Fate took a final swipe at me. That is how I have come to think of it. Perhaps the gods wanted to reinforce Prilkop's warning to me.
I felt a very mild surprise. I saw eternal blackness and a scattering of lights of various brightnesses. It was like lying on my back on a tower top and staring up into a summer night. Not that I thought of it that way at the time. At the time, I drifted through stars. But I did not fall. I did not think, I did not wonder. I was simply there. A brighter star there was, and I was drawn to it. I could not tell if I got closer to it, or if it approached me. I could not have told anything, for while I was aware of these things, they did not seem to have any significance. I felt a suspension of life, of interest, a suspension of all feelings. When finally the star was close, I attempted to fasten myself to it. This act did not seem to involve any will or intention on my part. Rather, it was like a smaller drop of water starting to blend with another one close by. But she plucked me free of herself, and in that moment of her considering me, I once more came to awareness of self.
What? You again? Are you really so intent on remaining here? You are far too small, you know. Unfinished. There is not enough of you to exist by yourself here. Do you know that?
Know that? Like a child learning language, I echoed her final words, trying to pin meaning to them. Her kindness to me fascinated me, and I did long to immerse myself in her. To me, she seemed made of love and acceptance. I could let go of my boundaries, if she would allow me, and simply mingle what I had been with what she was. I would know no more, think no more, and fear no more.
Without my speaking, she seemed to know my mind.And that is what you would truly wish, little one? To stop being yourself, before you have even completed yourself? There is so much more you could grow to be.
To be, I echoed, and suddenly the simple words took force and I existed again. I knew a moment of full realization, as if I had surfaced from a very deep dive and taken a full deep breath of air. Molly and Nettle, Dutiful and Hap, Patience and Thick, Chade and Kettricken, all of them came back to me in a wave of possibilities. Fear mingled wildly with hope as to what I could become through them.
Ah. I thought perhaps there was something more for you. Then you wish to go back?
Go back.
Where?
Buckkeep. Molly. Nettle. Friends.
I do not think the words had meaning for her. She was beyond all that, beyond the sorting of love into little individual persons or places. But I think my longing was what she could read.
Very well, then. Back you go. Next time, be more careful. Better yet, do not let there be a next time. Not until you are ready to stay.
Very abruptly, I had a body. It sprawled facedown in grass on a chill hillside. Somehow, I still gripped the two bags I had slung over my shoulder. They were on top of me. I closed my eyes. The grass was tickling my face and dust was in my nose. I breathed in the intricacy of earth and grass, sheep and manure, and my amazement at their network stole all my thoughts. I think I slept.
It was dawn when next I came awake. I was shaking with cold, despite the blanketed scrolls on top of me. I was stiff and my skin was wet with dew. I sat up with a groan, and the world spun lazily around me until I lay back down again. The sheep that lifted their heads in surprise to see me stir were fat with wool. I got to my hands and knees and then tottered upright, staring around me like a new foal as I tried to make the ends of my life meet. I took deep slow breaths, but felt little better. I decided that food and a real bed would put me right, and that I'd find that at Buckkeep Castle.
I shouldered one sack and dragged the other. At least, such was my intention. I went three steps and down I went. I felt, if anything, worse than when I had first emerged from the stones. Prilkop was right, I decided grudgingly, and wondered uneasily how long it would be before I dared make a return trip through the portals. But I had more immediate problems to solve.
I groped out with the Skill. I could barely focus enough to wield it, and when I found Thick's music and then Thick, he was already in contact with Dutiful and Chade. I tried to break in and could not. Their thoughts rattled against mine. They did not seem to be passing information, but attempting some Skill-exercise. I became aware of Nettle, floating like a faint perfume. She caught at their circle, almost held, then wafted away again. In the disappointed silence that followed her failed attempt, I found a place for my faint Skilling. Thick. I'm not well. Can you come to meet me at the Witness Stones? Bring a pony, or even a donkey and cart. I'm not sure I could sit up to ride. I have two large sacks of scrolls.
I felt a wordless blast of amazement from all of them. And then, a pelting of questions: Where are you? Where have you been?
Are you hurt? Were you attacked by something? Held prisoner?
I just came through the stones. I'm weak. Sick. Prilkop said, don't use the stones too often. And then I let it go, feeling wretchedly nauseous and dizzy. I lay down on my side in the grass. The morning was cold, and I pulled one of the blanket sacks half over me and lay still, shivering.
They all came. I heard sounds and opened my eyes and found myself looking at Nettle's shoes and riding skirt. A healer annoyed me by feeling me all over for broken bones and peering into my eyes. He asked if I had been attacked. I managed to shake my head. Chade said, "Ask him where he has been for the last month. We have been expecting these scrolls since before we arrived back at Buckkeep." I closed my eyes and held my tongue. Then the healer and his helper lifted me into the back of a cart. The bundles of scrolls were placed beside me. The cart lurched off down the tussocky hillside. Chade and Dutiful rode on one side of it, looking grave. Thick came behind on a stocky pony, managing it well enough. Nettle rode a mare, obviously one of Burrich's breeding. Several mounted guards followed, with the edgy look of men who had expected to confront at least a minor enemy and still had dwindling hopes of a skirmish. I had said little, fearing to say too much before ears that should not hear it.
