Fool’s Quest

I tormented both of us by working at the stubborn knots for some little time. Leather that has been knotted, wet, and then left to dry can seem as hard as iron. In the end, I drew my belt-knife and sawed through the straps. I tugged them off the parcel and then struggled to unfold the leather that surrounded whatever it was. It was not soft leather, but heavy, the sort one would use for a saddle. It creaked as I pried it open and brought out something wrapped in a still-greasy cloth. I set it with a thunk on the table.

“What is it?” the Fool demanded, and reached to send his fingers dancing over the concealed item.

“Let’s find out.” The greasy cloth proved to be a heavy canvas sack. I found the opening, reached in, and pulled out . . .

“It’s a crown,” the Fool exclaimed, his fingers touching it almost as soon as my eyes saw it.

“Not exactly.” Crowns are not usually made of steel. And Hod had not been a maker of crowns but a maker of swords. She had been an excellent weaponsmaster. I turned the plain circlet of steel in my hands, knowing this was her work, though I could not have explained to anyone how I recognized it. And there, there was her maker’s mark, unobtrusive but proud inside the circlet.

“There’s something else here.” The Fool’s hands had gone questing like ferrets into the opened leather parcel, and now he held out a wooden tube to me. I took it silently. We both knew it would contain a scroll. The ends of the tube were plugged with red wax. I studied it in the candlelight.

“Verity’s seal,” I told him softly. I hated to mar the imprint, but nonetheless I dug the wax out with my belt-knife, and then tipped the tube and shook it. The scroll was stubborn. It had been in there a long time. When it finally emerged I just looked at it. Water had not touched it.

“Read it,” the Fool’s whisper urged me.

I unrolled the vellum carefully. This was Verity’s hand, the careful lettering of a man who loved to draw, to make maps and chart terrain, to sketch fortifications and draw battle plans. He had written large, dark, and plain. My king’s hand. My throat tightened. It was a moment before I could speak. My voice was higher as I spoke past tightness.

“Be it known by my seal on this document and by the testimony of the trusted bearer, Chade Fallstar, that this scroll is the true desire of King-in-Waiting Verity Farseer. In plain words let me say, I leave today on a quest from which I may not return. I leave my queen, Kettricken of the Mountains, with child. If in my absence my father, King Shrewd, should die, I commend my lady to the protection of my nephew FitzChivalry Farseer. If word of my death be returned, then I desire that he be recognized formally as protector of my heir. If my queen perish and my heir survive, then I stipulate that FitzChivalry Farseer is to reign as regent until such time as my heir is able to assume the throne. And if none survive me, neither father, nor queen, nor heir, then it is my will that FitzChivalry Farseer be recognized as my heir. It is not my wish that my younger brother, Regal Farseer, inherit my crown. I do most ardently urge that my dukes recognize and affirm my will in this matter.” I paused to catch my breath. “And his signature is below it.”

“And this would have been your crown.” The Fool’s scarred fingertips traced the rim of the simple circlet. “Not a jewel to be touched. And sword-steel, by the feel of it. Wait, wait! Not so plain, perhaps. Here. What is this?”

I took the crown from him and tilted it to the candlelight. It was engraved into the plain circlet. “A charging buck.”

“He gave you that emblem.”

“Verity did,” I said quietly. My voice tightened up a notch as I observed, “It’s just the charging buck. There is no slash across it to mark me a bastard.”

There was a very long silence. The candles burned and at the other end of the room a log slumped on the hearth. “Do you wish it had come to pass?” the Fool asked me.

“No! Of course not!” That would have been like wishing death on Shrewd and Kettricken and her then-unborn child. “But . . . I do wish I had known. There were times when it would have meant a great deal to me.” A tear tracked down my cheek. I let it fall.

“And not now?”

“Oh, and still now. To know he thought me worthy to guard his queen, and his child. And to step up and claim the throne after him.”

“Then you never wished to be king?”

“No.” Liar. But the lie was so old and so oft repeated that most of the time I believed it.

He gave a small sigh. When I realized it was of relief, not sadness for the smallness of my ambitions, I wondered why. He answered before I asked.

“When Chade told me you had been formally acknowledged, and that most of the folk there were inclined to lionize you and welcome you home, I worried. And when my fingers touched your crown, I feared.”

“Feared what?”

“That you would want to stay here at Buckkeep Castle. That you would enjoy being seen as what you have always been, not the king-in-waiting but the king-in-the-shadows.”