Fool’s Quest

I was pulling off my clothes before I was halfway down the stairs. I emerged into my room, shut the door, and hopped from one foot to the other as I pulled off my boots. None of what I had worn today could I wear down to the gathering in the Great Hall. All it would take was one style-obsessed idiot to recognize a garment he had earlier seen on Lord Feldspar.

I began to drag clothing from his wardrobe, then forced myself to stop. I closed my eyes and visualized last night’s gathering. What had they had in common, all those peacocks parading their finery? The long-skirted jackets. A plenitude of buttons, most of them decorative rather than functional. Fussy lace at throat and wrist and shoulder. And the clash of bright colors. I opened my eyes.

Scarlet trousers, with rows of blue buttons down the outsides of the legs. A white shirt with a collar so high it near-choked me. A long blue vest with tufts of red lace at the shoulders and red buttons like a row of sow’s nipples down the chest. A massy silver ring for my thumb. No. None of that. My own trousers from Withywoods, laundered and returned, thanks to Ash. The plainest of the fussy shirts in a foresty green. A brown vest, long, with buttons, but ones of horn. And that was all I had time for. I looked in the glass and ran my hands through my rain-damp hair. It lay down, for now. I chose the plainest of the small hats: To go bareheaded would attract more stares than any hat. It would have to do. I hoped to look poor enough that no one would seek to be introduced to me. I chose the least uncomfortable of the shoes and pulled them on. Then, with the re-woken expertise of my youth, I rapidly loaded my concealed pockets, transferring my small weapons and envelopes of poison and lock picks from the jacket I had worn earlier today, trying not to wonder if I would use them if Chade ordered me to. If it came to that, I’d decide then, I promised myself, and turned away from that stomach-churning question.

On my way! My Skilling to Chade was tight and private.

Who are you? His question reminded me of our old game. Create an identity in the space of a heartbeat.

I’m Raven Kelder. Third son of a minor lord in rural Tilth. I’ve never been to court before, I’ve only arrived at Buckkeep tonight, and I’m dazzled by all I see. I’m dressed plainly and rather unfashionably. I’ll be full of foolish questions. My father died late, my brother only recently inherited, and he’s pushed me off the holding and told me to seek my own way in life. And I’m more than happy to be having an adventure and spending my share of my small inheritance.

Good enough! Come, then.

And so Raven Kelder hurried down the wide stairs and immersed himself in the crowd thronging the Great Hall. Tonight was Last Night for Winterfest. We’d celebrated the turning from dark to light, and tonight was our final feast before we settled down to outlast the storms and cold of winter. One more night of fellowship, song, feasting, and dancing, and tomorrow the nobility of the Six Duchies would begin to drain out of Buckkeep Castle and trickle back to their own holdings. Usually it was the most subdued of the Winterfest nights, a time of bidding farewell to friends, for the winter’s harsh weather cut down on travel. When I was a lad, the nights that followed Last Night were for indoor pursuits: the fashioning of arrows, weaving, carving, and sewing. The younger scribes would bring their copy work to the Great Hearth and listen to the minstrels as they worked.