My mind churned like a team stuck in mud. It dragged out the old legends of standing stones. Lovers fled angry parents into them, and returned a year or a decade later, to find all grievances forgotten. They were the gates to the land of the Pecksies, where a year might pass as a day. Or a day as a year. I recalled, hazily, my time in the starry blackness. How much time had passed? A few weeks? Chade had mentioned a month. Obviously enough time had passed that they had returned to Buckkeep from Mayle. For here they were. I smiled faintly at that "swift" leap of logic.
When we reached Buckkeep, Chade led off the guards with the trove of scrolls. The Prince took my hand and thanked me for a job well done, as if I were any guardsman who had completed a difficult task at risk to himself. Hand to hand, he pushed his Skilling into my mind. I could barely hear him. Come to see you soon. Rest now.
Nettle and Thick followed him as he strode away and I was assisted into the infirmary, where I was very content to lie still and think of nothing. I believe that several days passed. It was hard to keep track of things like time. The headaches and dizziness passed, but the vagueness lingered. I had been somewhere and experienced something vast and I knew that, but could not find any words for it, even to explain it to myself. It was so large and foreign an event that it challenged all the meaning and order that I gave to the rest of my life. Small things stole my attention: the dance of motes in a beam of sunlight, the twisted wool woven to form my blanket, the grain of the wood in the frame of my bed. It wasn't that I could not Skill; it was more that I could not see the point of it, nor gather the energy and focus to do it.
They fed me well and let me rest. Visitors came and went and left almost no impression on me. Once I opened my eyes to see Lacey looking down on me with stern disapproval. I closed them. The healer could do nothing for me and often loudly observed in my vicinity that he thought I was a lazy malingerer. They brought an old, old woman to see me. After our eyes met, she nodded vigorously and said, "Oh, yes, he has that Pecksie-nibbled look to him. The Pecksies took him underground and fed on him. It's known they have a hole up there, near the Witness Stones. They'll take a new lamb or a child, or even a strong man if he's in his cups when he wanders about up there." She nodded sagely and advised, "Give him mint tea and cook his meat with garlic until he reeks of it. They can't abide that, and they'll soon enough let him go. When his nails have grown long enough to be cut, and he cuts them, that'll set him free."
And so they fed me a meal of garlicky mutton with mint tea, and then pronounced me cured and turned me out of the infirmary. Riddle was waiting for me. He told me that I looked like a mooncalf. He took me to the steams, crowded with noisy guardsmen laughing far too loudly, and then in the guardsmen's act of ultimate purification, took me to the complete chaos of the guards' tables and effortlessly persuaded me to drink ale with him until I had to stagger outside and vomit. The level of shouted conversation and laughter made me feel oddly alone. One young guardsman asked me six times where I had been, and finally I simply said, "I got lost coming back," which made me the cleverest fellow at the table for nearly an hour. If he had expected it to shake loose my tale from me, it failed. Yet, oddly enough, I felt better, as if my body's violent protest over the mistreatment had persuaded me that, yes, I was human and had to make allowances for it. I woke the next day in the barracks, stinking and sweaty, and went back to the steams. I scraped my fouled beard from my face and scrubbed myself with salt and then washed all over with cold water. I dressed in a fresh guard's uniform, for my trunk had returned with the rest of the quest's company and gear, and then ate a very simple and small breakfast of porridge in the crowded and noisy guardroom. Just outside the door of the guards' mess, the kitchen rattled and clanged as if a battle were going on there, with whole companies of kitchen help attacking their tasks. Feeling more like myself than I had in days, I used the concealed door near the laundry court to enter Chade's labyrinth and made my way up to the workroom.
I found the worktable lined with oily scrolls spread out for cleaning and copying. There were fresh apples in a basket by the hearth chairs. They had not been ripe when last I was in this room. That little fact rocked me more than I expected it to. I sat down, focused myself, and reached for Chade. Where are you? I need to report. I need someone to help me make sense of this.
Ah! Excellent to hear you. I would very much welcome your report. We are in Verity's tower. Can you make the climb?
I think so. But not swiftly. Wait for me.
I made the climb, but they did have to wait for me. When I emerged from the side of the hearth, I received a shock, for Lady Nettle, unmistakably Lady Nettle in her green gown and lace collar, was seated at the great table with Chade, Dutiful, and Thick. She looked only mildly surprised to see me emerge. I lifted a strand of cobwebs from across my eyes and shook it from my fingers into the hearth. Then, uncertain of my role, I offered a guard's courteous bow to all of them and stood as if awaiting orders.
"Are you quite all right?" Dutiful asked me and came to offer me his arm to my seat at the table. I was too proud to take it, and even seated at the table, I was uncertain of how to proceed. Chade marked my furtive glances at Nettle, for he burst into a laugh and said, "Fitz, she's a member of the coterie now. You must have expected it to come to this."
