Fool’s Errand

After breakfast, he said he must be on his way and I did not try to dissuade him. I promised him he should have the game scroll when it was finished. I gave him several vellums I had written on dosages for sedative teas, and some roots for starts of the few herbs in my garden that he did not already know. I gave him several vials of different coloured ink. The closest he came to trying to change my mind was when he observed that there was a better market for such things in Buckkeep. I only nodded, and said I might send Hap there sometimes. Then I saddled and bridled the fine mare and brought her around for him. He hugged me goodbye, mounted, and left. I watched as he rode down the path. Beside me, Nighteyes slipped his head under my hand.

You regret this?

I regret many things. But I know that if I went with him and did as he wishes, I would eventually regret that much more. Yet I could not move from where I stood, staring after him. It wasn’t too late, I tempted myself. One shout, and he’d turn about and come back. I clenched my jaws.

Nighteyes flipped my hand with his nose. Come on. Let’s go hunting. No boy, no bows. Just you and I.

‘Sounds good,’ I heard myself say. And we did, and we even caught a fine spring rabbit. It felt good to stretch my muscles and prove that I could still do it. I decided I was not an old man, not yet, and that I, as much as Hap, needed to get out and do some new things. Learn something new. That had always been Patience’s cure for boredom. That evening as I looked about my cottage, it seemed suffocating rather than snug. What had been familiar and cosy a few nights ago now seemed threadbare and dull. I knew it was just the contrast between Chade’s stories of Buckkeep and my own staid life. But restlessness, once awakened, is a powerful thing.

I tried to think when I had last slept anywhere other than my own bed. Mine was a settled life. At harvest time each year, I took to the road for a month, hiring out to work the hay fields or the grain harvest or as an apple picker. The extra coins were welcome. I had used to go into Howsbay twice a year, to trade my inks and dyes for fabric for clothing and pots and things of that ilk. The last two years, I had sent the boy on his fat old pony. My life had settled into routine so deeply that I had not even noticed it.

So. What do you want to do? Nighteyes stretched and then yawned in resignation.

I don’t know, I admitted to the old wolf. Something different. How would you feel about wandering the world for a bit?

For a time, he retreated into that part of his mind that was his alone. Then he asked, somewhat testily, Would we both be afoot, or do you expect me to keep pace with a horse all day?

That’s a fair question. If we both went afoot?

If you must, he conceded grudgingly. You’re thinking about that place, back in the Mountains, aren’t you?

The ancient city? Yes.

He did not oppose me. Will we be taking the boy?

I think we’ll leave Hap here to do for himself for a bit. It might be good for him. And someone has to look after the chickens.

So I suppose we won’t be leaving until the boy comes back?

I nodded to that. I wondered if I had taken complete leave of my senses.

I wondered if we would ever come back at all.

TWO

Starling

Starling Birdsong, minstrel to Queen Kettricken, has inspired as many songs as she has written. Legendary as Queen Kettricken’s companion on her quest for Elderling aid during the Red Ship war, she extended her service to the Farseer throne for decades during the rebuilding of the Six Duchies. Gifted with the knack of being at home in any company, she was indispensable to the Queen in the unsettled years that followed the Cleansing of Buck. The minstrel was trusted not only with treaties and settlements between nobles, but with offers of amnesty to robber bands and smuggler families. She herself made songs of many of these missions, but one can be sure that she had other endeavours, carried out in secret for the Farseer reign, and far too sensitive ever to become the subject of verse.

Starling kept Hap with her for a full two months. My amusement at his extended absence changed first to irritation and then annoyance. The annoyance was mostly with myself. I had not realized how much I had come to depend on the boy’s strong back until I had to bend mine to the tasks I’d delegated to him. But it was not just the boy’s ordinary chores that I undertook during that extra month of his absence. Chade’s visit had awakened something in me. I had no name for it, but it seemed a demon that gnawed at me, showing me every shabby aspect of my small holding. The peace of my isolated home now seemed idle complacency. Had it truly been a year since I had shoved a rock under the sagging porch step and promised myself I’d mend it later? No, it had been closer to a year and a half.

