by Robin Hobb
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When our meeting at Zylig was complete, we would transfer from our Six Duchies vessel to an Outislander ship, one more suited to the shallow waters we must next negotiate, with a captain and crew that knew the channels. They would take us to Wuislington on Mayle, the home island for Elliania and Peottre's Narwhal Clan. Dutiful would be presented to her family and welcomed to her mothershouse. There would be celebrations of the betrothal, and advice for the Prince on the task that lay before him. After our visits to their home village, we would return to Zylig and there take ship for Aslevjal and the dragon trapped in a glacier.
Impulsively, I swept the charts aside. Folding my arms, I put my brow down on my crossed wrists and stared into the darkness trapped there. My guts were cramped with dread. It wasn't just the voyage ahead. There were other hazards to be negotiated before we even set foot on the ship. The Skill coterie had still not mastered their magic. I suspected that despite my warnings Dutiful and his friend Lord Civil were using the Wit Magic, and that the Prince would be caught. Too often, the openly Witted were his companions these days. Even if the Queen had decreed there was no shame to possessing such magic, the common folk and her nobles still despised practitioners of the Beast Magic. He risked himself, and perhaps the betrothal negotiations. I had no idea how the Outislanders felt about the Wit Magic.
Around and around, my thoughts chased themselves with no escape from worry. Hap was still dangling after Svanja, and I dreaded leaving him to his own devices. The few times my dreams had brushed Nettle's, she had seemed both secretive and anxious. Swift seemed to become more intractable by the day. I'd be relieved to leave that responsibility, but worried what would become of him in my absence. I still hadn't told Chade that Web knew who I was, or discussed that information with Web. My desperate longing for someone to confide in only made me more aware of how isolated I had become. I missed my wolf Nighteyes as I would miss my heart's beating.
When my forehead thumped solidly against the table, I came back to wakefulness abruptly. The sleep that had evaded me in my bed had captured me sitting at the worktable. With a sigh, I sat up straight, rolled my shoulders, and resigned myself to the day. There were tasks to accomplish, and little time to do them in. Once we were on the ship, I'd have plenty of time to sleep, and even more time for fruitless worrying. Few things were as boring to me as an extended journey at sea.
I rose and stretched. It would soon be dawn. Time to get dressed and go to the Queen's Garden for the morning's lesson with Swift. The water in the pot had almost boiled away while I dozed. I mixed it with cold in the washbasin, made my ablutions, and dressed for the day. A plain leather tunic went on over my shirt and trousers of Buck blue. I pulled on soft boots and forced my cropped hair into a stubby warrior's tail.
After my session with Swift, I'd be meeting the Skill coterie for another shared lesson. I wasn't anticipating it with pleasure. As each day passed, we made improvement, but it was not sufficient to satisfy Chade. He saw his slow progress as failure. His frustration had become a palpable and discordant force whenever we came together. Yesterday, I had noticed that Thick feared to meet the old man's eyes and that Dutiful's pleasant expression had a fixed desperation to it. I had spoken privately to Chade, asking him to be more self-forgiving and more tolerant of the rest of the coterie's vulnerabilities. He had taken my request as a rebuke and only become more grimly self-contained in his fury. It had not lessened any of the tension.
“Fitz,” someone said softly, and I spun, startled. The Fool stood framed in the doorway that was usually concealed by the wine rack. He could move more silently than anyone else I had ever known. Coupled with that, he was undetectable to my Wit-sense. Sensitive as I was to the presence of other living beings, he alone had the ability to take me completely by surprise. He knew it, and I think he enjoyed it. He smiled apologetically as he advanced into the room. His tawny hair was bound sleekly back and his face was innocent of Lord Golden's paint. Bared, his face was more bronzed than I had ever seen it. He wore Golden's foppish dressing gown but it seemed a bizarre costume when he dropped the lord's elaborate mannerisms.
