Fool's Quest - Страница 131

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Be patient in the aging of a stone. This patience will be repaid for scores of years.

Summary of opening passages of memory-stone cube 246, a treatise on stoneworking. I have shelved it with the memory stones related to Elderling construction.

—Skill-apprentice scribe Lofty

I announced my decision to the kitchen staff before breakfast. None of them seemed surprised that I was returning so soon to Buckkeep. In truth, they seemed relieved. Their recovery was slow and the presence of my guard, some of them rough fellows, had been more unnerving than reassuring to them. They would be glad when we were gone.

I did the final tasks that would finish my duties to Withywoods. I gave orders that as soon as the renovations were finished, the furniture in the Rainbow chambers and most of the east wing should be draped. I told Dixon that he would be making his reports directly to Lady Nettle and Kesir Riddle now. I gave the same directive to each of my overseers. I was pleased to see Shepherd Lin’s bent shoulders straighten a bit as I conveyed full authority for the flock to him. I made arrangements for the packed scrolls to be sent by wagon to Buckkeep with Lant’s and Shine’s things.

Before noon, all was settled. When I went out to depart, I found not only my horse and a pack animal waiting for me, but Perseverance. “You are certain you don’t wish to stay here?” I asked him, and his impassive face was my answer. Foxglove formed up my guard. I rode away from Withywoods.

We made good time, despite a wet wind that promised to bring snow by evening. We made our journey back to Buckkeep through unseasonably warmer weather that turned the snow into wet, clinging mush and promised an early spring.

As I had feared, the Fool had been found wandering the dark and damp corridors in the foundation of Buckkeep. Nettle Skilled to me that Ash had not been with him and had been extremely relieved when he was returned safely to his chambers. She was concerned for him. I thanked her for letting me know he was safe, and worried for him for the remainder of the journey home.

We had not even reached the gates of Buckkeep before I heard a shrill cawing and then, “Per! Per! Per!” and Motley came swooping in. She spooked Perseverance’s horse but still managed to land on his shoulder while he was mastering his mount. Our guard laughed among themselves, already familiar with the crow, and Per grinned to be so welcomed. As if enjoying the attention, Motley tweaked the cap from his head and he had to catch it one-handed as she attempted to fling it aside. We rode through the gates unchallenged, and as we drew in our mounts near the stable I was only mildly surprised to see Ash awaiting me.

Or so I had thought. Chade’s erstwhile serving lad went to greet Perseverance, and the crow transferred happily from one boy to the other. I gave my horse over to Patience, who delayed me to say Fleeter was prospering, and then I immediately sought out the Fool’s chambers.

At first there was no answer to my knock. I waited, knocked again, waited, and just as I was about to extract a lock pick from my collar a voice spoke from within. “Who’s there?”

“Fitz,” I said, and waited.

It still took some time for the door to be unlocked and then there was another pause before he opened it.

“Are you well?” I asked anxiously, for he looked haggard.

“As you see,” he replied dispiritedly. He attempted a smile. “I am sure I will be better now that you are home.”

“I heard of your misadventure.”

“Ah. That is what you call it.”

The chambers were chilly, his breakfast tray not yet cleared away, and the fire burning low. “Why is this room so ill kept? I saw Ash outside as I rode in. Has he become slack in his duties?”

“No, no. He has just become somewhat … aggravating to me. He was here this morning. I dismissed him and told him I would not need him until this evening.”

There was more to this story. I kept my silence as I built up the fire and tidied the hearth, trying to behave normally. The curtains were drawn and I pushed them back to bring light into the room. The Fool looked untidy, as if he had dressed in the dark and forgotten to comb his hair. I stacked his dishes and gave the table a swipe with his napkin. Better. Somewhat. “Well. I’ve just returned from Withywoods and I’m ravenous. Will you come down with me?”

“I … no. I’ve no appetite. But you should go and eat.”

“I could bring food back here and share it with you.” Even as a prince, I could still raid the guards’ mess if I chose to.

“No, but thank you. You should go and eat, Fitz.”

“Enough. What happened? Why did you vanish from your rooms, why were you in the dungeon corridors?”

