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‘No, really,’ I protested. ‘Cannot you stay at least a few more days? At least, stay until Hap returns. Meet the boy.’
He sighed. ‘Actually, I have stayed far longer than I should. Especially since you insist you cannot go with me when I leave. Unless?’ He sat up hopefully. ‘You have changed your mind?’
I shook my head. ‘You know I have not. I can scarcely go off and abandon my home. I must be here when Hap comes back.’
‘Ah, yes.’ He sagged back into his chair. ‘His apprenticeship. And you do have chickens to care for.’
The mockery in his voice stung. ‘It may not seem much of a life to you, but it’s mine,’ I pointed out sourly.
He grinned at having needled me. ‘I am not Starling, my dear. I do not disparage any man’s life. Consider my own, and tell me what height I look down from. No. I go to my own tasks, as dull as they must seem to one who has a whole flock of chickens to tend and rows of beans to hoe. My own tasks are just as weighty. I’ve a flock of rumours to share with Chade, and rows of new acquaintances to cultivate at Buckkeep.’
I felt a twinge of envy. ‘I expect they will all be glad to see you again.’
He shrugged. ‘Some, I suppose. Others were just as glad to see me go. And most will not recall me at all. Most, verging on all, if I am clever.’ He rose abruptly. ‘I wish I could just stay here,’ he confessed quietly. ‘I wish I could believe, as you seem to, that my life is my own to dispose of. Unfortunately, I know that is not true for either of us.’ He walked to the open door and looked out into the warm summer evening. He took a breath as if to speak, then sighed it out. A time longer he stared. Then he squared his shoulders as if making a resolve and turned back to me. There was a grim smile on his face. ‘No, it is best I leave tomorrow. You’ll follow me soon enough.’
‘Don’t count on that,’ I warned him.
‘Ah, but I must,’ he rejoined. ‘The times demand it. Of both of us.’
‘Oh, let someone else save the world this time. Surely there is another White Prophet somewhere.’ I spoke lightly, intending my words as jest. The Fool’s eyes widened at them, and I heard a shudder as he drew breath.
‘Do not even speak that future. It bodes ill for me that there is even the seed of that thought in your mind. For truly, there is another who would love to claim the mantle of the White Prophet, and set the world into the course that she envisions. From the beginning, I have struggled against her pull. Yet in this turning of the world, her strength waxes. Now you know what I hesitated to speak more openly. I shall need your strength, my friend. The two of us, together, might be enough. After all, sometimes all it takes is a small stone in a rut for a wheel to lurch out of its track.’
‘Mm. It does not sound like a good experience for the stone, however.’
He turned his eyes to mine. Where once they had been pale, they now glowed golden and the lamplight danced in them. There was both warmth and weariness in his voice. ‘Oh, never fear, you shall survive it. For I know you must. And hence I bend all my strength towards that goal. That you will live.’
I feigned dismay. ‘And you tell me not to fear?’
He nodded, and his face was too solemn. I sought to turn the talk. ‘Who is this woman you speak of? Do I know her?’
He came back into the room and sat down once more at the table. ‘No, you do not know her. But I knew her, of old. Or rather I should say, I knew of her, though she was a woman grown and gone while I was just a child …’ He glanced back at me. ‘A long time ago, I told you something of myself. Do you remember?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘I was born far, far to the south, of ordinary folk. As much as any folk are truly ordinary … I had a loving mother, and my fathers were two brothers, as is the custom of that place. But from the moment I emerged from my mother’s womb, it was plain that the ancient lineage had spoken in me. In some distant past, a White had mingled his blood with my family lines, and I was born to take up the tasks of that ancient folk.
‘As much as my parents loved and cherished me, they knew it was not my destiny to stay in their home, nor to be raised in any of their trades. Instead, I was sent away to a place where I could be educated and prepared for my fate. They treated me well there, and more than well. They too, in their own way, cherished me. Each morning I was questioned as to what I had dreamed, and all I could recall was written down for wise men to ponder. As I grew older and waking dreams overtook me, I was taught the art of the quill, that I might record my visions myself, for no hand is so clear as the one that belongs to the eye that has seen.’ He laughed self-deprecatingly and shook his head. ‘Such a way to raise a child! My slightest utterances were cherished as wisdom. But despite my blood, I was no better than any other child. I made mischief where I would, telling wild tales of flying boars and shadows that carried royal bloodlines. Each wild story I told was larger than the last, and yet I discovered a strange thing. No matter how I might try to foil my tongue, truth always hid in my utterances.’
