The Golden Fool

‘Pull up a chair and join me here,’ I suggested to him. I resumed Verity’s old seat.

For a moment he stared at me as if puzzled. Then he crossed the room, seized one of the heavy chairs and lugged it over to place it beside mine. I said nothing as he sat in it. I had not forgotten our relative ranks, but I had already decided that within this room, I would treat him as my student rather than my prince. For an instant I hesitated, wondering if my candid words might not undermine my authority over him. Then I took a breath and spoke them.

‘My prince, roughly a score of years ago I sat in this room on the floor by your father’s feet. He sat here, in this chair, and he looked out over the water and Skilled. He used his talents mercilessly, against both the enemy and the health of his own body. From here, he used the strength of his mind to reach out, to find Red Ships and their crews before they could touch our shores, and confound them. He made the sea and the weather our ally against them, confusing navigators to send the enemy ships onto rocks, or persuading captains to a false confidence that bid them steer straight into storms.

‘I am sure that you have heard of Skillmaster Galen. He was supposed to create and train a Skill-coterie, a unified group of Skill-users who would provide their strength and talent to aid King-in-Waiting Verity against the Red Ships. Well, he did create a coterie, but they were false, their loyalty bound to Regal, Verity’s ambitious younger brother. Instead of aiding your father’s efforts, they hindered him. They delayed messages, or failed to deliver them at all. They made your father look incompetent. For the sake of breaking the loyalty of his dukes to him, they delivered our people into the hands of the raiders, to be killed or Forged.’

The Prince’s eyes were locked onto my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out of the tall windows and over the grey and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. ‘I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, but no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.

‘I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father laboured most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him. That was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill-strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.’

I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. ‘When he left on his quest, did you go with him?’

I shook my head and answered truthfully. ‘No. I was young and he forbade it.’

‘And you didn’t try to follow him later?’ He was incredulous, his imagination fired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.

It was hard to say the next words. ‘No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.’ I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.

He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. ‘I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.’

I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, ‘I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered and impetuous.’ I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. ‘I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls … I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?’

‘I understand. And of the Wit?’

I had not wanted to discuss that today. ‘Well. I came to my Wit-magic much as you did yours, stumbling into it by chance when I bonded with a puppy. I was a man grown before I met anyone who tried to put my random knowledge of my magic into a coherent framework. Again, time was my enemy. I learned much from him, but not all there was to know … far short of that, to be truthful. So, again, I will teach you what I know. But you will be learning from a flawed instructor.’

‘Your confidence is so inspiring,’ Dutiful muttered darkly. Then, a moment later, he laughed. ‘A fine pair we shall make, stumbling along together. Where do we begin?’

‘I am afraid that we shall have to begin by first moving backwards. You must be untaught some of what you have learned by yourself. Are you aware that when you attempt to Skill, you are mingling the Wit with that magic?’

He stared at me blankly.

After a moment of discouragement, I said briskly, ‘Well. Our first step will be to untangle your magics from one another.’ As if I knew how. I was not even certain that my own magics operated independently of one another. I shoved the thought aside. ‘I’d like to proceed with teaching you the basics of Skilling. We’ll set aside the Wit for now, to avoid confusion.’

‘Have you ever known any others like us?’

He had lost me again. ‘Like us in what way?’

‘With both the Wit and the Skill.’

I took a deep breath and let it out. Truth or lie. Truth. ‘I think I once met one, but I did not recognize him as such at the time. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing. At the time, I thought he was just very strong in the Wit. Since then, I’ve sometimes wondered at how well he seemed to know what passed between my wolf and me. I suspect that he had both magics, but thought them the same thing, and thus used them together.’

‘Who was he?’

I should never have begun to answer his questions. ‘I told you, it was a long time ago. He was a man who tried to help me learn the Wit. Now. Let’s focus on why we are here today.’

‘Civil.’

‘What?’ The lad’s mind hopped like a flea. He’d have to learn focus.

‘Civil has been well instructed in the Wit, since he was a small child. Perhaps he would be willing to teach me. As he already knows I am witted, it is not spreading my secret about. And …’

I think the look on my face made him falter into silence. I waited until I trusted myself to speak. Then, I pretended to be a wiser man than I was. I tried to listen before I spoke to him. ‘Tell me about Civil,’ I suggested. Then, because I could not quite control my tongue, I added, ‘Tell me why you think it is safe to trust him.’

I liked that he did not answer immediately. His brow furrowed, and then he spoke as if he were recounting events from a lifetime ago. ‘I first met Civil when he presented me with my cat. As you know, she was a gift from the Bresingas. I think Lady Bresinga had come to Buckkeep Castle before, but I don’t recall ever seeing Civil. There was something about the way he gave me the cat … I think it was that he obviously cared for her welfare; he did not present her to me as if she were a thing, but as if she were a friend. Perhaps that is because he is Witted, also. He told me that he would teach me how to hunt with her, and the very next morning, we went out together. We went alone, Tom, so there would be no distractions for her. And he truly taught me how to hunt with her, paying more attention to that than to the fact that he had time alone with Prince Dutiful.’ Dutiful halted and a slight flush rose on his face.

