Fool’s Quest

And then it poured from me, the full story of her desire to have paper on which to write her dreams down, and how she had so frightened me by foretelling the death of the “pale man” and then the messenger in her butterfly cloak. I hated to tell him how the messenger had died, but by then the sharing of that barbed secret seemed a necessity.

“She helped you burn the body?” the Fool asked incredulously. “Your little girl?”

I nodded silently, then forced myself to admit it aloud. “Yes. She did.”

“Oh, Fitz,” he rebuked me. But I had more to confess to him, and I did, with the tale of our aborted holiday in Oaksbywater, and how I had killed the dog and longed to kill her master, and how I had carelessly allowed Bee to slip away from me. And then, I had to admit the worst. I told how I had come to stab him thinking he was a danger to her.

“What? That was your child who came to me? The boy who touched me and opened me to all the futures? I didn’t dream it, did I! He was there. The Unexpected Son!”

“No, Fool. There was no lad anywhere near you. Only my daughter, my little Bee.”

“Then it was her? It was Bee I held in my arms for that one moment? Oh, Fitz! Why did not you tell me instantly!” He stood abruptly, swayed, and sank down. He grasped the arms of the chair and gripped them as if a storm blew around him. He stared at the fire as if he could see through the walls of the keep and into some other world. “Of course,” he whispered at last. “It would have to be so. I understand it all now. Who else’s could she be? In that moment, when she touched me, ah, it was no dream, no illusion or delusion. I saw with her. My mind was opened once again to all possible futures. Because, yes, she is Shaysa, even as I once was. And I did not see her in the futures I glimpsed for you because, without me, you would never have had her. She is my daughter, too, Fitz. Yours and mine and Molly’s. As is the way of my kind. Ours. Our Bee.”

I was torn between utter confusion and deepest insult. I had a faint memory of him telling me once that he’d had two fathers—brothers or cousins—in a place where folk accepted that arrangement. I’d assumed that it meant that in that place no one would care whose seed had actually ripened in the wife the husbands shared. I forced myself to calmness and looked at him carefully. His golden gaze seemed to meet mine. His eyes were more unnerving now than when they had been colorless. The metallic gleam in them seemed to shift and flow and swirl as if they were liquid while the black dots of his pupils seemed too small for the dim light. I drew a deep steadying breath. Don’t be distracted. Stay on the trail. “Fool. Bee is not your child. You were never with Molly.”

He smiled at me. “No, Beloved. Of course I was never with Molly.” His fingertip tapped the table, once, twice, thrice. He smiled gently. Then he said, “I was with you.”

I opened my mouth and stood in gaping silence. It took a long time for coherent words to find their way out. “No.” I said it firmly. “No, you were not! And even if . . .” And then I ran out of words and logic.

He laughed aloud. Of all the reactions he could have had, that was the last I expected. He laughed as I had rarely heard him laugh, for while the jester makes others laugh, he seldom betrays his own amusement. But now he laughed unabashedly and without restraint, until he was breathless and had to wipe tears from his sightless eyes. I stared at him. “Oh, Fitz,” he gasped at last. “Oh, my friend. What a thing for me to miss! Such a terrible time to be deprived of my sight. Still, all I could not see on your face, I heard in your voice. Oh, Fitz. Oh, my Fitz.” He had to stop speaking to take in air.

“Of all your jests upon me, that was the least funny.” I tried not to sound as hurt as I felt. In the midst of my fears for Bee, he would do this?

“No, Fitz. No. It was the best, for it was no jest. Oh, my friend. You’ve no idea what you’ve just told me, even though I have done my best to explain it to you before.” He drew breath again.

I found a bit of dignity. “I should go see Chade.” I’d had my fill of the Fool’s peculiar humor for now.