Old Bloods, and then the specifics of his case. There, at least, my queen was able to muffle him. Firmly but courteously, she told him that now was not the time for her to settle personal wrongs. If lands and wealth had been unjustly taken from his family, then that was a matter to be settled before her on a judging day rather than at this time. Chade would help him to make an appropriate appointment, and would also tell him what documentation he would need. Most of it would likely relate to the need for him to define a clear line of succession from his dispossessed ancestor to himself, including a minstrel that could attest to his being of the line of the eldest child of an eldest child for the intervening generations.

  Very neatly she made it seem that he was putting his own interests ahead of the others at the meeting, as indeed he was. She did not refuse to find justice for him, but relegated his seeking of it to the path which any Six Duchies citizen would have to follow. She reminded them all that this convocation was intended to allow all to join their thoughts as to how unjust persecution of the Old Bloods might be ended.

  Silvereye stirred a muck more difficult to settle. She spoke of those who had murdered her family. As she spoke, her voice rose in anger and hatred and pain, and I saw those emotions echoed in many faces around her. Web looked sick and sorrowful, and my Queen’s face grew very still. Chade’s features were graven in stone. But anger most often begets anger, and the faces of Queen Kettricken’s Six Duchies representatives became set in surly expressions. The vengeance and punishment she demanded were far too steep for anyone to consider granting.

  It was as if she set a jump that no negotiator could clear and then declared that
she could be satisfied with nothing less. This, she declared, was the only way to end persecution of the Old Blood. Make it a crime so hideously punished that none would consider committing it again. Further, search out and eliminate all who had ever committed or tolerated such treatment of Old Bloods. Out of her personal sorrow Silvereye expanded her grievance to include all Witted executed in the last century. She demanded both punishment and restitution, with the punishment to mirror exactly what had befallen their victims. Kettricken had the wisdom to allow her to keep speaking until she had run out of words. Surely I could not have been the only one to hear the edge of madness in her demands. And yet if grief powered that madness, then who was I to criticize it?

  By the time Silvereye had finished, there were many other Old Bloods anxious to take up the tally of all that had been lost to the persecution. Names were called out of folk who deserved death, and the anger in the room swirled like a gathering storm. But my queen held up a hand and asked them quietly, ‘Then where should it end?’

  ‘When every last one has been punished!’ Silvereye declared passionately. ‘Let the gallows sway with their weight, and the smoke of their burning blacken the skies all summer. Let me hear their families wail aloud in a sorrow like the sorrows that we have been forced to conceal, lest others know us for Old Bloods. Let the punishment be apportioned exactly. For every father killed, let a father die. For every mother, a mother. For every child, a child.’

  The Queen sighed. ‘And when those who have suffered your vengeance come seeking from me a vengeance of their own? How then could I turn them aside? You propose that if a man has killed the children of an Old Blood family, then the children of his family should die alongside him. But what of the cousins of those children and the grandparents? Should not they then come before me and ask of me what you now demand? Would not they be just as right in saying that innocents had died in mad persecution? No. This cannot be. You ask what I cannot give you, and well you know it.’

  I saw hatred and fury leap into Silvereye’s gaze. ‘So I knew it would be,’ she declared bitterly. ‘Empty promises are what you offer us.’

  ‘I offer you the same justice that anyone in the Six Duchies may seek,I the Queen said wearily. ‘Come before me on a judging day, with witnesses to the wrongs done to you. If murder has been done, then the murderer will be punished. But not his children. There is no justice in what you seek, only revenge.’

  ‘You offer us nothing!’ Silvereye declared. ‘Well you know that we do not dare come before you seeking justice. Too many would stand between us and Buckkeep Castle, anxious to silence us with death.’ She paused. Queen Kettricken remained still in the face of her wrath, and Silvereye made the mistake of pressing what she thought was her advantage. ‘Or has that always been your intention, Farseer Queen?’ Silvereye swept the gathering with a righteous glance. ‘Does she lure us out into the open with empty promises so that she can do away with all of us?’

  A brief silence followed her words. Then Kettricken spoke quietly. ‘You throw words that you do not yourself believe. Your intention is to wound. Yet, if your accusations had any basis in fact, I would not be wounded by them, but would rather feel justified in hating Old Bloods.’

  ‘Then you admit that you hate Old Bloods?’ Silvereye demanded with satisfaction.

  ‘That is not what I said!’ Kettricken responded both in horror and anger.

  Tempers were rising, and not just among the Old Bloods. Kettricken’s Six Duchies councillors looked both insulted and uneasy at the brewing storm in the room. I do not know what would have become of the negotiation if fate had not intervened in the person of Sally, the cow-woman. She stood abruptly, saying, ‘I must go to the stables. It is Wisenose’s time, and she wishes me to be there.’

