Fool’s Quest

I lived in a space between times. There was the time when Bee was safe. There was the time when she would be safe again. I lived in a terrible abyss of doubt and ignorance. I plummeted from hope to despair, and found no bottom to that dive. Any clatter of boots in the corridor might be a messenger with news of my child. My heart would lift and then it would be only a courier delivering someone’s new jacket, and again I’d drop to despair. Uncertainty chewed me and helplessness manacled me raw. And I could let none of it show.

The next three days were as long as any I had ever known. I paced through them like a sentry making endless rounds on the same parapet. As Prince FitzChivalry, I ate meals with my family, but exposed to the eyes of everyone else in the Great Hall. I had never paused to think how little privacy the Farseer royals enjoyed. I received numerous invitations. Ash still tended my room and sorted the missives into piles. Bereft of Chade’s guidance, I presented the ones Ash considered important to Kettricken for her guidance. Just as I had once advised her on how to navigate the tricky currents of Buckkeep politics, so she now advised me as to which invitations I must accept, which I should politely decline, and which ones I could postpone.

And so, after an early-morning axe session with my guard, I went out riding with two lesser lords from minor keeps in Buck and accepted the invitation to play a game of cards that evening. All that day, I remembered names and interests and made conversation with words that conveyed almost nothing. I smiled politely and dodged questions with generalities and did my best to be more of an asset than a liability to the Farseer throne. And all the while the thought of my little daughter boiled in the back of my mind.

So far, we had been successful in tamping down rumors and keeping word of what had happened at Withywoods to less than a whisper. I was not sure how we would contain it when the Rousters returned to Buckkeep. It was, I felt, only a matter of time before the connection between Tom Badgerlock and FitzChivalry Farseer became common knowledge. And once that happened, what then?

No one knew that a Farseer daughter had been stolen, and precious few knew that Nettle’s younger sister had been kidnapped. We had kept it within the family. To release news of Chalcedean mercenaries able to infiltrate Buck and travel our roads unseen would release panic and outrage that the king was not protecting his folk. Keeping my tragedy unspoken was like swallowing back acid vomit. I despised the man who put a pleasant expression on his face, who held a hand of cards or nodded to a noble lady’s discussion of the price of a blooded horse. This was Prince FitzChivalry, as I’d hoped never to be. I recalled Kettricken, head held high and demeanor calm in the days when her rebellious son Dutiful had vanished. I thought of Elliania and her uncle Peottre, keeping the secret of their kin held hostage as they trod the careful dance of betrothing her to Dutiful. Bitter to think that the same folk who had directed the kidnapping of Elliania’s mother and small sister were behind the raid on Withywoods. So I was not the first to have to conceal such pain; it could be done, and every morning I looked into the mirror and set my face to stillness. I cut the whiskers from my face instead of my own throat and vowed I would do it well.

Daily, I visited Chade. It was rather like visiting a favorite tree. The delvenbark had quenched his Skill. He no longer dwindled, but it remained to be seen how much of himself he could regain. Steady kept watch over him. I spoke banalities to him. He listened, it seemed, but spoke little in response. A servant brought food for all three of us. Chade fed himself, but would sometimes pause and seem to forget what he had been doing. When I spoke of Shine he seemed to take no more than a polite interest. When I asked directly if he could recall the words with which he had sealed her from the Skill, he looked more puzzled than troubled by the question. When I tried to press him, to insist that he at least remember his daughter, Steady intervened. “You have to let him come back. He has to find the pieces of himself and put them back together.”

“How do you know such things?” I demanded.

“The tiny blocks of memory stone that Chade brought back offered us all sorts of knowledge. Nettle thinks they were cut into small pieces to be safer to use. We do not let anyone experience many of them, and no one explores them alone. As each one is studied, an account is given of what is learned. I was entrusted with one that dealt with those who lost themselves in pursuing knowledge too deeply. I wrote my account of what I learned. And Nettle and I believe it is similar to what has befallen Lord Chade. We hope that if we give him time and rest and keep any more of him from leaking away, he will come back to himself.”