Fool's Quest - Страница 80

“Go,” I agreed, and she hurried to the tapestry door and vanished from the den. For a short time we sat in silence.

Then, “Poppy,” I said, and rose to go to the shelves. Chade had it stored in several forms. I chose a potent tincture that I could dilute with a tea.

“She was a very convincing boy,” the Fool observed. I could not identify the emotion in his voice.

I was looking for a smaller container to carry some of the tincture in. “Well, you would know better about that than I would,” I said without thinking.

He laughed. “Ah, Fitz, I would indeed.”

He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. I turned in surprise to watch that. “Your hands seem much better.”

“They are. But they are still painful. Any poppy for me?”

“We need to be careful with how much pain medicine we give you.”

“So. No is what you are saying. Ah, well.” I watched him try to steeple his fingers. They were still too stiff. “I want to apologize. No. Not apologize exactly but … I get those surges of terror. Panic. And I become someone else. Someone I don’t want to be. I wanted to hurt Ash. That was my first impulse. To hurt him for frightening me.”

“I know that impulse.”

“And?”

I had given up my search. I’d have to take the little bottle to Chade’s room and then bring it back. “Ash is the one you should apologize to. Or Spark. And for that rush of fury? Time. Time passing with no one trying to hurt you or kill you will lessen that reaction. But in my experience, it never goes away completely. I still have dreams. I still feel flashes of rage.” The face of the man who had stabbed the dog in the market came to my mind. Anger surged in me again. I should have hurt him more, I thought. Stop, I told myself. Stop remembering that.

The Fool’s fingers pattered lightly on the wood he had been carving. “Ash, Spark. She’s good company, Fitz. I like him. I suspect I’ll like her as well. Chade is often wiser than I give him credit for. Allowing her to dress and live in both her roles is brilliant of him.”

I was silent. I had just recalled how casually I had stripped to the skin before Ash. A girl. A girl not that many years older than my own daughter, handing me fresh smallclothes. I do not think I had blushed so hotly in years. I would not mention that to the Fool. He’d had enough merriment at my expense lately.

“I should hurry this down to Chade. Fool, is there anything you need or want before I go?”

He smiled bitterly. He held up a hand and began to tick off items on his fingers. “My sight. My strength. Some courage.” He stopped. “No, Fitz, nothing you can give me now. I regret how I reacted to Ash being Spark. I feel oddly ashamed. Perhaps because, as you mentioned, I have played both those roles. Perhaps I understand a bit more of what you felt the first time you knew of Amber. I hope he will forgive me and come back.” He took up his wood and felt about for his carving tool. The crow hopped closer and cocked her head to see what he was doing. Somehow he sensed her. He extended his finger toward her and she hopped closer to have her head stroked. “My time here would have been far lonelier without Ash. And Motley. Much harder to bear. And she was the one to give me the dragon’s blood that has done so much for me. I hope I haven’t driven her away.”

“Perhaps I can come back and share a meal with you this evening.”

“The duties of Prince FitzChivalry Farseer will most likely prevent that. But some good brandy, late tonight, would be very welcome.”

“Late tonight, then.” I left them there and threaded my way back to Chade’s bedchamber, arriving as two young men were leaving. They halted where they were and regarded me with wide eyes. Prosper and Integrity. Dutiful’s sons. I had held them when they were babies, and as small boys they had sometimes visited Withywoods with their father. I had rolled them about in autumn leaves, and watched them chase frogs in a stream. And then, as they began to get older, their times on the Out Islands had taken them out of my world.

Prosper elbowed his brother and said smugly, “I told you that was him.”

King-in-Waiting Integrity had a bit more dignity. “Cousin,” he said gravely and held out a hand.

We clasped wrists while Prosper rolled his eyes. “I seem to recall him rinsing you off in the horse trough after you fell in the manure,” he observed to no one in particular.

Integrity strove to maintain his dignity as I lied carefully, “I don’t remember that at all.”

“I do,” Prosper asserted. “Grandma Patience scolded you for fouling the horses’ water.”

That brought a smile to my lips. I had forgotten that they had considered Patience a grandmother. Abruptly I wanted those days back. I wanted my little girl home, and I wanted that childhood for her. Not burning bodies in the night, nor being kidnapped by Chalcedean mercenaries. I pushed it all down and found my voice. “How is Lord Chade?”

