DIPLOMACY MAY VERY well be the art of manipulating secrets. What would any negotiation come to, were not there secrets to either share or withhold? And this is as true of a marriage pact as it is of a trade agreement between kingdoms. Each side knows truly how much it is willing to surrender to the other to get what it wishes; it is in the manipulation of that secret knowledge that the hardest bargain is driven. There is no action that takes place between humans in which secrets do not play a part, whether it be a game of cards or the selling of a cow. The advantage is always to the one who is shrewder in what secret to reveal and when. King Shrewd was fond of saying that there was no greater advantage than to know your enemy's secret when he believed you ignorant of it. Perhaps that is the most powerful secret of all to possess.
The days that followed were not days for me, but disjointed periods of wakefulness interspersed with wavery fever dreams. Either my brief talk with the Fool had burned my last reserves, or I finally felt safe enough to surrender to my injury. Perhaps it was both. I lay on a bed near the Fool's hearth and felt wretchedly dull when I felt anything at all. Overheard conversations rattled against me. I slipped in and out of awareness of my own misery, but never far away, like a drum beating the tempo of my pain was Verity's Come to me, come to me. Other voices came and went through the haze of my fever but his was a constant.
"She believes you are the one she seeks. I believe it, too. I think you should see her. She has come a long and weary way, seeking the White Prophet." Jofron's voice was low and reasonable.
I heard the Fool set down his rasp with a clack. "Tell her she is mistaken, then. Tell her I am the White Toymaker. Tell her the White Prophet lives farther down the street, five doors down on the left."
"I will not make mock of her," Jofron said seriously. "She has traveled a vast distance to seek you and on the journey lost all but her life. Come, holy one. She waits outside. Will not you talk to her, just for a bit?"
"Holy one," the Fool snorted with disdain. "You have been reading too many old scrolls. As has she. No, Jofron." Then he sighed, and relented. "Tell her I will talk with her two days hence. But not today."
"Very well." Jofron plainly did not approve. "But there is another one with her. A minstrel. I don't think she will be put off as easily. I think she is seeking him."
"Ah, but no one knows he is here. Save you, me, and the healer. He wishes to be left alone for a time, while he heals."
I moved my mouth. I tried to say I would see Starling, that I had not meant to turn Starling away.
"I know that. And the healer is still at Cedar Knoll. But she is a smart one, this minstrel. She has asked the children for news of a stranger. And the children, as usual, know everything."
"And tell everything," the Fool replied glumly. I heard him fling down another tool in annoyance. "I see I have but one choice then."
"You will see them?"
A snort of laughter from the Fool. "Of course not. I mean that I will lie to them."
Afternoon sun slanting across my closed eyes. I woke to voices, arguing.
"I only wish to see him." A woman's voice, annoyed. "I know he is here."
"Ah, I suppose I shall admit you are right. But he sleeps." The Fool, with his maddening calm.
"I still would see him." Starling, pointedly.
The Fool heaved a great sigh. "I could let you in to see him. But then you would wish to touch him. And once you had touched him, you would wish to wait until he awakened. And once he awakened, you would wish to have words with him. There would be no end to it. And I have much to do today. A toymaker's time is not his own."
"You are not a toymaker. I know who you are. And I know who he truly is." The cold was flowing in the open door. It crept under my blankets, tightened my flesh and tugged at my pain. I wished they would shut it.
"Ah, yes, you and Kettle know our great secret. I am the White Prophet, and he is Tom the shepherd. But today I am busy, prophesying puppets finished tomorrow, and he is asleep. Counting sheep, in his dreams."
"That's not what I mean." Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it?"
I heard a thud as of a muffled kick, followed by several more. The Fool came humming back to his worktable. He took up the wooden head of a doll and a paintbrush. He glanced over at me. "Go back to sleep. She won't get in to see Kettricken any time soon. The Queen sees few people these days. And when she does, it's not likely she'll be believed. And that is the best we can do for now. So sleep while you may. And gather strength, for I fear you will need it."
Daylight on white snow. Belly down in the snow amongst the trees, looking down on a clearing. Young humans at play, chasing one another, leaping and dragging one another down to roll over and over in the snow. They are not so different from cubs. Envious. We never had other cubs to play with while we were growing. It is like an itch, the desire to race down and join in. They would be frightened, we caution ourselves. Only watch. Their shrill yelps fill the air. Will our she-cub grow to be like these, we wonder? Braided hair flies behind as they race through the snow chasing one another.
"Fitz. Wake up. I need to talk to you."
Something in the Fool's tone cut through both fog and pain. I opened my eyes, then squinted painfully. The room was dark, but he had brought a branch of candles to the floor by my bedside. He sat beside them, looking into my face earnestly. I could not read his face; it seemed that hope danced in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, but also he seemed braced as if he brought me bad tidings. "Are you listening? Can you hear me?" he pressed.
I managed a nod. Then, "Yes." My voice was so hoarse I hardly knew it. Instead of getting stronger for the healer to pull the arrow, I felt as if the wound were getting stronger. Each day the area of pain spread. It pushed always at the edge of my mind, making it hard to think.
"I have been to dine with Chade and Kettricken. He had tidings for us." He tilted his head and watched my face carefully as he said, "Chade says there is a Farseer child in Buck. Just a babe yet, and a bastard. But of the same Farseer lineage as Verity and Chivalry. He swears it is so."
I closed my eyes.
