The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy: Fool’s Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate

‘Good night, Lord Golden, Huntswoman Laurel.’

After a moment or two of silence, I realized something. I had been expecting Laurel to leave so that I could secure the door behind her. I had wanted to tell the Fool about the basket and the dead rabbit. But Laurel and Lord Golden were waiting for me to leave. She was studying a tapestry on a wall with an intensity it did not merit, while Lord Golden contentedly contemplated the gleaming fall of Laurel’s hair.

I wondered if I should lock the outer door for them, then decided that would be an oafish act. If Lord Golden wanted it locked, he would do it. ‘Good night,’ I repeated, trying to sound sleepy and not awkward. I took a candle and went to my own chamber, shutting the connecting door gently behind me. I undressed and got into bed, refusing to let my mind wander beyond that closed door. I felt no envy, I told myself, only the sharper bite of my loneliness in contrast to what they might be sharing. I told myself I was selfish. The Fool had endured years of loneliness and isolation. Would I begrudge him the gentle touch of a woman’s hand now that he was Lord Golden?

Nighteyes? I floated the thought, light as a dry leaf on the wind.

The brush of his mind against mine was a comfort. I sensed oak trees and fresh wind blowing past his fur. I was not alone. Sleep, little brother. I hunt our prey, but I think nothing new will we learn until dawn.

He was wrong.

SEVENTEEN The Hunt (#ulink_5ceca76b-41a1-5f5c-a7c9-f007ac87a773)

Among the Old Blood, there are teaching tales that are intended as guides for the very young. They are simple stories that instruct a child in virtues by telling of the animals that exemplify an admirable quality. Those not of Old Blood might be surprised to hear the Wolf praised for his dedication to his family, or the Mouse for her wisdom in providing for the cold winter months ahead. The Gander who keeps watch while the rest of the flock feeds is praised for his unselfishness and the Porcupine for his forbearance in injuring only those who attack him first. The Cat’s attribute is independence. A tale is told of a woman who seeks to bond with a cat. The cat offers to try her companionship for a day or two, if the woman will seek to perform well the tasks given her. The tale relates the duties the cat tries the woman at, stroking her fur, amusing her with string, fetching her cream and so on. The woman complies cheerfully with each request and does each one well. At the end of that time, the Witted woman again proposes that they bond, for she felt they were obviously well suited to one another. The cat refuses, saying, ‘If I bonded with you, you would be the poorer, for you would lose that which you love best about me, for it is that I do not need you, yet I tolerate your company.’ It is, the Old Blood say, a cautionary fable, meant to warn a child not to seek a bond-beast who cannot take as much from the relationship as it gives.

Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales

Let me just see you.

You have. I have shown myself to you. Stop nagging me for that, and pay attention. You said you would learn this for me. You promised it to me. It is why I have brought you here, where there are no distractions. Be the cat.

It’s too hard. Let me see you with my eyes. Please.

When you are ready. When you can be the cat as easily as you are yourself. Then you will be ready to know me.

She was ahead of me. I toiled up the hill behind her, every bush catching at me, every dip and every stone catching at my feet. My mouth was dry. The night was cool, but as I pushed my way through the brush, dust and pollen rose to choke me. Wait!

Prey does not wait. A cat does not cry out ‘wait’ to the one she hunts. Be the cat.

For an instant, I almost caught a glimpse of her. Then the tall grass closed around her and she was gone. Nothing stirred, I heard no sound. I was no longer sure which way to go. The night was deep beneath the golden moon, the lights of Galeton lost behind me in the rolling hills. I took a breath, and then closed my mouth, resolving to breathe silently if it choked me. I moved forwards, a single gliding step at a time. I did not push branches out of my way, but swayed around them. I eased through the grass, striving to part it with my stride rather than push through it. I eased my weight from one carefully set footstep to the next. What had she bid me? ‘Be the night. Not the wind that stirs the trees, not even the soundless owl a-wing or the tiny mouse crouched motionless. Be the night that flows over all, touching without being felt. For Night is a cat.’ Very well, then. I was night, sleek and black and soundless. I halted under the sheltering branches of an oak. Its leaves were still. I opened my eyes as wide as they would go, striving to capture every bit of light I could. Slowly I turned my head. I flared my nostrils and then took in a deep silent breath through my mouth, trying to taste her on the air. Where was she, which way had she gone?

