Fool's Quest (52 page)

“I'll get a fire going in the cabin,” he offered.

“I'll take care of the horses,” I replied.

My stiff fingers struggled with stiffer leather and buckles. The two horses moved close together, sharing the warmth of their bodies. By the time I had both made comfortable for the night, a dim light was showing through the cracks around the door frame of the cabin. I drew another bucket of water and headed for the cabin with my saddle-pack slung over my shoulder. Inside, the cabin was a humble but mostly snug retreat from the night. It had a plank floor; a stone fireplace took up one wall. Riddle had laid a fire and it was beginning to burn well. The furnishings were simple. A table and two stools. A raised platform spanned one end of the cabin and was intended as sleeping space. A shelf held two pots with bales for cooking over the fire. A candle-lantern. Two earthenware cups and two bowls. The shepherds had left a supply of firewood in the lea of the cabin. I went back to the hayrick and raided it ruthlessly to cushion the sleeping platform while Riddle heated water in one of the pots.

Riddle and I were near wordless as we moved around the cabin. We had stepped back into our old relationship and did not want or need much conversation. He made tea with the hot water. I spread the hay on the sleeping platform and then pulled a chair closer to the fire and sat. It seemed a great deal of work to bend down and work my boots off my numbed feet. Slowly, so slowly, the heat of the fire began to warm the cabin and then to penetrate to my chilled flesh. Riddle wiped dust from a mug and filled it with tea. I took it. My face felt stiff and sore. A single day of hard riding and the cold had taken this toll on me. What was my little daughter enduring? Was she still alive? No. Don't consider that thought. Perseverance had seen her carried off in a sleigh, surrounded by furs and blankets. They valued her and were taking good care of her.

And I would kill them all for doing that. That thought warmed me as the fire and hot tea could not.

I heard the thuds of horses coming at a dogged trot. I rose stiffly but Riddle was at the door of the cabin and swung it open before I could even fully stand. He lifted the candle-lantern and by its faint light I perceived Lant riding into the clearing. Perseverance was already dismounting.

“You look terrible,” Riddle greeted Lant.

Lant said nothing, but as his foot hit the ground he gave a stiff grunt of pain.

“Go inside. Get warm by the fire,” Riddle told him, taking the reins of his horse.

“I can do that, sir,” Perseverance offered, and Riddle handed the reins to him with thanks, then passed him the candle-lantern.

“Want help?” I asked from the doorstep. I was already dreading the idea of putting my boots back on.

“No. Thank you. Sir.” He was curtly furious with me. So, let him be. He led all three horses off to the shelter.

Lant came slowly into the cabin. I stepped back to make way for him. He moved stiffly, his face red and white with cold and pain. He wouldn't look at me as he came in and took my chair by the fire. Riddle offered him his cup of tea, and Lant took it without a word. “You would have been wiser to turn back,” I told him.

“Probably,” he said shortly. “But Chade's regard means a great deal to me.”

There was nothing to say to that. When Per came in, stamping the snow from his boots as he entered, Riddle surrendered the other chair to him. The crow came with him. She lifted from his shoulder and landed on the table, fluffed her feathers and then smoothed them, and kept silent. I refilled my mug with tea and when I offered it, Per took it from me, muttering his thanks to the floor.

“Water!” Motley demanded. “Food. Food, food, food!”

Riddle and I had brought food, of sorts. I'd believed I was provisioning only myself. Lant had brought nothing, probably assuming that we'd be stopping at villages or inns along the way. The boy had brought grain for the horses. “My da always said see to your horse first, as he can carry you but you can't carry him. And not to be too proud to cook up some grain for yourself if you have to. Because if it's not clean enough for you to eat, you shouldn't be feeding it to your horse.” This Per announced as he set a small sack of oats on the table after I had put out dried meat and a few withered apples.
Burrich would have liked you and your father,
I thought.

Riddle shook his head at my meager offering. From his saddlebags, he produced a loaf of dark, sweet bread, a generous chunk of cheese, a nice slab of ham, and a sack of dried plums. It would have been ample for the two of us, and was adequate for all four of us to make a meal. Motley was happy with the scraps. I made a fresh pot of tea, and as Lant and Per sat slackly before the fire, I went out for more wood and built the fire up well for the night.

