Fools Quest, Page 70

  “I did. ” My tongue stilled. I recalled a youngster, the last of his patrol, dying of poison. Did I regret him? Perhaps. But if I were in that situation again, I’d still do as I’d done. I squared my shoulders and renewed my promise. “And when I gain the chance, Fool, I will do the same to those who tormented you. And to those who gave you over to torture. ”

  “Dwalia,” he said and his voice went deep with hatred. “She was there. In the gallery, watching. Mimicking my screams. ”

  “Gallery?” I asked, confused.

  He set his palms against my chest and pushed me suddenly away. I took no offense. I knew that sudden need not to be touched. When he spoke, his voice had gone high and he sounded as if he would laugh, but he did not. “Oh, yes, they have a gallery. It’s a much more sophisticated arena for torment than you Buckmen could ever imagine. There they might cut open the chest of a strapped-down child who shows no promise, to show the beating heart and swelling lungs to those who would later learn to be healers. Or torturers. Many come to witness torture, some to record every word that is spoken, and others to while away a tiresome afternoon. Fitz, when you can control the course of events, when you can precipitate a famine or bring wealth to a seaport and all who live near it, the suffering of one individual comes to mean less and less. We Whites are chattel to them, to be bred or slaughtered as they please. Yes, there is a gallery. And Dwalia looked down on me as I bled. ”

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  “I wish I had been able to kill her for you, then, Fool. And for me as well. ”

  “So I wish also. But there are others. Those who raised and shaped her. Those who gave her power and permission. ”

  “Yes. So tell me of them. ”

  More the Fool told me that afternoon, and I listened well. The more he talked, the calmer he became. There were things he knew that might be useful. He knew of the deep spring that supplied the palace with water, and he knew of the four towers where the Council members slept. He knew of the horns that sounded when folk could cross the causeway and enter the fortified city that was the White Island, and of the bell that tolled to warn folk that they must leave or risk being caught by the rising tides. He knew of the walled garden and the great house where the Whites and part-Whites were housed, knowing no other world than that. “Raised like penned cattle thinking the pen is the world. When I first came to Clerres, the Servants kept me apart from their Whites, and I truly believed that I was the only White left in the world. The only White Prophet for this generation. ” He sat silent, and then he sighed. “Then the Pale Woman, at that time little more than a girl, demanded to meet me. She hated me from the time she saw me, for I was so certain I was all she was not. She decreed that I must be tattooed as I was. And when they were done, they put me in with the others. Fitz, they hoped I would breed for them. But I was young, too young to be interested in such things, and the tales I told the others of my home and my family, of market days and cows to milk, and pressing grapes for wine … Oh. How they envied me those memories, and how they insisted they must only be tales. By day they mocked me and set me apart, but in the evenings they would gather round me and ask me questions and listen to my tales. They scoffed, even then, but I felt their hunger. At least for a time, I had had all that they had never known. The love of my parents. My sisters’ fond teasing. A little white cat that trotted at my heels. Ah, Fitz, I had been such a happy child.

  “And telling them my tales sharpened my own hunger, until I had to take action. And so I escaped. And made my slow way to Buckkeep. ” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “To wait to discover you. To begin our tasks. ”

  And so he spoke, and I was entranced, as he shared so much I had never known of him. I sat and I listened to him, afraid to break the spell of such honesty. When he ceased speaking, I realized the day was dimming to a close. There was still so much I needed to do.

  I persuaded him then to let me ring for Ash and have food brought, and perhaps ask for a bath. For I guessed now that he had neither bathed nor changed his clothes since he had returned from his misadventure. When I rose to leave, he smiled at me.

  “We’re going there. We’re going to stop them. ” It sounded like a promise.

  “I am but one man, Fool. Your quest demands an army. ”

  “Or the father of a stolen and murdered child. ”

  So he described me, and for a moment my pain and my fury were one emotion. I did not speak but I felt that thin shiver of awareness between us. And he replied to that.

