Fool's Quest - Страница 137

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I lifted my eyes from the map. I just looked at her.

“I’ve known for years. How it was done.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. Starling had possibly told her. Perhaps Verity himself.

“Your body. Verity’s will.”

“I wasn’t there, Kettricken. I spent that night inhabiting Verity’s body.”

“He’s Verity’s son. I know.”

And we left it there, and I was not certain if I felt better for her knowing and letting me know she knew or if I felt even odder about it. I only asked her, “Are you telling me this because you don’t think I’ll come back?”

She met my gaze. “I think you left when you lost Bee, and you haven’t truly been here since. Go find out, Fitz. Come back to us if you can. But go do what you must.”

The farewell feast happened the next evening. It was interminable, with more food than anyone should possibly try to eat at a single meal, and far too much to drink. There were many toasts to me and a tableful of farewell gifts and tokens that would have required a baggage train. It was all well meant and the food I managed to eat was delicious, but ever since I had announced my departure, it had felt as if every event were an obstacle to be overcome on my way to finally leaving. Chade was there but not truly present. The Fool did not come.

It was very late when we processed away from the table. There was another round of farewells in Dutiful’s sitting room. Nettle wept and Chade dozed off and Elliania gave me a kerchief and asked me to dip it in the blood of any I slew, that she might bury it in the soil of her motherhouse so their souls would never know peace. I think she was a bit crazy, and wondered if my leaving would help her find calm again. Thick was morose. The little man had not been well since he’d returned from Withywoods, and his Skill-song that evening was almost a dirge. Both the princes promised me that if I called for them to come to my aid, they would bring the might of Buckkeep and the Narwhal Clan with them. Shine and Lant were there, flanking their father. Shine promised to take excellent care of Chade in my absence. Lant looked at me like a woeful hound. He had presented himself to me two days earlier, asking again to go with me. I’d refused him again. “What will my father say of this?” he demanded in an effort to sway me when his own demands failed. I was heartless. “I suppose you will find out when you tell him,” I’d said. From Chade’s calm demeanor, I doubted they’d had that discussion. It was not my problem. When tomorrow came and I was gone and Lant was not, then he and Chade could deal with it.

When finally I insisted I must sleep so that I could make an early departure, Riddle walked me to the door. “I’ll ride with you and your guard tomorrow,” he told me. “But for now, I want you to have this. It’s been lucky for me.” His token was a knife, not much longer than my hand, with the blade sharpened on both sides and a blood-groove down the center.

“It goes in easy and pulls out easy and it’s quiet,” he told me as he passed it to me in its well-worn sheath. And I left wondering if I knew Riddle as well as I’d believed I did.

I found Ash and Perseverance loitering in the corridor outside my door. Motley was on Ash’s shoulder. “Good night,” I told them.

“It’s not right to leave him,” Ash told me bluntly. “He’s despondent. He’s been saying wild things, and I fear what he may do if you go without him. In all his stories, you two are together. How can you leave him?”

“I should go with you. And we should take Bee’s horse. If we find her, she’ll want to ride her own horse home.”

I looked from one to the other. Both so earnest. I had grown fond of both of them.

But not that fond.

I looked at Ash. “After all of our years together, I believe I’m a better judge of what is good for us than you are. And he is in no condition to go on a long and demanding journey.”

I looked at Perseverance. “And Bee is gone. There is no finding her, and she will never need a horse again.”

Ash’s mouth was ajar. Perseverance had gone pale. I heard him trying to get his breath.

I opened the door of my room, entered, and shut them out.

Chapter Thirty-Three
Departure

...

I dreamed I was a nut. I had a very hard shell and I was curled up inside it. Inside my shell, I was me and there I kept all the parts of me. I had been swept into a river, and it tried to carry me with it but I stayed in one place and refused it.

Curious to say, I abruptly fell out of the river. I fell onto green grass and it was spring all around me. For a time, I stayed tight inside my shell. Then I unfolded myself and I was all there, in one piece.

The others who had been carried by the river were not so fortunate.