Never before had I known him to venture here without an invitation. “What are you doing here?” I blurted out, and then added more courteously, “Though I am glad to see you. ”
“Ah. I had wondered if you would be. When I saw you lurking beneath my window, I thought you wanted to meet. I sent Chade an oblique message for you the next day, but heard no response. So I decided to make it easy for you. ”
“Yes. Well. Do come in. ” His sudden appearance, coupled with the disclosure that Chade had not relayed his message to me, rattled me. “It's not the best time for me; I'm supposed to be meeting Swift soon, in the Queen's Garden. But I've a few moments to spare. Er, should I put on the kettle for tea?”
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“Yes, please. If you've the time. I don't wish to intrude. I know we've all much to do in these last few days. ” Then his words stopped abruptly and he stared at me, the smile fading from his face. “Listen to how awkward we've become. So polite and so careful not to give offense. ” He drew a long breath, then spoke with uncharacteristic bluntness. “After I sent a message and heard nothing back, the silence began to trouble me. I know we've had our differences lately. I thought we had mended them, but I began to have doubts. This morning, I decided I'd confront them. So here I am. Did you want to see me, Fitz? Why didn't you answer my message?”
His sudden change in tone further unbalanced me. “I didn't receive your message. Perhaps Chade misunderstood or forgot; he has had many concerns lately. ”
“And the other night, when you came to my window?” He walked over to the hearth, dippered fresh water into the kettle from the bucket and put it back over the flame. As he knelt to poke up the fire and add a bit of wood, I felt grateful I didn't have to meet his eyes.
“I was just strolling about Buckkeep Town, chewing over my own problems. I hadn't really planned to try to see you. My feet just carried me that way. ”
It sounded awkward and stupid, but he nodded quietly. The awareness of our mutual discomfort was a wall between us. I had done my best to patch our quarrel, but the memory of that rift was still fresh with both of us. Would he think I avoided his eyes to hide some hidden anger from him? Or would he guess at the guilt I tried to conceal?
“Your own problems?” he asked quietly as he rose, dusting his hands together, and I was glad to seize on the topic. Telling him of my woes with Hap seemed by far the safest thing we could discuss.
And so I confided my worries about my son to him, and in that telling, regained our familiarity. I found tea herbs for the bubbling water, and toasted some bread that was left over from my last night's repast. He listened well, as he bundled my charts and notes to one end of the table. By the time my words had run out, he was pouring steaming tea from a pot into two cups that I had set out. The ritual of putting out food reminded me of how easily we had always worked together. Yet somehow that hollowed me even more when I thought of how I deceived him. I wished to keep him away from Aslevjal because he believed he would die there; Chade aided me because he did not want the Fool interfering in the Prince's quest. Yet the result was the same. When the day came for us to sail, the Fool would suddenly discover that he was not to be one of the party. And it was my doing.
Thus my thoughts wrapped me, and silence fell as we took our places. He lifted his cup, sipped from it, and then said, “It isn't your fault, Fitz. He has made a decision and no words or acts of yours will change it now. ” For one brief instant, he seemed to be replying to my thoughts, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck because he knew me so well. Then he added, “Sometimes all a father can do is stand by and witness the disaster, and then pick up the pieces. ”
I found my tongue and replied, “My worry, Fool, is that I won't be here to witness it, or to pick up the pieces. What if he gets into real trouble, and there's no one
to step in on his behalf?”
He held his teacup in both hands and looked at me over it. “Is there no one staying behind that you can ask to watch over him?”
I suppressed an impulsive urge to say, “How about you?” I shook my head. “No one that I know well enough. Kettricken will be here, of course, but it would hardly be appropriate to ask the Queen to play such a role to a guardsman's son. Even if Jinna and I were still on good terms, I no longer trust her judgment. ” In dismay, I added, “Sometimes it's a bit daunting to realize how few people I really trust. Or even know well, as Tom Badgerlock, I mean. ” I fell silent for a moment, considering that. Tom Badgerlock was a façade, a mask I wore daily, and yet I'd never been truly comfortable being him. I felt awkward deceiving good people such as Wim or Laurel. It made a barrier to any real friendship. “How do you do it?” I asked the Fool suddenly. “You shift who you are from year to year and place to place. Don't you ever feel regret that no one truly knows you as the person you were born?”
