Royal Assassin

I stared at him with unconcealed dismay. In an instant it flashed into anger. “Why didn’t you tell me of the King’s condition?”

He considered another scroll, after a moment set it in the pile to his right. “But I did. A question in exchange for yours: why didn’t you already know of it?”

That set me back. “I admit I’ve been lax in calling upon him. But—”

“None of my words could have had the impact of seeing for yourself. Nor do you pause to think what it would have been like had I not been there every single day, emptying chamber pots, sweeping, dusting, carrying out dishes, combing his hair and his beard. . . .”

Again he had shocked me into silence. I crossed the room, sat down heavily atop my clothing chest. “He’s not the King I remember,” I said bluntly. “It frightens me that he could sink so far, so fast.”

“Frightens you? Appalls me. At least you’ve another King when this one’s been played.” The Fool flipped another scroll onto the pile.

“We all do,” I pointed out carefully.

“Some more than others,” the Fool said shortly.

Without thinking, my hand rose to tuck the pin tighter in my jerkin. I’d almost lost it today. It had made me think of all it had symbolized all these years. The King’s protection, for a bastard grandson that a more ruthless man would have done away with quietly. And now that he needed protection? What did it symbolize to me now?

“So. What do we do?”

“You and I? Precious little. I’m but a Fool, and you are a bastard.”

I nodded grudgingly. “I wish Chade were here. I wish I knew when he was coming back.” I looked to the Fool, wondering how much he knew. . .

“Shade? Shade returns when the sun does, I’ve heard.” Evasive as always. “Too late for the King, I imagine,” he added more quietly.

“So we are powerless?”

“You and I? Never. We’ve too much power to act here; that is all. In this area, the powerless ones are always the most powerful. Perhaps you are right; they are who we should consult in this. And now . . .” Here he rose and made a show of shaking all his joints loose as if he were a marionette with tangled strings. He set every bell he had to jingling. I could not help but smile. “My King will be coming into his best time of day. And I will be there, to do what little I can for him.”

He stepped carefully out of his ring of sorted scrolls and tablets. He yawned. “Farewell, Fitz.”

“Farewell.”

He halted, puzzled, by the door. “You have no objections to my going?”

“I believe I objected first to your staying.”

“Never bandy words with a Fool. But do you forget? I offered you a bargain. A secret for a secret.”

I had not forgotten. But I was not sure, suddenly, that I wanted to know. “Whence comes the Fool, and why?” I asked softly.

“Ah.” He stood a moment, then asked gravely, “You are certain you wish the answers to these questions?”

“Whence comes the Fool, and why?” I repeated slowly.

For an instant he was dumb. I saw him then. Saw him as I had not in years, not as the Fool, glib-tongued and wits as cutting as any barnacle, but as a small and slender person, all so fragile, pale flesh, bird-boned, even his hair seemed less substantial than that of other mortals. His motley of black and white trimmed in silver bells, his ridiculous rat scepter were all the armor and sword he had in this court of intrigues and treachery. And his mystery. The invisible cloak of his mystery. I wished for an instant he had not offered the bargain, and that my curiosity had been less consuming.

He sighed. He glanced about my room, then walked over to stand before the tapestry of King Wisdom greeting the Elderling. He glanced up at it, then smiled sourly, finding some humor there I had never seen. He assumed the stance of a poet about to recite. Then he halted, looked at me squarely once more. “You are certain you wish to know, Fitzy-fitz?”

Like a liturgy, I repeated the question. “Whence comes the Fool and why?”