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

‘When will it be safe to stop?’ the Fool asked me during a period when we had slowed to let the horses breathe.

‘When we reach Buckkeep Castle. Perhaps.’ I did not add that the Prince would not be safe until I had turned back and killed the cat. We had only his body in our keeping. The Piebalds still had his soul.

At midmorning, we passed the tree where their archer had ambushed us. It made me realize how much I was trusting to the wolf to choose our path. He had decided this way was safe and I was following him unquestioningly.

Are we not pack? Of course you must follow your leader. The tease in his thought could not quite mask his weariness.

We were all tired; men, wolf and horses. A sustained trot was the best I could wring from Myblack now. Dutiful was a lolling weight in my arms as we jolted along. The pain in my back and shoulders from supporting his weight vied with the dull throbbing in my head. The Fool still sat his horse well but made no attempt at conversation of any kind. He had offered once to take the Prince on Malta with him, but I had declined. It was not that I thought that he or his horse lacked the strength. I could not define exactly why I felt I must keep possession of Dutiful’s body. I worried that he had been so long insensible. Somewhere, I knew his mind worked, that he saw with the cat’s eyes, felt with the cat’s body. Sooner or later, they would realize –

The Prince stirred in my arms. I kept silent. It took him some little while to come back to himself. As he regained his senses, he twitched unpleasantly in my arms, reminding me of my own seizures. Then he sat up with a sudden hoarse gasp of breath. Breath after breath he took, as he turned his head wildly from side to side, trying to make sense of his situation. I heard him swallow. In a dry and cracked voice he asked, ‘Where are we?’

Useless to lie. Above us on the hill, Laurel’s mysterious standing stones cast their shadows. He would surely recognize them. I didn’t bother to answer him at all. Lord Golden rode closer to us.

‘My prince, are you well? You have been long unconscious.’

‘I am – well. Where are you taking me?’

They come!

In a breath, our situation had changed. I saw the wolf fleeing back towards us. On the road behind him, horsemen had suddenly appeared. I made them five at a quick count. Two hounds, Wit-beasts both, ran alongside them. I swivelled in my saddle. Two rises back, other riders were cresting a hill. I saw one lift an arm, waving a triumphant greeting to the other group of riders.

‘They’ve caught us,’ I said calmly to the Fool.

He looked ill.

‘Up the hill. We’ll put one of those barrows at our back.’ I reined Myblack from the road, and my companions followed.

‘Let me go!’ my prince commanded me. He struggled in my arms, but his long insensibility had left him weak. It was not easy to keep my grip on him, but we had not far to go. As we came abreast of the barrow and the adjacent standing stone, I reined in Myblack. My dismount was not graceful, but I pulled the Prince down with me. Myblack stepped wearily away from us, and then turned to give me a look of rebuke. In an instant the Fool was beside us. I sidestepped Dutiful’s swing at me, caught his wrist and stepped behind him with it. I caught his other shoulder and held him firmly, one arm twisted high behind his back. I was no rougher than I had to be, but he did not give in easily. ‘Breaking your arm or dislocating your shoulder wouldn’t kill you,’ I pointed out to him harshly. ‘But it would keep you from being a nuisance for a time.’

He subsided, grunting with pain. The wolf was a grey streak pouring himself up the hill towards us. ‘Now what?’ the Fool asked me as he stared around us wide-eyed.

‘Now we make a stand,’ I said. The riders below us were already spreading wide. The barrow at our backs would be a poor barrier against attack from behind, blinding us as much as it shielded us. The wolf stood with us, panting.

‘You’ll die here,’ the Prince pointed out through gritted teeth. I still held him quite firmly.

‘That seems very likely,’ I conceded.

‘You’ll die, and I’ll go with them.’ His voice was strained with pain. ‘So why be stupid? Release me now. I’ll go to them. You can run. I promise I’ll ask them to let you go.’

My eyes met the Fool’s over the boy’s head. I knew what my answer to that would be, but then I knew what I’d be sending the Prince to face. It might buy us an opportunity to come after him again, but I doubted it. The woman-cat would see to it that they hunted us down and killed us. Death standing and waiting, or death after flight? I didn’t want to choose how my friends would die.

I’m too tired to flee. I’m dying here.

The Fool’s eyes wavered to Nighteyes. I do not know if he grasped that flicker of thought, or if he simply saw the wolf’s weariness. ‘Stand and fight,’ he said faintly.

He drew his sword from its sheath. I knew he had never fought in his life. As he lifted his blade, he looked very uncertain. Then he took a breath, and set his face in the lines of Lord Golden’s expression. He squared his shoulders and a look of cold competence came into his eyes.

He can’t fight. Don’t be stupid.

The riders were closing in. They walked their horses up the hill towards us, unhurried, letting us watch our deaths come. You have an alternative?

