by Robin Hobb
‘I doubt he expected you to use them on yourself,’ the Fool observed mildly. He pushed the knife away from the marionette he was stringing. ‘Perhaps he thought you might use them to protect yourself.’
‘Don’t you understand?’ I demanded of him. ‘These are gifts for the boy Chade taught to be an assassin. He can’t see that isn’t who I am any longer. He can’t forgive me for wanting a life of my own.’
‘Any more than you can forgive him for no longer being your benevolent and indulgent tutor,’ the Fool observed drily. He was knotting the strings from the control paddles to the marionette’s limbs. ‘It’s a bit of a threat, isn’t it, to see him stride about like a warrior, putting himself joyfully in danger for something he believes in, flirting with women, and generally acting as if he’d claimed a life of his own for himself?’
It was like a dash of cold water in the face. Almost, I had to admit my jealousy that Chade had boldly seized what still eluded me. ‘That isn’t it at all!’ I snarled at the Fool.
The marionette he was working on wagged a rebuking finger at me while the Fool smirked at me over his head. It had an uncanny resemblance to Ratsy. ‘What I see,’ he observed to no one in particular, ‘is that it is not Verity’s buck head he wears on his brow. No, the sigil he chose is more like one, oh, let me see, one that Prince Verity chose for his bastard nephew. Do not you see a resemblance?’
I was silent for a time. Then, ‘What of it?’ I asked grudgingly.
The Fool swung his marionette to the floor, where the bony creature shrugged eerily. ‘Neither King Shrewd’s death, nor Verity’s supposed death flushed that weasel out of hiding. Only when he believed you murdered did anger flare up in him hot enough for him to fling aside all hiding and pretence and declare he would yet see a true Farseer on the throne.’ The marionette wagged a finger at me.
‘Are you trying to say he does this for me, for my sake? When the last thing I would wish is to see the throne claim my child?’
The marionette crossed its arms and wagged its head thoughtfully. ‘It seems to me that Chade has always done what he thought was best for you. Whether you agreed or not. Perhaps he extends that to your daughter. She would be, after all, his great grand-niece, and the last living remnant of his bloodline. Excluding Regal and yourself, of course.’ The marionette danced a few steps. ‘How else would you expect a man that old to provide for a child so young? He does not expect to live forever. Perhaps he thought she would be safer astride a throne than ridden over by another who wished to claim it.’
I turned away from the Fool and made some pretence of gathering clothing to wash. It would take me a long time to think through what he had said.
I was willing to accept Kettricken’s choice of tents and clothing for her expedition, and honest enough to be grateful that she saw fit to provide for my clothing and shelter as well. Had she excluded me totally from her entourage, I could not have completely faulted her. Instead, Jofron came one day bearing a stack of clothing and bedding for me, and to measure my feet for the sacklike boots the Mountain folk favoured. She proved merry company, for she and the Fool exchanged playful barbs all the while. His fluency in Chyurda exceeded my own, and at times I was hard pressed to follow the conversation, while half of the Fool’s word-plays escaped me. I wondered in passing exactly what went on between those two. When I had first arrived, I had thought her some sort of disciple to him. Now I wondered if she had not affected that interest simply as an excuse to be near him. Before she left, she measured the Fool’s feet as well, and asked him questions as to what colours and trims he wished worked into the boots.
‘New boots?’ I asked him after she had gone. ‘As little as you venture outside, I would scarcely think you need them.’
He gave me a level look. The recent merriment faded from his face. ‘You know I must go with you,’ he pointed out calmly. He smiled an odd smile. ‘Why else do you think we have been brought together in this far place? It is by the interaction of the Catalyst and the White Prophet that the events of this time shall be returned to their proper course. I believe that if we succeed, the Red Ships will be driven from the Six Duchies coast, and a Farseer will inherit a throne.’
‘That would seem to fit most of the prophecies,’ Kettle agreed from her hearth corner. She was tying off the last row of knitting on a thick mitten. ‘If the plague of the mindless hunger is Forging, and your actions put a stop to that, that would fit another prophecy as well.’
Kettle’s knack of providing a prophecy for every occasion was beginning to grate on me. I took a breath, and then asked the Fool, ‘And what does Queen Kettricken say about your joining her party?’
‘I haven’t discussed it with her,’ he replied blithely. ‘I am not joining her, Fitz. I am following you.’ A sort of bemusement came over his face. ‘I have known since I was a child that together we should do this task. It had not occurred to me to question that I would go with you. I have been making preparations since the day you arrived here.’
‘As have I,’ Kettle observed quietly.
We both turned to stare at her. She feigned not to notice as she tried on the mitten and admired its fit.
‘No.’ I spoke bluntly. Bad enough to look forward to dying pack animals. I was not going to witness the death of another friend. It was too obvious to voice that she was hopelessly too old for such a trek.
