Fool's Quest - Страница 71

Wings flapped. Motley had been perched on a chair, dozing near the fire’s warmth. She skidded to a landing on the tabletop and walked over to the Fool. “Fool. Fool!” she said in her crow’s voice. She leaned forward and took a lock of his hair in her beak. She groomed it as if it were his plumage. He took in a small breath. She scissored the tip of her beak against his scalp, selected another lock, and groomed it. She made small concerned sounds as she did it. “I know,” he replied. He sighed. He sat up slowly. He held out his fingers and Motley went to him. With one ruined fingertip, he stroked the top of her head. She had calmed him. A bird had done what I could not.

“I’ll protect you,” I lied to him. He knew it was a lie. I had not protected my people at Withywoods, not Lant or Shun or even my precious Bee. The thought of my failures soaked me and sank me.

Then fury. Red fury suddenly blazed up in me.

Fitz?

It’s nothing, I lied to Dutiful. I bottled and corked my anger. Private. So private. They’d hurt my Fool, possibly killed my friend Prilkop, and stolen my daughter. And I had done nothing to them, and could do nothing until I knew more. But when I knew more … “I’ll protect you and we will kill them all,” I promised him savagely. I spoke my oath tightly, only to him. I leaned in close to whisper the words. “They will bleed and die and we will take back our own from them.” I heard him draw a trembling breath. Tears, tinged gold rather than yellow, were creeping down his scarred cheeks.

“We will kill them all?” he asked in a small and shaky voice.

I walked my hand across the table, tapping my nails so he heard it coming. I took his bony hand in mine. I claimed a silent moment to gather my courage and chill my anger to edged cold. Was this right? Was I exploiting his fears for my own ends? Making promises I could not fulfill? But what else could I do? It was for Bee. “Fool. Beloved. You have to help me now. We will kill them all, but only if you can help me. Why did they come to Withywoods? Why did they take Bee and Shun? What do they intend? Why were Chalcedeans there? And most of all, where would they take them? Where? The other questions matter, but even if all you can tell me is where, it will be enough for me to find them and kill them and take back my child.”

I saw him compose himself. I watched him think. I waited for him. He found the cup, lifted it, and took a cautious sip. “It’s my fault,” he said. I wanted to contradict him, to interrupt him and assure him it was not his fault. But his words had begun to flow and I did not want to divert them.

“Once they knew what you meant to me, they were bound to seek you out. To see if you held the secret that they had not been able to drag out of me. The Servants had your name; I’ve told you how that came about. They knew of FitzChivalry and they knew of Buckkeep. But of Tom Badgerlock and Withywoods they could not know. The messengers I sent to you—I did not tell them your name. I gave them pieces of information they could use as they traveled to find the next place and ask the next question that might bring them to you. Fitz, I did my best to protect you, even as I sent you my request and my warning. I can only suppose that they captured one of my messengers and tortured it out of him.” He took a noisy sip of his tea, sucking in air with the scalding brew.

“Or perhaps they just followed me. Perhaps they could see what I could not, that it was inevitable that I would make my way back to my Catalyst. Perhaps they even were counting on you to kill me. How sweet they must have found that!

“But now I fear a thing even darker. If they knew I had asked you to find the Unexpected Son and keep him safe, they might have suspected you had already done so. And perhaps they descended on Withywoods hoping to find him. You heard that they were asking for him.

“But here is the darkest thing of all. What if they know more than we can possibly know? What if they have generated new prophecies since you brought me back from the dead and rendered so much of the old future impossible? What if they knew that if you found me in the marketplace, you would kill me? Or what if they knew that if you nearly killed me, you would try to save me? That you would take me and leave your own home unguarded, so they might go in to rape and plunder and search for the Unexpected Son with nothing to fear?”

His words filled me with uneasiness even before he said, “What if we are still dancing to their tune? And we do not hear it, so we cannot change the step of how we prance and turn to their wills?”

I was silent, trying to conceive of such an enemy. An enemy who would know what I would do before I decided to do it.

