So Regal danced his diplomatic steps, and it was arranged that the Princess Kettricken would make her pledges to Regal in his brother’s stead, with all of her own folk to witness, and Verity’s word would be given by his brother. With a second ceremony to follow, of course, at Buckkeep, with suitable representatives from Kettricken’s folk to witness it. And for the nonce, Regal remained in the Mountain Kingdom’s capital at Jhaampe. His presence there created a regular flow of emissaries, gifts and supplies between Buckkeep and Jhaampe. Seldom did a week pass without a cavalcade either leaving or arriving. It kept Buckkeep in a constant stir.
It seemed to me an awkward and ungainly way to assemble a marriage. Each would be wed almost a month before glimpsing the other. But the political expedients were more important than the feelings of the principals, and the separate celebrations were planned.
I had long since recovered from Verity tapping my strength. It was taking me longer to grasp completely what Galen’s misting of my mind had done to me. I believe I would have confronted him, despite Verity’s counsel, except that he had left Buckkeep, in company of a cavalcade bound for Jhaampe, to ride with them as far as Farrow, where he had relatives he wished to visit. By the time he returned, I myself would be on my way to Jhaampe, so Galen remained out of my reach.
Again, I had too much time on my hands. I still tended Leon, but he did not take more than an hour or two of my time each day. I had been able to discover nothing more about the attack on Burrich, nor did Burrich show any signs of relenting on my ostracism. I had made one jaunt into Buckkeep Town, but when I chanced to wander by the chandlery, it was shuttered and silent. My inquiries at the shop next door brought me the information that the chandlery had been closed for ten days or more, and that unless I wished to buy some leather harness, I could go elsewhere and stop bothering him. I thought of the young man I had last seen with Molly, and bitterly wished them no good of each other.
For no other reason than that I was lonely, I decided to seek out the Fool. Never before had I tried to initiate a meeting with him. He proved more elusive than I had ever imagined.
After a few hours of randomly wandering the keep, hoping to encounter him, I made brave enough to go to his chamber. I had known for years where it was, but had never gone there before, and not simply because it was in an out of the way part of the keep. The Fool did not invite intimacy, except of the kind he chose to offer, and only when he chose to offer it. His chambers were a tower-top room. Fedwren had told me that it had once been a map room, and had offered an unobstructed view of the land surrounding Buckkeep, but later additions to Buckkeep had blocked the views, and higher towers supplanted it. It had outlived its usefulness for anything, save chambers for a Fool.
I climbed to it, that one day toward the beginning of harvest-time. It was already a hot and sticky day. The tower was a closed one, save for arrow slits that did little more than illuminate the dust motes my feet set to dancing in the still air. At first the darkness of the tower had seemed cooler than the stuffy day outside, but as I climbed, it seemed to get hotter and more close, so that by the time I reached the last landing, I felt as if there were no air left to breathe at all. I lifted a weary fist and pounded on the stout door. ‘It’s me, Fitz!’ I called, but the still, hot air muffled my voice like a wet blanket smothering a flame.
Shall I use that as an excuse? Shall I say I thought perhaps he could not hear me, and so I went in to see if he was there? Or shall I say that I was so hot and thirsty that I entered to see if his chambers offered any hint of air or water? Why doesn’t matter, I suppose. I put my hand to the door-latch, and it lifted and I went inside.
‘Fool?’ I called, but I could feel he wasn’t there. Not as I usually felt folk’s presence or absence, but by the stillness that met me. Yet I stood in the door and gawked at a soul laid bare.
Here was light, and flowers, and colours in profusion. There was a loom in the corner, and baskets of fine, thin thread in bright, bright hues. The woven coverlet on the bed, and the drapings on the open windows were unlike anything I had ever seen, woven in geometric patterns that somehow suggested fields of flowers beneath a blue sky. A wide pottery bowl held floating flowers and a slim silver fingerling swam about the stems and above the bright pebbles that floored it. I tried to imagine the pale cynical Fool in the midst of all this colour and art. I took a step further into the room, and saw something that moved my heart aside in my chest.
A baby. That was what I took it for at first, and without thinking, I took the next two steps and knelt beside the basket that cradled it. But it was not a living child, but a doll, crafted with such incredible art that almost I expected to see the small chest move with breath. I reached a hand to the pale, delicate face, but dared not touch it. The curve of the brow, the closed eyelids, the faint rose that suffused the tiny cheeks, even the small hand that rested on top of the coverlets were more perfect than I supposed a made thing could be. Of what delicate clay it had been crafted, I could not guess, nor what hand had inked the tiny eyelashes that curled on the infant’s cheek. The tiny coverlet was embroidered all over with pansies, and the pillow was of satin. I don’t know how long I knelt there, as silent as if it were truly a sleeping babe. But eventually I rose, and backed out of the Fool’s room, and then drew the door silently closed behind me. I went slowly down the myriad steps, torn between dread that I might encounter the Fool coming up, and burdened with the knowledge that I had discovered one denizen of the keep who was at least as alone as I was.
Chade summoned me that night, but when I went to him, he seemed to have no more purpose in calling me than to see me. We sat almost silently before the black hearth, and I thought he looked older than he ever had. As Verity was devoured so Chade was consumed. His bony hands appeared almost desiccated, and the whites of his eyes were webbed with red. He needed to sleep, but instead had chosen to call me. Yet he sat, still and silent, scarce nibbling at the food he had placed before us. At length, I decided to help him.
‘Are you afraid I won’t be able to do it?’ I asked him softly.
‘Do what?’ he asked absently.
‘Kill the mountain prince. Rurisk.’
Chade turned to look at me full-face. The silence held for a long moment.
‘You didn’t know King Shrewd had given me this,’ I faltered.
Slowly he turned back to the empty hearth, and studied it as carefully as if there were flames to read. ‘I’m only the tool-maker,’ he said at last, quietly. ‘Another man uses what I make.’
‘Do you think this is a bad … task? Wrong?’ I took a breath. ‘From what I’ve been told, he has not that much longer to live anyway. It might almost be a mercy, if death were to come quietly in the night, instead of …’
‘Boy,’ Chade remarked quietly. ‘Never pretend we are anything but what we are. Assassins. Not merciful agents of a wise king. Political assassins dealing death for the furtherance of our monarchy. That is what we are.’