Fool’s Fate

All around the room, men began to shift in their seats.

Doing? Chade demanded.

Ending this meeting, I told him grimly.

Ah! I felt Dutiful’s sudden comprehension, and then felt him join his persuasion to mine.

Who is in charge? I asked him.

No one. They share authority here. Or so they say. Dutiful obviously thought it a poor system.

Bear opened meeting. Chade told me tersely. I felt him draw my attention to a man who wore a bear’s tooth necklace. I was suddenly aware of how much strength it was taking from Chade for him to do this feeble Skilling.

Don’t tax yourself, I warned him.

Know my own strength! His reply was angry but even from where I stood, I could see his shoulders drooping.

I singled out the Bear and focused my attention on him. Fortunately for me, he had little wall against the Skill and a full bladder. I pressed urgency on him and he suddenly stood up. He came forward to claim the speaking circle and the others ceded it to him with hand motions of giving.

‘We need to ponder on this. All of us.’ He suggested, ‘let us go apart, to talk with our own clans and see what thoughts they have for us. Tomorrow, let us gather again and speak of what we have learned and thought. Do any think this is wise?’

A forest of hands rose in spiralling gestures of assent.

‘Then let our meeting be over for this day,’ the Bear suggested.

And just that quickly, it was over. Men stood immediately and began moving toward the door. There was no ceremony to it, no precedence for those of higher rank, just a push of men toward the exit, some with a greater insistence than others.

Tell your captain that you must check on your ward. That, until he is fit, I have commanded that you continue to tend him. We’ll soon join you upstairs.

I obeyed my prince’s command. When Longwick released me, I retrieved the washing basin I’d left outside the door and returned to Thick’s chamber. He had not stirred that I could see. I felt his forehead. He was still feverish, but it did not burn as it had aboard the ship. Nonetheless, I roused him and coaxed him to drink water. He took little urging to down a whole mug of it, and then settled back into the bed again. I was relieved. Here, in this strange room and away from the perspective of his sick bed on the ship, I could truly see how wasted Thick was. Well, he would recover now. He had all he needed: quiet, a bed, food and drink. Soon he would be better. I tried to convince myself that my hope was a fact.

I heard Prince Dutiful and Chade conversing in the hall with someone. I stood and went to the door, ear pressed to it. I heard Dutiful pleading weariness, and then the closing of the door of the next chamber. His servants must have been waiting for him there. Again, there was a murmur of conversation, and then I heard him dismiss them. A little time passed and then the connecting door opened and Dutiful wandered in. He held a small black square of the food in his hand. He looked depressed. He held the food up and asked me, ‘Any idea what this is?’

‘Not really, but it has fish paste in it. Maybe seaweed, too. The cakes with the seeds are sweet. Oily but sweet.’

Dutiful regarded the food in his hand with distaste, then gave the shrug of a fifteen-year-old who hasn’t been fed for several hours and ate it. He licked his fingers. ‘It’s not bad, as long as you expect it to taste like fish.’

‘Old fish,’ I observed.

He didn’t reply. He’d crossed over to where Thick slept and stood looking down on him. He shook his head slowly. ‘This is so unfair to him. Do you think he’s getting better now?’

‘I hope so.’

‘His music has become so much quieter, it worries me. Sometimes I feel as if Thick himself goes away from us when his fever rises.’

I opened myself to Thick’s music. Dutiful was right. It did seem less intense. ‘Well, he’s sick. It takes strength and energy to Skill.’ I didn’t want to worry about him just now. ‘Chade surprised me today.’

‘Did he? You must have known that he would keep at it until he could do at least that much. Nothing stops the old man once he has decided to do something.’ He turned away from me and headed toward the connecting door. Then he paused. ‘Did you want any of that stuff to eat?’

‘No, thank you. You go ahead.’

He spoke over his shoulder. He vanished for a moment into his own room, then returned with one hand stacked with the fish cakes. He bit into one of the squares, made a dismal face and then quickly ate the rest of it. He looked around the room hungrily. ‘Didn’t anyone bring us food yet?’

‘You’re eating it, I think.’

