The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus (16 page)

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 to me and I echoed them. ‘Time for a change.’

A changing time
, the wolf echoed me in return. And yet that was not quite what I had said, but it felt truer. I stretched, rolling my shoulders, and letting the little wind blow away my headache. I looked at my hands held out before me, and then stared at them. They were a farmer’s hands, tough and callused, stained dark with earth and weather. I scratched at my bristly face; I had not taken the care to shave in days. My clothes were clean and serviceable, yet like my hands they were stained with the marks of my daily work, and patched besides. All that had
seemed comfortable and set a moment before suddenly seemed a disguise, a costume donned to protect me through my quiet years of rest. I suddenly longed to break out of my life and become, not Fitz as I had been, but Fitz as he might have been, had I not died to the world. A strange shiver ran over me. I was reminded, suddenly, of a summer morning in my childhood when I had watched a butterfly twitch and tear its way out of its chrysalis. Had it felt so, as if the stillness and translucency that had wrapped and protected it had abruptly become too confining to bear?

I took a deep breath and held it, then sighed it out. I expected my sudden discontent to disperse with it, and most of it did. But not all. A changing time, the wolf had said. ‘So. What are we changing into, then?’

You? I don’t know. I know only that you change, and sometimes it frightens me. As for me, the change is simpler. I grow old.

I glanced over at the wolf. ‘So do I,’ I pointed out.

No. You do not. You are ageing, but you are not getting old as I am getting old. This is true and we both know it.

There seemed little point in denying it. ‘So?’ I challenged him, bravado masking my sudden uneasiness.

So we approach a time of decision. And it should be something we decide, not something that we let happen to us. I think you should tell the Fool about our time among the Old Blood. Not because he will or can decide for us, but because we both think better when we share thoughts with him.

This was a carefully-structured thought from the wolf, an almost too-human reasoning from the part of me that ran on four legs. I went down on one knee suddenly beside him and flung my arms around his neck. Frightened for no reason I dared name, I hugged him tight, as if I could pull him inside my chest and hold him there forever. He tolerated it for a moment, then flung his head down and bucked clear of me. He leapt away from me, then stopped. He shook himself all over to settle his rumpled coat, then stared out over the sea as if surveying
new hunting terrain. I drew a breath and spoke. ‘I’ll tell him. Tonight.’

He gave me a glance over his shoulder, nose held low and ears forwards. His eyes were alight. A flash of his old mischief danced there.
I know you will, little brother. Don’t fear
.

Then, in a leap of grace that belied his dog’s years, he whipped away from me and became a grey streak that vanished suddenly amongst the scrubby brush and tussocky grasses of the gentle hillside. My eyes could not find him, so clever was he, but my heart went with him as it always did. My heart, I told myself, would always be able to find him, would always find a place where we still touched and merged. I sent the thought after him, but he made no reply to it.

I returned to the cottage. I gathered the day’s eggs from the chickenhouse and took them in. The Fool coddled eggs in the coals on the hearth while I brewed tea. We carried our food outside into the blue morning, and the Fool and I broke our fasts sitting on the porch. The wind off the water didn’t reach my little vale. The leaves of the trees hung motionless. Only the chickens clucked and scratched in the dusty yard. I had not realized how prolonged my silence had been until the Fool broke it. ‘It’s pleasant here,’ he observed, waving his spoon at the surrounding trees. ‘The stream, the forest, the beach cliffs nearby. I can see why you prefer it to Buckkeep.’

He had always possessed a knack for turning my thoughts upside down. ‘I’m not sure that I prefer it,’ I replied slowly. ‘I never thought of comparing the two and then choosing where I would live. The first time I spent a winter here, it was because a bad storm caught us, and in seeking shelter under the trees, we found an old cart track. It led us to an abandoned cottage – this one – and we came inside.’ I shrugged a shoulder. ‘We’ve been here ever since.’

He cocked his head at me. ‘So, with all the wide world to choose from, you didn’t choose at all. You simply stopped wandering one day.’

‘I suppose so.’ I nearly halted the next words that came to my lips, for they seemed to have no bearing on the topic. ‘Forge is just down the road from here.’

‘And it drew you here?’

‘I don’t think so. I did go back to it, to look at the ruins and recall it. No one lives there now. Usually, a place like that, folk would have scavenged the ruins. Not Forge.’

‘Too many evil memories associated with that place,’ the Fool confirmed. ‘Forge was just the beginning, but folk remember it the best, and gave its name to the scourge that followed. I wonder how many folk were Forged, all told?’

I shifted uneasily, then rose to take the Fool’s empty dish. Even now, I did not like to recall those days. The Red Ships had raided our shores for years, stealing our wealth. It was only when they began to steal the humanity of our people that we had risen in full wrath against them. They had begun that evil at Forge, kidnapping village folk and returning them to their kin as soulless monsters. Once, it had been my task to track down and kill Forged ones; one of many quiet, nasty tasks for the King’s assassin. But that was years ago, I told myself. That Fitz no longer existed. ‘It was a long time ago,’ I reminded the Fool. ‘It’s over and done with now.’