  “I know,” he said. “I know. ”

  Later that day I tapped at Chade’s door, and when no one answered, I slipped inside. He was dozing in a cushioned chair before the fire with his stocking feet up on a stool. I stepped to the door of his bedchamber, expecting to find some attendant there, Shine or Steady or a Skill-apprentice.

  “We’re alone. For once. ”

  I startled at his words and turned to look at him. He had not opened his eyes. “Chade?”

  “Fitz. ”

  “You sound much better than the last time I saw you. Almost like your old self. ”

  He drew a deeper breath and opened his eyes. Awake, he looked more aged than he had asleep. “I am not better. I cannot Skill. Nothing in my body feels right anymore. My joints ache and my stomach seems angry no matter what I eat. ” He stared at his feet, propped up in front of the fire. “It’s all catching up with me, my boy. All the years. ”

  I do not know what made me do it. I went to his chair and sat on the floor beside it, as if I were eleven again and he my master. He set his bony hand on my head and ruffled my hair. “Oh, my boy. My Fitz. There you are. Now. When are you leaving?”

  He knew. And for that moment, he was Chade as he had been always to me, knowing everything. It was a relief to speak to someone who understood me from the bones out. “As soon as I can. I’ve waited for weather, I’ve gathered my information and regained my Skill. I’ve tightened my muscles and renewed some skill with a blade. So much time I had to waste. ”

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  “Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time. You’ve finally learned that. Not an apprentice any longer, nor even a journeyman. This makes you a master. ”

  “Thank you,” I said quietly and was surprised at the heart I took from his words. “I’ll have to go part of the way by the pillars, and from there I’ll have to travel overland, and then take a ship. It will be a very long journey. ”

  He nodded. His hand still rested on my head. “My son wants to go with you,” he said quietly.

  “Lant?”

  “Yes. He has spoken of it to me often, when he thought he was talking to my empty shell. He wants to go. And I want him to as well. Take him with you. Let him prove himself to himself and bring him back to me a man. ”

  “Chade, I can’t. He’s not …”

  “He’s not like us. He lacks our capacity for hate. Or vengeance. He was appalled at what befell his so-called stepmother, but it had to be done. I know that, but he can’t see it. He would have gone to her and promised that he would make no claim on Vigilant’s estates. He believed he could calm her. ” Chade shook his head. “He doesn’t recognize evil, even when it’s delivered a rib-cracking beating to him. He’s a good man, Fitz. Probably better than either of us. But he doesn’t feel as if he’s a man. Take him with you. ”

  “I don’t understand why he’d want to go. ”

  Chade gave a huff of laughter. “You are as close as he has to an elder brother. And who was my boy before he was? The tales I told of that nameless boy fired him with rivalry and with a desire to be like him. And be liked by him. In his early training, I made you the rival for my regard that he could never best. The one he determined he would equal. He longed to step up, to be in our company. Then he met you, and he failed. And failed again, and again. Fitz. I cannot give him what he seeks. I know you mean to go alone. That would be a mistake. Trust me in this, and take Lant. U
ntil he wins your regard, he has none for himself. So take him. Let my son prove himself a man to you and to himself. Let both of you set aside all rivalry and jealousy. ”

  Jealousy? I felt no jealousy of that pup! But it was easier not to dispute that with Chade. I did not want to take Lant and I knew I could not take him, but I didn’t say no to Chade. For this moment, he was my old mentor as he had always been. I wanted no quarrel with him, not when I feared it might be my last conversation with him. I shifted our focus. “Have you been feigning illness all this time?”

  “No. Only sometimes. It suits me to seem weak. Fitz, I don’t trust Rosemary. She has convinced Dutiful that he does not need assassins such as you and me. She’s been letting all my nets unravel. All my informants have gone unpaid, and unable to report to me. Everything I built, all those years. It’s falling apart. ”

  “Chade, I still have to go. I cannot stay here and take up your webs. ”

  “Heh!” He laughed and I looked up to see him smiling fondly at me. “As if you could. As if anyone could. No, Fitz. I’m failing and I know it. And no one will come after me. The time for such as me is past. No, I do not ask that you stay and take up my work. Go and do what you must. ”

  “Chade. Why do you pretend to be feeble, with a wandering mind?”

