Fool's Quest (72 page)

He knew. And for that moment, he was Chade as he had been always to me, knowing everything. It was a relief to speak to someone who understood me from the bones out. “As soon as I can. I've waited for weather, I've gathered my information and regained my Skill. I've tightened my muscles and renewed some skill with a blade. So much time I had to waste.”

“Sharpening your knife is never a waste of time. You've finally learned that. Not an apprentice any longer, nor even a journeyman. This makes you a master.”

“Thank you,” I said quietly and was surprised at the heart I took from his words. “I'll have to go part of the way by the pillars, and from there I'll have to travel overland, and then take a ship. It will be a very long journey.”

He nodded. His hand still rested on my head. “My son wants to go with you,” he said quietly.

“Lant?”

“Yes. He has spoken of it to me often, when he thought he was talking to my empty shell. He wants to go. And I want him to as well. Take him with you. Let him prove himself to himself and bring him back to me a man.”

“Chade, I can't. He's not …”

“He's not like us. He lacks our capacity for hate. Or vengeance. He was appalled at what befell his so-called stepmother, but it had to be done. I know that, but he can't see it. He would have gone to her and promised that he would make no claim on Vigilant's estates. He believed he could calm her.” Chade shook his head. “He doesn't recognize evil, even when it's delivered a rib-cracking beating to him. He's a good man, Fitz. Probably better than either of us. But he doesn't feel as if he's a man. Take him with you.”

“I don't understand why he'd want to go.”

Chade gave a huff of laughter. “You are as close as he has to an elder brother. And who was my boy before he was? The tales I told of that nameless boy fired him with rivalry and with a desire to be like him. And be liked by him. In his early training, I made you the rival for my regard that he could never best. The one he determined he would equal. He longed to step up, to be in our company. Then he met you, and he failed. And failed again, and again. Fitz. I cannot give him what he seeks. I know you mean to go alone. That would be a mistake. Trust me in this, and take Lant. Until he wins your regard, he has none for himself. So take him. Let my son prove himself a man to you and to himself. Let both of you set aside all rivalry and jealousy.”

Jealousy? I felt no jealousy of that pup! But it was easier not to dispute that with Chade. I did not want to take Lant and I knew I could not take him, but I didn't say no to Chade. For this moment, he was my old mentor as he had always been. I wanted no quarrel with him, not when I feared it might be my last conversation with him. I shifted our focus. “Have you been feigning illness all this time?”

“No. Only sometimes. It suits me to seem weak. Fitz, I don't trust Rosemary. She has convinced Dutiful that he does not need assassins such as you and me. She's been letting all my nets unravel. All my informants have gone unpaid, and unable to report to me. Everything I built, all those years. It's falling apart.”

“Chade, I still have to go. I cannot stay here and take up your webs.”

“Heh!” He laughed and I looked up to see him smiling fondly at me. “As if you could. As if anyone could. No, Fitz. I'm failing and I know it. And no one will come after me. The time for such as me is past. No, I do not ask that you stay and take up my work. Go and do what you must.”

“Chade. Why do you pretend to be feeble, with a wandering mind?”

He laughed again. “Oh, Fitz. Because I am. Not every day and every hour. Sometimes I feel I am as sharp as ever. And then I cannot find my slippers, and I look and look, to find they were on my feet all that time.” He shook his head at himself. “Better that people think I am wandering all the time than know the truth. I don't want Rosemary to see me as a threat to her assumption of power.”

I was incredulous. “Do you fear her?”

“Stop. I can already hear you thinking of how you will kill her for me. A slow poison, a fall down the steps. No one the wiser and the old man kept safe.”

He was right. It made me smile, and then I tried to feel ashamed of that. I couldn't. He was right about me.

“So let her have it, my den and my bed, my tools and even my writings. She won't find the key ones. No one will. Except perhaps you. When you come back.” He took a deep breath and sighed it out again. “I have another task now. Shine. There is so much time to make up for. They thought to punish me by killing her or marrying her off to some cloddish brute, but what they did was worse. She is vapid, Fitz. And vain. Ignorant. But she need not be. There is a bright mind there, turned to all the wrong things. Kettricken teaches her now and I do not despise what she teaches my daughter. But for all her years, Kettricken is still naïve in some ways. She still believes that honesty and good will triumph in the end. So I must be here, for my Shine, to teach her that a little knife in her boot or a well-planned bolt-hole may be the key to a long life.

