Fool’s Quest

Then he bade me rise and embraced me. A roar of acclaim rose and for a time faces and sounds seemed to recede around me. Then, “Don’t faint!” my king exhorted me quietly, and I drew a deep breath lest that happen. I followed them back to the high dais, the circlet cold and heavy on my brow.

A long evening followed. The tables were cleared and carried away. Kettricken’s guard was formed up around me to honor me, as every duchy was named and their nobility summoned to greet me. Duchess Celerity was hardest for me to face, but she had said her words the evening before, and so she but took my hands and wished me well as her husband offered me a stiff bow.

The Duke and Duchess of Tilth presented another difficulty, as they escorted their daughter, a sturdy girl of perhaps seventeen years, and introduced her as Lady Meticulous, “unspoken for” as yet. They told me that she enjoyed riding and hawking and extended an immediate invitation that I might join them on the morrow for a winter hunt. The girl looked at me with such frank and undismayed appraisal that I barely managed to respond that I had a previous engagement and regrettably could not join them. The duchess immediately suggested that perhaps I would be free the next day. I was horribly grateful when Nettle leaned over to say that as she had not seen me for some time, she hoped to occupy most of my days for the next month.

“Ah, then we shall have to invite you to Tilth in the spring,” the girl’s father observed brightly as his wife folded her lips in disappointment, and I managed to nod acquiescence to that.

I do not know how many hours we were there. People came, presented themselves, commented on past connections, many of them extremely tenuous, and then moved on. The noise of conversation in the hall was a constant. I looked up to see that Starling had her own circle of admirers asking questions about her adventures. Both she and her husband appeared to be basking in the crowd’s adoration. As I was not. I envied them their ability to relax and be flattered. I watched the crowd with an assassin’s eyes, noting faces and names, alert for signs of hidden hostility, storing information and connections until I thought my brain would burst. The stares and glares that I noted were not many, but I suspected that for every minor noble who openly disdained the Witted Bastard, six would smile to my face while imagining putting a knife in my back.

The smile on my face felt stiff and aching long before King Dutiful declared that we were all sated with too much good food, good wine, and good fortune and that we would now retire. We left as we had arrived, a formal exit from the Great Hall accompanied by the Buckkeep Blue Guard all the way to his private chamber.

It was a large and comfortable room with many cushioned chairs, a large hearth with a hearty fire, and a table laden with yet more refreshments and a selection of brandy and wines. Even when King Dutiful had assured the serving staff that we were fine and dismissed them, I still felt somewhat constrained by the company. They were my closest friends and my family, and it took me a few silent moments to identify my problem. I had been a different person to every single one of them. What role was I expected to play this night? And if I decided to simply be myself, which self was that? The killer Chade had trained, Dutiful’s protector and mentor, Riddle’s brother-in-arms, Nettle’s negligent father? All me and all not me.

Kettricken looked directly at me and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, my friend, I’m so glad it’s all over,” she said, and went to a chair and sat down.

“It’s never over,” Dutiful observed wearily.

“But the worst of it is,” his mother asserted. “For years it has been like a barbed thorn in my heart that Fitz did so much, sacrificed so much, and only a few knew of it. Now they know at least some of what he did. Now he can come home to us, can eat meals with us and walk in the gardens and ride in the hunt, and answer to his rightful name. And his little girl will soon arrive here and come to know the rest of her family!”

“Then will we reveal that Badgerlock is also Fitz? It may bring the rest of his deeds to light if we do, for there are many who know that Badgerlock and Riddle were among those who accompanied Prince Dutiful to Aslevjal. Will people be offended that Lady Molly of Withywoods was married to the Witted Bastard and they lived right under their noses all those years?” Nettle posed her query to all of us.

“But,” Kettricken said, and then fell unhappily silent.

“Let people make up their own explanations.” Riddle chuckled. “I imagine many will claim to have known all along, and they will be the ones least likely to ask questions.”

I shot him a gaze of pure admiration. I looked to Chade to see him share that approval, but the old man looked distracted and displeased.