  He laughed again. “Oh, Fitz. Because I am. Not every day and every hour. Sometimes I feel I am as sharp as ever. And then I cannot find my slippers, and I look and look, to find they were on my feet all that time. ” He shook his head at himself. “Better that people think I am wandering all the time than know the truth. I don’t want Rosemary to see me as a threat to her assumption of power. ”

  I was incredulous. “Do you fear her?”

  “Stop. I can already hear you thinking of how you will kill her for me. A slow poison, a fall down the steps. No one the wiser and the old man kept safe. ”

  He was right. It made me smile, and then I tried to feel ashamed of that. I couldn’t. He was right about me.

  “So let her have it, my den and my bed, my tools and even my writings. She won’t find the key ones. No one will. Except perhaps you. When you come back. ” He took a deep breath and sighed it out again. “I have another task now. Shine. There is so much time to make up for. They thought to punish me by killing her or marrying her off to some cloddish brute, but what they did was worse. She is vapid, Fitz. And vain. Ignorant. But she need not be. There is a bright mind there, turned to all the wrong things. Kettricken teaches her now and I do not despise what she teaches my daughter. But for all her years, Kettricken is still naïve in some ways. She still believes that honesty and good will triumph in the end. So I must be here, for my Shine, to teach her that a little knife in her boot or a well-planned bolt-hole may be the key to a long life.

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  “And I want to be here to watch her bloom. They were all so astonished when I unlocked her Skill. They came on the run, they did, and helped her put up her walls and blocked her in until she can learn to master it. But she’s going to be strong, Fitz. Strong. If ever they doubted the Farseer blood ran true in me, my daughter will disprove them. ”

  So strange, to hear him admit that old doubt. “You are as much Farseer as I am,” I assured him.

  He rumpled my hair again. “I’ve a gift for you,” he said quietly. “I sent for it some time ago. It’s from Jamaillia, by way of Bingtown, where they enlarged and corrected it. You should take it with you. It’s in the scroll case on top of the shelf in my bedroom. The case is dyed blue. It’s for you. Go get it now. ”

  I rose and went to his bedchamber. I found the scroll case and brought it back to him. He took it from me and directed me, “Find a chair and pull it up here. ”

  And by the time I had done that, he had opened the case and pulled out the rolled-up map. For such it was. The leather had been scraped thin, and it uncoiled to twice the size I had expected it to be. It was done on calfskin, and inked all in gleaming colors. The lettering was wondrous tiny but still clear to read. There were the Six Duchies, and the Mountain Kingdom. Chalced, and the Rain Wilds. And beyond them, the Cursed Shores, with Bingtown, and then on, to far Jamaillia, with the Pirate Isles. And beyond them, the Spice Isles. “It’s beautiful, Chade. But it’s so different from every other map of Chalced or the Rain Wilds or—”

  “Much more accurate,” he said brusquely. “With increased traffic through that region, we now have far better charts and maps. Verity drew his maps based on what he knew himself, and the resources of the time. There were no freely available charts of the Rain Wild River, and those he bought were the work of charlatans intent only on gaining coin. The same is true for the interior of Chalced. And of course Bingtown and those regions. Charts of the Cursed Shores are notoriously bad because of the storms that change the shorelines and river mouths almost every season. But there it is. The best map that Six Duchies gold could buy. I intended to keep it, but I’m giving it to you. Along with this. ”

  His flick of his wrist was not as limber as it once had been. I was still impressed when a bone tube slid into his hand. He unscrewed a finely tooled stopper and shook out a small roll of paper so thin it was almost translucent. “This is my work,” he said, holding it coiled in his hand. “The work I saw fit to do, knowing the danger but deeming it necessary. Aslevjal will not stand forever. As the ice caverns have warmed and the water has run, the old halls are leaking. Green slime and moss have begun to venture through the passages. Mold grows on the map they left there. ”

  He proffered the rolled paper to me. I opened it carefully. My silence was awe. “Every detail,” I finally said aloud in slow amazement.