This is a dream that feels truer than most. It is a thing that almost certainly will happen. I do not understand how it can happen, that I shall become a nut and be swept away in the river. But I know it is so. And the mouth of the river looked like the shape I draw below. And the river sprang out of a black stone.

Dawn came before I fell asleep. I had expected a sleepless night and put it to good use. I finished transferring Chade’s information on the Skill-portals to the grand map he had given me. I did not wish to trust any portal-stone that I had not seen with my own eyes, lest it be fallen or sunken in a swamp. But if no other escape presented itself and I were hard-pressed, it was good to know which stone might lead where. I was astonished to notice that he had marked some as leading to the city of Chalced. I thought I’d best fight rather than consider those an escape.

I read over Kettricken’s notes and studied her map. It held more information than I’d possessed before, but much of it was still vague. I would have to travel to the outer reaches of Chade’s map and hope to find new maps of the lands beyond. From what the old sailor had told me, I should make the Spice Isles my destination and from there find a way. I found a faint smile as I considered his final advice to me. “Oh, if I was going there, I’d never start from here.”

Verity’s sword was going with me. Once more, it was in a plain leather sheath, the hilt disguised with a wrap of worn leather. I had considered taking an axe; it was definitely my better weapon, but while a man might wear a sword for vanity, no one suffered the weight of an axe for any reason save to use it. I needed to look like an ordinary traveler, a bit of an adventurer, but not a father bent on vengeance. The sword would serve me well, as it always had.

As the day grew gray outside, I dressed carefully. I shaved with warmed water, wondering when next I might have that luxury. My hair had finally grown to the point that I could tie it back in a warrior’s tail. I set out my fine cloak and my personal pack. Then, on a whim, I went down to the guards’ hall and joined them for a very early breakfast. There was hot porridge and honey, with dried apples chopped into it, an aromatic tea, bread and butter, and slices of last night’s roast. My guard was there and many of their Buckkeep fellows and they cheered me with rough jests and suggestions as to how best to deal with anyone who dared to come into Buck and raid a man’s home. That was the most of what they knew, that my home had been raided and Lady Shine stolen and then recaptured. Only a few of my personal guard knew of Bee, and those few understood that I did not wish that knowledge to be shared.

So it was that at the formal breakfast I ate little and once more accepted farewell wishes. I wished to be away but I understood this was the fee I owed Dutiful and Elliania, and I did my best to pay it gracefully. Chade was dozing, but I woke him to say good-bye. He seemed to be in a very genial mood and asked if I would play a game of Stones with him. I reminded him that I had to go to Clerres. He promised that he would remember that I had kept my word and said farewell to him. I doubted he would recall it after I closed the door to his room.

I tapped in vain on the Fool’s door. He would not answer, even when my knocking shook the door in its frame, and I was not surprised to find it locked. I could have picked that lock. He knew that. But the locked door was a message. He was closed to me. I steadied my breathing and walked away from that stab. It was just as well, I told myself. Better a silence than another shouting quarrel. Who knew what he might fling at me this time?

I returned to what had been my room to gather my personal pack. I was only mildly surprised to find Perseverance waiting by the door. His expression was grim but he brusquely insisted on carrying my pack for me and I allowed him.

Down we went to the courtyard, where I found my guard drawn up in fine formation. The former Rousters now blended almost seamlessly with my troops. Foxglove was there, and Riddle was already mounted. Lant looked pale, and Perseverance had mounted up as well. He did not lead Bee’s horse, and that struck a sharp pang with me. I had been harsh to him. Had I enjoyed the boy’s foolish hope? Or was it just that I hurt to see him now as hopeless as I was?

Again, there was a crowd of folk to say farewell, and Dutiful and Elliania and the princes in full regalia as they saw me off. We rode out of the gates of Buckkeep Castle to cheers. Motley flew overhead, occasionally cawing to remind us that she accompanied us. As we cantered showily away, I reflected that half my morning had been wasted with pomp.

“Necessary,” Riddle said, as if he had heard my thoughts, and he gave me a humorless grin.

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