They were all yawning when I returned. “Have we a plan for the morrow?” Riddle asked me wearily.

“Up early. Ride. Find Bee and Shine. Kill the men who took them. Bring the girls home.”

“That's a plan?” Lant asked incredulously.

“Based on what I know, that's the best I can do,” I told him. Riddle nodded agreement and smothered a tremendous yawn. Per was already nodding before the fire. I took the half-full mug of tea from his lax hands. “Go to bed,” I suggested to him. “Remember that tomorrow is another day.” He managed a yawn before he rose and stumbled toward the sleeping platform. He was asleep with his boots on almost as soon as he lay down.

“How's the wound, Lant?” I asked him.

“Aches,” he muttered. “Everything aches still. I was tired when I began today. Now I've got nothing left.”

“Not your fault,” I told him. “You're still healing. If Chade were himself, he'd have realized that he shouldn't send you. No reason to be ashamed. You need this rest and you should take it.”

I wondered why I was attempting to comfort him and then put my finger on it. Guilt. He felt guilty for not defending Shine when she was taken, and guiltier now that he could barely participate in a mission to rescue her. And tomorrow, I knew, he would feel even worse. I watched him as he rose from his chair. He staggered two steps sideways and then trudged to the bed. He lay down, wrapped his cloak more closely around himself, and was still.

“Fitz?” Riddle asked thickly.

“I'm sorry,” I lied as he stood. I caught him as he sagged and eased him down onto the floor. Taking him by the shoulders, I dragged him closer to the fire. I snapped his cloak out and spread it over him. He was fighting to keep his eyes open.

“Take care of Lant and the boy,” I told him. “That's the best way to help me. What I may have to do, I think I'll do best alone. Don't feel bad about this. I've always been a treacherous bastard. And you know that.”

“Fiiiizs,” he managed, and then his eyes closed. I sighed heavily.

“Oh, Fitz,” the crow said in a voice oddly like the Fool's. It felt like a rebuke.

“I do what I have to do,” I told her. “I'm not taking you with me, either.”

I put a piece of wood in the fire.

I lay down beside Riddle, my back against his, covered us both with my cloak, and closed my eyes. I did not allow myself to fall asleep. I did not have that luxury. I let myself rest for as long as it took my propped log to burn through in the fireplace.

When I heard it fall, I arose. I sprinkled seed on another piece of bread and went out to the stable. I moved softly, waking Fleeter with my thoughts as much as with my touch.

I didn't deceive her. “If you eat this, you will have the strength to carry me through the rest of the night and the day tomorrow.”

I thought she would question me. Nighteyes would have questioned me. Instead, without hesitation, she lipped the piece of bread from my hand. Her trust shamed me. I did not think it would do her any harm. Nonetheless, I did not feel comfortable with what I had done. I went back to the cabin to allow the seed to work.

I ate lightly, pressing carris seed into what was left of Riddle's cheese and toasting it on the now-stale bread. Carris seed was often used on festive cakes for a lift of energy and spirit. I was judicious with it. The effects often ended quite abruptly. I recalled well how Chade had once dropped in his tracks after depending on it too heavily. The bread, melted cheese, and tangy seeds were delicious and I felt the invigorating effects almost immediately. I felt almost lighthearted as I moved around the small cabin. The other three were sleeping heavily and probably would not wake until well past noon. I gave the crow a small cut of the bread and put water in one of the mugs for her. I checked on Perseverance before I left, slightly worried that perhaps he had consumed a heavier dose of my tea than I'd intended for him. But his breathing was strong and he even muttered as I felt the strong pulse at his throat. He'd be fine. I washed out the cup very well and packed the pot with snow, which I heated and added to it all the delvenbark that I carried. Time to disappear from the Skill-current. I hadn't told Chade that I'd retained a measure for myself. At the time, it had simply seemed a good idea. Now as I drank the bitter brew, I reflected that no one could hide my daughter from me or cloud my mind. I felt it deaden the Skill in me immediately, and felt also both the dampening of spirit and unnatural energy it bestowed. I washed the kettle with snow and put it back on the table. I packed some of the food, built up the fire for them. As I went out the door, I heard the sharp clap of wings and felt a slap of black feathers against my cheek as the crow escaped. She flew to the top of the horse's shed and kicked down some snow from the ridgepole as she landed. The moon was well risen now, but even so she was just a darker bit of blackness against the sky. I looked up at her.