"Fitz. Fitz! Wake up and listen to me. He seeks to persuade Kettricken to claim the child. To either say that it is her rightful child by Verity, hidden by a false stillbirth to protect her from assassins. Or to say the child is Verity's bastard, but that Queen Kettricken chooses to legitimize her and claim her as heir."
I could not move. I could not breathe. My daughter, I knew. Kept safe and hidden, guarded by Burrich. To be sacrificed to the throne, Taken from Molly, and given to the Queen. My little girl, whose name I didn't even know. Taken to be a princess and in time a queen. Put beyond my reach forever.
"Fitz!" The Fool put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. I knew he longed to shake me. I opened my eyes.
He peered into my face. "Have you nothing to say to me?" he asked carefully.
"May I have some water?"
While he got it for me, I composed myself. He helped me drink. By the time he took the cup, I had decided what question would be most convincing. "What did Kettricken say to the news that Verity had fathered a bastard? It could scarcely bring her joy."
The uncertainty I had hoped for spread across the Fool's face.
"The child was born at the end of harvest. Too late for Verity to have sired it before he left on his quest. Kettricken grasped it faster than I did." He spoke almost gently. "You must be the father. When Kettricken asked Chade directly, he said as much." He cocked his head to study me. "You did not know?"
I shook my head slowly. What was honor to one such as I? Bastard and assassin, what claim did I have to nobility of soul? I spoke the lie I would always despise. "I could not have fathered a child born at harvest. Molly had turned me out of her bed months before she left Buck." I tried to keep my voice steady as I spoke. "If the mother is Molly, and she claims the child is mine, she lies." I strove to be sincere as I added, "I am sorry, Fool. I have fathered no Farseer heir for you, nor do I intend to." It was no effort to let my voice choke and tears mist my eyes. "Strange." I shook my head against the pillow: "That such a thing could bring me such pain. That she could seek to pass the babe off as mine." I closed my eyes:
The Fool spoke gently. "As I understand it, she has made no claims for the child. As of yet, I believe she knows nothing of Chade's plan."
"I suppose I should see both Chade and Kettricken. To tell them I am alive and reveal the truth to them. But when I am stronger. Just now, Fool, I would be alone," I begged him. I wanted to see neither sympathy nor puzzlement on his face. I prayed he would believe my lie even as I despised myself for the foul thing I had said of Molly. So I kept my eyes closed, and he took his candles and went away.
I lay for a time in the dark, hating myself. It was better this way, I told myself. If ever I returned to her, I could make all right. And if I did not, at least they would not take our child from her. I told myself over and over again I had done the wise thing. But I did not feel wise. I felt traitorous.
I dreamed a dream at once vivid and stultifying. I chipped black stone. That was the entire dream, but it was endless in its monotony. I was using my dagger as a chisel and a rock as a hammer. My fingers were scabbed and swollen from the many times my grip had slipped and I'd struck them instead of the dagger hilt. But it didn't stop me. I chipped black stone. And waited for someone to come and help me.
I awoke one evening to find Kettle sitting by my bed. She looked even older than I recalled. Hazy winter daylight seeped through a parchment window to touch her face. I studied her for a time before she realized I was awake. When she did, she shook her head at me. "I should have guessed, from all your strangeness. You were bound for the White Prophet yourself." She leaned closer and spoke in a whisper. "He will not allow Starling in to see you. He says you are too weak for so lively a visitor. And that you wish no one to know you are here, just yet. But I'll take word of you to her, shall I?"
I closed my eyes.
A time of bright morning and a knock at the door. I could not sleep, nor could I stay awake for the fever that racked me. I had drunk willowbark tea until my belly was sloshing. Still my head pounded, and I was always shivering or sweating. The knock came again, louder, and Kettle set down the cup she had been plaguing me with. The Fool was at his worktable. He put aside his carving tool, but Kettle called "I'll get it!" and opened the door, even as he was saying, "No, let me."
Starling pushed in, so abruptly that Kettle exclaimed in surprise. Starling came past her, into the room, shaking snow from her cap and cloak. She shot the Fool a look of triumph. The Fool merely nodded cordially at her as if he had been expecting her. He turned back to his carving without a word. The bright sparks of anger in her eyes grew hotter, and I sensed her satisfaction in something. She shut the door loudly behind her and came into the room like the north wind herself. She dropped to sit cross-legged on the floor beside my bed. "So, Fitz. I'm so glad to finally see you again. Kettle told me you were hurt. I'd have come to see you before, but I was turned away at the door. How are you today?"
I tried to focus my mind. I wished she would move more slowly and speak more softly. "It's too cold in here," I complained petulantly. "And I've lost my earring." I had only discovered the loss that morning. It fretted me. I could not recall why it was so important, but my mind would not let go of it either. The very thought made my headache worse.
She stripped off her mittens. One hand was bandaged still. She touched my forehead with the other. Her hand was blessedly cold. Odd that cold could feel so good. "He's burning up!" she accused the Fool. "Haven't you the sense to give him willowbark tea?"
The Fool shaved off another curl of wood. "There's a pot of it there by your knee, if you haven't overset it. If you can get him to drink any more of it, you're a better man than I." Another curl of wood.
"That would not be hard," Starling said in an ugly little voice. Then, in a kinder tone, to me, "Your earring isn't lost. See, I have it right here." She took it from the pouch at her belt. One small part of me worked well enough to notice that she was warmly dressed in the Mountain style now. Her hands were cold and a bit rough as she put the earring back in my ear for me. I found a question.
"Why did you have it?"