He shook his head slowly. “I am not the person I was born. Neither are you. I know no one who is. Truly, Fitz, all we ever know are facets of one another. Perhaps we feel as if we know one another well when we know several facets of that person. Father, son, brother, friend, lover, husband . . . a man can be all of those things, yet no one person knows him in all those roles. I watch you being Hap's father, and yet I do not know you as I knew my father, any more than I knew my father as his brother did. So. When I show myself in a different light, I do not make a pretense. Rather I bare a different aspect to the world than they have seen before. Truly, there is a place in my heart where I am forever the Fool and your playfellow. And within me there is a genuine Lord Golden, fond of good drink and well-prepared food and elegant clothing and witty speech. And so, when I show myself as him, I am deceiving no one, but only sharing a different part of myself. ”
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“And Amber?” I asked quietly. Then I wondered that I dared venture the question.
He met my gaze levelly. “She is a facet of me. No more than that. And no less. ”
I wished I had not brought it up. I levered the conversation back into its old direction. “Well. That solves nothing for me, as far as finding someone to watch over Hap for me. ”
He nodded, and again there was a stiff little silence. I hated that we had become so self-conscious with one another but could not think how to change it. The Fool was still my old friend from my boyhood days. And he wasn't. Knowing that he had other “facets” reordered all my ideas of him. I felt trapped, wanting to stay and ease our friendship back into its old channel, yet also wanting to flee. He sensed it and excused me.
“Well, I regret that I came at a bad time. I know you have to meet Swift soon. Perhaps we shall have a chance to speak again before we sail. ”
“He can wait for me,” I heard myself say suddenly. “It won't hurt him a bit. ”
“Thank you,” he said.
And then again our conversation lapsed. He saved it by picking up one of the furled charts. “Is this Aslevjal?” he asked as he unrolled it on the table.
“No. That's Skyrene. Our first port of call is at Zylig. ”
“What's this over here?” He pointed to a curling bit of scrollwork on one shore of the island.
“Outislander ornamentation. I think. Or maybe it means a whirlpool, or a switching current or seaweed beds. I don't know. I think they see things differently from us. ”
“Undoubtedly so. Have you a chart of Aslevjal?”
“The smaller one, with the brown stain at one end. ”
He unrolled it next to the first, and glanced from one to the other. “I see what you mean,” he murmured, tracing an impossibly lacy edge on the shoreline. “What do you think that is?”
“Melting glacier. At least, that is what Chade thinks. ”
“I wonder why he didn't give you my message. ”
I feigned ignorance. “As I said, perhaps he forgot. When I see him today, I'll ask him. ”
“Actually, I'd like to speak to him, as well. Privately. Perhaps I could come with you to your Skill-lesson today. ”
I felt extremely uncomfortable yet I could think of no way to wriggle out of inviting him. “That's not scheduled until afternoon today, after Swift's lessons and weapons practice. ”
He nodded, unconcerned. “That would be fine. I've things to tidy up in my chamber below. ” As if inviting me to ask why, he added, “I've nearly moved out of those rooms completely. There won't be much left for anyone to trouble about. ”
“So you intend to move to the Silver Key permanently?” I asked.
