Fool’s Quest

I pushed my weary thoughts back. Had I divulged Chade’s secret? Probably when I had spilled myself, it had cascaded out. I was appalled that I had been so careless, but could not dwell on that. It had been when I had given Nettle and Dutiful access to my mind to explain the situation. Even now, I felt too weary for detailed conversation. Is Nettle all right? She looked so worn.

I am better, now that you and Chade are here. I am coming to your room. Now. Try to be very still until I get there.

I had forgotten that our minds were touching. Am I that addled still? I asked myself, and felt my question echo off into the Skill-current.

I am coming also. And, yes, you are that addled, so please, if you can, put up your walls. Be still. You are alarming the other coteries. You seem to have gained strength and lost control of your thoughts during your passage. You are battering our apprentices. And you seem to not be entirely within yourself, if you can conceive what I mean. As if you are still caught in the Skill-current.

Barricading my thoughts back into my own mind was like building a drystone wall. Fit each piece into place. Hold back the cascading thoughts, stop the chaining thoughts of worry, fear, desperation, and guilt. Stop them, hold them, guard them.

When I thought I was safe once more behind my walls, I became aware of my body’s complaints.

Several of my stitches were too tight. The slightest change in my facial expression made them pull. The rest of my body ached, and I was suddenly, horribly hungry in a way I could not control.

There was a tap on my door but before I could rise from my bed, Nettle entered. “You’re still spilling,” she whispered. “Half of Buckkeep Castle will be having nightmares tonight. And eating like ravenous dogs. Oh, Da.” Sudden tears stood in her eyes. “Out there by the stones. I could not even speak to you afterward . . . our poor folk at Withywoods. That fight! And how much agony you feel about Bee. How hurt you were that I asked for her, and how guilty . . . How you love her! And how you torment yourself. Here. Let me help you.”

She sat down on the edge of my bed and took my hand. As if I were a child being taught to wield a spoon, or an old man leaning on a youngster’s shoulder, her Skill flowed into me, mingled with mine, and she set my walls. It was good to be contained again, as if someone had buttoned a warm coat securely around me. But even after I found that the clamor of the lesser Skill-stream of strangers had been sealed out of me and my own thoughts fenced in, Nettle kept hold of my hand. I turned my head slowly to look at her.

For a time, she just looked at me silently. Then she said, “I’ve never really known you, have I? All these years. The things you kept hidden from me, lest I think less of Burrich or my mother. The reserve you held because you felt you did not deserve to intrude into my life . . . Has anyone ever really known you? Known what you felt and thought?”

“Your mother did, I think,” I said, and then I had to wonder. The Fool, I nearly said, and then Nighteyes. That last answer, I knew, would have been the truest truth. But I did not say it.

She sighed a small sigh. “A wolf,” she said. “A wolf best knew your heart.” I was certain I had not shared that thought with her. I wondered if, after I had been so vulnerable to her, she now could tell when I held things back. I was trying to summon words to say to her when there was a second tap on the door and Riddle entered, bearing a tray. King Dutiful, looking less than regal, was behind him.

“I brought food,” Riddle announced even as the scent of it dizzied me with longing.