I glanced at her. Her look was like a knife, and her words as cold and sharp as she sank them into me. "I know your name, FitzChivalry Farseer. I even know that I am your bastard daughter. My mother knew no Tom Badgerlock, you see. So, while you were in the infirmary, she went to see who had claimed to be her old friend. Then she came away and told me all. All."
"She does not know 'all,' " I said faintly. Abruptly I could think of no more to say. Chade got up hastily, poured brandy and brought it to me. My hand shook so that I could scarcely raise it to my mouth. "Well, your mother named you well," Dutiful observed acidly to her. "As did yours," Nettle replied sweetly.
"Enough, both of you. We will set this aside while Fitz tells us where he was while guards combed the entire kingdom for him." Chade spoke quite firmly. "Molly is here? At Buckkeep?"
"Everyone is here at Buckkeep. The whole world came for Harvest Fest. Tomorrow night." Thick spoke with satisfaction. "I get to help with the apple press."
"My mother is here. And all my brothers. Who know nothing of any of this, and my mother and I have decided it is best that it remain that way. They are here because my father will be honored at Harvest Fest for his role in the slaying of the dragon. As will Swift, and the rest of the Wit coterie."
"Good. I am glad of that," I said, and I was, but my words came out dully. It was not just the shock of discovering that Harvest Fest was tomorrow. I felt plundered of dignity and control of my life. And oddly freed by it. The decision of when and how to tell Molly that I lived had been taken from me. She had seen me. She knew I lived. Perhaps the next move was hers. And the thought that followed that plunged me into an abyss. Perhaps she had already made it. She had walked away from me.
"Fitz?" I became aware that Chade had spoken to me several times when he touched me on the arm. I twitched and came back to awareness of the people at the table. Dutiful looked sympathetic, Nettle distant, and Thick bored. Chade rested a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Would you report to the coterie on where you have been and what happened to you? I have my suspicions, but I'd like them confirmed." Habit made me begin from the last time he'd heard from me. I was blithely telling them of entering the Black Man's abode when I suddenly became reluctant to share all the Fool had said. So I looked at my hands on the table and summarized it, leaving out as many of the intimate details as I could. Of those who sat at the table, only Chade perhaps had a glimmering of what my parting from the Fool meant. Without thinking, I said aloud, "But I did not go back, and you say I've been gone over a month. I do not know what they will make of that absence. I want to go back, but now I fear the pillars as I never have before."
"And well you should, if what I have read in the Skill scrolls you brought back is an indicator. But more of that later. Tell the rest."
And so I did, of leaving and claiming the scrolls and disposing of the woman's body. Chade was fascinated by the Elderling magic of lights and warmth, and asked many questions about the cubes of memory stone that I could not answer. I saw him already itching to attempt the trip and explore for himself that magically charged realm. I went on to Prilkop's farewell, and then to my endless passage through the pillars. When I spoke of the being who had rescued me, Dutiful sat up very straight. "Like the ones from our time on the Others beach."
"Like and not like. I think there, our minds were in their world. In the pillars, my body was there, as well. Since I've returned, I've felt… strange. More alive in some ways. More connected, to even the tiniest bits of this world. And yet more alone, also." And then I fell silent. There seemed nothing to add to my account. I glanced at Nettle. She met my gaze with a neutral little look that said I meant nothing to her and never had. Chade seemed to feel he had enough to ponder, for he pushed back from the table like a man who has finished a substantial meal. "Well. A tale that will take some thought to sort out, and enough lessons for now. All of us have tasks to get to with Harvest Fest just around the corner. There will be a gathering tonight, in the Great Hall, with music and jugglers and dancing and tales. Many of our Outislander friends will be there, as well as all our dukes. I shall see the rest of you there tonight, I am sure."
When they continued to sit and look at him, he added heavily, "And I would speak privately with Fitz now." Thick stood up. So did Nettle. "After I speak privately with Fitz," Dutiful announced calmly. Thick looked perplexed, but immediately added, "Me, too."
"Not I," Nettle said coolly as she walked toward the door. "I can't imagine anything I'd ever want to say to him."
Thick stood rooted in place, his eyes darting from Nettle to Dutiful. He was obviously torn. I managed to dredge up a smile for him. "You and I will have lots of time later, Thick. I promise."
"Ya," he agreed abruptly, and managed to catch the door before it had completely closed behind Nettle. He followed her out. Dutiful gave Chade a glance and the councilor retreated to stand by the window looking out over the sea. Plainly it was not what Dutiful wanted. Just as plainly, the power struggle between councilor and prince continued. I looked at Dutiful. He sat down in the chair next to me and drew it closer. He spoke softly and I expected to hear of his concerns with the Narcheska and his betrothal. "I've talked with her a lot about you. She's angry with you right now, but I think if you'll give her time, she can calm down enough to listen to you."
It took me a moment. "Nettle?"
"Of course."
"You talked about me a lot with her?" Better and better, I thought sourly to myself. Dutiful sensed my dismay. "I had to," he said defensively. "She was saying things like, 'He abandoned my mother when she was pregnant, and never came to see me at all.' I couldn't let her just say things like that, let alone believe them. So I've told her the truth, as you told it to me."