"I asked Kettle to bring it to me," she told me bluntly. "When he would not let me in to see you. I had to have a token, something to prove to Kettricken that all I told her was true. I have been to her and spoken to her and her counselor, this very day."
The Queen's name broke through my wandering thoughts and gave me a moment of focus. "Kettricken! What have you done?" I cried in dismay. "What have you told her?"
Starling looked startled. "Why, all she must know so that she will help you on your quest. That you are truly alive. That Verity is not dead, and that you will seek him. That word must be sent to Molly that you are alive and well, so that she shall not lose heart but will keep your child safe until you return. That …"
"I trusted you!" I cried out. "I trusted you with my secrets and you have betrayed me. What a fool I've been!" I cried out in despair. All, all was lost.
"No, I am the Fool." He broke into our conversation. he walked slowly across the room and stood looking down on me. "The more so that I had believed you trusted me, it seems," he went on, and I had never seen him so pale. "Your child," he said to himself. "A true child of Farseer lineage." His yellow eyes flickered like a dying fire as they darted from Starling to me. "You know what such tidings mean to me. Why? Why lie to me?"
I did not know what was worse, the hurt in the Fool's eyes, or the triumph in the glance Starling gave him.
"I had to lie, to keep her mine! The child is mine, not a Farseer heir!" I cried out desperately. "Mine and Molly's. A child to grow and love, not a tool for a kingmaker. And Molly must not hear I am alive from any save me! Starling, how could you have done this to me? Why was I such an idiot, why did I talk of such things at all to anyone?"
Now Starling looked as injured as the Fool. She stood up stiffly and her voice was brittle. "I but sought to help you. To help you do what you must do." Behind Starling, the wind gusted the door open. "That woman has a right to know her husband is alive."
"To which woman do you refer?" asked another icy voice. To my consternation, Kettricken swept into the room with Chade at her heels. She regarded me with a terrible face. Grief had ravaged her, had carved deep lines beside her mouth and eaten the flesh from her cheeks. Now anger raged in her eyes as well. The blast of cold wind that came with them cooled me for an instant. Then the door was closed and my eyes moved from face to familiar face. The small room seemed crowded with staring faces, with cold eyes looking at me. I blinked. There were so many of them and so close, and all stared at me. No one smiled. No welcome, no joy. Only the savage emotions that I had wakened with all the changes I had wrought. Thus was the Catalyst greeted. No one wore any expression I'd hoped to see.
None save Chade. He crossed the room to me in long strides, stripping off his riding gloves as he came. When he threw back the hood of his winter cloak, I saw that his white hair was bound back in a warrior's tail. He wore a band of leather across his brow, and centered on his forehead was a medallion of silver. A buck with antlers lowered to charge. The sign Verity had given to me. Starling moved hastily from his path. He gave her not a glance as he folded easily to sit on the floor by my bed. He took my hand in his, narrowed his eyes at the sight of the frostbite. He held it softly. "Oh, my boy, my boy, I believed you were dead. When Burrich sent me word he had found your body, I thought my heart would break. The words we had when last we parted … but here you are, alive if not well."
He bent and kissed me. The hand he set to my cheek was callused now, the pocks scarcely visible on the weathered flesh. I looked up in his eyes and saw welcome and joy. Tears clouded my own as I had to demand, "Would you truly take my daughter for the throne? Another bastard for the Farseer line … Would you have let her be used as we have been used?"
Something grew still in his face. The set of his mouth hardened into resolve. "I will do whatever I have to do to see a true hearted Farseer on the Six Duchies throne again. As I am sworn to do. As you are sworn also." His eyes met mine.
I looked at him in dismay. He loved me. Worse, he believed in me. He believed that I had in me that strength and devotion to duty that had been the backbone of his life. Thus he could inflict on me things harder and colder than Regal's hatred of me could imagine. His belief in me was such that he would not hesitate to plunge me into any battle, that he would expect any sacrifice of me. A dry sob suddenly racked me and tore at the arrow in my back. "There is no end!" I cried out. "That duty will hound me into death. Better I were dead! Let me be dead then!" I snatched my hand away from Chade, heedless of how much that motion hurt. "Leave me!"
Chade didn't even flinch. "He is burning with fever," he said accusingly to the Fool. "He doesn't know what he's saying. You should have given him willowbark tea."
A terrible smile crooked the Fool's lips. Before he could reply, there was a sharp shredding sound. A gray head was forced through the greased hide window, flashing a muzzle full of white teeth. The rest of the wolf soon followed, oversetting a shelf of potted herbs onto some scrolls set out below them. Nighteyes sprang, nails skittering on the wood floor, and slid to a halt between me and the hastily standing Chade. He snarled all round. I will kill them all for you, if you say so. I dropped my head down to my pillows. My clean, wild wolf. This was what I had made of him. Was it any better than what Chade had made of me?
I looked around them again. Chade was standing, his face very still. Every single face held some shock, some sadness, some disappointment that I was responsible for. Despair and fever shook me. "I'm sorry," I said weakly. "I have never been what you thought I was," I confessed. "Never."
Silence filled up the room. The fire crackled briefly.
I dropped my face to my pillow and closed my eyes. I spoke the words I was compelled to say. "But I shall go and find Verity. Somehow, I will bring him back to you. Not because I am what you believe me to be," I added, slowly lifting my head. I saw hope kindle in Chade's face. "But because I have no choice. I have never had any choices."
"You do believe Verity is alive!" The hope in Kettricken's voice was savagely hungry. She swept toward me like an ocean storm.
