Fool’s Quest

Then, “Fitz! Fitz!” she cawed shrilly. Despite myself, my steps faltered. I kept my eyes on the path before me as I saw others turning to stare at the crow. I heard the frantic beating of wings and then heard her shriek, “Fitz—Chivalry! Fitz—Chivalry!”

Beside me, a thin woman clasped her knotted hands to her breast. “He’s come back!” she cried. “As a crow!” To that, I had to turn, lest others mark how I ignored this sensation.

“Ar, it’s just some fellow’s tame crow,” a man declared disdainfully. We all turned our eyes skyward. The hapless bird was flying up as high as she could, with the mob in pursuit.

“I heard you split a crow’s tongue, you can teach it to talk,” the chestnut vendor volunteered.

“Fitz—Chivalry!” she shrieked again as a larger crow struck her. She lost her momentum and tumbled in the air, caught herself, and flapped bravely, but she had fallen to a level below the murder of crows and now they all mobbed her. In twos and threes they dived on her, striking her, tearing out feathers that floated in the still air. She fought the air to try to stay aloft, helpless to protect herself from the birds that were mobbing her.

“It’s an omen!” someone shouted.

“It’s FitzChivalry in beast form!” a woman cried out. “The Witted Bastard has returned!”

And in that instant, terror swept through me. Had I thought earlier I recalled what the Fool was enduring? No. I had forgotten the icy flood of certainty that every hand was against me, that the good people of Buck dressed in their holiday finery would tear me apart with their bare hands, just as the flock of crows was tearing that lone bird apart. I felt sick with fear, in my legs and in my belly. I began to walk away and at every step I thought they must see how my legs quavered, how white my face had gone. I gripped my package with both hands and tried to walk on as if I were the only one uninterested in the aerial battle overhead.

“He’s falling!” someone shouted, and I had to halt and look up.

But she wasn’t falling. She’d tucked her wings as if she were a hawk and she was diving. Diving straight at me.

An instant to see that, and then she had hit me. “I’ll help you, sir!” the chestnut vendor shouted and started toward me, his tongs raised to strike the flapping bird tangled in my cloak. I hunched my shoulders and turned to take the blow for her as I wrapped her in the fabric.

Be still. You’re dead! It was the Wit I used to speak to her, with no idea if she would hear my thoughts. She had become still as soon as I covered her and I thought it likely she actually was dead. What would Web say to me? Then I saw my foolish hat and flopping wig lying in the street before me. I snatched it up and under the guise of catching my parcel to my chest I held the crow firm as well. I whirled on the well-meaning chestnut vendor. “What do you mean by assaulting me?” I shouted at him as I jammed hat and wig back onto my head. “How dare you humiliate me like this!”

“Sir, I meant no ill!” the vendor cried, falling back from me. “That crow—!”

“Really? Then why did you charge at me and nearly knock me to the ground, if not to expose me to ridicule?” I tugged vainly at my lopsided wig, settling it oddly on my head. I heard a boy laugh, and a mother rebuke him with barely contained merriment. I glared in their direction and then one-handedly made my wig and hat worse. There were several guffaws from behind me. I whirled, letting my hat and wig nearly leave my head again. “Imbeciles! Ruffians! I shall see the Buckkeep town guards know about the dangers on this street! Assaulting visitors! Mocking a guest of the king! I want you to know, I am cousin to the Duke of Farrow, and he will be hearing about this from me!” I puffed out my cheeks and let my lower lip tremble in feigned rage. My shaking voice I did not have to manufacture. I felt half-sick with fear that someone would recognize me. The echo of my name seemed to hang in the air. I turned on my heel and did my best to flounce with indignation as I strode hastily away. I heard a little girl’s voice ask, “But where did that bird go?”

I did not loiter to see if anyone would answer her. My apparent discomfiture at losing my hat and wig seemed to have provided them with some amusement, as I had hoped. Several times before I was out of sight I made seemingly vain attempts to adjust both. When I judged I was far enough away, I stepped into an alley and drew up my hood over my hat and wig. The crow was so still within the fold of my cloak that I feared she was truly dead. She had struck me quite hard, hard enough to break a bird’s neck, I surmised. But my Wit told me that while she might be stunned and stilled, life still beat in her. I traversed the alley and walked down the winding way of Tinker Street until I found another, narrower alley. There I finally unfolded the wrap of cloak that cradled her still, black form.