"Fitz?" He spoke a few moments later.
"Oh. Sorry. Thank you." I couldn't even recall what I had been thinking.
"You'll like her brothers. I do. Chivalry's a bit full of himself, but I think it's a bluff to make up for how frightened he is of all the changes. Nimble is nothing like Swift. I've never met two twins less alike. Steady lives up to his name, while Just chatters like a magpie. And Hearth, he's the youngest, all he does is run and giggle and try to get his brothers and Nettle to wrestle with him. He's not afraid of anyone or anything."
"They're all here for Harvest Fest"
"At the Queen's invitation. Because Swift will be recognized and Burrich honored."
"Of course." I looked at the table between my hands. Did I fit anywhere in any of this?
"Well, I suppose that's all I wanted to say. I'm glad you're better. And I think Nettle will come about, if you give her time. She feels tricked. I warned you she would. Oddly enough, I think that what made her angriest was that you disappeared like that. She took it personally, somehow. But I think she'll reconsider her opinion of you, if you give her time."
"I don't think I've much choice in it."
"No, I don't suppose you do. But I didn't want you to think it was hopeless and give up and go off somewhere to avoid seeing her. Your place is at Buckkeep now. So is hers."
"Thank you."
He glanced aside from me. "I can't tell you what it means to me to have her here at court. She's so outspoken and blunt. I never was friends with a girl like I can be with her. I suppose it's because we're cousins." I nodded, unsure how true it was, but glad of it all the same. If she had the Prince's friendship, she had a powerful protector at court.
"I have to go. I've missed my last two fittings for my Harvest Festival clothing. I swear, they take it out on Thick, poking him with pins 'by accident' if I'm not there to defend him. So I'd best be there." I nodded to that as well and then somehow he was up and out the door and the room was silent without my much noticing how it had happened. Chade set a cup of brandy down before me with a firm tap on the table. I looked at it and then up at him. "You may need it," he observed mildly. Then he revealed, "The Fool was here, two weeks ago. I'd give a lot to know how he comes and goes from here so unseen, but he managed. I heard a tap at the door of my private sitting room, late at night. And when I opened it, there he was. Changed of course, as you said. Brown as an appleseed, all over. He looked weary and half-sick, but I think that could have been his journey through the pillar. He did not speak of the Black Man, or indeed of anything except you. He obviously expected to find you here. That frightened me."
I set the empty brandy glass down on the table. Without asking, Chade refilled it for me. "When I told him we hadn't seen you, he looked stricken. I told him how thoroughly we'd searched, and that my private premise had been that you'd gone off with him. He asked if we'd used the Skill; I told him that of course we had, but that it had yielded no trace of you. He gave me the name of an inn where he'd be staying for a week, and asked me to send a runner immediately if any news of you came in. At the end of the week, he came back to me again. He looked as if he had aged a decade. He told me he had made inquiries of his own about you, with no positive results. Then he said he had to depart, but that he wished to leave something with me for you. Neither of us expected you'd return to claim it."
I didn't have to ask for it. He set down a sealed scroll, no bigger than a child's closed fist, and a small bag made from Elderling fabric. I recognized it as coming from the coppery robe. I looked at them, but made no move to touch either of them while Chade was watching me. "Did he say anything? As a message for me, I mean."
"I think that is what those things are." I nodded.
"Hap came to see you while you were in the infirmary. Did you know?"
"No. I didn't. How did he know I was there?"
"I believe he spends a great deal of time at that minstrel tavern these days. When we were searching for you, we put the word out through the minstrels, of course. We were desperate to hear any rumor of you, so he knew that we expected Tom Badgerlock to be at Buckkeep and he wasn't. Then, when you were found, of course the minstrels heard of that, too. So he knew through them. You should see him soon and put his mind at rest."
"He visits the minstrel tavern often?"
"So I've heard."
I didn't ask from whom, or why the Queen's councilor would be kept informed of the habits of a woodworker's apprentice. I merely said, "Thank you for watching over him."
"I told you I would. Not that I've done well at it. Fitz, I am sorry to tell you this. I don't know the details, but I understand he got in a bit of trouble in town and has lost his apprenticeship. He has been staying among the minstrel folk."
I shook my head at that, sick at heart. I should have done better by him. Time, definitely, to take the young man in hand. I decided I'd seek out Starling for gossip on where to find my boy. I felt guilty and remiss that I had not sought him out before this. "Any other news that I should know?"
"Lady Patience whacked me quite soundly with her fan when she discovered that you had been in the infirmary for some days and no one had informed her." I laughed in spite of myself. "In public?"
"No. She has gained some discretion in her old age. She summoned me to a private meeting in her chambers. Lacey was waiting for me. I went in, Lacey offered me a cup of tea, and Patience came in and whacked me with her fan." He rubbed his head above his ear and added ruefully, "You might have told me she knew you were alive and disguised as a guardsman. Something that she finds offensive in the extreme, by the by."
"I didn't have a chance. So. Is she angry with me?"
"Of course. But not as angry as she is with me. She called me an 'old spider' and threatened to horsewhip me if I didn't stop interfering with her son. How did she establish a connection between you and me?" I shook my head slowly. "She's always known more than she lets on."