For a moment, his face went blank. I had surprised him. Then he shook his head slowly at me, smiling gently. “You never believe a thing I tell you, do you, Fitz? Ah, well, perhaps that has sheltered us both through many a storm. No, my friend. I will leave my Buckkeep chambers empty when I go. And most of the wonderful possessions and furnishings in the Silver Key belong to others already, accepted as collateral for my debts. Which I don't intend to pay, of course. Once I leave Buckkeep Town, my creditors will descend like crows and pick those quarters bare. And that will be the end of Lord Golden. I won't be returning to Buckkeep. I won't be returning anywhere. ”
His voice did not quaver or shake. He spoke calmly and his eyes met mine. Yet his words left me feeling as if a horse had kicked me. He spoke like a man who knew he was going to die, a man tidying up all the loose ends of his life. I experienced a shift in perception. My awkwardness with him was because of our recent quarrel, and because I knew I deceived him. I did not fear his death, because I knew I had already prevented it. But his discomfort had a different root. He spoke to me as a man who knew he faced death would speak to an old friend who seemed indifferent to that fact. How callous I must have seemed to him, avoiding him all those days. Perhaps he had thought I was carefully severing the contact between us before his death could do it suddenly and painfully. The words burst from me, the only completely true thing I'd said to him that day. “Don't be stupid! I'm not going to let you die, Fool!” My throat suddenly closed. I picked up my cooling cup of tea and gulped from it hastily.
He caught his breath and then laughed, a sound like glass breaking. Tears stood in his eyes. “You believe that so thoroughly, don't you? Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the one most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us. ”
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I slammed my cup down. Tea splattered the table between us. “Stop talking like that! Eda and El in a tangle, Fool! Is that why you've been squandering your fortune and living like some degenerate Jamaillian? Please tell me that you haven't spent all your windfall, that there is something left for . . . for you to come back to. ” And there my words halted, as I teetered at the edge of betraying myself.
He smiled strangely. “It's gone, Fitz. It's all gone, or else arranged to be bestowed. And getting rid of that much wealth has not only been a challenge, but a far greater pleasure than possessing it ever was. I've left papers that Malta is to go to Burrich. Can you imagine his face when someone hands her reins to him? I know he will value her and care for her. And for Patience, oh, you should have seen it before I sent it on its way! A cartload of scrolls and books on every imaginable topic. She'll never imagine where they came from. And I've provided for Garetha, my garden maid. I've bought her a cottage and a plot of earth to call her own, as well as left her the coin to keep herself well. That should cause a mild scandal; folks will wonder why Lord Golden left a garden girl so well endowed. But let them. She will understand and she won't care. And for Jofron, my Jhaampe friend? I've sent her a selection of fine woods and all of my carving tools. She'll value them, and recall me fondly, regardless of how abruptly I left her. She's made her reputation as a toymaker. Did you know that?”
As he divulged his generous mischief to me, he smiled and the shadow of imminent death nearly left his eyes. “Please stop talking like that,” I begged him. “I promise you, I won't let you die. ”
“Make me no promises that can break us both, Fitz. Besides. ” He took a breath. “Even if you manage against all the foreordained grinding of fate to keep me alive, well, Lord Golden still must vanish. He's lived to the end of his usefulness. Once I leave here, I shall not be him again. ”
As he spoke on of how he'd dismantled his fortune and how his name would fade to obscurity, I felt sick. He had been determined and thorough. When we left him behind on the docks, we'd be leaving him in a difficult situation. That Kettricken would provide for him, no matter how he had squandered his wealth, I had no doubt. I resolved to have a quiet word with her before we left, to prepare her to rescue him if need be. Then I reined my thoughts back to the conversation, for the Fool was watching me oddly.
I cleared my throat and tried to think of sensible words. “I think you are too pessimistic. If you have a coin or two left to your name, you'd best be frugal with it. Just in case I'm right and I keep you alive. And now I must go, for Swift will be waiting for me. ”
He nodded, rising as I did. “Will you come down to my old chambers when it is time for us to meet Chade for the Skill-lesson?”
“I suppose so,” I concurred, trying not to sound reluctant.
He smiled faintly. “Good luck with Burrich's boy,” he said, and left.
The teacups and charts were still on the table. I suddenly felt too weary to tidy them away, let alone hasten to my lesson with Swift. But I did, and when I arrived on the towertop garden, he was waiting for me in a square of crenellated sunlight, his back to a chill stone wall, idly playing on a pennywhistle. At his feet, several doves bobbed and pecked, and for a moment, my heart sank. As I approached, they all took flight, and the handful of grain that had drawn them scattered in their wind. Swift noticed the relief on my face. He took the whistle from his lips and looked up at me.