He crossed the room slowly and groped his way into a chair by the fire. “I got lost,” he said. Then, as if a dammed river had suddenly broken free, he confessed, “I opened the door to the secret passages. The one inside the servant’s chamber. I am sure you remember it from your days there. I thought I could recall the way to Chade’s old rooms. I … there was something there I’d left behind, and Ash would not fetch it for me. So I resolved I would get it myself. But instead I got lost.”

I tried to imagine being in those chill passages, blind. I shuddered.

“I kept thinking I would find a way back into a room or a proper passage. Twice I came to dead ends and tried to work my way back. Once I came to a narrowed way where not even I could pass. And when I tried to go back from that, I came to the dead end again, and suddenly it seemed to me that I was walled up and lost and no one even knew where to being looking for me. I shouted for help then, until I was hoarse, but I doubt anyone heard me.”

“Oh, Fool.” I dashed the dregs of his morning tea onto the fire, and took the bottle of brandy from the mantelpiece. I poured some into the cup and handed it to him.

“Oh. Thank you,” he said and reflectively lifted it to his mouth. He startled when he smelled it. “Brandy?” And before I could reply, he took a healthy swallow.

“How did you get out?”

“I came to some steps and went down them. And down and down and down. The smell of damp grew stronger and the walls were moist and the steps became slippery. Almost slimy. And then they just stopped. My hands were so cold, but I stood there, tracing each brick and line of mortar. Oh, Fitz. I stood there and wept, for I did not think I had the strength to limp back up all those steps. I think I went a little mad. I pounded on the wall in front of me, and to my shock it gave way. Not much, but a little. I pushed and a brick fell out, and then I pushed and pulled at the next one and finally I had a hole I could wriggle through. I had no idea where I might be and I had to wedge my way out and I could not feel how far I would fall or what I would land on. But there was no help for it, and so I let go and then I fell onto ancient straw matted with damp and who knows what else. When I could get up and grope around, I found I was in a very small chamber. There was a wooden door, with a tiny window. I was terrified then, but the door of that cell was not fastened. I went out and down a corridor. I felt other doors, and I shouted, but no one answered.” He gave an odd laugh. “Such a king he is. Dutiful’s dungeons are full of empty cells!”

I did not speak aloud how happy I was to hear that.

“So out I went, blundering on and on. Then I smelled a torch and I turned a corner and I could sense a bit of light. Torches have to be tended. So there I stayed, and frightened the poor young guard who found me there. But she soon realized who I was and told me that Lady Nettle had had the whole castle and grounds searched for me. And she brought me back up here to my rooms, and Nettle came to see if I was all right.”

And now it was time to fill in the holes in his wondrously porous tale. I started with the obvious question. “Why are you annoyed with Ash?”

The Fool stiffened up like a prim old duchess. “He refused to obey me.”

“What did you ask him to do?”

“To fetch something for me.”

“Fool, this is already becoming tedious.”

He turned his face away from me. “Dragon’s blood,” he said quietly.

“El of the Sea, Fool! Are you mad? With all the changes it already wrought in you, changes that may still be going on, you would take more of it?”

“I wasn’t going to swallow it!”

“Then what?”

He held up his hand and rubbed his sliced fingertips together. “These.”

“Why?”

He took a deep breath. “I’ve told you that I’ve begun to dream again. And that sometimes when I dream, I am a dragon. And in those dreams, I know things. I dream of a place or perhaps a time when a river ran silver with Skill. And dragons drank it and grew strong and intelligent.”

I waited.

“And in other dreams, the silver was gone from the river and it was just water. And the dragons grieved and sought for it, and found a different source for it. Ash described dragon’s blood to me, Fitz. Dark red, with threads of silvery stuff coiling and swirling in it. I think the silver is pure Skill. I think it’s why that dose healed me, almost like a Skill-healing. And that more of it, on my fingertips, might restore them.”

“Do you not recall Verity, with his hands coated in Skill? He did that to himself, knowing he was going to give up his life. Have you forgotten having to glove that hand at all times when you did have touches of Skill on your fingers? Why would you wish for that again?”

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