"Indeed. That was the case even when your father was alive."
"I will go and see Patience also. Well, it seems that my life is as much a tangle as ever. How go things in the greater schemes of Buckkeep?"
"Your plans have succeeded well enough. Those dukes who did not travel to the Out Islands on Prince Dutiful's first sortie are glad to have a chance at making trade agreements with the kaempra who have been arriving. Some think there may be enough profit in it to persuade the Hetgurd to put an end to all raids. I do not know if they can wield that authority, but if all the dukes say, firmly, that trading agreements are contingent on an end to all raiding, it may cease. There has even, you may be surprised to hear, been talk of some marriage offers between Six Duchies nobility and the Out Island clans. So far, it has been all kaempras offering to join our 'mothershouses' and we have had to caution our nobility that the Outislander notion of marriage is sometimes not so permanent as our own. But some may work out. Several of our higher nobles have younger sons they might offer to Outislander clans."
He leaned back in his chair and poured brandy for himself. "It might even be a lasting peace, Fitz. Peace with the Outislanders in my lifetime. Truth to say, I never thought I'd see it." He sipped from his cup and added, "Though I'll not count my chickens before they are hatched. We've still a ways to go. I'd like to see Dutiful hailed as King-in-Waiting before the winter is over, but that may take a bit of doing. The lad is still impulsive and impetuous. I've cautioned him, over and over, that the crown sits on the King's head, not his heart. Nor considerably lower. He needs to show his dukes a man's measured thought, a king's considered opinions, not a boy's passions. Both Tilth and Farrow have said they'd rather see him wed first or with a few more years to steady him before they recognize him as King-in-Waiting."
I pushed my brandy cup toward him and he filled it as well. "You say nothing of the dragons. There have been no problems, then?"
He gave a wry smile. "I think our Six Duchies folk are a bit disappointed that they have not seen so much as a scale of them. They would have relished having Icefyre come crashing through our gates to present his head to our queen. Or they think they would. As for me, I am well contented with that situation. Dragons at a distance are amazing and noble creatures of legend. My closer experience of them makes me suspect they'd burp nobly after consuming me."
"Do you think they went back to Bingtown, then?"
"Most emphatically not. We had a messenger from the Traders last week, seeking word of Tintaglia. From the scroll, I could not tell if they were worried for her well-being, or frantic at having become the sole providers for several earth-bound dragons. I was going to tell them we had no idea of what had become of them after Icefyre made his appearance at the Narwhal mothershouse. Then Nettle spoke up. She said that Tintaglia and Icefyre were feeding and mating and completely engrossed in those two activities. She could not say where; her contact with Tintaglia is intermittent, and a dragon's idea of geography is quite different from ours. But they were feeding on sea bears. So I think that would put them to the north of us. We may yet see something of them if they decide to fly back to Bingtown."
"I've a feeling we've not heard the last of them. But what about closer to home? Have we resolved anything with our Old Blood?"
"Old Blood has shed much blood while we were gone. It has rocked several of our duchies to discover that Old Blood may run stronger in the nobility than was previously admitted. There was even a rumor about Celerity of Bearns, that perhaps she and her hawk saw with the same eyes. Shocking. These revelations come out when vendettas run hot, and one set of murders lead to another. Kettricken has been hard-pressed to keep order. But the gist of it is that Old Blood seems to have thoroughly cleaned their own house of 'the Piebald blight.' Web was horrified at the news he received when he arrived home. He has pressed, more than ever, for Old Blood to make itself known and respectable. In some ways, the bloodletting has been a setback for him. Ironically, he has proposed to create a township for Old Blood, where they may demonstrate their diligence and civility. What once they opposed for fear it would lead to slaughter, they now propose as a way to demonstrate their harmlessness. When unprovoked. The Queen is considering it. Location would require much negotiation. Many fear the Wit more than ever these days."
"Well, not everything can go smoothly, I suppose. At least it may be more out in the open, now." I sat a moment, wondering. Celerity of Bearns, Witted? I did not think so. But looking back, I could not be certain. "And Lord FitzChivalry Farseer? Will he come out into the sunlight at last?"
"What, only Lord? I thought I was to be King?" And then I laughed, for never had I seen Chade struck dumb before. "No," I decided. "No, I think we will let Lord FitzChivalry Farseer rest in peace. Those important to me know. That was all I ever cared about."
Chade nodded thoughtfully. "I could wish you a minstrel's happy ending to your tale, 'much love and many children,' but I do not think it will come to be."
"It never came true for you, either."
He looked at me and then looked aside. "I had you," he said. "But for you, perhaps I would have died an 'old spider' hiding in the walls. Did you never think of that?"
"No. I hadn't."
"I've things to do," he said abruptly. Then, as he stood, he rested a hand on my shoulder and asked, "Will you be all right now?"
"As well as can be expected," I said.
"I'll leave you, then." He looked down and added, "Will you try to be more careful? It was not easy for me, those days when you went missing. I thought you had fled Buckkeep and the duties of your blood, and then when the Fool came through, I believed you were dead somewhere. Again."
