I proffered it back to him. ‘Put it on,’ I said quietly.
He took the crown. I saw him swallow. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked me quietly. ‘I have tried it upon my head, I will admit. Nothing happened. But with us both here, the White Prophet and his Catalyst … Fitz, it may be that we tempt a magic neither one of us understands. Time and again, I have searched my memory, but in no prophecy I was ever taught did I find mention of this crown. I have no idea what it signifies, or if it signifies anything at all. You recall your vision of me; I have only the haziest of memories of it, like a butterfly of a dream, too fragile to recapture yet wondrous in its flight.’
I said nothing. His hands, as golden as they had once been white, held the crown before him. In silence, we dared ourselves, curiosity warring with caution. In the end, given who we were, there could only be one outcome. A slow, reckless grin spread over his face. Thus, I recalled, had he smiled the night he set his Skilled fingers to the carven flesh of Girl on a Dragon. Recalling the agony we had inadvertently caused, I knew a sudden moment of apprehension. But before I could speak, he lifted the crown aloft and set it upon his head. I caught my breath.
Nothing happened.
I stared at him, torn between relief and disappointment. For an instant, silence held between us. Then he began to snicker. In an instant, laughter burst from both of us. The tension broken, we both laughed until the tears streamed down our cheeks. When our mirth subsided, I looked at the Fool, still crowned with wood, still my friend as he had always been. He wiped tears from his eyes.
‘You know, last month my rooster lost most of his tail to a scuffle with a weasel. Hap picked up the feathers. Shall we try them in the crown?’
He lifted it from his head and regarded it with mock regret. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps. And perhaps I shall steal some of your inks as well, and re-do the colours. Do you recall them at all?’
I shrugged. ‘I’d trust your own eye for that, Fool. You always had a gift for such things.’
He bowed his head with grave exaggeration to my compliment. He twitched the fabric from the floor and began to rewrap the crown. The fire was little more than embers now, casting a ruddy glow over both of us. I looked at him for a long moment. In this light, I could pretend his colouring had not changed, that he was the white-skinned jester of my boyhood, and hence, that I was still as young as he was. He glanced over at me, caught my eyes on him, and stared back at me, a strange avidity in his face. His look was so intense I glanced aside from it. A moment later, he spoke.
‘So. After the Mountains, you went …?’
I picked up my brandy cup. It was empty. I wondered how much I had drunk, and suddenly knew it was more than enough for one evening. ‘Tomorrow, Fool. Tomorrow. Give me a night to sleep on it, and ponder how best to tell it.’
One long-fingered hand closed suddenly about my wrist. As always, his flesh was cool against mine. ‘Ponder, Fitz. But as you do so, do not forget …’ Words seemed suddenly to fail him. His eyes gazed once more into mine. His tone changed to a quiet plea. ‘Tell me all you can, in good conscience. For I never know what it is I need to hear until I have heard it.’
Again, the fervour of his stare unnerved me. ‘Riddles,’ I scoffed, trying to speak lightly. Instead, the word seemed to come out as a confirmation of his own.
‘Riddles,’ he agreed. ‘Riddles to which we are the answers, if only we can discover the questions.’ He looked down at his grip on my wrist, and released me. He rose suddenly, graceful as a cat. He stretched, a sinuous writhing that looked as if he unfastened his bones from his joints and then put himself together again. He looked down on me fondly. ‘Go to bed, Fitz,’ he told me as if I were a child. ‘Rest while you can. I need to stay up a bit longer and think. If I can. The brandy has quite gone to my head.’
‘Mine as well,’ I agreed. He offered a hand and I took it. He drew me easily to my feet, his strength, as always, surprising in one so slightly built. I staggered a step sideways and he moved with me, then caught my elbow, righting me. ‘Care to dance?’ I jested feebly as he steadied me.
‘We already do,’ he responded, almost seriously. As if he bid farewell to a dance partner, he pantomimed a courtly bow over my hand as I drew my fingers from his grip. ‘Dream of me,’ he added melodramatically.
‘Good night,’ I replied, stoically refusing to be baited. As I headed towards my bed, the wolf rose with a groan and followed me. He seldom slept more than an arm’s reach from my side. In my room, I let my clothes drop where they would before pulling on a nightshirt and falling into bed. The wolf had already found his place on the cool floor beside it. I closed my eyes and let my arm fall so that my fingers just brushed his ruff.
‘Sleep well, Fitz,’ the Fool offered. I opened my eyes a crack. He had resumed his chair before the dying fire and smiled at me through the open door of my room. ‘I’ll keep watch,’ he offered dramatically. I shook my head at his nonsense and flapped a hand in his direction. Sleep swallowed me.
One of the most basic misunderstandings of the Wit is that it is a power given to a human that can be imposed on a beast. In almost all the cautionary tales one hears about the Wit, the story involves an evil person who uses his power over animals or birds to harm his human neighbours. In many of these stories, the just fate of the evil magicker is that his beast servants rise up against him to bring him down to their level, thus revealing him to those he has maligned.
The reality is that Wit-magic is as much a province of animals as of humans. Not all humans evince the ability to form the special bond with an animal that is at the heart of the Wit. Nor does every animal have the full capacity for that bond. Of those creatures that possess the capacity, an even smaller number desire such a bond with a human. For the bond to form, it must be mutual and equal between the partners. Among Witted families, when the youngster comes of age, he is sent forth on a sort of quest to seek an animal companion. He does not go out, select a capable beast and then bend him to his will. Rather the hope is that the human will encounter a like-minded creature, either wild or domestic, that is interested in establishing a Wit-bond. Simply put, for a Wit-bond to be established, the animal must be as gifted as the human. Although a Witted human can achieve some level of communication with almost any animal, no bond will be formed unless the animal shares a like talent and inclination.
Yet in any relationship there is always the capacity for abuse. Just as a husband may beat his wife, or a wife pare her husband’s soul with belittlement, so may a human dominate his Wit partner. Perhaps the most common form of this is when a Witted human selects a beast partner when the creature is far too young to realize the magnitude of that life decision. Rarer are the cases in which animals debase or dictate to their bond fellow, but they are not unknown. Among the Old Blood, the common ballad of Roving Greyson is said to be derived from a tale of a man so foolish as to bond with a wild gander, and ever after spent his life in following the seasons as his bird did.
Badgerlock’s Old Blood Tales
Morning came, too bright and too early, on the third day of the Fool’s visit. He was awake before me, and if the brandy or the late night held any consequences for him, he did not betray them. The day already promised to be hot, so he had kept the cook fire small, just enough to boil a kettle for porridge. Outside, I turned the chickens out for the day, and took the pony and the Fool’s horse out to an open hillside facing the sea. I turned the pony loose but picketed Malta. She gave me a reproachful look at that, but went to grazing as if the tufty grass were exactly what she desired. I stood for a time, overlooking the calm sea. Under the bright morning sun, it looked like hammered blue metal. A very light breeze came off it and stirred my hair. I felt as if someone had spoken words aloud