He cast his glance briefly towards me, as if expecting me to disagree. I kept silence.
He looked down. ‘I suppose I have only myself to blame that when finally the biggest truth of all blossomed in me and would not be denied, no one would believe me. The day I proclaimed myself the White Prophet that this age had awaited, my masters shushed me. “Calm your wild ambitions,” they told me. As if anyone would ever desire to take on such a destiny! Another, they told me, already wore that mantle. She had gone forth before me, to shape the future of the world as her visions prompted her. To each age, there is only one White Prophet. All know that. Even I knew that was so. So what was I? I demanded of them. And they could not answer what I was, yet they were sure of what I was not. I was not the White Prophet. Her they had already prepared and sent forth.’
He took a breath and fell silent for what seemed a long time. Then he shrugged.
‘I knew they were wrong. I knew the trueness of their error as deeply as I knew what I myself was. They tried to make me content with my life there. I do not think they ever dreamed I would defy them. But I did. I ran away. And I came north, through ways and times I cannot even describe to you. Yet north and north I made my way, until I came to the court of King Shrewd Farseer. To him I sold myself, in much the same way you did. My loyalty for his protection. And scarce a season had I been there before the rumour of your coming rattled that court. A bastard. A child unexpected, a Farseer unacknowledged. Oh, so surprised they all were. All save me. For I had already dreamed your face and I knew I must find you, even though everyone had assured me that you did not and could not exist.’
He leaned over suddenly and set his gloved hand to my wrist. He gripped my wrist for only an instant, and our skin did not touch, but in that moment I felt a flash of binding. I can describe it no other way. It was not the Skill; it was not the Wit. It was not magic at all, as I know magic. It was like that moment of double recognition that sometimes overtakes one in a strange place. I had the sense that we had sat together like this, spoken these words before, and that each time we had done so, the words had been sealed with that brief touch. I glanced away from him, only to encounter the wolf’s dark eyes burning into mine.
I cleared my throat and tried to find a different subject. ‘You said you knew her. Has she a name, then?’
‘Not one you would have ever heard. Yet you have heard of her. Recall that during the Red Ship War, we knew their leader only as Kebal Rawbread?’
I bobbed my head in agreement. He had been a tribal leader of the Outislanders, one who had risen to sudden, bloody prominence, and just as swiftly fallen from power with the waking of our dragons. Some tales said Verity’s dragon had devoured him, others that he had drowned.
‘Did you ever hear that he had someone who advised him? A Pale Woman?’
The words rang oddly familiar in my mind. I frowned, trying to recall it. Yes. There had been a rumour, but no more than that. Again I nodded.
‘Well.’ The Fool leaned back. He spoke almost lightly. ‘That was she. And I will tell you one more thing. As surely as she believes that she is the White Prophet, so she believes that Kebal Rawbread is her Catalyst.’
‘Her one who comes to enable others to be heroes?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that one. Her Catalyst comes to dismantle heroes. To enable men to be less than what they should be. For where I would build, she would destroy. Where I would unite, she would divide.’ He shook his head. ‘She believes all must end before it can begin anew.’
I waited for him to balance his statement, but he fell silent. Finally I nudged him towards it. ‘And what do you believe?’
A slow smile spread over his face. ‘I believe in you. You are my new beginning.’
I could think of nothing to say to that, and a stillness grew up in the room.
He reached slowly up to his ear. ‘I’ve been wearing this since the last time I left you. But I think I should give it back to you now. Where I go, I cannot wear it. It is too unique. Folk might remember seeing an earring like this on you. Or on Burrich. Or on your father. It might tickle memories I wish to leave undisturbed.’
I watched him struggle with the catch. The earring was a silver net with a blue gemstone captured inside it. Burrich had given it to my father. I had been next to wear it. In my turn, I had entrusted it to the Fool, bidding him give it to Molly after my death as a sign I had never forgotten her. In his wisdom, he had kept it. And now?