“Our grandmother asked us to visit him and keep his mind busy. He just told us his mind was busy enough and asked us to take ourselves elsewhere. I think his wound is bothering him more than he wants anyone to know. But we are doing as he bade and taking ourselves elsewhere. Would you like to come with us? Lord Cheery is hosting cards today.”

“I—no, thank you. I think I’ll take my watch at keeping Lord Chade’s mind busy.” Cards. I knew a vague disapproval, then wondered what I thought they should be occupying themselves with. They stood a moment longer, looking at me, and I suddenly realized that we had next to nothing to say to one another. I had stepped back from their lives and now I scarcely knew them.

Integrity recovered before I did. “Well. We shall certainly see you at dinner tonight. Perhaps we can talk more then.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed, but I doubted it. I did not want to tell them grandfatherly tales of how things had been. People I’d killed, how their great-uncle had tortured me. I felt suddenly old, and hastily entered Chade’s chambers to remind myself that he was much older than I was.

“Fitz,” he greeted me. “You were gone so long.”

I shut the door behind me. “How bad is the pain?” I took the vial out of my pocket as I spoke. His mouth was pinched white and I could smell the distress in his sweat.

“It’s bad.” He was breathing through his open mouth.

“Ash has gone for the healer. Or rather, I should say Spark has.”

His brief smile was a grimace. “Ah. Well, better that you know. Did you bring the poppy?”

“Yes. But perhaps we should wait for the healer?”

He gave his head a quick shake. “No. I need it, boy. I can’t think. And I can’t keep them out.”

“Keep who out?” I looked around his room hastily. Nothing here to mix with the poppy to make it go down more easily.

“You know,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “The ones from the stones.”

That froze me where I stood. In two strides I was beside his bed. I touched his brow. Hot and dry. “Chade, I don’t know what you mean. You have a fever. I think you might be hallucinating.”

He stared at me. His eyes were glittery green. “No one spoke to you during our passage? No one tries to speak to you now?” They weren’t questions. They were accusations.

“No, Chade.” I feared for him.

He chewed on his lower lip. “I recognized his voice. All these years gone, but I knew my brother’s voice.”

I waited.

His fingers beckoned me closer. He flicked them toward the portrait on the wall. He whispered, “Shrewd spoke to me, in the stones. He asked if I were coming to join him now.”

“Chade, your wound has gone foul and your fever has gone up. Your mind is wandering.” Why did I bother speaking the words? I knew he would not accept them. Just as I knew with plummeting despair that he could not Skill with me just now.

“You could come with us, Fitz. Whisper away with us. You’d find it a kinder awareness.” He spoke in a tone so like old King Shrewd’s that a chill ran down my spine. It was too late. If I helped him reach out with the Skill right now, would he open Shine? Or willfully tatter us both away to nothing?

“Chade. Please.” I did not even know what I was asking him for. I took a breath. “Let me look at that wound.”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s not the wound, Fitz. It’s not the infection. At least, not that one. It’s the Skill. That’s what festers in me now.” He paused. He stared at the wall, taking long, slow breaths. I could not resist the impulse. I turned to look at the portrait. Nothing there. Only paint on canvas. Then he asked me, “Do you remember August Farseer?”

“Of course I do.” He’d been nephew to King Shrewd, and nephew to Chade, too, I supposed. Son of their younger sister, who had died giving birth to him. Not much older than me when we had both been sent off to the Mountain Kingdom. He was supposed to be the intermediary for Verity to speak his vows to the Mountain princess Kettricken. But even at that early stage, Regal’s treachery had been at work. Verity had not meant to burn out August’s mind when he had Skilled through him to assure Kettricken that he was an honorable man, and had had nothing to do with her brother’s assassination. But he had. After that, August had come and gone like a flame dancing above a guttering wick. Some days he had seemed sensible. On others his mind had wandered like an old man succumbing to dotage. The Farseer throne had quietly moved him away from the court. I recalled now that he had died at Withywoods in the early days of the Red-Ship War. By then his passing had scarcely been noticed, for his mind had long since departed.