‘I thought you might stay here, in my home,’ the Fool offered more gently. ‘There is plenty of firewood for the rest of the winter and some supplies of meal and –’
‘I expect to die on the journey, if it’s any comfort to you.’ She took off the mitten and set it with its mate. Casually she inspected what was left of her skein of wool. She began to cast on stitches, the yarn flowing effortlessly through her fingers. ‘And you needn’t worry about me before then. I’ve made provision for myself. Done a bit of trading, and I have the food and such that I’ll need.’ She glanced up at me from her needles, and added quietly, ‘I have the wherewithal to see this journey through to the end.’
I had to admire her calm assumption that her life was still her own, to do with as she wished. I wondered when I had begun to think of her as a helpless old woman that someone would have to look after now. She looked back down to her knitting. Needlessly, for her fingers continued to work whether she watched them or not. I see you understand me,’ she said quietly. And that was that.
I have never known any expedition to get off exactly as planned. Generally, the larger one is, the more difficulties it has. Ours was no exception. The morning before we were scheduled to depart, I was rudely shaken out of my sleep.
‘Get up, Fitz, we have to leave now,’ Kettricken said tersely.
I sat up slowly. I was wide awake instantly, but my healing back still did not encourage me to move swiftly. The Fool was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking more anxious than I had ever seen him. ‘What is it?’ I demanded.
‘Regal.’ I had never heard so much venom in one word. Her face was very white and she knotted and unknotted her fists at her side. ‘He has sent a courier under a truce flag to my father, saying that we harbour a known traitor to the Six Duchies. He says that if we release you to him, he will see it as a sign of good faith with the Six Duchies and will not consider us an enemy. But if we do not, he will loose the troops he has poised on our borders, for he will know that we plot with his enemies against him.’ She paused. ‘My father is considering what to do.’
‘Kettrick
en, I am but the excuse,’ I protested. My heart was hammering in my chest. Nighteyes whined anxiously. ‘You must know it has taken him months to mass those troops. They are not there because I am here. They are in place because he plans to move against the Mountain Kingdom no matter what. You know Regal. It is all a bluff to see if he can get you to turn me over to him. Once you do, he will find some other pretext to attack.’
‘I am not a simpleton,’ she said coldly. ‘Our watchers have known of the troops for weeks. We have been doing what we can to prepare ourselves. Always our mountains have been our strongest defence. But never before have we confronted an organized foe in such numbers. My father is Sacrifice, Fitz. He must do whatever will best serve the Mountain Kingdom. So now he must ponder if by turning you over, he will have a chance to treat with Regal. Do not think my father is stupid enough to trust him. But the longer he can delay an attack against his people, the better prepared they will be.’
‘It sounds as if there is little left to decide,’ I said bitterly.
‘There was no reason for my father to make me privy to the courier’s message,’ Kettricken observed. ‘The decision is his.’ Her eyes met mine squarely, and held a shadow of our old friendship. ‘I think perhaps he offers me a chance to spirit you away. Before I would be defying his orders to turn you over to Regal. Perhaps he thinks to tell Regal you have escaped but he intends to track you down.’
Behind Kettricken, the Fool was pulling on leggings under his nightshirt.
‘It will be harder than I had planned,’ Kettricken confided in me. ‘I cannot involve any other Mountain folk in this. It will have to be you, I and Starling. Alone. And we must leave now, within the hour.’
‘I’ll be ready,’ I promised her.
‘Meet me behind Joss’s woodshed,’ she said, and left.
I looked at the Fool. ‘So. Do we tell Kettle?’
‘Why are you asking me?’ he demanded.
I gave a small shrug. Then I got up and began dressing hastily. I thought of all the small ways in which I was not prepared and then gave it up as useless. In a very short time, the Fool and I shouldered our packs. Nighteyes rose, stretched thoroughly, and went to the door to precede us. I shall miss the fireplace. But the hunting will be better. He accepted all so calmly.
The Fool took a careful look around the hut, and then closed the door behind us. ‘That’s the first place I’ve ever lived that was solely mine,’ he observed as we walked away from it.
‘You leave so much behind to do this,’ I said awkwardly, thinking of his tools, his half-finished puppets, even the plants growing inside by the window. Despite myself, I felt responsible for it. Perhaps it was because I was so glad that I was not going on alone.
He glanced over at me and shrugged. ‘I take myself with me. That’s all I truly need, or own.’ He glanced back at the door he had painted himself. ‘Jofron will take good care of it. And of Kettle, too.’
I wondered if he left behind more than I knew.
We were nearly to the woodshed when I saw some children racing down the path toward us. ‘There he is!’ one cried, pointing. I shot a startled glance at the Fool, then braced myself, wondering what was to come. How could one defend oneself against children? At a loss, I awaited the attack. But the wolf did not wait. He sank low to his belly in the snow, even his tail flat. As the children closed the distance, he suddenly shot forward straight at the leader. ‘NO!’ I cried aloud in horror, but none of them paid me any heed. The wolf’s front paws struck the boy’s chest, to drive him down hard in the snow. In a flash Nighteyes was up and after the others, who fled, shrieking with laughter as one after another he caught up with them and mowed them down. By the time he’d felled the last one, the first boy was up and after him, vainly trying to keep up with the wolf and making wild grabs at his tail as Nighteyes flashed by him, tongue lolling.
