Fool’s Quest

“Excellent,” Chade told him and I nodded. I was putting a measure of ground willowbark into one of the cups. I added some valerian. Chade watched me curiously. I flicked a glance at the boy. Chade nodded, and then reached past me to add an additional pinch of valerian. “Your valerian looks stale, too,” he chided me. “You should renew your stock more often.”

I said nothing to that, but nodded as I added hot water to the cup. I knew the old man would not apologize for his earlier remarks; this was his way of trying to put us back to our old foundation. I’d take it. I set the cup on the floor by Perseverance. “Let that brew for a time, and then drink it all. It won’t taste good, but it’s not about taste.”

“Is that elfbark?” he asked anxiously.

“No. It’s willowbark for your fever, and valerian to take some of the pain away. How’s your shoulder?”

“It throbs,” he admitted. “All the way to my back and up my neck.”

“The tea will help.”

He looked up at me. “Will that other tea hurt my mother? When she remembers?”

“I expect it will be hard for her. But the choice is to leave her alone for the rest of her life. She wouldn’t remember your father dying, but she’d never recall she’d had a son.”

“She’d have my aunt, and my cousins. They live down in Withy.”

“Boy?” It was FitzVigilant, cutting into our conversation. “I’ll be drinking it first. We’ll see what it does to me. Then you can decide about giving it to your mother.”

Perseverance stared up at him. “Thank you, sir,” he said doubtfully.

Lant spoke to his father. “Is it brewed enough?”

“We’ll see,” Chade said quietly. He poured some into a cup, looked at it, smelled it, and then filled the cup the rest of the way. He handed the cup to Lant. “Go slowly with it. Let us know if you sense a difference, or start to remember that night.”

Lant sat down. He looked at the tea in the cup. We were all watching him as he raised it and took a sip. He made a face. “It’s a bit too hot. And it tastes bitter.” But almost immediately he took another sip. He lifted his eyes. “Could you not stare?” he said to me. I shifted my eyes. A moment later, he said, “It’s so quiet.”

Chade and I exchanged a glance. I stole a look at Lant. He was staring at the liquid in his cup. He took a breath, as if daring himself, and then drained it down. He made a pained face and then sat still, holding the cup. He closed his eyes. His brow wrinkled and then he hunched in on himself. “Oh, sweet Eda,” he groaned. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!”

Chade went to him. He set his hands on Lant’s shoulder and, with a tenderness I’d seldom seen in him, leaned down to say softly by his ear, “Let yourself remember. It’s the only way you can help her now. Remember it all.”

Lant bowed his face into his hands, and I suddenly saw how young he was. Not even twenty. Raised far more gently than I had been. The beating from his stepmother’s thugs might well have been the first real violence he’d experienced in his life. He’d never pulled an oar on a war galley, let alone swung an axe through a man’s midsection. Chade had already told me that Lant hadn’t been able to kill. And I’d entrusted him with Bee’s life. And Shun’s.

“Tell me what happened,” Chade said quietly. I leaned back to sit on the edge of my desk and kept perfectly still.

Lant’s voice was tight. “Well. We came back here after Badgerlock and the beggar went into the Skill-pillar. Me, and Shun—” His voice broke on her name. “And Bee. We didn’t understand any of what had happened in Oaksbywater, not why he killed a dog and then bought its puppies, nor why he stabbed the beggar and then took him by magic to Buckkeep. We, that is, Shun and I, were both rather angry about all of it. First he had said I was not competent to teach Bee and then he had gone off and left her completely in my care. And he had insulted Lady Shun as well!” Lant was suddenly just a youngster, pouring out his wrongs to Chade. The old man shot me a questioning look. I met his stare with a flat gaze of my own.

“Get to the next day,” I suggested.

At my tone, Lant straightened his back. “Yes. Well. As you might imagine, the servants, including Steward Revel, were very confused when the master of the house did not return. Shun and I assured them that we were capable of looking after Withywoods for a few days. Despite how tired we were, Shun and I sat up that night, and she undertook to plan the festivities for Winterfest. We were up very late. And so we did not rise early the next morning. I regret to say that I was late joining my students in the schoolroom. Bee was there, looking tired but otherwise fine. And when we parted that morning, Shun had said that she would speak with the staff about decorating the house and talk to the musicians who had come to see if she could not send for more entertainers.” He looked suddenly at Chade. “You said my sister was taken, earlier.” For two breaths, I watched the knowledge spread through him. “Shun is my sister? Truly? By blood?”