  He chuckled his delight at my realization of what he had handed me. “Every Skill-portal is marked. The engraving on the Elderling map there was fading, but I copied all I could see, Fitz. It will tell you what was graven on each face of every pillar. The destinations available to you. I intended to transfer it all to my new map, but my vision is fading. And I no longer feel inclined to share my hard-won secrets with those who do not appreciate the risks I ran to get them. If they wish to think me a foolish and reckless old man, then let them. ”

  “Oh, Chade. This is—” His flapping hand interrupted my gratitude. He had never been good at accepting thanks.

  “You take it, my boy. Finish my work. ”

  He went suddenly into a coughing fit and gestured wildly for water, but when I brought it to him he coughed so badly he could not drink it at first. Once he could, he seemed to choke on it, and then finally to gasp in a free breath. “I’m fine,” he wheezed. “Don’t delay here. Take it and go before Shine comes back. Curious as a cat is that one! Be away now. If she sees you carry anything out of here, she will natter me with questions until I cannot think. Go, Fitz. But bid me farewell before you leave. And come to me first when you return. ”

  “I will. ” And moved by what impulse I do not know, I stooped and kissed his brow.

  He hooked his bony hand around the back of my head and for a moment held me close. “Oh, my boy. The best mistake Chivalry ever made was you. Go on now. ”

  And I did. I carried the map case under my arm, but the bone cylinder had gone up my sleeve as soon as Chade had said it was mine. Back in my fine new chamber, I found the fire burning brightly, my bed spread smoothly, and my other boots polished to a sheen by the wardrobe. Someone had placed a decanter of amber brandy on my mantelpiece with two fine little glasses beside it. Servants gave one very little privacy. It took some thinking to come up with two different hiding places that might withstand scrutiny and tidying. I stitched a loop to the back of a tapestry and secured Chade’s pillar-map there. The other map case was larger, but I found a spot atop the trim that held up the bed curtains. It was reassuringly dusty and I hoped it would remain so.

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  That done, I sat down by myself for the first time since I’d returned from Withywoods. I toed off my boots and p
eeled the damp stockings from my feet. I sat and felt the heat of the fire penetrate my body. The brandy proved to be of an excellent quality and I reflected wearily that drinking it on an empty stomach was not my best idea today.

  Fitz. Da? I’ve heard you are back at Buckkeep Castle. Both Dutiful and I are very anxious to sit down with you. Will you join us in my sitting room, please?

  Of course. When?

  Now, please. Dutiful had rather expected you would come to see him as soon as you’d returned.

  Of course. I should have. I was concerned for the Fool.

  And Chade, too.

  I found him better than I expected, I admitted, and wondered a bit woefully how she knew so clearly of all my movements since I had returned.

  He has good days, and some that are not so good. Will you come now, please? The king has taken this time for us from a very busy schedule.

  Immediately.

  Dry socks. I started to pull on the cleaned boots and then looked at myself. Rumpled shirt. Weather-stained trousers. I opened the wardrobe and found an array of new shirts, variously afflicted with buttons. I’d never owned so many clothes in my life and I wondered who was arranging these for me. Ash? Nettle? Some poor servant in charge of dressing bastards elevated to noble status?

  They fit me well enough, though there was room for more paunch than was flattering. I’d chosen a blue shirt and I paired it with dark trousers. I added the vest that had been hung with the shirt. There was a ribbony thing with it that I didn’t know how to wear. I hoped it wasn’t important. The vest was long, hanging almost to my knees.

  Neither the shirt nor the vest had any hidden pockets. As I went to my meeting with little more than the knife in my boot, I wondered how I would defend either of them if danger threatened. I felt oddly naked. I hurried down the corridors to Nettle’s chambers, stood outside her door, and hesitated. Then I knocked.