“Are you sure you want to be out here? They won't wake up for some time.”

She ignored me, and I decided to do the same to her. She was a crow. She could look after herself. She'd either wait for the others to wake or fly back to Buckkeep Castle. I watered all the horses and put more hay for the other four beasts before I saddled Fleeter.

“Are you ready?” I asked her and felt her cheery response. I wondered if she could sense the energy of the carris seed coursing through me and if it affected her willingness for our mission. I could certainly sense its effect on her.

It's good to move,
she assured me.

“It's good to be doing something,” I agreed. I took my frustration and helplessness and used them as fuel for my growing anger at Bee's captors. We had a bit more of a climb and then we'd pass over through the pass called the Maiden's Waist and down into the valley beyond. There was a village on the other side of the hills and probably a cleared road. I still wasn't sure that I'd find them before the king's troops, but it would be close. “I have to be there,” I told Fleeter.

Then we shall,
she agreed. I gave her loose reins and we swiftly left the cabin behind us.

Everything changed once Ellik had Vindeliar in his control. I was not sure of the reason for this, save that he seemed to take pleasure in the distress it caused the luriks and Dwalia. The night he seized the fog boy and kept him over at his camp, we did not load the sleighs or travel at all. He told us nothing and left us waiting.

Ellik went to greet his soldiers and Vindeliar. He welcomed Vindeliar to his fire and to the meat his men had taken that day. His standing soldiers ringed them so that we could not see what went on. Lingstra Dwalia stood at the edge of our firelight and stared toward them, but did nothing to interfere. Ellik kept his voice low. We heard him speak, and then Vindeliar striving to answer him. At first Ellik sounded affable, then serious, and finally angry. Soon we could hear Vindeliar sobbing, his voice rising high on his words, but I could not make out what he told them. I did not hear anything to make me think they physically struck him. But sometimes the men would erupt into a roar of laughter at something. Dwalia's fists kneaded her skirts, but she did not speak to any of us. Two of Ellik's men stood near our fire, watching her. Once, when she took two steps toward them, one drew his blade. He smiled as he did it, inviting her to come closer. She stopped and when she turned back to our campfire, they both laughed.

It was a very long night. When morning came, perhaps she thought they might give Vindeliar back to us. They did not. Half of the soldiers went to their bedrolls, but the others put more wood on their fire and kept watch on the fog man. When it was clear that Ellik had gone to sleep, she turned to us. “Go to bed,” she ordered us angrily. “Tonight we will travel again, and you should be rested.”

But few of us slept. Before the winter sun reached noon, we were awake and moving nervously about our campsite. Ellik arose, and we saw the guard around Vindeliar change, as did the two men watching our campsite. The pale Servants tried not to stare at them. No one wished to invite their scrutiny. With straining ears and sidelong glances, we tried to hear Ellik's orders for his men. “Hold them here,” I heard Ellik say as he mounted his horse. “When I return, I expect to find all exactly as I left it.” Dwalia's anxiety soared when Ellik ordered an additional horse saddled for Vindeliar. We watched in dread as Ellik rode away, trailed by four of his men surrounding Vindeliar. They rode toward the town in broad daylight.

I think that was the most frightening day, for Ellik was away and his soldiers were left watching us. And oh, how well they watched us. With sidelong glances and smirks, with pointing fingers that dismissed some of the luriks and hands that sketched the measure of breasts or buttocks of another, they watched us. They did not speak to us, or touch any of us with their hands, which somehow made the strokes of their eyes and their muttered words all the more threatening.

But his men kept Ellik's discipline. He had ordered them to leave us alone, “for now,” and they did. Still, the dreadful suspense of knowing that at any time he might rescind or change that order hovered over all of us. All that afternoon the luriks went about their tasks with grave faces, eyes darting constantly to see what the soldiers were doing in their adjacent camp. Twice I heard whispered conversations. “This was never seen, never foretold! How can it be?” They scrabbled through remembered writings, citing quotes to one another, trying to interpret them in new ways that would allow them to believe that what was happening had somehow been foreseen or foretold. Dwalia, it seemed to me, broke those conversations as often as she could, ordering Servants off to melt snow for water or bring still more firewood. They obeyed her, going off in twos and threes, for safety and, I think, so they might continue their whispering.