I felt a sudden weight, as if a brawny man had clapped both his hands to my shoulders and then sprung back from me. I spun around, but it was only Cat. She had dropped on me like a falling leaf, and then let herself drop to the ground. Now she crouched in the dry grass and ancient leaves under the tree. Belly to the ground, she looked up at me and then away. I crouched down beside her. ‘Which way, Cat? Which way did she go?’

Here. She is here. She is always here, with me.

After my love’s deep throaty voice, Cat’s thought in my mind was a reedy purr. I was fond of her, but to have her thoughts touch mine when I was longing instead for my love was almost intolerable. Gently I put her aside from me. I tried to ignore her injured protest that I should do so.

‘Here,’ I breathed. ‘I know she is close. But where?’

Closer than you know. But you shall never know me as long as you set the cat aside. Open to the cat. Be the cat. Prove yourself to me.

Cat flowed soundlessly away from me. I could not see where she had gone. She was night flowing into night, and it was like trying to discern the water you had poured into a stream. I drew a soundless breath and poised myself to follow, not just with my feet but with my heart. I pushed fear aside and opened myself to the cat.

Cat was back suddenly, easing out of the darkness to become a richer shadow. She pressed close against my legs. Hunted.

‘Yes. We hunt, we hunt for the woman, my love.’

No. We are hunted. Something scents us, something follows Cat-And-Boy through the night. Up. Climb.

She suited her words to her thoughts, flowing up the oak tree. Tree to tree. He cannot track us up here. Follow tree to tree. I knew that was what she was doing, and she expected me to follow. I tried. I flung myself at the oak, but the trunk was too large for me to shinny up and yet not coarse enough for my clawless fingers to find purchase. For an instant, I clung, but I could not climb. I slid back, nails bending and clothing snagging as the tree refused me. I could hear the predator coming now. It was a new sensation, one I did not like, to be hunted thus. I’d find a better tree. I turned and ran, sacrificing stealth for speed, but finding neither.

I chose to go uphill. Some predators, such as bears, could not run well on an uphill slope. If it was a bear, I could outdistance him. I could not think what else it might be that dared to hunt us. Another oak, younger and with lower branches, beckoned me. I ran, I leapt and caught the lowest branch. But even as I pulled myself up, my pursuer reached the bottom of the tree below me. And I had chosen foolishly. There were no other trees close by that I could leap to. The few that touched branches with mine were slender, unreliable things. I was treed.

Snarling, I looked down at my stalker. I looked into my own eyes looking into my own eyes looking into my own eyes –

I sat bolt upright, flung from sleep. Sweat sheathed me and my mouth was dry as dust. I rolled out of bed and stood, disoriented. Where was the window, where was the door? And then I recalled that I was not in my own cottage, but in a strange room. I blundered through the darkness to a washstand. I lifted the pitcher there and drank the tepid water in it. I dipped my hand in what little was left and rubbed it around on my face. Work, mind, I bade my struggling brain. It came to me. Nighteyes had Prince Dutiful treed somewhere in the hills behind Galeton. While I had slept, my wolf had found the Prince. But I feared that the Prince had discovered us as well. How much did he know of the Skill? Was he aware that we had been linked? Then all wondering was pushed aside. As the lowering storm is suddenly loosed by a bolt of lightning, so did the flash of light that seemed to fill my eyes herald the clanging of the Skill-headache that dropped me to my knees. And I had not a scrap of elfbark with me.

But the Fool might.

