Fool’s Quest

Bee. It wasn’t too late for me to be a good father to her. I knew where I should be right now, and if I used the Skill-pillar, I could be there before nightfall. It was a little dangerous, but hadn’t I risked more than that bringing the Fool through? It would be days before I dared risk any more healing on him. I should go home, gather Bee, and bring her back to Buckkeep. Not to give her up to Nettle, not for us to stay here, but to have her by me while I had to be here to tend the Fool. It made sense. It was what I should do.

The upper chamber was dark save for the reddish light from the fire. The Fool sat in the chair in front of it. I bit my tongue before I could ask him why he was sitting in the dark. He turned his face toward me as I approached. “There’s a message for you. On the table.”

“Thank you.”

“A young man brought it. I’m afraid that when he walked in, I was half-asleep. I screamed. I don’t know which of us was more terrified.” His voice reached for a note of mockery, and failed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to rein in my wayward thoughts. There was no sense in sharing my anguish with him. There was nothing he could do to help me, except feel ashamed that he had pulled me away from my child.

I made myself focus on his string of anxious words.

“And now I’m afraid to go back to sleep. I didn’t think of other people coming and going from here. I don’t know how it could have escaped me. I know they must. But I can’t stop thinking about them. What if they talk to others? People will know I’m hiding here. It won’t be safe.”

“I’m going to light some candles,” I told him. I did not say that I needed to see his face because I could not tell how serious he was. As I kindled the first one, I asked him, “How are you feeling? Better than yesterday?”

“I can’t tell, Fitz. I can’t tell yesterday from early this morning. I can’t tell early this morning from midnight. It’s all the same for me, here in the dark. You come and you go. I have food, I shit, I sleep. And I’m frightened. I suppose that means that I’m better. I remember when all I could think about was how badly every part of my body hurt. Now the pain has subsided to where I can think about how scared I am.”

I lit a second candle from the first one and set them in the holders on the table.

“You don’t know what to say,” he observed.

“I don’t,” I admitted. I tried to set my own fears aside to deal with his. “I know you are safe here. But I also know that no matter how often I say that, it won’t change how you feel. Fool, what can I do? What would make you feel better?”

He turned his face away from me. After a long moment, he said, “You should read your message. The boy blurted out it was important before he ran away.”

I picked up the small scroll on the table. Chade’s spy-seal was on it. I broke the wax free and unrolled it.

“Fitz. Do I look that frightful? When I sat up in my chair and screamed, the boy screamed, too. As if he’d seen a corpse rise from the grave and shriek at him.”

I set the scroll aside. “You look like a very ill man who was deliberately starved and tortured. And your color is . . . odd. Not tawny, as you were in the days of Lord Golden, nor white as you were when you were King Shrewd’s jester. You are gray. It’s not a color one would expect a living man to be.”

He was silent for so long that I turned my eyes back to the scroll. There was to be another festive gathering tonight, the final one of the Winterfest before our nobility once more dispersed to their own duchies. Queen Elliania urged everyone to attend and asked everyone to wear their best to celebrate turning toward the growing light. Chade suggested that perhaps Lord Feldspar should make a trip to town and purchase some finery for the occasion. He suggested a tailor’s shop, and by that I knew that the garments would have been ordered and rushed to be prepared for me.

“You’re an honest man, Fitz.” The Fool’s voice was dull.

I sighed. Had I been too honest? “What good would it serve for me to lie to you? Fool, you look terrible. It breaks my heart to see you this way. The only thing I can offer myself or you is that as you eat and rest and grow stronger, your health will improve. When you are stronger, I hope to use the Skill to urge your body to repair itself. That is the only comfort either of us has. But it will take time. And demand our patience. Haste will not serve us.”