Fool's Assassin - Страница 20

You think I underestimate Nettle. That she would not need or want me to reveal myself completely to her.

I do. But I also understand the urge to explain yourself. What is harder for me to understand is how you make yourself sit down and do it. I’ve tried, because I think it’s something I need to do, more for myself than anyone else who might come after me. Perhaps, as you say, to impose some sort of order or sense on my past. But it’s hard. What do I put in, what do I leave out? Where does my tale begin? What should come first?

I smiled and leaned back in my chair. I usually start trying to write about something else, and end up writing about myself. A sudden insight came to me. Chade, I would like it if you wrote it down. Not to explain it, but just because there is so much I’ve always wondered about you. You’ve told me some bits of your life. But … who decided you’d become a royal assassin? Who taught you?

A cold wind blew through me, and for a moment, I felt as if I were being choked mercilessly. As abruptly as it had begun, it stopped, but I felt the wall that Chade had quickly erected. There were dark, harsh memories back there. Was it possible he’d had a tutor whom he had dreaded and feared as much as I had Galen? Galen had been more interested in trying to kill me quietly than teaching me how to Skill. And the so-called Skillmaster had almost succeeded. Under the guise of creating a new Skill-coterie to aid King Verity in his efforts against the Red-Ship Raiders, Galen had battered and humiliated me and almost extinguished my talent for the magic. And he had corrupted the coterie’s loyalty to the true Farseer monarch. Galen had been Queen Desire’s tool and then Prince Regal’s as they had tried to rid themselves of the Farseer bastard and put Regal upon the throne. Dark days. I knew Chade could tell where my thoughts had gone. I admitted it to him, hoping to draw him out a bit. Well. There’s an “old friend” I hadn’t thought about in years.

Scarcely a friend. But speaking of old friends, have you heard from your old companion lately? The Fool?

Did he deliberately change the topic so abruptly, to try to catch me off guard? It worked. As I blocked him from my reaction, I knew that my defensive impulse told him just as much as all I tried to hide from him. The Fool. I had not heard from the Fool in years.

I found I was staring at the Fool’s last gift to me, the carving of the three of us, him, me, and my wolf Nighteyes. I lifted a hand toward it, and then pulled it back. I never again wanted to see his expression change from that half-quirked smile it wore. Let me remember him that way. We had journeyed through life together for many years, endured hardships and near-death together. More than one death, I thought to myself. My wolf had died, and my friend had parted from me without a farewell, and with never a message since. I wondered if he thought I was dead. I refused to wonder if he was dead. He couldn’t be. Often he’d told me that he was far older than I knew, and expected to live much longer than I would. He had cited that as one reason for leaving. He had warned me that he was going away before we last parted. He had believed he was freeing me of bond and obligation, setting me loose finally to pursue my own inclinations. But the unfinished parting had left a wound, and over the years the wound had become the sort of scar that ached at the change of the seasons. Where was he now? Why had he never sent as much as a missive? If he had believed me dead, why had he left a gift for me? If he had believed I would appear again, why had he never contacted me? I pulled my eyes away from the carving.

I haven’t seen him or received a message from him since I left Aslevjal. That’s been, what, fourteen years? Fifteen? Why do you ask now?

I thought as much. You will recall that I was interested in the tales of the White Prophet long before the Fool declared himself as such.

I do. I first heard the term from you. I kept my curiosity on a tight leash, refusing to ask any more questions. When Chade had first begun to show me writings about the White Prophet, I had regarded them as yet another odd religion from a faraway place. Eda and El I understood well enough. El, the sea god, was a god best left alone, merciless and demanding. Eda, the goddess of the farmlands and the pastures, was generous and maternal. But even for those Six Duchies gods, Chade had taught me small reverence, and even less for Sa, the two-faced and double-gendered god of Jamaillia. So his fascination with the legends of the White Prophet had mystified me. The scrolls foretold that to every generation was born a colorless child who would be gifted with prescience and the ability to influence the course of the world by the manipulation of events great and small. Chade had been intrigued by the idea, and with the legendary accounts of White Prophets who had prevented wars or toppled kings by triggering tiny events that cascaded into great ones. One account claimed a White Prophet had lived thirty years by a river simply so he could warn a single traveler on a certain night that the bridge would give way if he tried to cross it during a storm. The traveler, it revealed, went on to be the father of a great general who was instrumental in winning a battle in some distant country. I had believed it all charming nonsense until I met the Fool.

When he had declared himself a White Prophet, I had been skeptical, and even more so when he declared that I would be his Catalyst who would change the course of history. And yet undoubtedly we had done so. Had he not been at Buckkeep during my lifetime, I would have died. More than once, some intervention of his had preserved my life. In the Mountains, when I lay fevered and dying in the snow, he had carried me to his cottage there and nursed me back to health. He had kept me alive so that dragons might be restored to their rightful place in the world. I was still not sure that was beneficial to humanity, but there was no denying that without him, it would not have happened.

I only realized how deeply I had retreated into my memories when Chade’s thoughts jolted me back to awareness of him.

Well, we had some odd folk come through Buckkeep Town recently. About twenty days ago. I did not hear of them until after they had departed, or I would have found a way to learn more about them. The fellow who told me about them said they claimed to be traveling merchants, but the only wares they had were cheap gewgaws and very common bartering items, glass jewelry, brass bracelets, that sort of thing. Nothing of any real value, and though they claimed to have come a long way, my fellow said that it all looked to him as if it were the sort of common wares that a city merchant might take to a village fair, to be sure he had something for a lad or lass with only a half-copper to spend. No spices from a distant land or unique gemstones. Just tinker’s trash.

So your spy thought they were only pretending to be merchants. I tried not to be impatient. Chade believed in thorough reporting, for the truth could only be found in details. I knew he was right but wished he would jump to the heart of the matter and embroider it later.

He thought they were actually hoping to buy rather than to sell, or better yet to hear information for free. They were asking if anyone had encountered a friend of theirs, a very pale person. But the odd part was that there were several descriptions of the “pale friend.” Some said a young man, traveling alone. Another said she was a woman grown, pale of face and hair, traveling with a young man with red hair and freckles. Yet another was asking after two young men, one very blond and the other dark-haired but white-skinned. As if the only description they had was that they were seeking a traveler who was unnaturally pale, who might be traveling alone or with a companion.

Or they were looking for people who might be traveling in disguise. It sounds as if they were looking for a White Prophet. But why in Buckkeep?

They never used the word “White Prophet,” and they did not seem like devout pilgrims on a quest. He paused. My fellow seemed to think they were hirelings sent on a mission, or perhaps mercenary hunters, promised a reward for their prey. One of them got drunk one night, and when his fellows came to the tavern to haul him away, he cursed them. In Chalcedean.

Interesting. I did not think the White Prophecies had any followers in Chalced. In any case, the Fool has not lived in Buckkeep for decades. And when last he was there, he was more tawny than pale. He masqueraded as Lord Golden.

Well, of course! I know all that! He took my musings to be a prod to his aging memory and was irritated by it. But few others do. Even so, their questions provoked some old tales of King Shrewd’s pale jester. But the merchants were not interested in such old news. They sought news of someone who had passed through Buckkeep recently.

And so you thought perhaps the Fool had returned?

It occurred to me to wonder. And I thought that if he had, he would have sought you out first. But if you have not heard from him, well, then it’s a mystery with few clues.

Where did these merchants go?

I sensed his frustration. The report reached me late. My fellow had not realized how much it would interest me. The rumor is that they followed the River Road inland.

Toward Withy. You said twenty days ago. And there are no more tidings of them?

They seem to have vanished quite effectively.

Not merchants, then.