While Dwalia tried to keep our camp bustling, Ellik's men remained idle and staring, commenting on particular women as if they were horses being auctioned. The males in our party were scarcely less nervous, wondering if Dwalia would order them to defend us. None of them was a hardened fighter. They were all the kind of folk I thought of as scribes: full of knowledge and ideas, but slight as willow saplings and bloodless as fish. They could hunt well enough to keep food on the spit, and Dwalia ordered them off to do so. My blood ran cold when I saw several of the soldiers rise and slouch after them, grinning maliciously and laughing low together.

We waited around our fire, cold in a way that the flames could not warn. Eventually, our hunters came back with two thin winter rabbits and drawn faces. They had not been assaulted, but the soldiers had followed them, speaking about what they might do to them in whispers just loud enough to reach their ears. Thrice they had scared off game just as the hunters let their arrows fly.

I waited as long as I could, but eventually I had to relieve myself. I went to Shun, who was very annoyed but in just as desperate a circumstance. We went together, looking over our shoulders, until we found a slightly more private spot. I still pantomimed pissing standing up before joining her and crouching in the snow. I was getting better at it. I no longer peed on the backs of my boots. We had both finished and were refastening our clothing when a shadow moved. Shun sucked in her breath to scream.

“Don't,” he said softly, more a plea than a command. He came a step closer and I could make out in the gathering dusk that he was the young soldier who had been making cow eyes at Shun since we had left Withywoods. He spoke quickly, softly. “I just wanted to tell you, I'll protect you. I'll die before I let anyone hurt you. Or her.”

“Thank you,” I said as softly, preferring to believe he spoke to me rather than Shun.

I could not read his eyes in the dimness but I saw a smile twitch his mouth. “Nor will I betray your secret,” he said, and then he stepped back into the shadow of the evergreens. We stayed where we were for some time, before we both cautiously approached that grove of trees. No one was there.

“He's spoken to me before,” Shun admitted. I looked at her wide-eyed. “Several of the soldiers have spoken to me. Just as they whisper vile things to the pale people when they take them food or gather their dishes.” She stared off into the darkness where he might have gone. “He is the only one who has said anything kind.”

“Do you believe him? What he said?”

She looked at me. “That he will protect us? One against so many? He can't. But knowing that he thinks he might have to protect us from his fellows tells me that he knows something bad is coming.”

“We all knew that,” I said quietly. We walked back to the camp. I wanted to take her hand, to hold on to someone, but I knew she wouldn't welcome it.

Dusk was falling when Ellik and his men returned. Dwalia gave a wild gasp of relief when she saw that Vindeliar was with them and appeared intact. The saddle-packs on all the horses were bulging, and Ellik's companions were laughing and shouting to their fellows before they reached the fire. “We've plundered a town in daylight, and not a soul the wiser!” one called, and that brought the men around the fires scrambling to see what they had.

From their packs they took bottles of wine and rich foods, hams and loaves of bread studded with currants and swirled with spices, smoked fish and winter apples. “In broad daylight!” I heard one man say, and another, as he swirled a homespun dress in the air, “Took it right off her and she stood like a cow waiting to be milked! Had a feel or two, but no time for anything more! And when we walked away, her husband took her arm and they walked off through the town without a backward glance!”

Dwalia's jaw dropped open in horror. I thought it was at what the man had said but then I followed her gaze. Vindeliar still sat his horse beside a grinning Ellik. The fog man wore an uncertain half-smile, a necklace of pearls, and a fur hat. A brightly figured scarf swathed his neck, and his hands were gloved in red leather with tassels. As we watched, one of the men who had ridden with him slapped him on the thigh and told him, “This is just the beginning!” Vindeliar's smile broadened and became more certain.

That broke Dwalia's resolve, I think. “Vindeliar! Remember the path! Do not stray from what has been seen!” she shouted at him.

Ellik wheeled his horse and rode it right up to her, pushing her back until she stumbled and nearly fell into the fire.

“He's mine now! Don't speak to him!”

But the smile had faded from Vindeliar's plump face and he watched in dismay as Ellik leaned down to backhand Dwalia. She did not move but accepted the blow. Courage, or did she fear worse if she avoided it?