"I'll be just as careful with myself as you are with yourself," I promised him. He lifted one brow at me and then nodded.
I sat for some time after he was gone looking at the package and the scroll. I opened the scroll first. I recognized the Fool's careful hand. I read it through twice. It was a poem about dancing, and a farewell. I could tell he had written it before he discovered my absence. So. He had not changed his mind. He and Prilkop had paused here only to say good-bye to me, not because he'd had a change of heart.
The package was lumpy and rather heavy. When I untied the slithery fabric, a piece of memory stone the size of my fist rolled out on the table. The Fool's Skilled fingers had carved it, I was sure. I poked at it cautiously but felt only stone. I lifted it up to look at it. It had three faces, each blending into the next. Nighteyes was there, and me, and the Fool. Nighteyes looked out at me, ears up and muzzle down. The next facet showed me as a young man, unscarred, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. Had I ever truly been that young? And the Fool had carved himself as a fool, in a tailed cap with one long forefinger lifted to shush his pursed lips and his brows arched high in some jest.
It was only when I cupped the carving in my hand that it woke for me and revealed the memories the Fool had imbued in it. Three simple moments it recalled. If my fingers spanned the wolf and myself, then I saw Nighteyes and I curled together in sleep in my bed in the cabin. Nighteyes sprawled sleeping on the Fool's hearth in the Mountains when I touched both Fool and Nighteyes. The last was confusing at first. My fingers rested on the Fool and myself. I blinked at the memory presented to me. I stared at it for some time before recognizing it as another of the Fool's memories. It was what I looked like when he pressed his brow to mine and looked into my eyes. I set it down on the table and the Fool's mocking smile looked up at me. I smiled back at him and impulsively touched a finger to his brow. I heard his voice then, almost as if he were in the room. "I have never been wise." I shook my head over that. His last message to me and it had to be one of his riddles.
I took my treasures and crawled back behind the hearth and set the panel back in place. I went to my workroom and hid them there. Gilly appeared, with many questions about the lack of sausages. I promised him I'd look into it. He told me I should, and bit a finger firmly as a reminder.
Then I left the workroom and slipped back into the main halls of Buckkeep. I knew that Starling would be sniffing over the visiting minstrels, so I went to the lower hall where they usually rehearsed and were generously hosted with viands and drink. The room was stuffed with entertainers, competing with one another in that boisterous and cooperative way they have, but I saw no sign of Starling. I then sought her in the Great Hall and the Lesser, but without success. I had given up and was leaving on my way down to Buckkeep Town when I caught a glimpse of her in the Women's Gardens. She was walking slowly about with several other ladies. I waited until I was sure she had seen me and then went to one of the more secluded benches. I was certain she would find me there and I did not have to wait long. But as she sat down beside me, she greeted me with "This is not wise. If people see us, they will talk."
I had never heard her voice concern over that before and it took me aback, as well as stung my feelings. "Then I will ask my question and be on my way. I'm going to town to look for Hap. I've heard he's been frequenting one of the minstrel taverns and I thought you'd know which one?"
She looked surprised. "Not I! It's been months since I've been to a minstrel tavern. At least four months." She leaned back on the bench, her arms crossed and looked at me expectantly. "Could you guess which one?"
She considered a moment. "The Pelican's Pouch. The younger minstrels go there, to sing bawdy songs and make up new verses to them. It's a rowdy place." She sounded as if she disapproved. I raised my brows to that. She clarified. "It's fine enough for young folk new to singing and telling, but scarcely an appropriate place for me these days."
"Appropriate?" I asked, trying to master a grin. "When have you ever cared for appropriate, Starling?" She looked away from me, shaking her head. She did not meet my eyes as she said, "You must no longer speak to me so familiarly, Tom Badgerlock. Nor can I meet you again, alone, like this. Those days are over for me."
"Whatever is the matter with you?" I burst out, shocked and a bit hurt.
"The matter with me? Are you blind, man? Look at me." She stood up proudly, her hands resting on her belly. I had seen bigger paunches on smaller matrons. It was her stance rather than her size that informed me. "You're with child?" I asked incredulously.
She took a breath and a tremulous smile lit her face. Suddenly, she spoke to me as if she were the old Starling, the words bubbling from her. "It is little short of a miracle. The healer woman that Lord Fisher has hired to watch over me says that sometimes, just when a woman's chances for it are nearly gone, she can conceive. And I have. Oh, Fitz, I'm going to have a baby, a child of my own. Already, I love it so that I can scarcely stop thinking of it, night or day."
She looked luminously happy. I blinked. Sometimes, she had spoken of being barren with bitterness, saying that her inability to conceive meant she would never have a secure home or a faithful husband. But never had she uttered a word of the deep longing for a child that she must have felt all those years. It stunned me. I said, quite sincerely, "I'm happy for you. I truly am."
"I knew you would be." She touched the back of my hand, briefly, lightly. Our days of greeting one another with an embrace were over. "And I knew you would understand why I must change my ways. No breath of scandal, no hint of inappropriate behavior by his mother should mar my baby's future. I must become a proper matron now, and busy myself only with the matters of my household." I knew a shocking moment of greenest envy. "I wish you all the joys of your home," I said quietly. "Thank you. You do understand this parting?"
