Fool's Quest - Страница 124

124

I knew my way through these apartments. When the Fool had masqueraded as Lord Golden, I’d lived here as his servant Tom Badgerlock. The chambers were much more simply furnished than they had been in the extravagant days of Lord Golden. I went to the door of the bedchamber, tapped loudly, and said, “It’s me, Fitz. I’m coming in.”

There was no response. I opened the door slowly to find the room in semi-darkness. The shutters over the window were closed tightly; only the light from the hearth fire lit the room. The Fool was sitting in a chair facing the door. He gripped a dagger in his hand. “Are you alone?” he asked in a shaking voice.

“For now. Ash is right outside the door if we need anything.” I made my voice as even and calm as I could.

“I know you all think I’m silly. But, Fitz, I assure you the danger is real.”

“What I think does not matter. What does matter to me is that you feel safe, so that your body can continue to heal. So. Here we are. Our situation has changed. No one acted out of malice, but I can tell you are badly unsettled.” I kept up a flow of words as I moved closer to him. I wanted him to know where I was as I approached. “I was as surprised as you when I was moved out of my old rooms. And today King Dutiful has told me, quite formally, that I am a prince and not an assassin. Changes for me as well, you see. But what matters, as I started to say, is that I want you to feel safe. So tell me. What can I do to make you feel safe?”

His grip on the knife loosened. “You aren’t irritated with me? Annoyed at my weakness?”

I was startled. “Of course not!”

“You went away so abruptly. When you didn’t come to tell me yourself, I thought … I thought you had wearied of having me depend on you for everything.”

“No. That was not it at all. I thought I had a chance to rescue Bee. And I had to take it immediately. If only I had acted a day earlier …”

“Don’t. You’ll drive yourself mad.” He shook his head. “She can’t just be gone, Fitz. She can’t!”

She could, and we both knew it. I veered my thoughts away from that path. “What would make you feel safer?”

“You do. Being here.” With an almost convulsive gesture, he abruptly clacked the knife down on a table. “There.”

“I cannot be here all the time, but I will see that I am here often. What else?”

“Is Ash armed? Has he been taught to fight?”

“I don’t know. But those are things I can remedy. He is to be your serving man now, I understand. I can teach him to be your door soldier as well.”

“That would be … reassuring.”

“What else?”

“Fitz, I need to see. More than anything else, I need to be able to see! Can you use the Skill to restore my sight?”

“I can’t. Not now, I fear. Fool, I took elfbark. You know that. You were there when I first reported to Dutiful.”

“But the effects will pass, won’t they? As they did on Aslevjal?”

“I think so. I already told you that.” Not the time to tell him what such a healing might cost me. “You’ve improved remarkably since Ash gave you the dragon’s blood. Perhaps your vision will come back on its own. How is the pain?”

“Much less. I can still feel my body … changing. It’s healing but the repairs are changes as much as restoration. Ash has told me that my eyes look different. And my skin.”

“You look more Elderling,” I said honestly. “It’s not unattractive.”

His expression brightened with surprise. He lifted his hands to his face and touched the smoothed skin then. “Vanity,” he rebuked himself, and I think we were both surprised when we laughed.

“This is what I would like you to do,” I proposed. “I would like you to eat, and rest, and continue to get better. And when you feel you are ready, and only then, I assure you, I’d like to see you moving about Buckkeep Castle. Discovering pleasure in life again. Eating good food, listening to music. Going outside even.”

“No.” He spoke softly but forcefully.

I softened my tone. “When you are ready, I said. And with me at your side—”

“No,” he said more harshly. He pulled himself up straight. When he spoke, his voice was judgmental, almost cold. “No, Fitz. Do not coddle me. They took our child. And they destroyed her. And I cower and weep at the change of a room. I have no courage, but it does not matter. Being blind does not matter. I came here sightless, and if I must go sightless to kill them, then I must. Fitz. We must go to Clerres and we must kill them all.” He set his hands flat and calm on the table before him.

I clenched my teeth. “Yes,” I promised him in a low voice. I found I was as calm as he was. “Yes. I will kill them. For all of us.” I leaned closer and tapped the table as I walked my hand toward him. I took his thin hand in mine. He flinched but did not jerk away. “But I would not go to that task with a dull blade. It makes no sense to take to that task a man who is still recovering from grievous injuries. So hearken to me. We prepare. I have things to do, and so do you. Find your health and your courage will come back to you. Begin to move about Buckkeep Castle. Think who you will be. Lord Golden again?”