‘You can’t hold me and fight!’ Dutiful’s voice was elated. He obviously believed they had already won. ‘The moment you let go, I’ll run. You’ll die for nothing! Let me go now, let me talk to them. Maybe I can bargain for your life.’

Do not let her have him. Kill him before you let them take him.

I felt a great coward, but shared the thought anyway. I do not know if I can do that.

You must. We both know what they intend. If you cannot kill him then … Then take him into the pillar. The boy can Skill, and you were linked with the Scentless One once. It may be enough. Go into the pillar. Take them with you.

The riders below conferred with one another briefly, then fanned out to flank us as they came. As the woman had promised, they would take no chances. They were grinning and shouting to one another. Like the Prince, they believed they had us trapped.

It won’t work. Don’t you remember what it was like? It took all my strength to hold you together in that passage, and we were tightly linked. I might be able to hold the boy together through the journey, or you, but not both of you. I do not know if I could even pull the Fool in with me. Our Skill-link is old and thin. I might lose you all.

You don’t have to choose. I cannot go with you. I’m too tired, my brother. But I will stay here and hold them back for as long as I can, while you escape.

‘No,’ I groaned, even as the Fool suddenly said, ‘The pillar. You said the boy was Skilling. Could not you –?’

‘No!’ I cried out. ‘I will not leave Nighteyes to die alone! How can you suggest it?’

‘Alone?’ The Fool looked puzzled. A very odd smile twisted his mouth. ‘But he will not be alone. I will be here with him. And,’ he drew himself up, squaring his shoulders, ‘I will die before I allow them to kill him.’

Ah, that would be so much better. Every hackle on Nighteyes’ body was standing as he watched the advancing line of men and horses, but his eyes glinted merriment at me.

‘Send the lad down to us!’ a tall man shouted. We ignored him.

‘Do you think that makes it better for me?’ I demanded of him. They were mad, both of them. ‘I might be able to go through the pillar. I might even be able to drag the boy through, though I wonder if his mind would come through intact. But I doubt that I can take you with me, Fool. And Nighteyes refuses to go.’

‘Go where?’ Dutiful demanded. He tried to shake off my grip and I twisted his arm tighter. He subsided.

‘For the last time, will you yield?’ the tall horseman shouted up at us.

‘I seek to reason with him!’ Lord Golden called back. ‘Give me time, man!’ He put a note of panic in his voice.

‘My friend.’ The Fool set his hand on my shoulder. He pushed me softly, backwards towards the stone. I gave ground and took Dutiful with me. The Fool’s eyes never left mine. He spoke softly and carefully, as if we were alone and had all the time in the world. ‘I know I can’t go with you. It grieves me that the wolf will not. But I still tell you that you must go and take the boy. Don’t you understand? This is what you were born for, why you have stayed alive despite all the odds against you all these years. Why I have forced you to stay alive, despite all that was done to you. There must be a Farseer heir. If you keep him alive and restore him to Buckkeep, that is all that matters. We keep the future on the path I have set for it, even if it must go on without me. But if we fail, if he dies …’

‘What are you talking about?’ the Prince demanded angrily.

The Fool’s voice faded. He stared down the hill at the steadily advancing men, but his gaze seemed to go farther than that. My back was nearly touching the monolith. Dutiful was suddenly quiescent in my grip, as if spelled by the Fool’s soft voice. ‘If we all die here,’ he said faintly, ‘then … it ends. For us. But he is not the only change we have wrought … time must seek to flow as it always has, washing all obstacles away … So … fate finds her. In all times, fate battles against a Farseer surviving. Here and now, we guard Dutiful. But if we all fall, if Nettle becomes the lone focus of that battle …’ He blinked his eyes a number of times, then he drew a ragged breath before he turned back to me. He seemed to be returning from a far journey. He spoke softly, breaking ill tidings to me gently. ‘I can find no future in which Nettle survives after the Prince has died.’ His face went sallow and his eyes were old as he admitted, ‘There are not even any swift, kind ends for her.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘If you care anything at all for me, do this thing. Take the boy. Keep him alive.’

Every hair on my body stood up in horror. ‘But –’ I choked. All the sacrifices I had made to keep her safe? All for nothing? My mind completed the picture. Burrich, Molly and their sons would stand beside her, would fall with her. I could not get my breath.

‘Please go,’ the Fool begged me.

I could not tell what the boy made of our talk. He was a weight I grasped, firmly immobilizing him as my mind raced furiously. I knew there was no escape from this maze fate had set us. The wolf formed my thought for me. If you stay, we all still die. If the boy does not die, the Witted take him, and use him to their own ends. Dying would be kinder. You cannot save us, but you can save the boy.

I cannot leave you here. We cannot end like this, you and I. Tears blinded me just when I needed to see most clearly.

We not only can, we must. The pack does not die if the cub survives. Be a wolf, my brother. Things are clearer so. Leave us to fight while you save the cub. Save Nettle, too. Live well, for both of us, and someday, tell Nettle tales of me.