He felled them all again, twice more, before he halted in one of his racing loops. He watched the children getting to their feet, then glanced over his shoulder at me. He folded his ears down abashedly, then looked back to the children, his tail wagging low. One girl was already digging a chunk of fatbread out of her pocket while another teased him with a strip of leather, snaking it over the snow and trying to get him involved in a tug-of-war. I feigned not to notice.
I’ll catch up with you later, he offered.
No doubt, I told him drily. The Fool and I kept walking. I glanced back once to see the wolf, teeth set in the leather and all four feet braced while two boys dragged at the other end of it. I surmised that I now knew how he had been spending his afternoons. I think I felt a pang of envy.
Kettricken was already waiting. Six laden jeppas were roped together in a train. I wished now I had taken the time to learn more about them, but I had assumed the others would have the care of them. ‘We’re still taking all of them?’ I asked in dismay.
‘It would take too long to unpack the loads and repack with only what we need. Perhaps later we’ll abandon the extra supplies and animals. But for now, I simply wish to be gone as soon as possible.’
‘Then let’s leave,’ I suggested.
Kettricken looked pointedly at the Fool. ‘What are you doing here? Wishing Fitz farewell?’
‘I go where he does,’ the Fool said quietly.
The Queen looked at him and something in her face almost softened. ‘It will be cold, Fool. I have not forgotten how you suffered from the cold on the way here. Where we go, now, the cold will linger long after spring has reached Jhaampe.’
‘I go where he does,’ the Fool repeated quietly.
Kettricken shook her head to herself. Then she shrugged. She strode to the head of the line of jeppas and snapped her fingers. The lead animal flapped his hairy ears and followed her. The others followed him. Their obedience impressed me. I quested briefly toward them and found such a strong herd instinct at work that they scarcely thought of themselves as separate animals. As long as the lead animal followed Kettricken, there would be no problems with the others.
Kettricken led us along a trail that was little more than a path. It wound mostly behind the scattered cottages that housed the winter residents of Jhaampe. In a very short time we left the last of the huts behind and travelled through ancient forest. The Fool and I walked behind the string of animals. I watched the one in front of us, marking how his wide, flat feet spread on the snow much as the wolf’s did. They set a pace slightly faster than a comfortable walk.
We had not gone too far before I heard a shout behind us. I flinched and glanced hastily over my shoulder. It was Starling, coming at a run, her pack jouncing on her shoulders. When she came up to us, she said accusingly, ‘You left without me!’
The Fool grinned. I shrugged. ‘I left when my queen commanded it,’ I observed.
She glared at us, and then hurried past us, floundering through the loose snow beside the trail to pass the jeppas and catch up with Kettricken. Their voices carried clearly in the cold air. ‘I told you I was leaving right away,’ the Queen said tersely. ‘Then I did.’
To my amazement, Starling had the sense to be quiet. For a brief time she struggled along in the loose snow beside Kettricken. Then she gradually gave it up, letting first the jeppas, and then the Fool and I pass her. She fell in behind me. I knew our pace would be difficult for her to match. I felt sorry for her. Then I thought of my daughter, and did not even look back to see if she were keeping up.
It was the beginning of a long, uneventful day. The path led always uphill, never steeply, but the constant grade was taxing. Kettricken did not let up on the pace, b
ut kept us moving steadily. None of us talked much. I was too busy breathing, and trying to ignore the gradually increasing ache in my back. Sound flesh covered the arrow-wound now, but the muscles under it still complained of their new healing.
Great trees towered above us. Most of the trees were evergreens, some of kinds I had never seen before. They made a perpetual twilight of the brief winter day’s greyness. There was little underbrush to struggle with; most of the scenery was of the staggered ranks of immense trunks and a few low swooping branches. For the most part, the live branches of the trees began far over our heads. From time to time, we passed patches of smaller deciduous trees that had sprung up in areas of open forest made by a great tree’s demise. The path was well packed, evidently used often by animals and by folk on skis. It was narrow, and if one did not pay attention, it was easy to step off the path and sink surprisingly deep in the unpacked snow. I tried to pay attention.
The day was mild, by mountain standards, and I soon discovered that the clothing Kettricken had procured for me was very efficient at keeping me warm. I loosened my coat at the throat and then the collar of my shirt to let body heat escape. The Fool threw back the fur-rimmed hood of his coat, to reveal that he wore a gay woollen hat within it. I watched the tassel on the end of it bobbing as he walked. If the pace bothered him, he said nothing about it. Perhaps, like me, he had no breath left to complain.