I nodded my head. Then, "Yes," I managed. "Yes, I believe he lives. I have felt him strongly with me." Her face was so close, huge in my sight. I blinked my eyes, and then could not focus them.
"Why has not he returned then? Is he lost? Injured? Does he have no care for those he left behind?" Her questions rattled against me like flung stones, one after another.
"I think," I began, and then could not. Could not think, could not speak. I closed my eyes. I listened to a long silence. Nighteyes whined, then growled deep in his throat.
"Perhaps we should all leave for a time," Starling ventured unevenly. "Fitz is not up to this just now."
"You may leave," the Fool told her grandly. "Unfortunately I still live here."
Going hunting. It is time to go hunting. I look to where we came in, but the Scentless One has blocked that way, covering it over with another piece of deerskin. Door, part of us knows that is the door and we go to it, to whine softly and prod at it with our nose. It rattles against its catch like a trap about to spring shut. The Scentless One comes, stepping lightly, warily. He stretches his body past me, to put a pale paw on the door and open it for me. I slip out, back into a cool night world. It feels good to stretch my muscles again, and I flee the pain and the stuffy hut and the body that does not work to this wild sanctuary of flesh and fur. The night swallows us and we hunt.
It was another night, another time, before, after, I did not know, my days had come unlinked from one another. Someone lifted a warm compress from my brow and replaced it with a cooler one. "I'm sorry, Fool," I said.
"Thirty-two," said a voice wearily. Then, "Drink," it added more gently. Cool hands raised my face. A cup lapped liquid against my mouth. I tried to drink. Willowbark tea. I turned my face away in disgust. The Fool wiped my mouth and sat down on the floor beside my bed. He leaned companionably close against it. He held his scroll up to the lamplight and went on reading. It was deep night. I closed my eyes and tried to find sleep again. All I could find were things I'd done wrong, trusts I'd betrayed.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
"Thirty-three," said the Fool without looking up.
"Thirty-three what?" I asked.
He glanced over at me in surprise. "Oh. You're truly awake and talking?"
"Of course. Thirty-three what?"
"Thirty-three `I'm sorry's. To various people, but the greatest number of them to me. Seventeen calls for Burrich. I lost count of your calls for Molly, I'm afraid. And a grand total of sixty-two `I'm coming, Verity's."
"I must be driving you crazy. I'm sorry."
"Thirty-four. No. You've just been raving, rather monotonously. It's the fever, I suppose."
"I suppose."
The Fool went back to reading. "I'm so tired of lying on my belly," I ventured.
"There's always your back," the Fool suggested to see me wince. Then, "Do you want me to help you shift to your side?"
"No. That just hurts more."
"Tell me if you change your mind." His eyes went back to the scroll.
"Chade hasn't been back to see me," I observed.
The Fool sighed and set aside his scroll. "No one has. The healer came in and berated us all for bothering you. They're to leave you alone until she pulls the arrow out. That's tomorrow. Besides, Chade and the Queen have had much to discuss. Discovering that both you and Verity are still alive has changed everything for them."
"Another time, he would have included me." I paused, knowing I was wallowing in self-pity, but unable to stop myself. "I suppose they feel they cannot trust me anymore. Not that I blame them. Everyone hates me now. For the secrets I kept. For all the ways I failed them."
"Oh, not everyone hates you," the Fool chided gently. "Only me, really."
My eyes darted to his face. His cynical smile reassured me. "Secrets," he said, and sighed. "Someday I shall write a long philosophical treatise on the power of secrets, when kept or told."
"Do you have any more brandy?"
"Thirsty again? Do have some more willowbark tea." There was acid courtesy in his voice now, overladen with honey. "There's plenty, you know. Buckets of it. All for you."
"I think my fever is down a bit," I offered humbly.
He lifted a hand to my brow. "So it is. For now. But I do not think the healer would approve of you getting drunk again."
"The healer is not here," I pointed out.
He arched a pale eyebrow at me. "Burrich would be so proud of you." But he rose gracefully and went to the oak cabinet. He stepped carefully around Nighteyes sprawled on the hearth in heat-soaked sleep. My eyes traveled to the patched window and then back to the Fool. I supposed some sort of agreement had been worked out between them. Nighteyes was so deeply asleep he was not even dreaming. His belly was full as well. His paws twitched when I quested toward him, so I withdrew. The Fool was putting the bottle and two cups on a tray. He seemed too subdued.
"I am sorry, you know."
"So you have told me. Thirty-five times."
"But I am. I should have trusted you and told you about my daughter." Nothing, not a fever, not an arrow in my back would keep me from smiling when I said that phrase. My daughter. I tried to speak the simple truth. It embarrassed me that it seemed a new experience. "I've never seen her, you know. Only with the Skill, anyway. It's not the same. And I want her to be mine. Mine and Molly's. Not a child that belongs to a kingdom, with some vast responsibility to grow into. Just a little girl, picking flowers, making candles with her mother, doing …" I floundered and finished, "Whatever it is that ordinary children are allowed to do. Chade would end that. The moment that anyone points to her and says, `There, she could be the Farseer heir,' she's at risk. She'd have to be guarded and taught to fear, to weigh every word and consider every action. Why should she? She isn't truly a royal heir. Only a bastard's bastard." I said those harsh words with difficulty, and vowed never to let anyone say them to her face. "Why should she be put in such danger? It would be one thing if she were born in a palace and had a hundred soldiers to guard her. But she has only Molly and Burrich."