“And I want to be here to watch her bloom. They were all so astonished when I unlocked her Skill. They came on the run, they did, and helped her put up her walls and blocked her in until she can learn to master it. But she's going to be strong, Fitz. Strong. If ever they doubted the Farseer blood ran true in me, my daughter will disprove them.”

So strange, to hear him admit that old doubt. “You are as much Farseer as I am,” I assured him.

He rumpled my hair again. “I've a gift for you,” he said quietly. “I sent for it some time ago. It's from Jamaillia, by way of Bingtown, where they enlarged and corrected it. You should take it with you. It's in the scroll case on top of the shelf in my bedroom. The case is dyed blue. It's for you. Go get it now.”

I rose and went to his bedchamber. I found the scroll case and brought it back to him. He took it from me and directed me, “Find a chair and pull it up here.”

And by the time I had done that, he had opened the case and pulled out the rolled-up map. For such it was. The leather had been scraped thin, and it uncoiled to twice the size I had expected it to be. It was done on calfskin, and inked all in gleaming colors. The lettering was wondrous tiny but still clear to read. There were the Six Duchies, and the Mountain Kingdom. Chalced, and the Rain Wilds. And beyond them, the Cursed Shores, with Bingtown, and then on, to far Jamaillia, with the Pirate Isles. And beyond them, the Spice Isles. “It's beautiful, Chade. But it's so different from every other map of Chalced or the Rain Wilds or—”

“Much more accurate,” he said brusquely. “With increased traffic through that region, we now have far better charts and maps. Verity drew his maps based on what he knew himself, and the resources of the time. There were no freely available charts of the Rain Wild River, and those he bought were the work of charlatans intent only on gaining coin. The same is true for the interior of Chalced. And of course Bingtown and those regions. Charts of the Cursed Shores are notoriously bad because of the storms that change the shorelines and river mouths almost every season. But there it is. The best map that Six Duchies gold could buy. I intended to keep it, but I'm giving it to you. Along with this.”

His flick of his wrist was not as limber as it once had been. I was still impressed when a bone tube slid into his hand. He unscrewed a finely tooled stopper and shook out a small roll of paper so thin it was almost translucent. “This is my work,” he said, holding it coiled in his hand. “The work I saw fit to do, knowing the danger but deeming it necessary. Aslevjal will not stand forever. As the ice caverns have warmed and the water has run, the old halls are leaking. Green slime and moss have begun to venture through the passages. Mold grows on the map they left there.”

He proffered the rolled paper to me. I opened it carefully. My silence was awe. “Every detail,” I finally said aloud in slow amazement.

He chuckled his delight at my realization of what he had handed me. “Every Skill-portal is marked. The engraving on the Elderling map there was fading, but I copied all I could see, Fitz. It will tell you what was graven on each face of every pillar. The destinations available to you. I intended to transfer it all to my new map, but my vision is fading. And I no longer feel inclined to share my hard-won secrets with those who do not appreciate the risks I ran to get them. If they wish to think me a foolish and reckless old man, then let them.”

“Oh, Chade. This is—” His flapping hand interrupted my gratitude. He had never been good at accepting thanks.

“You take it, my boy. Finish my work.”

He went suddenly into a coughing fit and gestured wildly for water, but when I brought it to him he coughed so badly he could not drink it at first. Once he could, he seemed to choke on it, and then finally to gasp in a free breath. “I'm fine,” he wheezed. “Don't delay here. Take it and go before Shine comes back. Curious as a cat is that one! Be away now. If she sees you carry anything out of here, she will natter me with questions until I cannot think. Go, Fitz. But bid me farewell before you leave. And come to me first when you return.”

“I will.” And moved by what impulse I do not know, I stooped and kissed his brow.

He hooked his bony hand around the back of my head and for a moment held me close. “Oh, my boy. The best mistake Chivalry ever made was you. Go on now.”

