Fool’s Quest

He smiled. “At the moment, I feel I could walk to the Mountains with you. But a little while ago, my guts were burning inside me and I wept on Kettricken’s shoulder as if I were a dying child.” He blinked his golden eyes. “I see more light than I could before. I slept for a long time after he gave it to me. Or so he says. I do not really believe I was fully awake when he poured it in my mouth. And such dreams I woke from! Not the dreams of a White Prophet, but dreams full of power and glory. I flew, Fitz. Not as when I rode on the back of Girl-on-a-Dragon. I flew. Me.” For a time he sat, silently staring. Then he came back to me. “My hands ache horribly, but I can move them. Every finger! My skin itches so badly I wish I could tear it off. And my foot, my bad foot?” He lifted the hem of his nightrobe and displayed it to me. “I can walk on it. There is pain, great pain in it all the time. But it’s not the pain that I had before.”

I realized then that his smile was gritted teeth as well as amusement. I rose to see what herbs I might have to ease the deep ache of healing bones. I spoke over my shoulder as I moved about the room. “I need to talk to you about the people who attacked Withywoods. They took my little girl, my Bee. And they took Chade’s daughter, a grown woman named Shun.”

“No.”

“What?”

The panicky expression was back on his face. “Chade does not have a daughter. She, too, would count as a Farseer heir. I would have seen her. Fitz, none of the things you tell me can be so. I would have known. It would have revealed other paths to me.”

“Fool. Please. Be calm. Listen to me. You and I, we changed the world, as you said we would. And when you . . . came back, I think we changed all the paths. Chade came out from behind the walls of Buckkeep Castle because of what we did. And he fathered not one, but two, offspring. Shun and Lant. And I had a daughter you had not foreseen. We changed things, Fool. As you said we would. Please, for now, accept that. Because you are the only one who may know why the Servants would take my daughter. And where they would take her and what they intend.”

I turned back to him. I had selected a mixture of valerian, banwurt, willowbark, and some shaved ginger to make it a bit more palatable. I found a mortar and pestle on a different shelf and brought them to the table by his chair. As I ground them together, their fragrances mingled. I wrinkled my nose and went back for more ginger and a bit of dried lemon peel.

He spoke in a low voice. “You left me here. Alone.”

Arguing with him that he had not been alone would have been useless. “I had to,” I admitted. “Have you heard what I found when I reached my home?”

He was looking away from me. “Some of it,” he admitted in a thick voice.

“Well.” I put my thoughts in order. Sometimes to receive information, you must first share all you know. I did not want to think about it or relive any of it. Coward. It was other people’s agony I would speak of, and I wished to hide from my shame? I took a breath and began. Part of me spoke the toneless words, relating the facts. Another part of me carefully composed the herbal tea that might ease his pain. Fresh water in a small kettle, put it to boil, warm the teapot with boiling water so the heat would not be lost when I poured the water over the herbs. Let them steep. Set out the cup and pour in the amber liquid without too much sediment. I found honey and added a fine stream of it.

“And here is a tea that might ease the pain in your foot.” I finished my account.

He did not speak. I stirred the tea with a spoon, tapping it on the edge of the cup to give him its location. His trembling fingers walked to the cup, touched it, and were pulled back. “It was them. The Servants.” His voice was shaking. His blind eyes flickered a gold glance at me. “They’ve found you. So they’ve found me.” He folded his arms and hugged himself tight. He was visibly shaking. It hurt me to see it. A cold cell, a distant fire that meant only pain, never warmth for you. Men that would smile and shout with joy as they hurt you. I remembered. I could barely breathe. He leaned his crossed arms on the table and put his face down on them. He collapsed into himself. I stood where I was. He was my last hope and if I leaned on him too heavily, he would break.