‘No. This is just an Out Island nod because we fed them. I know Chade told servants to find fresh food and buy it for us.’

‘Are you saying that Boar Clan isn’t going to feed us?’

‘They may. They may not. Chade seems to think we should act as if we don’t expect it. Then, if they offer us food, we can accept it as a gift. And if they don’t, we don’t seem grasping or weak.’

‘Have you informed your nobles of their customs?’

He nodded. ‘Many of them came here as much to form new trading alliances and see what other opportunities the Out Islands offered as to support me in my courtship of the Narcheska. So they are just as glad to move about Zylig, seeing what is for sale here and what people might want to buy. But we’ll have to feed my guard, the servants and of course my Wit-coterie. I thought Chade had arranged provisions.’

‘The Hetgurd seem to accord you little respect,’ I said worriedly.

‘I do not think they truly understand what I am. It is a foreign concept to them, that a boy of my years, unproven as a warrior, is assured the ruling of such a large territory. Here, men do not claim sovereignty over an area of land, but instead show strength by the warriors they can command. In some ways, I am seen more as a son of my mother’s house. Queen Kettricken was in power when we defeated them at the end of the Red Ship War. They are in awe of that, that she not only kept the home lands safe but that she launched war against them in the form of the dragons she called down on them. That is how it is told here.’

‘You seem to have learned a great deal in a very short time.’

He nodded, pleased with himself. ‘Some of it comes from putting together what I hear here with what I experienced of the Outislanders at Buckkeep. Some from the reading I did on the way here.’ He gave a small sigh. ‘And it is not as useful as I hoped it would be. If they offer us hospitality, I mean, feed us, then we can see it as welcome, that they know it is our custom and honour it. Or we can see it as insult, that we are too weak to feed ourselves and too foolish to have come prepared. But no matter how we see it, we can’t be certain how they meant it.’

‘Like your dragon-slaying. Do you come to kill a beast and thus prove yourself a worthy mate for the Narcheska? Or do you come to kill the dragon that is the guardian of their land, proving that you can take whatever you want from them?’

Dutiful paled slightly. ‘I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

‘Nor had I. But some of them do. And, it brings us back to that one essential question. Why? Why did the Narcheska choose this particular task for you?’

‘Then you think it has significance to her besides my being willing to risk my life just to marry her?’

For a moment all I could do was stare at him. Had I ever been that young? ‘Well, of course it does. Don’t you think so?’

‘Civil had said that she probably wanted “proof of my love”. He said that girls were often like that, asking men to do things that were dangerous or illegal or next to impossible, simply to prove their love.’

I made a mental note of that. I wondered what Civil had been asked to do and by whom, and if it had related to the Farseer monarchy or was merely a boyish deed of derring-do that some girl had demanded of him.

‘Well, I doubt it would be anything that romantically frivolous with the Narcheska. How could she possibly think that you loved her, after the way she has treated you? And she’s certainly given no sign of being fond of your company.’

For a flashing moment, he stared at me with stricken eyes. Then he smoothed his expression so completely that I wondered if I had been mistaken. Surely the Prince could not be infatuated with the girl. They had nothing in common, and after he had accidentally insulted her, she had treated him as less than a whipped dog whining after her. I looked at him. A boy can believe almost anything when he is fifteen.

Dutiful gave a slight snort. ‘No. She has certainly given me no sign of even tolerating my company. Think on it. She did not journey here with her father and uncle to meet us and offer us welcome to these islands. She is the one who thought up this ridiculous quest, but I notice she is nowhere in sight when it must be justified to her countrymen. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps it has nothing to do with me proving my love for her, or even proving my courage. Perhaps all along it was only to present a stumbling block to our marriage.’ In a glum voice, he added, ‘Perhaps she hopes I’ll die in the attempt.’

‘If we press forward with the task, it may block more than your marriage. It may send both our countries back to war.’

Chade entered on those words. He looked both worried and weary. He cast a disparaging look around the small chamber and observed, ‘Well, I see Thick has been afforded a chamber almost as lush as that allotted to Prince Dutiful and me. Is there anything to eat and drink?’

‘Nothing I’d recommend,’ I observed.