“It is no use fearing that,” he said sadly into my silence. “If it is so, we are helpless against them. And the only logical response to that would be to stop struggling. And thus they would win. At least, if we fight, we can be a nuisance to them.”

My anger, briefly banked, flared again. “I intend to be more than a nuisance, Fool.”

He had not withdrawn his hand from my grip. Now he turned it and grasped my hand firmly. “I have no courage of my own left, Fitz. They beat and twisted and burned it out of me. So I shall have to borrow yours. Let me think, for just a moment longer, on all you have told me.”

He released my hand and took another slow sip of his tea. His eyes stared past me. I had forgotten the crow, so still and silent had she been. Abruptly, she opened her wings and leapt from her perch to land on the small table, nearly oversetting the teapot. “Food,” she demanded raucously. “Food, food, food!”

“There is food left on the tray beside my bed, I think,” the Fool told me, and I fetched it for her. There was a bread roll, and the carcass of a small fowl with meat still clinging to its bones. I carried it to the worktable, and she followed me there. I tore the bread for her, poured water into a bowl, and left it for her. Once it was in the circle of our lamplight, she found it easily.

The Fool spoke before I had seated myself. “There are things in your tale I do not understand. And only a few things on which I can enlighten you beyond what you already know. But let us take our bits of facts and see what we can build. First, the kindly woman with the round face. I know her. She is Dwalia, and she will have her luriks with her. She is a Lingstra, that is to say, one who has advanced solidly within the ranks of the Servants, but not so high that she remains in the school interpreting the prophecies. She is useful and clever enough that she has been given luriks to teach and to serve her, but not so precious that the Servants will not risk her out in the greater world. She seems kindly; it is a knack she has, and one she uses well. People assume that she likes them, and in turn they want to curry favor with her.”

“Did you know her, then? In Clerres?”

“I knew of her.” He paused for a moment and for just that instant I wondered if he lied to me. “She can so easily make others desire to please her, and make almost anyone feel important and cherished by her.” He cleared his throat. “Several other things you say puzzle me greatly. Chalcedean mercenaries. Are they just her hired tools or do they have an additional interest? The currency of the Servants is seldom gold. Will they trade a prophecy for what the mercenaries do? Give them a tipping point where they can seize power or glory? The Servants’ mission seems clear to us. They were seeking the Unexpected Son. But when they discover Bee, it is she they carry off, after garbing her as if she were a shaysim, an untrained prophet. But they take Shun as well! Shun! Such a dreadful name.”

“I gather she took it to herself. It is not what Chade named her. But Fool, are you saying they took Bee because she is a prophet?” Uneasiness was a cold coiling of worms inside me.

“Is she?” he asked me quietly. “Tell me about her, Fitz. And hide nothing.”

When I was silent, gathering my thoughts, he spoke again. The most peculiar smile trembled on his lips, and tears glimmered in his eyes. “But perhaps you have already told me as much as I needed to know, even if I did not put the sense in your words. She is small and blond and pale-eyed. And clever. Tell me. Was she long in the womb?”

My mouth went dry. Where was this leading? “Yes. So long that I thought Molly’s mind had turned. For more than a year, almost two, she insisted she was pregnant. And when finally the child came, she was so tiny. And so very slow to grow. For years, we thought she would never do more than lie in her crib and stare. Then, slowly, she began to be able to do things. To roll over, and then to sit without support. Even after she could walk, however, she did not speak. Not for years. I despaired of her, Fool. I thought her mindless or very slow, and wondered what would become of her after Molly and I were dead. Then, when she first began to speak, it was only to Molly. She seemed … wary of me. It was only after Molly died that she talked freely to me. But even before that, she proved her cleverness. Molly taught her to read, and she taught herself to write and to paint. And, Fool, I suspect she will be able to Skill, eventually. For she was aware of me. ‘Like a boiling pot, with your thoughts spilling over,’ she said. And that was why she avoided my touch and being close to me. But we were getting to know each other, she was starting to trust me as a child should trust her father …” I suddenly choked and could not go on. It was sweet release to speak aloud of my child, to trust someone with the full truth of her, and sharpest pain that I described a child stolen from me.