"Burrich is with them? If Chade chose Burrich, it is because he thinks him the equal of a hundred guards. But far more discreet," the Fool observed. Did he know how that would wrench me? He brought the cups and the brandy and poured for me. I managed to pick up my own cup. "To a daughter. Yours and Molly's," he offered, and we drank. The brandy burned clean in my throat.
"So," I managed. "Chade knew all along and sent Burrich to guard her. Even before I knew, they knew." Why did I feel they had stolen something from me?
"I suspect so, but I am not certain." The Fool paused, as if wondering at the wisdom of telling me. Then I saw him discard the reserve. "I've been putting pieces together, counting back the time. I think Patience suspected. I think that's why she started sending Molly to take care of Burrich when his leg was injured. He didn't need that much care, and he knew it as well as Patience did. But Burrich is a good ear; mostly because he talks so little himself. Molly would need someone to talk to, perhaps someone that had once kept a bastard himself. That day we were all up in his room … you had sent me there, to see what he could do for my shoulder? The day you locked Regal out of Shrewd's rooms to protect him …" For a moment he seemed caught in that memory. Then he recovered. "When I came up the stairs to Burrich's loft I heard them arguing. Well, Molly arguing, and Burrich being silent, which is his strongest way to argue. So, I eavesdropped," he admitted frankly. "But I didn't hear much. She was insisting he could get some particular herb for her. He wouldn't. Finally, he promised her he would tell no one, and bade her to think well and do what she wished to do, not what she thought was wisest. Then they said no more, so I went in. She excused herself and departed. Later, you came and said she had left you." He paused. "Actually, looking back, I was as dull-wilted as you, not to have worked it out just from that."
"Thank you," I told him dryly.
"You're welcome. Though I will admit we all had much on our minds that day."
"I'd give anything to be able to go back in time and tell her that our child would be the most important thing in the world for me. More important than king or country."
"Ah. So you would have left Buckkeep that day, to follow her and protect her." The Fool quirked an eyebrow at me.
After a time, I said, "I couldn't." The words choked me and I washed them down with brandy.
"I know you couldn't have. I understand. You see, no one can avoid fate. Not as long as we are trapped in time's harness, anyway. And," he said more softly, "no child can avoid the future that fate decrees. Not a fool, not a bastard. Not a bastard's daughter."
A shiver walked up my spine. Despite all my disbelief, I feared. "Are you saying that you know something of her future?"
He sighed and nodded. Then he smiled and shook his head. "That is how it is, for me. I know something of a Farseer's heir. If that heir is she, then doubtless, years from now, I shall read some ancient prophecy and say, Ah, yes, there it is, it was foretold how it would come to be. No one truly understands a prophecy until it comes true. It's rather like a horseshoe. The smithy shows you a bit of iron stock and you say, it will never fit. But after it's been through the fire and hammered and filed, there it is, fitting perfectly to your horse's hoof as it would never fit any other."
"It sounds as if you are saying prophets shape their prophecies to be true after the fact."
He cocked his head. "And a good prophet, like a good smith, shows you that it fits perfectly." He took the empty glass from my hand. "You should be sleeping, you know. Tomorrow the healer is going to draw the arrowhead out. You will need your strength."
I nodded, and suddenly found my eyes were heavy
Chade gripped my wrists and pulled down firmly. My chest and cheek pressed against the hard wooden bench. The Fool straddled my legs and pinned my hips down with his leaning weight. Even Kettle had her hands on my bare shoulders, pressing me down on the unyielding bench. I felt like a hog trussed for slaughter. Starling stood by with lint bandaging and a basin of hot water. As Chade drew my hands down tight, I felt as if my whole body might split open at the rotten wound in my back. The healer squatted beside me. I caught a glimpse of the pincers she held. Black iron. Probably borrowed from the blacksmith's shed.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No," I grunted. They ignored me. It wasn't me she was talking to. All morning she had worked on me as if I were a broken toy, prodding and pressing the foul fluids of infection from my back while I squirmed and muttered curses. All had ignored my imprecations, save the Fool, who had offered improvements on them. He was very much himself again. He had persuaded Nighteyes to go outside. I could sense the wolf prowling about the door. I had tried to convey to him what was to be done. I'd pulled enough quills from him in our time together that he had some idea of necessary pain. He still shared my dread.
"Go ahead," Chade told the healer. His head was close to mine, his beard scratching my shaven cheek. "Steady my boy," he breathed into my ear. The cold jaws of the pincers pressed against my inflamed flesh.
"Don't pant. Hold still," the healer told me severely. I tried. It felt as if she were plunging them into my back seeking for a grip. After an eternity of probing, the healer said, "Hold him." I felt the jaws of the pincers clench. She pulled, ripping my spine up and out of my body.
Or so it felt. I recall that first grating of metal head against bone, and all my resolutions not to scream were forgotten. I roared out my pain and my consciousness together. I tumbled again into that vague place that neither sleep nor wakefulness could reach. My feverish days had made it entirely too familiar to me.
Skill river. I was in it and it was in me. Only a step away, it had always been only a step away. Surcease from pain and loneliness. Swift and sweet. I was tattering away in it, coming undone like a piece of knitting comes unraveled when the right thread is tugged. All my pain was coming undone as well. No. Verity forbade it firmly. Back you go, Fitz. As if he shooed a small child away from the fire. I went.
Like a diver surfacing, I came back to the hard bench and voices over me. The light seemed dim. Someone exclaimed about blood and called for a cloth full of snow. I felt it pressed to my back while a sopping red rag was tossed to the Fool's rug. The stain spread out on the wool and I flowed with it. I was floating and the room was full of black specks. The healer was busy by the fire. She drew another smith's tool from the flames. It glowed and she turned to look at me. "Wait!" I cried in horror and half reared up off the bench, only to have Chade catch me by the shoulders.