‘Wait,’ I bade him suddenly, and then, ‘Don’t.’
He looked at me, mystified.
‘Disguise it if you must. But wear it. Please.’
Slowly he lowered his hands. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked incredulously.
‘Yes,’ I said, and I was.
When I rose the next morning, I found the Fool up and washed and dressed before me. His pack waited on the table. Glancing about the room, I saw none of his possessions. Once more he was attired nobly. His garb contrasted oddly with the humble task of stirring the porridge.
‘You are leaving, then?’ I asked stupidly.
‘Right after we eat,’ he said quietly.
We should go with him.
It was the most direct thought the wolf had shared with me in days. It startled me, and I looked towards him, as did the Fool. ‘But what of Hap?’ I asked him.
Nighteyes only looked at me in reply, as if I should already know his answer. I did not. ‘I have to stay here,’ I said to both of them. Neither one looked convinced. It made me feel sedate and staid to refuse them both, and I did not care for either sensation. ‘I have responsibilities here,’ I said, almost angrily. ‘I cannot simply go off and allow the boy to come back to an empty home.’
‘No, you cannot,’ the Fool agreed quickly, yet even his agreement stung, as if he said it only to mollify me. I found myself suddenly in a surly mood. Breakfast was grim and when we rose from the table, I suddenly hated the sticky bowls and porridge pot. The reminders of my daily, mundane chores suddenly seemed intolerable.
‘I’ll saddle your horse,’ I told the Fool sullenly. ‘No sense in getting your fine clothes dirty.’
He said nothing as I rose abruptly from the table and went out of the door.
Malta seemed to sense the excitement of the journey to come, for she was restive, though not difficult. I found myself taking my time with her, so that when she was ready, her coat gleamed as did her tack. I almost soothed myself, but as I led her out, I saw the Fool standing by the porch, one hand on Nighteyes’ back. Discontent washed through me again, and childishly I blamed him for it. If he had not come to see me, I would never have recalled how much I missed him. I would have continued to pine for the past, but I would not have begun to long for a future.
I felt soured and old as he came to embrace. Knowing there was nothing admirable about my attitude did nothing to improve it. I stood stiffly in his farewell clasp, barely returning it. I thought he would tolerate it, but when his mouth was by my ear, he muttered mawkishly, ‘Farewell, Beloved.’
Despite my irritation, I had to smile. I gave him a hug and released him. ‘Go safely, Fool,’ I said gruffly.
‘And you,’ he replied gravely as he swung up into the saddle. I stared up at him. The aristocratic young man on a horse bore no resemblance to the Fool I had known as a lad. Only when his gaze met mine did I see my old friend there. For a time we stood looking at one another, not speaking. Then, with a touch of the rein and a shift of his weight, he wheeled his horse. With a toss of her head, Malta asked for a free head. He gave it to her, and she sprang forwards eagerly into a canter. Her silky tail floated on the wind of her passage like a pennant. I watched him go, and even when he was out of sight, I watched the dust hanging in the lane.
When I finally went back into the cabin, I found he had cleaned all the dishes and the pot and put them away. In the centre of my table, where his pack had concealed it, a Farseer Buck was graven deep, his antlers lowered to charge. I ran my fingers over the carved figure and my heart sank in me. ‘What do you want of me?’ I asked of the stillness.
Days followed that one, and time passed for me, but not easily. Each day seemed possessed of a dull sameness, and the evenings stretched endless before me. There was work to fill the time, and I did it, but I also marked that work only seemed to beget more work. A meal cooked meant only dishes to clean, and a seed planted only meant weeding and watering in the days to follow. Satisfaction in my simple life seemed to elude me.
I missed the Fool, and realized that all those years I had missed him as well. It was like an old injury wakened to new complaint. The wolf was no help in enduring it. A deep thoughtfulness had come upon him, and evenings often found us trapped in our individual ponderings. Once, as I sat mending a shirt by candlelight, Nighteyes came to me and rested his head on my knee with a sigh. I reached down to fondle his ears and then scratch behind them. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.
It would not be good for you to be alone. I’m glad the Scentless One returned to us. I’m glad that you know where to find him.