  Someone in the back of the room laughed resignedly, and someone else cursed at her. ‘You knew she was due to calve. Why did you bring her?’

  ‘Would you have me leave her alone at home, then? Or that I stay away entirely, Briggan? Well do I know that you think me scatter-brained, but I’ve as good a right to be here as you.’

  ‘Peace,’ Web said suddenly. He croaked the word, then cleared his voice and tried again. ‘Peace. It is as good a time as any to let tempers and hearts cool, and if Wisenose has need of her partner, then surely no one here will argue that she must go. And I will accompany her, if she wishes it. And perhaps by the time we return, all here will recall that we seek a solution to our present problems, not a way to change what is past, however grievous it may be.’

  It struck me then that Web had a firmer control over this meeting than the Queen herself, but I doubt that any within the room noticed it. That is the advantage to watching from the outside, as Chade had often told me. Then it all becomes a show, and one scrutinizes the players equally. I observed them now as the Six Duchies delegation filed out behind the Queen and Chade, and then Web accompanied Sally down to the stables. I remained at my post, for I judged that what would follow might be most revealing of all.

  And it was. Some, including the minstrel and the woman who had earlier spoken of her son paging for the Queen, asked Silvereye if she would destroy their future for the sake of a past that could not be remedied. Even Boyo seemed inclined to think Silvereye had taken their argument too far. ‘If this Farseer queen holds to her word, then perhaps our grievances could be brought before her at a judging. I have heard it said she is fair in her decisions. Perhaps we should accept her offer.’

  Silvereye all but hissed. ‘Cowards, all of you. Cowards and-boot-lickers! She offers you bribes, safety for one or two of your children, and in return you are ready to let the whole past forgotten. Do you forget the screams of your cousins, do you forget: coming to visit friends and finding only a scorched patch by a stream? How can you be so false to your own blood? How can you forget?’

  ‘How can we forget? It isn’t a matter of forgetting. It is a matter of remembering.’ This from an Old Blood I had not particularly noted before. He was a man of middle years and slight build, a man with the look of a town about him. He was not a good speaker; he gulped his words and looked nervously about, but folk still listened to him. ‘I will tell you what I remember. I remember that when my parents were taken from their cottage, it was because Piebalds betrayed them. Yes, and a Piebald rode with those who hanged and quartered them. Laudwine’s cult dared to call my parents traitors to Old Blood and threatened to punish them because they would not offer haven to those who stir the hatred against us. Well, who was the true traitor that day? My parents who wished only to live in what peace they could find, or the Piebald betrayer who carried the torch that burned their bodies? We have worse enemies than this Farseer queen to fear. And what I intend to ask of her when she comes back is justice against those who terrorize and betray us. Justice against the Piebalds.’

  A silence thick as congealing blood filled up the room. The minstrel came and set a hand on the slight man’s sleeve. ‘Bosk. She cannot help us with that. That is for us to deal with. All you would do is put yourself at greater risk; yes, and your wife and daughters, too.’ The minstrel glanced about the room, almost fearfully. And my heart sank at what I realized. The Old Bloods feared their own. There might be Piebald informers in that very room. The thought spread silently, chilling all of them. Soon some of them made excuses to visit their own chambers, and in a short time the room was nearly empty. Silvereye sat staring silently into the fire. The minstrel wandered aimlessly about the room. There was little talk among the few that remained.

  I heard a scuffling noise down the passage behind me, and in a moment Chade crept up to join me. ‘Anything important?’ he whispered.

  I set my hand to his wrist and conveyed all I had seen. His face grew thoughtful. After a moment he said softly, ‘Well. That sets my thoughts in a new track. It would not be the first time I had turned an error to an advantage. Keep your watch here, Fitz.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Are you getting hungry?’

  ‘A bit. But I’ll be fine.�
��

  ‘And our prince?

  I’ve no reason to think he is otherwise.’

  ‘Ah, but you do. If there may be Piebald informers in that room, then there may be Piebalds amongst those who hold him hostage. Warn him, lad. And keep watch.’

  And then he was gone, shuffling along bent almost double in the passage. I watched him go and wondered what he had in mind. Then I reached for Dutiful.

  All was well with him. He was cold, he was bored, but no one had offered him insult let alone injury. Most of the talk today had been about what might be happening at Buckkeep. Evidently a bird, perhaps Risk or the hawk, had been ferrying notes back and forth. So far, all tidings had been reassuring. But Dutiful said that the air was one of waiting and worry.

  The cow had an easy labour and dropped a fine bull calf. Sally was just as glad that she’d had the benefit of a tight stable and a warm stall, for the calf was born unseasonably early. By the time she and Web returned to the east gathering hall, it was time for another meal. I watched the Old Bloods congregate again as their meal was brought in, and watched them as they unmasked after the servants had left. I studied every face more carefully, but if there were any who had been in Laudwine’s band, I did not recognize them.