I put the porch to rights, and then not only shovelled out the chicken house but washed it down with lye-water before gathering fresh reeds to floor it. I fixed the leaking roof on my work shed, and finally cut the hole and put in the greased skin window I’d been promising myself for two years. I gave the cottage a more thorough spring-cleaning than it had had in years. I cut down the cracked ash-limb, dropping it neatly through the roof of the freshly cleaned chicken house. I re-roofed the chicken house. I was just finishing that task when Nighteyes told me he heard horses. I clambered down, picked up my shirt and walked around to the front of the cottage to greet Starling and Hap as they came up the trail.

I do not know if it was our time apart, or my newly-seeded restlessness, but I suddenly saw Hap and Starling as if they were strangers. It was not just the new garb Hap wore, although that accentuated his long legs and broadening shoulders. He looked comical upon the fat old pony, a fact I am sure he appreciated. The pony was as ill suited to the growing youth as the child’s bed in my cottage and my sedate life style. I suddenly perceived that I could not rightfully ask him to stay home and watch the chickens while I went adventuring. In fact, if I did not soon send him out to seek his own fortune, the mild discontent I saw in his mismatched eyes at his homecoming would soon become bitter disappointment in his life. Hap had been a good companion for me; the foundling I had taken in had, perhaps, rescued me as much as I had rescued him. It would be better for me to send this young man out into the world while we both still liked one another rather than wait until I was a burdensome duty to his young shoulders.

Not just Hap had changed in my eyes. Starling was vibrant as ever, grinning as she flung a leg over her horse and slid down from him. Yet as she came towards me with her arms flung wide to hug me, I realized how little I knew of her present life. I looked down into her merry dark eyes and noted for the first time the crowsfeet beginning at the corners. Her garb had become richer over the years, the quality of her mounts better, and her jewellery more costly. Today her thick dark hair was secured with a clasp of heavy silver. Clearly, she prospered. Three or four times a year, she would descend on me, to stay a few days and overturn my calm life with her stories and songs. For the days she was there, she would insist on spicing the food to her taste, she would scatter an overlay of her possessions upon my table and desk and floor, and my bed would no longer be a place to seek when I was exhausted. The days that immediately followed her departure would remind me of a country road with dust hanging heavy in the air in the wake of a puppeteer’s caravan. I would have the same sense of choked breath and hazed vision until I once more settled into my humdrum routine.

I hugged her back, hard, smelling both dust and perfume in her hair. She stepped away from me, looked up into my face and immediately demanded, ‘What’s wrong? Something’s different.’

I smiled ruefully. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I promised, and we both knew that it would be one of our late night conversations.

‘Go wash,’ she agreed. ‘You smell like my horse.’ She gave me a slight push, and I stepped clear of her to greet Hap.

‘So, lad, how was it? Did a Buckkeep Springfest live up to Starling’s tales?’

‘It was good,’ he said neutrally. He gave me one full look, and his mismatched eyes, one brown, one blue, were full of torment.

‘Hap?’ I began concernedly, but he shrugged away from me before I could touch his shoulder.

He walked away from me, but perhaps he regretted his surly greeting, for a moment later he croaked, ‘I’m going to the stream to wash. I’m covered in road dust.’

Go with him. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but he needs a friend.

Preferably one that can’t ask questions, Nighteyes agreed. Head low, tail straight out, he followed the boy. In his own way, he was as fond of Hap as I was, and had had as much to do with his raising.

When they were almost out of eyeshot, I turned back to Starling. ‘Do you know what that was about?’

She shrugged, a twisted smile on her lips. ‘He’s fifteen. Does a sullen mood have to be about anything at that age? Don’t bother yourself over it. It could be anything: a girl at Springfest that didn’t kiss him, or one that did. Leaving Buckkeep or coming home. A bad sausage for breakfast. Leave him alone. He’ll be fine.’

I looked after him as he and the wolf vanished into the trees. ‘Perhaps I remember being fifteen a bit differently from you,’ I commented.

I saw to her horse and Clover the pony while Starling went into the cottage, reflecting as I did so that no matter what my mood, Burrich would have ordered me to see to my horse before I wandered off. Well, I was not Burrich, I thought to myself. I wondered if he held the same line of discipline with Nettle and Chivalry and Nim as he had with me, and then wished I had asked Chade the rest of his children’s names. By the time the horses were comfortable, I was wishing that Chade had not come. His visit had stirred too many old memories to the surface. Resolutely, I pushed them away. Bones fifteen years old, the wolf would have told me. I touched minds with him briefly. Hap had splashed some water on his face, and strode off into the woods, muttering and walking so carelessly that there was no chance they’d see any game. I sighed for them both, and went into the cottage.