"It has to be done," he told me harshly and held me in a grip of iron as the healer came near. At first I felt only pressure as she held a hot brand to my back. I smelled the burning of my own flesh and thought I did not care, until a spasm of pain jerked me more sharply than a hangman's noose. The black rose up to drag me down. "Hung over water and burned!" I cried out in despair. A wolf whined.
Rising. Coming up, nearer and nearer the light. The dive had been deep, the waters warm and full of dreams. I tasted the edge of consciousness, took a breath of wakefulness.
Chade: “… but surely you could have told me, at least, that he was alive and had come to you. Eda and El in a knot, Fool, how often have I trusted you with my closest counsels?"
"Almost as often as you have not," the Fool replied tartly. "Fitz asked me to keep his presence here a secret. And it was, until that minstrel interfered. What would it have hurt if he had been left alone to rest completely before that arrow came out? You've listened to his ravings. Do they sound to you like a man at peace with himself?"
Chade sighed. "Still. You could have told me. You know what it would have meant to me, to know he was alive."
"You know what it would have meant to me, to know there was a Farseer heir," the Fool retorted.
"I told you as soon as I told the Queen!"
"Yes, but how long had you known she existed? Since you sent Burrich to keep watch over Molly? You knew Molly carried his child when last you came to visit, yet you said nothing."
Chade took a sharp breath, then cautioned. "Those are names I'd as soon you did not speak, not even here. Not even to the Queen have I given those names. You must understand, Fool. The more folk who know, the greater the risk to the child. I'd never have revealed her existence, save that the Queen's child died and we believed Verity dead."
"Save your hope of keeping secrets. A minstrel knows Molly's name; minstrels keep no secrets." His dislike of Starling glittered in his voice. In a colder tone, he added, "So what did you really plan to do, Chade? Pass off Fitz's daughter as Verity's? Steal her from Molly and give her to the Queen, to raise as her own?" The Fool's voice had gone deadly soft.
"I … the times are hard and the need so great … but … not steal her, no. Burrich would understand, and I think he could make the girl understand. Besides. What can she offer the child? A penniless candlemaker, bereft of her trade … how can she care for her? The child deserves better. As does the mother, truly, and I would do my best to see she was provided for, also. But the baby cannot be left with her. Think, Fool. Once others knew the babe was of Farseer lineage she could only be safe on the throne, or in line for it. The woman listens to Burrich. He could make her see that."
"I'm not so sure you could make Burrich see that. He gave one child up to royal duty. He may not feel it's a wise choice a second time."
"Sometimes all the choices are poor ones, Fool, and still a man must choose."
I think I made some small sound, for they both came to me quickly. "Boy?" Chade demanded anxiously. "Boy, are you awake?"
I decided I was. I opened one eye a crack. Night. Light from the hearth and a few candles. Chade and the Fool and a bottle of brandy. And me. My back felt no better. My fever felt no less. Before I could even try to ask, the Fool held a cup to my lips. Damnable willowbark tea. I was so thirsty, I drank it all. The next cup he offered was meat broth, wonderfully salty. "I'm so thirsty," I managed to say when I'd finished it. My mouth felt sticky with thirst, thick with it.
"You've lost a lot of blood," Chade explained needlessly.
"Do you want more broth?" the Fool asked.
I managed the tiniest nod. The Fool took the cup and went to the hearth. Chade leaned close and whispered, strangely urgent, "Fitz. Tell me one thing. Do you hate me, boy?"
For a moment, I didn't know. But the thought of hating Chade meant too great a loss to me. Too few folk in the world cared for me. I could not hate even one of them. I shook my head a tiny bit. "But," I said slowly, carefully forming the thick words, "don't take my child."
"Do not fear," he told me gently. His old hand smoothed my hair back from my face. "If Verity's alive, there will be no need of it. For the time being, she is safest where she is. And if King Verity returns and assumes his throne, he and Kettricken will get children of their own."
"Promise?" I begged.
He met my eyes. The Fool brought the broth to me, and Chade stepped aside to make room for him. This cup was warmer. It was like life itself flowing back into me. When it was gone, I could speak more strongly. "Chade," I said. He had walked over to the hearth and was staring into it. He turned back to me when I spoke.
"You did not promise, "I reminded him.
"No," he agreed gravely. "I did not promise. Times are too uncertain for that promise."
For a long time I just looked at him. After a time, he gave his head a tiny shake and looked aside. He could not meet my eyes. But he offered me no lies. So it was up to me.
"You can have me," I told him quietly. "And I will do my best to bring Verity back, and do all I can to restore to him his throne. You can have my death, if that is what it takes. More than that, you can have my life, Chade. But not my child's. Not my daughter's."
He met my eyes and nodded slowly.
Recovery was a slow and painful business. It seemed to me that I should have relished each day in a soft bed, each mouthful of food, each moment of safe sleep. But it was not so. The frostbitten skin on my fingers and toes peeled and snagged on everything, and the new skin beneath was horribly tender. Every day the healer came to poke at me. She insisted that the wound on my back must be kept open and draining. I grew weary of the foul smelling bandages she took away, and wearier still of her picking at my wound to see that it did not close too soon. She reminded me of a crow on a dying animal, and when I tactlessly told her so one day, she laughed at me.