A faint smile hovered. “I wonder if his creditors are still as angry as they were when I fled.”

“I’ve no idea. Shall I find out?”

“No. No, I think I shall have to invent a new role for myself.” He paused. “Oh, Fitz. What of Chade? What has befallen him, and what will you do without him? I know you had counted on his help. In truth, I had counted on his help in this.”

“I hope he will recover, and that we will not have to do without him.” I tried to speak heartily and with optimism. The dismay on the Fool’s face only deepened.

“I wish I could go and visit him.”

I was surprised. “You can. You should. Perhaps tomorrow, we can go together.”

He shook his head wildly. His pale hair had grown a bit longer but did not have enough substance to lie down, and the slight motion made it wave about. “No. I can’t. Fitz, I can’t.” He took a deep breath. He stared at me, misery written on his face. Reluctantly he added, “And so I must. I know I must begin. Soon.”

I replied slowly, “Indeed, you must.” I waited calmly.

“Tomorrow,” he said at last. “Tomorrow we will go together to visit Chade.” He took a deep breath. “And now I am off to bed.”

“No,” I said pleasantly. “It isn’t night and as I’ve nothing to do right now, I’m determined that you will stay awake and talk with me.” I walked over to the curtained and shuttered windows. I drew back the drapery and then opened wide the old-fashioned internal shutters. Winter daylight streamed in through the thick, whorled glass. “It’s a wild day out there. Storm over the water is blowing the spray and every wave is tipped with white.”

He rose and took slow, careful steps, his hand groping the air before him. He felt for me, then linked his arm through mine and stared out sightlessly. “I can see light. And I feel the chill off the glass. I remember this view.” He suddenly smiled. “The wall is sheer below this window, is it not?”

“It is. Unclimbable.” I stood there until he suddenly sighed and I felt some of the tension leave him. An idea came to me. “Do you remember my foster son, Hap?”

“I never knew him well, but I recall him.”

“He has come to Buckkeep. To mourn Bee. I have not had much time with him, indeed I’ve scarcely spoken to him. I’ve a mind to ask him to sing for me tonight. Some of the old songs and some of Bee’s favorites.”

“Music can be very easing to pain.”

“I’m going to ask him to come here.”

His arm tightened on mine. After a moment, he said faintly, “Very well.”

“And perhaps Kettricken would join us.”

He inhaled unevenly. “I suppose that might be pleasant.” His hand gripped a fold of my sleeve and held it tight.

“I am sure it will be.”

And the lift of heart I felt surprised me. Patience had once counseled me that the best way to stop pitying myself was to do something for someone else. Perhaps I had accidentally discovered what I would do with my life for at least a short time: bring the Fool out of his terror-stricken state and back to a life in which he had some small pleasures. If I could accomplish that, it might ease my conscience a bit when it came time for me to go. So I spent an hour with him planning for the evening’s gathering. Ash was happy to be sent off to the kitchen to request refreshments, and then to seek out Hap and convey my request. An additional errand sent him down to the old stables to find Perseverance and bring the crow up to the Fool’s rooms. When I finally left the Fool’s room, I encountered the two boys coming up the stairs, the crow riding on Per’s arm as if she were a hawk, and the lads deep in conversation. I decided that introducing Per into Ash’s small circle of friends would do all of them good.

I moved slowly down the corridor toward my new room. Hap would meet me there. I felt a sharp stab of remorse. What was wrong with me? Arranging a party in the Fool’s room just days after Bee was lost. My mourning came back like the rising wind that comes before a squall and swept through me, freezing my heart. I mourned but it was the uncertain mourning of one with no proof of death. She had been gone since Winterfest. Lost to me for much longer than a few days.

I searched my heart. Did I truly believe she was dead? She was gone, as Verity was gone from Kettricken. Unreachable and unseen. Somewhere out in the Skill-current that I could no longer navigate, threads of her might linger. I wondered if she would connect somehow with Verity; if her grandfather King Shrewd would know those threads as kin.

124