Then, with a groan, he lifted his chin from my knee and went to curl on the cool earth by the front porch.
The final heat of summer closed down on us like a smothering blanket. I sweltered as I hauled water for the garden twice a day. The chickens stopped laying. All seemed too hot and too dull to survive it. Then, in the midst of my discontent, Hap returned. I had not expected to see him again until the month of full harvest was over, but one evening, Nighteyes lifted his head abruptly. He arose stiffly and went to the door, to stare down the lane. After a moment I set aside the knife I was sharpening and went to stand beside him. ‘What is it?’ I asked him.
The boy returns.
So soon? But as I framed the thought, I knew it was not soon at all. The months he had spent with Starling had devoured the spring. He’d shared high summer with me, but been gone all the month of early harvest and part of full harvest. Only a moon and a half had passed, and yet it still seemed horribly long. I caught a glimpse of a figure at the far end of the lane. Both Nighteyes and I hastened to meet him. When he saw us coming, he broke into a weary trot to meet us halfway. When I caught him in my arms in a hug, I knew at once that he had grown taller and lost weight. And when I let him go and held him at arm’s length to look at him, I saw both shame and defeat in his eyes. ‘Welcome home,’ I told him, but he only gave a rueful shrug.
‘I’ve come home with my tail between my legs,’ he confessed, and then dropped down to hug Nighteyes. ‘He’s gone all to bone!’ Hap exclaimed in dismay.
‘He was sick for a while, but he’s on the mend now,’ I told him. I tried to make my voice hearty and ignore the jolt of worry I felt. ‘The same could be said of you,’ I added. ‘There’s meat on the platter and bread on the board. Come eat, and then you can tell us how you fared out in the wide world.’
‘I can tell you now as we go, in few words,’ he returned as we trudged back to the cabin. His voice was deep as a man’s and the bitterness was a man’s, also. ‘Not well. The harvest was good, but wherever I went, I was last hired, for always they wanted to hire their cousin first, or their cousin’s friends. Always I was the stranger, put to the dirtiest and heaviest of the labour. I worked like a man, Tom, but they paid me like a mouse, with crumbs and cut coins. And they were suspicious of me too. They didn’t want me sleeping within their barns, no, nor talking to their daughters. And between jobs, well, I had to eat, and all cost far more than I thought it should. I’ve come home with only a handful more of coins than when I left. I was a fool to leave. I would have done as well to stay home and sell chickens and salt fish.’
The hard words rattled out of him. I said nothing, but let him get all of them said. By then we were at the door. He doused his head in the water barrel I had filled for the garden while I went inside to set out food on the table. He came into the cabin and as he glanced around, I knew without his saying it that it had grown smaller in his eyes. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he said. And in the next breath, he went on, ‘But I don’t know what I’m going to do for an apprentice fee. Hire out another year, I suppose. But by then, some might think me too old to learn well. Already one man I met on the road told me that he had never met a master craftsman who hadn’t begun his training before he was twelve. Is that honey?’
‘It is.’ I put the pot on the table with the bread and the cold meat, and Hap fell to as if he had not eaten for days. I made tea for us, and then sat across the table from my boy, watching him eat. Ravenous as he was, he still fed bits of his meat to the wolf beside his chair. And Nighteyes ate, not with appetite, but both to please the boy and for the sake of sharing meat with a pack member. When the fowl was down to bones with not even enough meat left to make soup, he sat back in his chair with a sigh. Then he leaned forwards abruptly, his eager fingers tracing the charging buck on the tabletop. ‘This is beautiful! When did you learn to carve like this?’
‘I didn’t. An old friend came by and spent part of his visit decorating the cabin.’ I smiled to myself. ‘When you’ve a moment, take a look at the rain barrel.’
‘An old friend? I didn’t think you had any save Starling.’
He did not mean the observation to sting, but it did. His fingers traced again the emblem. Once, FitzChivalry Farseer had worn that charging buck as an embroidered crest. ‘Oh, I’ve a few. I just don’t hear from them often.’
‘Ah. What about new friends? Did Jinna stop in on her way to Buckkeep?’
‘She did. She left us a charm to make our garden grow better, as thanks for a night’s shelter.’