"I do. Fare you well, Starling. Fare you well."
I sat on the bench and watched her leave me. She did not walk, she glided, her arms across her belly as if she already held her unborn child. My greedy, raucous little bird was a nesting mother now. I felt a twinge of loss to watch her go. In her own way, she had always been someone I could turn to when my days were hard. That was gone now.
I thought about my days with Starling on the walk down to Buckkeep Town. I wondered, if I had not given my pain to the dragon, would I ever have given anything of myself to Starling? Not that I had shared much with her. I looked back at how we had come together and wondered at myself.
The Pelican's Pouch was in a new part of Buckkeep Town, up a steep path and then down, and half-built on pilings. It was a new tavern, in the sense that it hadn't existed when I was a lad, yet its rafters seemed well smoked and its tables showed the battering of most minstrel taverns, where folk were prone to leap to a tabletop either to sing or declaim an epic.
It was early in the day for minstrels to be up and about, so the place was mostly deserted. The tavernkeeper was sitting on a tall stool near the salt-rimed window, gazing out over the sea. I let my eyes adjust to the perpetual dimness and then saw Hap sitting at a table by himself in the corner. He had several pieces of wood in front of him and was moving them around as if playing some sort of game with them. He'd grown a little beard, just a fringe of curly hair along his jaw. Immediately, I didn't like it. I walked over and stood across the table until he looked up and saw me. Then he jumped to his feet with a shout that startled the dozing tavernkeeper and came around the table to give me a big hug. "Tom! There you are! I'm so glad to see you! Word went out that you were missing. I came to see you when I heard you'd turned up, but you were sleeping like the dead. Did the healer give you the note I left for you?"
"No, he didn't."
My tone warned him. His shoulders sagged a bit. "Ah. So I see you've heard all the bad news of me, but not the good, I'll wager. Sit down. I'd hoped that you'd read it and I wouldn't have to tell it all again. I get weary of repeating the same words over and over, especially since I do it so much these days." He lifted his voice. "Marn? Could we have two mugs of ale here? And a bit of bread too if there's any out of the oven yet." Then, "Sit down," he said again to me, and took a seat himself. I sat down opposite him. He looked at my face and said, "I'll tell it quickly. Svanja took my money and spent it on pretties that attracted the eye of an older man. She's now Mistress Pins. She married the draper, a man easily twice as old as me. And wealthy, and settled. A substantial man. So. That's done."
"And your apprenticeship?" I asked quietly.
"I lost it," he replied as quietly. "Svanja's father made complaint about my character to my master. Master Gindast said I must change my ways or leave his employ. I was stupid. I left his employ. I tried to get Svanja to run away with me, back to our old cabin. I told her things would be hard, but that we could live simply with our love for each other to make us rich. She was furious that I'd lost my apprenticeship, and told me I was crazy if I thought she wanted to live in the woods and tend chickens. Four days later, she was walking out on Master Pins's arm. You were right about her, Tom. I should have listened to you."
I bit my tongue before I could agree with him. I sat and stared at the tabletop, wondering what would become of my boy now. I'd left him on his own just when he'd needed a father the most. I pondered what to do. "I'll go with you," I offered. "We'll go to Gindast together and see if he will reconsider. I'll beg if I have to."
"No!" Hap was aghast. Then he laughed, saying, "You haven't given me a chance to tell the rest. As usual, you've seized on the worst and made it the only. Tom. I'm here, amongst the minstrels, and I'm happy. Look." He pushed his bits of wood toward me. The shape was rough yet, but I could see that, pegged together, they'd make a harp. I'd been with Starling long enough to know that the making of a basic harp was among the first steps toward becoming a minstrel. "I never knew I could sing. Well, I knew I could sing, of course, but I mean I never knew I could sing well enough to be a minstrel. I grew up listening to Starling and singing along with her. I never realized how many of her songs and tales I'd got by heart, simply listening to her of an evening. Now, we've had our differences, Starling and I, and she doesn't approve of my taking this path at all. She said you'd blame her for it. But she vouched for me, and she let it be known that I could sing her songs until my own came to me."
The mugs of ale and fresh bread, crusty and steaming, were delivered to our table. Hap tore the bread into chunks and bit into one while I was still trying to grasp it all. "You're going to become a minstrel?"
"Yes! Starling brought me to a fellow named Sawtongue. He has a terrible voice, but a way with the strings that is little short of a god's gift. And he's a bit old, so he can use a young fellow like me to carry the packs and make up a fire on the nights when we're between inns in our traveling. We'll stay in town until after Harvest Fest, of course. He'll play tonight at the lesser hearth, and I may sing a song or two at the earlier revels for the children. Tom, I never knew that life could be this good. I love what I'm doing now. With everything Starling taught me, all unknowing, I've the repertoire of a journeyman already. Though I'm behind on the making of my own instrument, and of course I've few of my own songs yet. But they'll come. Sawtongue says I should be patient, and not try to make songs, but to wait and let them come to me."