‘So some say. Others disagree. Some still cling to their hatred of the Outislanders and say that even the dragons we sent them were too merciful. Others, of course, say we should put that war behind us, as Six Duchies and Outislanders have always moved from war to trade. On my way here, there was tavern talk that Queen Kettricken seeks to buy both peace and a trade alliance with the Outislanders. I’ve heard it said she will marry Prince Dutiful off to an Out Islands narcheska, to cement the treaty bond she has proposed.’

‘Narcheska?’

He lifted his eyebrows. ‘A sort of princess, I assume. At the very least, a daughter of some powerful noble.’

‘Well. So.’ I tried not to show how this news unsettled
me. ‘It will not be the first time that diplomacy was secured in such a way. Consider how Kettricken came to be Verity’s wife. To confirm our alliance with the Mountain Kingdom was the intent of that marriage. Yet it worked out to be far more than that.’

‘It did indeed,’ the Fool replied agreeably, but his neutral words left me pondering.

I took our bowls inside and washed them out. I wondered how Dutiful felt about being used as barter to secure a treaty, then pushed the thought from my mind. Kettricken would have raised him in the Mountain way, to believe that the ruler was always the servant of the people. Dutiful would be, well, dutiful, I told myself. No doubt he would accept it without question, just as Kettricken had accepted her arranged marriage to Verity. I noted that the water barrel was nearly empty already. The Fool had always been ardent in his washing and scrubbing, using three times as much water as any other man I knew. I picked up the buckets and went back outside. ‘I’m going to fetch more water.’

He hopped nimbly to his feet. ‘I’ll come along.’

So he followed me down the dapple-shaded path to the stream, and to the place I had dug out and lined with stone so that I could fill my buckets more easily. He took the opportunity to splash his hands clean, and to drink deeply of the cold, sweet water. When he straightened up, he looked around suddenly. ‘Where is Nighteyes?’

I stood up with the buckets, their weight balancing one another. ‘Oh, he likes to go off on his own sometimes. He –’

Then pain lanced through me. I dropped my brimming buckets, and clutched at my throat for an instant before I realized the discomfort was not my own. The Fool’s gaze met mine, his golden skin gone sallow. I think he felt a shadow of my fear. I reached for Nighteyes, found him, and set off at a run.

I followed no path through the forest, and the underbrush
caught at me, seeking to bar my headlong flight. I crashed through it, heedless of my clothes and skin. The wolf could not breathe; his tortured gasping taunted my body’s frantic gulping of air. I struggled to keep his panic from becoming my own. I drew my knife as I ran, ready for whatever enemy had attacked him. But when I burst from the trees into the clearing near the beaver pond, I saw him writhing alone by the shore. With one paw, he was clawing at his mouth; his jaws were stretched wide. Half of a large fish lay on the pebbled shore beside him. He backed jerkily in circles, shaking his head from side to side, trying to dislodge what choked him.

I threw myself to my knees beside him. ‘Don’t fight me!’ I begged him, but I do not think he could heed me. Red panic drenched his thoughts. I tried to put an arm around him to steady him, but he flung himself clear of me. He shook his head wildly, but could not clear his throat. I launched myself at him, throwing him to the ground. I landed on his ribs, and inadvertently saved his life. The press of my body on his chest pushed the fish clogging his throat up into his mouth. Heedless of his teeth, I reached into his mouth and clawed it free. I flung it from us. I felt him gasp in a breath. I lifted my body off his. He staggered to his feet. I felt I did not have the strength to stand.

‘Choking on fish!’ I exclaimed shakily. ‘I might have known! Teach you to be so greedy in your gulping.’

I took a deep breath of my own, relieved beyond words. However, my relief was short-lived. The wolf stood, took two staggering steps, then collapsed brokenly to the ground. He was no longer choking, but pain blossomed heavily inside him.

‘What is it? What’s wrong with him?’ the Fool demanded behind me. I had not even been aware that he had followed me. I had no time for him now. I scrabbled over to my companion. Fearfully I set a hand to him, and felt that touch amplify our bond. Pain squeezed him, deep in his chest. It hurt so that he could scarcely breathe. His heart thundered unevenly in his
ears. His parted eyelids revealed only the roll of his eyes. His tongue sprawled limply from his mouth.

‘Nighteyes! My brother!’ I shouted the words, but I knew he scarcely heard them. I reached after him, willing my strength to him, and felt an unbelievable thing. He evaded me. He drew back from my reaching, refusing, as much as his weakness allowed him, that link we had shared so long. As he concealed his thoughts, I felt him slipping away from me into a greyness I could not penetrate.

It was intolerable.

‘No!’ I howled, and flung my awareness after his. When I could not make that grey barrier yield to my Wit, I Skilled into it, heedlessly and instinctively using every magic I possessed to reach him. And reach the wolf I did. I was suddenly with him, my consciousness meshed with his in a way I had never known before. His body was my own.

Long years ago, when Regal had killed me, I had fled the battered husk of my own flesh and taken shelter within Nighteyes. I shared residence with the wolf in his body, perceiving his thoughts, seeing the world through his eyes. I had ridden with him, a passenger in his life. Eventually, Burrich and Chade had called us both back to my graveside, and restored me to my own cold flesh.