After a few days, I was moving about again, but never carelessly. Every step, every reach of a hand was a cautious thing. I learned to keep my elbows snug to my side to decrease the pull of muscles in my back, learned to walk as if I balanced a basket of eggs on my head. Even so, I wearied quickly, and too strenuous a stroll might bring the fever back at night. I went daily to the baths and though soaking in the hot water eased my body, I could not be there even a moment without recalling that here was where Regal sought to drown me, and there was where I had seen Burrich clubbed to the ground. Come to me, come to me, would begin the siren call in my head then, and my mind would soon be full of thoughts and wonderings about Verity. It was not conducive to a peaceful spirit. Instead I would find myself planning every detail of my next journey. I made a mental list of the equipment I must beg from Kettricken and debated long and hard over taking a riding animal. In the end I decided against it. There was no grazing for one; my capacity for unthinking cruelty was gone. I would not take a horse or pony simply to have it die. I knew, too, that soon I must ask leave to search the libraries to see if there might be found a precursor to Verity's map. I dreaded seeking out Kettricken for she had not summoned me at all.
Every day I reminded myself of these things, and every day I put it off one more day. As of yet, I still could not walk the length of Jhaampe without stopping to rest. Conscientiously, I began to force myself to eat more and to push the limits of my strength. Often the Fool joined me on my strengthening walks. I knew he hated the cold, but I welcomed his silent companionship too much to suggest he stay warm within. He took me once to see Sooty, and that placid beast welcomed me with such pleasure that I returned every day thereafter. Her belly was swelling with Ruddy's foal; she'd drop early in spring. She seemed healthy enough, but I fretted over her age. I took an amazing amount of comfort from the old mare's gentle presence. It pulled at my injury to lift my arms to groom her, but I did anyway, and Ruddy as well. The spirited young horse needed more handling than he was getting. I did my best with him, and missed Burrich every moment of it.
The wolf came and went as he pleased. He joined the Fool and me on our walks, and strolled into the hut afterward at our heels. It was almost distressing to see how swiftly he adapted. The Fool muttered about the claw marks on his door and the shed fur on his rugs, but they liked each other well enough. A wolf puppet began to emerge in sections from chunks of wood on the Fool's worktable. Nighteyes developed a taste for a certain seedcake that was also the Fool's favorite. The wolf would stare fixedly at him whenever the Fool was eating it, drooling great pools of saliva onto the floor until the Fool would relent and give him a share. I scolded them both about what sweets could do to his teeth and coat and was ignored by both of them. I suppose I felt a bit of jealousy at how quickly he came to trust the Fool, until Nighteyes asked pointedly one day, Why should not I trust whom you trust? I had no answer to that.
"So. When did you become a toymaker?" I asked the Fool idly one day. I was leaning on his table, watching his fingers thread the limbs and torso of a jumping jack onto his stick framework. The wolf was sprawled out under the table, deeply asleep.
He shrugged one shoulder. "It became obvious once I was here that King Eyod's court was no place for a Fool." He gave a short sigh. "Nor did I truly have the desire to be the Fool for anyone save King Shrewd. That being so, I cast about for some other means to earn my bread. One evening, quite drunk, I asked myself what I knew best. `Why, being a puppet,' I replied to myself. Jerked about by the strings of fate, and then tossed aside to crumple in a heap. That being so, I decided that I would no longer dance to the string's pull, but would pull the strings. The next day I put my resolution to the test. I soon discovered a liking for it. The simple toys I grew up with and the ones that I saw in Buck seem wondrous strange to Mountain children. I found I needed to have few dealings with the adults, which suited me well. Children here learn to hunt and fish and weave and harvest at a very early age, and whatever they garner is their own. So I trade for what I need. Children, I have found, are much more swift to accept the unusual. They admit their curiosity, you see, rather than disdaining the object that arouses it." His pale fingers tied a careful knot. Then he picked his creation up and set it to dancing for me.
I watched its gay prancing with a retroactive desire to have possessed such a thing of brightly painted wood and finely sanded edges. "I want my daughter to have things such as that," I heard myself say aloud. "Well made toys and soft bright shirts, pretty hair ribbons and dolls to clutch."
"She will," he promised me gravely. "She will."
The slow days passed. My hands began to look normal again and even to have some callus on them again. The healer said I might go with no bandaging on my back. I began to feel restless but knew I did not yet have the strength to leave. My disquiet in turn agitated the Fool. I did not realize how much I paced until the evening he rose from his chair and shoved his table over into my path to divert me from my course. We both laughed, but it did not dispel the underlying tension. I began to believe I destroyed peace wherever I went.
Kettle visited often and drove me to distraction with her knowledge of the scrolls concerning the White Prophet. Too often they mentioned a Catalyst. Sometimes the Fool was drawn into her discussions. More often he simply made noncommittal noises as she tried to explain it all to me. I almost missed her dour taciturnity. I confess, too, that the more she talked, the more I wondered how a woman of Buck had ever chanced to wander so far from her homeland, to become a devotee of a distant teaching that would someday lead her back to her homeland. But the old Kettle showed through when she deflected my slyly posed questions.