‘That may sound conceited to you, but it is a thing I must always deal with. I accept an invitation to something that sounds interesting, only to find that the person who invited me is more fixed on gaining my attention than on sharing something with me. Lady Wess invited me to a puppet show performed by masters of the art from Tilth. Then she sat beside me and chattered at me about a land dispute with her neighbour all the way through the play.

‘Civil was not like that. He taught me how to hunt with a cat. Don’t you think that if he had intended ill to me, he could have done it then? Hunting accidents are not that rare. He could have arranged a tumble down a cliff. But we hunted, not just that morning, but every dawn for the week he was in Buckkeep, and each day it was the same. Only better, as I became more skilled at it. And it became best of all when he brought his own cat along with us. I really thought I had finally discovered a true friend.’

Chade’s old trick served me well. Silence asks the questions that are too awkward to phrase. It even asks the questions one does not know to ask.

‘So. When I … when I thought I was falling in love with someone, when I thought I had to flee this betrothal, well, I went to Civil. I sent him a message; when we had parted, he told me that if ever there was anything he could do for me, I had but to ask. So I sent the message, and a reply came, telling me where to go and who would help me. But here’s the odd thing, Tom. Civil says now that he never got any message from me, nor sent me a reply. Certainly I never saw him after I left Buckkeep. Even when I reached Galeton, even when I stayed there, I did not see Civil. Or Lady Bresinga. Only servants. They made a place for my cat in their cattery.’

He fell silent and this time I sensed he would not go on without a nudge.

‘But you did stay in the manor?’

‘Yes. The room had been made up fresh, but I do not think that wing of the house was used much. Everyone kept emphasizing the need for secrecy if I was to slip away. So my meals were brought to me, and when word reached us that … that you were coming, then it was decided I had to leave again. But the people who were supposed to take me hadn’t arrived yet. The cat and I went out that night and … your wolf found me.’ He halted again.

‘I know the rest,’ I said, out of pity for both of us. Yet I asked, to be certain, ‘And now Civil says he did not even know you were there?’

‘Neither he nor his mother knew. He swore it. He suspects a servant intercepted my message to him and passed it on to someone else, who replied to it and arranged all the rest.’

‘And this servant?’

‘Is long gone. He vanished the same night I left there. We counted back the days and so it seems.’

‘It seems to me you and Civil have discussed this in depth.’ I could not keep the disapproval out of my voice.

‘When Laudwine revealed himself and his true intentions, I thought that Civil must have been part of it. I felt betrayed by him. That was a part of my despair. I had not only lost my cat, but also discovered that my friend had betrayed me. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to learn that I was wrong.’ Relief and earnest trust shone in his face.

So he trusted Civil Bresinga, even to the point of believing that Civil could teach him the illegal magic of the Wit and never betray him. Or lead him into danger with it. How much of that trust, I wondered, was based on his aching need for a real friend? I compared it to his willingness to trust me and winced. Certainly I had given him small reason to bond with me, and yet he had. It was as if he were so isolated that any close contact at all became a friendship in his mind.

I held my tongue. I sat in silent wonder that I could do it, even as cold resolve flowed through me. I would get to the core of this Civil Bresinga, and see for myself what lurked there. If he were wormy with treachery, he would pay for it. And if he had betrayed Dutiful and then lied about it to him, if he trafficked upon the Prince’s trusting nature, he would pay doubly. But for now, I would not speak of my suspicions to the lad. So, ‘I see,’ I said gravely.

‘He offered to teach me about the Wit … Old Blood, he calls it. I didn’t ask him, he offered.’

That didn’t reassure me, but again I kept the thought to myself. I replied truthfully, ‘Prince Dutiful, I would prefer you did not begin any lessons about Old Blood just now. As I have told you, we need to separate these two magics from each other. I think it would be best if we let the Wit lie fallow for now and concentrated on developing your Skill.’

For a time he stared out over the sea. I knew that he had looked forward to Civil teaching him, that he had hungered for that sharing. But he took a breath and replied quietly, ‘If that is what you think best, that is what you and I shall do.’ Then he turned and met my eyes. There was no reluctance in his face. He accepted the discipline I offered him.

He was of good temperament, amiable and willing to be taught. I looked into his open glance and hoped I could be an instructor worthy of him.

We began that day. I sat down across the table from him and asked him to close his eyes and relax. I asked him to lower all barriers between himself and the outside world, to try to be open to all things. I spoke to him quietly, calmingly as if he were a colt waiting to feel the first weight of harness. Then I sat, watching the stillness in his unlined face. He was ready. He was like a pool of clear water that I could dive into.

If I could force myself to make the leap.