He gave me a sideways glance. ‘She stayed the night, then. She’s nice, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, she is.’ He waited for me to say more but I refused. He ducked his head and tried to smother a grin in his hand. I reached across the table and cuffed him affectionately. He fended off the mock-blow, then suddenly caught my hand in his. His grin ran away from his face to be replaced by anxiety. ‘Tom, Tom, what am I going to do? I thought it would be easy and it wasn’t. And I was willing to work hard for a fair wage, and I was civil and put in a fair day, and still they all treated me poorly. What am I going to do? I can’t live here at the edge of nowhere for all my life. I can’t!’
‘No. You can’t.’ And in that moment I perceived two things. First, that my isolated life style had ill prepared the boy to make his own way, and second, that this was what Chade must have felt when I had declared that I would not be an assassin any more. It is strange to know that when you gave a boy what you thought was the best of yourself you actually crippled him. His frantic glance left me feeling small and shamed. I should have done better by him. I would do better by him. I heard myself speak the words before I even knew I had thought them. ‘I do have old friends at Buckkeep. I can borrow the money for your apprenticeship fee.’ My heart lurched at the thought of what form the interest on such a loan might take, but I steeled myself. I would go to Chade first, and if what he asked of me in return was too dear, I would seek out the Fool. It would not be easy to humbly ask to borrow money, but –
‘You’d do that? For me? But I’m not even really your son.’ Hap looked incredulous.
I gripped his hand. ‘I would do that. Because you’re as close to a son as I’m ever likely to get.’
‘I’ll help you pay the debt, I swear.’
‘No, you won’t. It will be my debt, taken on freely. I’ll expect you to pay close attention to your master and devote yourself to learning your trade well.’
‘I will, Tom. I will. And I swear, in your old age, you shall lack for nothing.’ He spoke the words with the devout ardency of guileless youth. I took them as he intended them, and ignored the glowing amusement in Nighteyes’ gaze.
See how edifying it is when someone sees you as tottering towards death?
I never said you were at your grave’s edge.
No. You just treat me as if I were brittle as old chicken bones.
Aren’t you?
No. My strength returns. Wait for the falling of the leaves and cooler weather. I’ll be able to walk you until you drop. Just as I always have.
But what if I have to journey before then?
The wolf lowered his head to his outstretched forepaws with a sigh. And what if you jump for a buck’s throat and miss? There’s no point to worrying about it until it happens.
‘Are you thinking what I am?’ Hap anxiously broke the seeming silence of the room.
I met his worried gaze. ‘Perhaps. What were you thinking?’
He spoke hesitantly. ‘That the sooner you speak to your friends at Buckkeep, the sooner we will know what to expect for the winter.’
I replied slowly. ‘Another winter here would not suit you, would it?’
‘No.’ His natural honesty made him reply quickly. Then he softened it with, ‘It isn’t that I don’t like it here with you and Nighteyes. It’s just that …’ he floundered for a moment. ‘Have you ever felt as if you could actually feel time flowing away from you? As if life was passing you by and you were caught in a backwater with the dead fish and old sticks?’
You can be the dead fish. I’ll be the old stick.
I ignored Nighteyes. ‘I seem to recall I’ve had such a feeling, a time or two.’ I glanced at Verity’s incomplete map of the Six Duchies. I let out my breath and tried not to make it a sigh. ‘I’ll set out as soon as possible.’
‘I could be ready by tomorrow morning. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be –’
‘No.’ I cut him off firmly but kindly. I started to say that the people I must see, I must see alone. I caught myself before I could leave him wondering. Instead, I tipped a nod towards Nighteyes. ‘There are things here that will want looking after while I am gone. I leave them in your care.’
Instantly he looked crestfallen, but to his credit he took a breath, squared his shoulders and nodded.
Beside the table, Nighteyes rolled to his side, and then onto his back. Here’s the dead wolf. Might as well bury him, all he’s fit for is to lie about in a dusty yard and watch chickens he’s not permitted to kill. He paddled his paws vaguely at the air.
Idiot. The chickens are why I’m asking the boy to stay, not you.
Oh? So, if you woke up tomorrow and they were all dead, there would be no reason we could not set out together?