Starling came, though not as often as Kettle, and usually when the Fool was out and about on errands. It seemed that they could not be in the same room without striking sparks from one another. As soon as I was able to move about at all, she began to persuade me to take outside walks with her, probably to avoid the Fool. I suppose they did me good, but I took no enjoyment in them. I had had my fill of winter cold and usually her conversation made me feel both restless and spurred. Her talk was often of the war back in Buck, snippets of news overheard from Chade and Kettricken, for she was often with them. She played for them in the evenings, as best she could with her damaged hand and a borrowed harp. She lived in the main hall of the royal residence. This taste of a court life seemed to agree with her. She was frequently enthused and animated. The bright clothes of the Mountain folk set off her dark hair and eyes, while the cold brought color to her face. She seemed to have recovered from all misfortune, to be once more filled with life. Even her hand was healing well, and Chade had helped her barter for wood to make a new harp. It shamed me that her optimism only made me feel older and weaker and more wearied. An hour or two with her wore me out as if I had been exercising a headstrong filly. I felt a constant pressure from her to agree with her. Often I could not.
"He makes me nervous," she told me once, in one of her frequent diatribes against the Fool. "It's not his color; it's his manner. He never says a kind or simple word to anyone, not even to the children who come to trade for his toys. Have you marked how he teases and mocks them?"
"He likes them, and they like him," I said wearily. "He does not tease them to be cruel. He teases them as he teases everyone. The children enjoy it. No child wishes to be spoken down to." The brief walk had tired me more than I wished to admit to her. And it was tedious constantly to defend him to her.
She made no reply. I became aware of Nighteyes shadowing us. He drifted from the shelter of a cluster of trees to the snowladen bushes of a garden. I doubted his presence was a great secret, and yet he was uneasy about strolling openly through the streets. It was strangely comforting to know he was close by.
I tried to find another topic. "I have not seen Chade in some days now," I ventured. I hated to fish for news of him. But he had not come to me and I would not go to him. I did not hate him, but I could not forgive his plans for my child.
"I sang for him last night." She smiled at the recollection. "He was at his most witty. He can even bring a smile to Kettricken's face. It is hard to believe he lived in such isolation for years. He draws people to himself like a flower draws bees. He has a most gentlemanly way of letting a woman know she is admired. And …"
"Chade?" The word burst from me incredulously. "Gentlemanly?"
"Of course," she said in amusement. "He can be quite charming, when he has the time. I sang for him and Kettricken the other night, and he was quite gracious in his thanks. A courtier's tongue he has." She smiled to herself, and I could see that whatever Chade had said had stayed pleasantly with her. To try to envision Chade as a charmer of women required my mind to bend in an unaccustomed direction. I could think of nothing to say, and so left her in her pleasant reverie. After a time, she added unexpectedly, "He will not be going with us, you know."
"Who? Where?" I could not decide if my recent fever had left me slow witted or if the minstrel's mind jumped about like a flea.
She patted my arm comfortingly. "You are getting tired. We had best turn back. I can always tell when you are wearied, you ask the most inane questions." She took a breath and returned to her topic. "Chade will not be going with us to seek Verity. He has to go back to Buck, to pass the word of your quest and hearten the folk there. Of course, he will respect your wishes and make no mention of you. Only that the Queen has set forth to find the King and restore him to the throne."
She paused, and tried to say casually, "He has asked me to devise some simple ditties for him, based on the old songs so they may be easily learned and sung." She smiled at me and I could tell how pleased she was he had asked this of her. "He will spread them among the taverns and inns of the road and like seeds they will sprout and trail from there. Simple songs saying that Verity will return to set things right and that a Farseer heir will rise to the throne to unite the Six Duchies in both victory and peace. He says it is most important to keep the heart in the people, and to keep before them the image of Verity returning."
I sorted my way back through her chatter of songs and prophecies. "Us, you said. Us, who? And going where?"
She stopped off her glove and set her hand to my forehead quickly. "Are you feverish, again? A bit, perhaps. Let us turn back now." As we began retracing our steps through the quiet streets, she added patiently. "Us, you and I and Kettricken, going to find Verity. Had you forgotten that was why you came to the Mountains? Kettricken says the way will be hard. It is not terribly difficult to travel to the scene of the battle. But if Verity went on from there, then it is on one of the ancient paths marked on her old map, and they may not be paths at all anymore. Her father is plainly not enthused with her undertaking. His mind is fixed only on the waging of war against Regal. `While you seek your husband king, your false brother seeks to make our folks his slaves!' he has told her. So she must gather what supplies are given to her willingly, and take only such folk as would go with her rather than stay to fight Regal. There are not many of those, to be sure, and …"
"I wish to go back to the Fool's house," I said faintly. My head was spinning and my stomach churning. I had forgotten that this had been the way of it at King Shrewd's court. Why had I expected it to be different here? The plans would be made, the arrangements undertaken, and then they would tell me what they wished me to do and I would do it. Had not that always been my function? To go to such and such a place, and kill that certain man, a man I'd never met before, all on someone else's say? I did not know why it suddenly shocked me so to find that all their momentous planning had moved on without any words from me, as if I were no more than a horse in a stall, waiting to be saddled, mounted, and reined to the hunt.
Well, was not that the bargain I had offered Chade, I reminded myself. That they could have my life, if they would but leave my child alone. Why be surprised? Why even be concerned at all? I should simply go back to the Fool's, to sleep and eat and build my strength until called for.
"Are you all right?" Starling asked me suddenly, anxiously. "I don't think I have ever seen you so pale."
"I'm fine," I assured her dully. "I was just thinking it would be pleasant to help the Fool make the puppets for a time."
She frowned again. "I still do not understand what you see in him. Why do not you come to stay in a room near Kettricken and me? You need little tending anymore; it is time you resumed your rightful place at the Queen's side."
"When the Queen summons me, I will go to her," I said dutifully. "That will be time enough."