Fool’s Quest

Chade brought her the cup himself. “It can be a bit strong. Let us know if you’d care for some honey,” he said as he gave it to her.

She smiled as she accepted the pretty china cup. “Thank you,” she said, and took a sip. She puckered her mouth in surprise at the bitterness, but she smiled. “It is a bit strong,” she said politely.

“It’s something of a tonic,” Chade told her. “I enjoy the vigor it seems to give me, especially on chill winter days.” He gave her his most charming smile.

“Indeed, does it?” she asked. “At my age, I could use a bit of that!” She smiled back at him and took a second, polite sip. As she lowered the cup to the saucer, her face changed. The cup chattered on the saucer as her hand began to tremble. Chade rescued it from her failing grip. Her hands rose first to cover her mouth, and then to picket her whole face. She bowed forward from the waist. She began to shake badly and the first sound that came out of her was not a woman weeping but an animal’s low cry of agony.

Perseverance flew across the room. He knelt before her and put his good arm around her. He did not tell her that it would be all right. He said nothing, but put his cheek beside hers. No one in the room spoke as she continued to grieve. After a time, she lifted her head, put her arms around her son, and said, “I sent you away. How can you ever forgive me? You were all I had left, and I sent you away.”

“I’m here now. Oh, Ma, I thank Eda you know me.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “Thank you, sir. I’ve got my ma back. Thank you.”

“What happened to me?” The query was a shaking moan.

“A bad magic,” the stable boy comforted her. “The same bad magic that happened to everyone else here. It made everyone forget what happened on Winterfest eve. Everyone but me.” He knit his brows. “Why not me?”

Chade and I conferred with a look. Neither of us had an answer. Thick spoke in a soft voice. “’Cause they didn’t have you with the others. When they told them to sing the forgetting song. So they couldn’t make you forget. And you don’t hear the song at all. Not any songs.” He looked sad for the boy.

Bulen startled us all when he strode forward. I’d almost forgotten he was in the room. Without a word, he lifted the cup from the saucer Chade still held. He drained off the cup of tea, stood like a statue, and then, unbidden, sank into a nearby chair. For a time, he simply sat. When he looked up, his face was pale. “I was there,” he said. He rolled a glance at Lant. “I saw them kick you in the head, after they stabbed you, and I stood there. I saw that same horseman knock Lady Shun to the ground. He called her filthy names and said if she dared to get up, he would—” He paused, obviously sickened. “He threatened her. Then they herded us into a tighter group, as if we were sheep being bunched. And other people came to join us, the folk from the cottages. A lot of the children had been hiding somewhere, but they came out in a group. And the soldiers began to shout at us about a pale boy.

“Then a woman came out of the manor. I’d never seen her before. She was dressed all in white, very warmly. At first she scolded the old man in charge. He was cruel and seemed to care little about what she said. She was angry that people had been killed. The bodies would have to be dealt with, and it would make everything harder to conceal. She said he had done it badly, that it was not the path she had wanted. And he told her to leave him to the business of war, that she had no idea how territory was captured. And that when they had finished, they could set fire to the stables and get rid of the bodies that way. I could tell she was not happy with him.

“But when she turned to us, she was calm and smiling. She didn’t yell. She spoke so kindly that all I wanted was to find whatever would please her. She was seeking a boy or a young man who had come recently to stay with us. She promised they were not there to hurt him, only to take him back to where he belonged. Someone, Tavia, I think, shouted that they’d killed the only young man who had recently joined us. But the woman began to walk among us, looking each of us in the face. I think someone was with her . . .” Bulen’s voice and expression went bland. I sensed he pushed against a barrier he could not pass. There was yet another layer to all this.

“You!” Bulen said suddenly. He pointed a finger at Perseverance. “It was you on the brown horse, and Lady Bee on the gray, wasn’t it? Everything changed in the instant. The woman was urging and urging us to think of a boy who had come recently, and then one of the soldiers shouted and pointed, and we all looked. And you were running the horses dead-out, and then three of the soldiers wheeled their horses about and went after you. Including that cruel old man. And one was drawing his bow and shooting as he rode. I remember seeing him do that, guiding the horse with his knees.”