It was the only thought that could have brought me to my feet again. My groping hands found the door and I stumbled out into his chamber. The only light came from a small nest of dying coals in the hearth and the uncertain light of the night torches burning on the grounds outside the open window. I staggered towards his bed. ‘Fool?’ I called out softly, hoarsely. ‘Fool, Nighteyes has Dutiful treed. And …’

The words died on my lips. The dream had forced the earlier events of the night from my mind. What if that huddled shape beneath the blankets were not one body but two? An arm flung back a coverlet to reveal only one form occupying the great bed. He rolled to face me and then sat up. Concern furrowed his brow. ‘Fitz? Are you hurt?’

I sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, set one hand to each side of my head and pushed, trying to hold my skull together. ‘No. Yes. It’s the Skill, but we haven’t time for that. I know where the Prince is. I dreamed him. He was night-hunting with a cat in the hills behind Galeton. Then something was hunting us, and the cat went up one tree and I … the Prince went up another. And then he looked down and he saw Nighteyes under the tree. The wolf has him treed somewhere in those hills. If we go now, we can take him.’

‘No, we can’t. Use your common sense.’

‘I can’t. My head is cracking like an eggshell.’ I hunched forwards, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. ‘Why can’t we go get him?’ I asked piteously.

‘Walk your thoughts through it, my friend. We dress and creep out of this room, get past the stablefolk to take our horses out, ride through unfamiliar country by night until we come to where the Prince is up a tree with a wolf at the foot of it. One of us climbs the tree and forces the Prince down. Then we coax him to come back with us. Lord Golden miraculously appears at breakfast with, I imagine, a very disgruntled Prince Dutiful, or Lord Golden and his man simply disappear from Lady Bresinga’s hospitality without a word of explanation. In any case, in a few days a lot of very uncomfortable questions are going to be asked about Lord Golden and his man Tom Badgerlock, not to mention Prince Dutiful.’

He was right. We already suspected the Bresingas were involved in the Prince’s ‘disappearance’. Bringing him back to Galekeep would be foolish. We had to recover him in such a way that we could take him straight back to Buckkeep and no one the wiser. I pressed my fingers to my eyeballs. It felt as if the pressure inside my skull would force them out of their sockets. ‘What do we do then?’ I asked thickly. I didn’t even really want to know. I wanted to fall over on my side and huddle into a miserable ball.

‘The wolf keeps track of the Prince. Tomorrow, during our hunt, I will send you back for something I’ve forgotten. Once you are on your own, you will go to where the Prince is and persuade him to return to Buckkeep. I chose you a big horse. Take him with you immediately and return him to Buckkeep. I’ll find a way to explain your absence.’

‘How?’

‘I haven’t thought of it yet, but I will. Don’t be concerned about it. Whatever tale I tell, the Bresingas will have to accept for risk of offending me.’

I picked at the next largest hole in the plan. It was hard to keep my thoughts in order. ‘I … persuade him to come back to Buckkeep?’

‘You can do it,’ the Fool replied with great confidence. ‘You will know what to say.’

I doubted it, but had run out of strength to object. There were painfully bright lights behind my closed eyes. Knuckling them made them worse. I opened my eyes to the dim room, but zigzags of light still danced before my vision, sharding it. ‘Elfbark,’ I pleaded quietly. ‘I need it.’

‘No.’

My mind could not encompass that he had refused me. ‘Please.’ I pushed the word out. ‘The pain is worse than I can explain.’ Sometimes I could tell when a seizure was coming on. I hadn’t had one in a long time. Was I imagining that odd tension in my neck and back?

‘Fitz, I can’t. Chade made me promise.’ In a lower voice, as if he feared it was too little to offer, he added, ‘I’ll be here with you.’

Pain tumbled me in a wave. Fear mingled with it.

Should I come?

No. ‘Stay where you are. Watch him.’ I heard myself say the words out loud as I thought them. There was something I was supposed to worry about in that. I recalled it. ‘I need elfbark tea,’ I managed to say. ‘Or I can’t hold the limits. On the Wit. They’ll know I’m here.’

The bed moved under me as the Fool clambered out of it, a terrible jostling that pounded my brain against the inside of my skull. I heard him go to the washstand. A moment later, he was back, damp cloth in hand. ‘Lie back,’ he told me.