Ellik stared down at her for a moment until she lowered her eyes. Then he rode back to his own fire, announcing, “Tonight we feast! And tomorrow, another test of our fine friend's abilities!”

Some of the Servants were staring hungrily and longingly at the soldiers' camp. As Ellik dismounted, his men offered him the best of the loot. For a time, a stricken Vindeliar looked toward our camp like a dog that longs to return to its familiar kennel. Then Ellik's men surrounded him, handing him an opened bottle of wine and a sweet cake. A moment later he was down and one of his riding companions had thrown a familiar arm across his shoulders and drawn him into the thick of their comradeship. I recalled a dream I had had, of a beggar sucked down and drowned in a whirlpool of jewels and food.

Cold rose in me. None of them had foreseen this. But I had. Only me.

I didn't understand how that could be and suddenly I knew that I had to understand. There was great danger in me not understanding these dreams. I was the only one who could seize the tiller and steer the boat, but I did not know how.

Hush,
Wolf-Father bade me sternly.
Say nothing. Not to these people.

I have to know.

You don't. You don't have to be that. Take a breath. Breathe now, smell the scents of now. Be alert to the danger that is now. Or you will never have to fear tomorrow's danger.
There was sad finality in his warning, as if he knew too well the meaning of it. I tamped down my questions and opened myself to all that was happening around us.

“At least they did no worse than take her clothing,” Odessa said quietly.

Dwalia, sitting dispiritedly by our fire, guessed the reason for that. “Until they know the limits of Vindeliar's power, they will not risk putting themselves in a position in which the whole town might suddenly turn on them. But while they are playing childish pranks on merchants, we sit here exposed to any who might decide to wander through this stretch of woods. We can be seen now. Anything might befall us.”

Odessa's brow wrinkled. “Anything?” she asked, as if the concept puzzled her.

Dwalia looked ill. “Anything. We are so far from the path, I do not know how to recover our way. I do not know if we should act or hope that the path reclaims us. Anything we do may take us farther from our correct choices.”

Odessa nodded almost eagerly. “So we were taught in the school. ‘Trust the way of the White Prophet. Avoid extreme actions. Only the Prophet through her Catalyst may steer the future best.' But when we are so far from the path, is it still true?”

“So we must believe,” Dwalia replied, but she sounded uncertain to me. Her luriks had ventured closer as she spoke. They huddled around her like a flock of sheep clustering close to their shepherd. A remembrance of a dark dream came to me. I clenched my teeth, feeling I held back vomit rather than sounds as the words of the dream echoed in my head.
The sheep are scattered, given to the wind's teeth while the shepherd flees with the wolf's cub.

I heard a raised voice from the other campfire. “Why? Why not? For a celebration! For those of us who stayed here and waited while you tested the boy in town.”

“They are mine,” Ellik replied, but his stern words were laced with tolerant amusement. “When they are changed to coins, then be sure you will be given your rightful share. Have I ever cheated you of your rightful due?”

“No, but …”

I craned my neck. It was the handsome rapist speaking. By the firelight, his nose and cheeks were red with more than cold. They had been drinking the stolen wine. I caught a glimpse of Vindeliar. He was sitting flat in the snow, a foolish smile on his face.

“It's all his fault,” Dwalia said in a poisonously bitter voice. I thought she was speaking of Ellik but she was staring sightlessly into the darkened forest. “He did this to us. He could not be content with the role he was given. He was treated well. He had no reason to run off, to choose a Catalyst of his own, to destroy the path with his willfulness. I feel his influence in this. How that can be, I do not know. But I am certain it is so, and I curse his name.”

“So spare us two or even one!” Hogen suggested boldly. “One will not make that big a hole in your purse, Commander!”

I thought that Ellik would be furious at the demand, but perhaps he had been made more mellow by drink and by his enjoyment of his prize that day. “Commander? No. Duke. Duke I will be again, with this boy on my leash. Name me so from now on!”

At that proclamation, some of his men cheered.

Did Hogen judge him mellowed with wine and success? He flourished an elaborate bow to Ellik and said in a mockingly elegant voice, “Duke Ellik, your excellency, we your most loyal subjects beg a boon of you. Will not you spare us one of yon womanflesh for us to enjoy on this cold night?”