"I never thought to see you turn minstrel, Hap."
"Nor I." He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and grinned. "It's a fit, Tom. No one cares who my mother and father were or weren't, or if my eyes don't match. There's not the endless grind of being a woodworker. Oh, I may complain about reciting, over and over, until every single word is exactly as Sawtongue wants it turned, but it's not difficult. I never realized what a good memory I had."
"And after Harvest Fest?"
"Oh. That will be the only sad part. Then I'm away with Sawtongue. He always winters in Bearns. So we'll sing and harp our way there, and then stay with his patron at a warm hearth for the winter."
"And no regrets."
"Only that I'll see even less of you than I have this last summer."
"But you're happy?"
"Hmm. As close to it as a man can get. Sawtongue says that when you let go and follow your fate instead of trying to twist your life around and master it, a man finds that happiness follows him."
"So may it be for you, Hap. So may it be."
And then we talked for a time of incidental things and drank our ale. To myself, I marveled at the knocks he had taken and still struggled back onto his feet. I wondered too that Starling had stepped in to help him as she had, and said nothing of it to me. That she had given him permission to sing her songs told me that she truly intended to leave her old life behind her.
I would have talked the day away with him, but he glanced out of the window and said he had to go wake his master and bring him his breakfast. He asked if I would be at the Harvest Eve revels that night, and I told him I was not sure, but that I hoped he'd enjoy them. He said he'd be certain to, and then we made our farewells. I took my homeward path through the market square. I bought flowers at one stall, and sweets at another, and racked my brains desperately for any other gifts that might buy me back into Patience's good graces. In the end, however, I could think of nothing and was horrified to realize how much time I'd wasted wandering from booth to booth. As I made my way back to Buckkeep Castle, I was part of the throng going there. I walked behind a wagon full of beer barrels and in front of a group of jugglers who practiced all the way there. One of the girls in the group asked me if the flowers were for my sweetheart, and when I said no, they were for my mother, they all laughed pityingly at me.
I found Patience in her rooms, sitting with her feet up. She scolded me and wept over my heartlessness in making her worry while Lacey put the flowers into a vase and set out the sweets with tea for us. My tale of what had befallen me actually brought me back into her good graces, though she complained still that there were more than a dozen years of my life unaccounted for.
I was trying to recall where I had left off in my telling when Lacey said quietly, "Molly came to visit us a few days ago. It was pleasant to see her again, after all the years." When I sat in stunned silence, Lacey observed, "Even in widow's dress, she's still a fine-looking woman."
"I told her she shouldn't have kept my granddaughter from me!" Patience declared suddenly. "Oh, she had a hundred good reasons for it, but not one good enough for me."
"Did you quarrel with her?" I asked in dismay. Could it become any worse?
"No. Of course not. She did send the girl to see me the next day. Nettle. Now there's a name for a child! But she's straight-spoken enough. I like that in a girl. Said she didn't want Withywoods or anything that might come to her because you were her father. I said it had nothing to do with you, but with the fact that she was Chivalry's granddaughter, and who else was I to settle it on? So. I think she'll come to find that I'm more stubborn than she is."
"Not by much," Lacey observed contentedly. Her crooked fingers played on the edge of the table. I missed her endless tatting.
"Did Molly speak of me?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"Nothing you'd care for me to repeat to you. She knew you were alive; that was no doing of mine, though. I know how to keep a secret. Apparently far better than you do! She came here ready for a quarrel, I think, but when she found that I too had suffered all those years, thinking you dead, well, then we had much in common to talk about. And dear Burrich, of course. Dear, stubborn Burrich. We both had a bit of a weep over him. He was my first love, you know, and I don't think one ever gets back the bit of heart one gives to a first love. She didn't mind my saying that, that there was still a bit of me that loved that awful headstrong man. I told her, it doesn't matter how badly behaved your first love is, he always keeps a place in your heart. And she agreed that was true enough." I sat very still.
"That she did," Lacey agreed, and her eyes flickered to me, as if measuring how stupid I could possibly be. Patience chattered on of this and that, but I found it hard to keep my mind on her words. My heart was elsewhere, walking on windy clifftops with a girl in blowing red skirts. Eventually, I realized she was telling me I had to go; that she must begin to dress for the evening festivities, for it took her longer to do those things than it used to do. She asked if I would be there, and I told her, probably not, that it was still difficult for me to be seen at gatherings of the nobility where someone might dredge up an old memory of me. She nodded to that, but added, "You have changed more than you know, Fitz. If it had not been for Lacey, I might have walked right by you and not known you at all."
I did not know whether to take comfort in that or not. Lacey walked me to the door, saying as we went, "Well, I suppose we've all changed a great deal. Molly, now, I'd have known her anywhere, but I'm not the woman that I used to be. Even for Molly, there are changes, though. She said to me, she said, 'Fancy, Lacey, they've put me in the Violet Chamber, in the south wing. Me, as used to be a maid on the upper floors, housed in the Violet Chamber, where Lady and Lord Flicker used to live. Imagine such a thing!' " Again, her old eyes flickered to mine.
I gave one slow nod.