And I did. I carried the map case under my arm, but the bone cylinder had gone up my sleeve as soon as Chade had said it was mine. Back in my fine new chamber, I found the fire burning brightly, my bed spread smoothly, and my other boots polished to a sheen by the wardrobe. Someone had placed a decanter of amber brandy on my mantelpiece with two fine little glasses beside it. Servants gave one very little privacy. It took some thinking to come up with two different hiding places that might withstand scrutiny and tidying. I stitched a loop to the back of a tapestry and secured Chade's pillar-map there. The other map case was larger, but I found a spot atop the trim that held up the bed curtains. It was reassuringly dusty and I hoped it would remain so.

That done, I sat down by myself for the first time since I'd returned from Withywoods. I toed off my boots and peeled the damp stockings from my feet. I sat and felt the heat of the fire penetrate my body. The brandy proved to be of an excellent quality and I reflected wearily that drinking it on an empty stomach was not my best idea today.

Fitz. Da? I've heard you are back at Buckkeep Castle. Both Dutiful and I are very anxious to sit down with you. Will you join us in my sitting room, please?

Of course. When?

Now, please. Dutiful had rather expected you would come to see him as soon as you'd returned.

Of course. I should have. I was concerned for the Fool.

And Chade, too.

I found him better than I expected,
I admitted, and wondered a bit woefully how she knew so clearly of all my movements since I had returned.

He has good days, and some that are not so good. Will you come now, please? The king has taken this time for us from a very busy schedule.

Immediately.

Dry socks. I started to pull on the cleaned boots and then looked at myself. Rumpled shirt. Weather-stained trousers. I opened the wardrobe and found an array of new shirts, variously afflicted with buttons. I'd never owned so many clothes in my life and I wondered who was arranging these for me. Ash? Nettle? Some poor servant in charge of dressing bastards elevated to noble status?

They fit me well enough, though there was room for more paunch than was flattering. I'd chosen a blue shirt and I paired it with dark trousers. I added the vest that had been hung with the shirt. There was a ribbony thing with it that I didn't know how to wear. I hoped it wasn't important. The vest was long, hanging almost to my knees.

Neither the shirt nor the vest had any hidden pockets. As I went to my meeting with little more than the knife in my boot, I wondered how I would defend either of them if danger threatened. I felt oddly naked. I hurried down the corridors to Nettle's chambers, stood outside her door, and hesitated. Then I knocked.

A serving boy opened it and said, “Oh! Prince FitzChivalry!” and then hit his head on the corner of the door as he dived into a low bow. I caught his elbow before he hit the floor and steadied him as he repeatedly apologized. I was still holding on to him when Nettle came to the door and demanded, “What goes on here?”

“He hit his head on the door frame,” I explained, and the boy babbled, “Yes, my lady, that was exactly what happened!” in such a panicked voice that I scarcely believed him, let alone Nettle. She gave me a horrified look and I tried to release the boy gently. He still sat down flat on the floor.

“This way, please,” she said and I followed her in silence.

“Really,” I whispered. “He bowed too fast and hit his head on the door.”

For all that Nettle was my daughter, I had visited her chambers only seldom on long-ago visits to Buckkeep. Now I entered her sitting room to find it as stuffed with royalty as a pie is with cherries. The king and the queen were both seated facing the hearth while Kettricken stood by the window, holding the curtain back to peer out at the evening. Shine was beside her. Lant and Prince Prosper stood near the mantel. Prince Integrity was poking the coals, and Dutiful's Wit-dog gave me a piercing look as I entered. Chade was the only Farseer not present.

It was my turn to make a low bow to my king and queen. “My lord, my lady, I regret my delay in coming here today—”

“There's no time left for formality.” Dutiful cut me off in a weary voice. “Nettle already told us that you are determined to go after the people who sent raiders into Buck to steal Bee and Lady Shine.”

Bluntness called for honesty. “Exactly,” I said.

“Your intent being?”

“Vengeance!” My queen spoke for me with a vehemence that surprised me. “Bloody and righteous vengeance on those who stole a daughter of our blood. Just as he wrought when the Pale Woman stole my mother and sister! If we had known that they had a distant den to hide in, we could have carried the war to them then! And this would never, never have happened!” Elliania lifted a shaking hand and pointed it at Integrity. “I give you my son. He will ride beside you, to avenge this grievous insult, this terrible loss to our motherhouse! I will send to my mother the Narcheska and my sister Kossi, and she will muster the men of the Narwhal Clan to join you!”