Inside, Starling had dumped the contents of her saddlebags on the table. Her discarded boots were lying across the doorsill; her cloak festooned a chair. The kettle was just starting to boil. She stood on a stool before my cupboard. As I came in, she held out a small brown crock to me. ‘Is this tea any good still? It smells odd.’

‘It’s excellent, when I’m in enough pain to choke it down. Come down from there.’ I set my hands to her waist and lifted her easily, though the old scar on my back gave a twinge as I set her on the floor. ‘Sit. I’ll make the tea. Tell me about Springfest.’

So she did, while I clattered out my few cups, cut slices from my last loaf, and put the rabbit stew to warm. Her tales of Buckkeep were the kind I had become accustomed to hearing from her: she spoke of minstrels who had performed well or badly, gossiped of lords and ladies I had never known, and condemned or praised food from various nobles’ tables where she had guested. She told each tale wittily, making me laugh or shake my head as it called for, with nary a pang of the pain that Chade had wakened in me. I supposed it was because he had spoken of the folk we had both known and loved, and told his stories from that intimate perspective. It was not Buckkeep itself or city life that I pined for, but for my childhood days and the friends I had known. In that I was safe; it was impossible to return to that time. Only a few of those folk even knew that I still lived, and that was as I wished it to be. I said as much to Starling: ‘Sometimes your tales tug at my heart and make me wish I could return to Buckkeep. But that is a world closed to me now.’

She frowned at me. ‘I don’t see why.’

I laughed aloud. ‘You don’t think anyone would be surprised to see me alive?’

She cocked her head and stared at me frankly. ‘I think there would be few, even of your old friends, who would recognize you. Most recall you as an unscarred youth. The broken nose, the slash down your face, even the white in your hair might alone be disguise enough. Then, you dressed as a prince’s son; now you wear the garb of a peasant. Then, you moved with a warrior’s grace. Now, well, in the mornings or on a cold day, you move with an old man’s caution.’ She shook her head with regret as she added, ‘You have taken no care for your appearance, nor have the years been kind to you. You could add five or even ten years to your age, and no one would question it.’

This blunt appraisal from my lover stung. ‘Well, that’s good to know,’ I replied wryly. I took the kettle from the fire, not wanting to meet her eyes just then.

She mistook my words and tone. ‘Yes. And when you add in that people see what they expect to see, and they do not expect to see you alive … I think you could venture it. Are you considering a return to Buckkeep, then?’

‘No.’ I heard the shortness of the word, but could think of nothing to add to it. It did not seem to bother her.

‘A pity. You miss so much, living alone like this.’ She launched immediately into an account of the Springfest dancing. Despite my soured mood, I had to smile at her account of Chade beseeched to dance by a young admirer of sixteen summers. She was right. I would have loved to have been there.

As I prepared food for all of us, I found my mind straying to the old torment of ‘what if’. What if I had been able to return to Buckkeep with my queen and Starling? What if I had come home to Molly and our child? And always, no matter how I twisted the pretence, it ended in disaster. If I had returned to Buckkeep, alive when all believed me executed for practising the Wit, I would have brought only division at a time when Kettricken was trying to reunify the land. There would have been a faction who would have favoured me over her, for bastard though I was, I was a Farseer by blood when she reigned only by virtue of marriage. A stronger faction would have been in favour of executing me again, and more thoroughly.

And if I had gone back to Molly and the child, returned to carry her off to be mine? I suppose I could have, if I had no care for anyone but myself. She and Burrich had both given me up for dead. The woman who had been my wife in all but name, and the man who had raised me and been my friend had turned to one another. He had kept a roof over Molly’s head, and seen that she was fed and warm while my child grew within her. With his own hands, he had delivered my bastard. Together they had kept Nettle from Regal’s men. Burrich had claimed both woman and child as his own, not only to protect them, but to love them. I could have gone back to them, to make them both faithless in their own eyes. I could have made their bond a shameful thing. Burrich would have left Molly and Nettle to me. His harsh sense of honour would not have allowed him to do otherwise. And ever after, I could have wondered if she compared me to him, if the love they had shared was stronger and more honest than …

‘You’re burning the stew,’ Starling pointed out in annoyance.

I was. I served us from the top of the pot, and joined her at the table. I pushed all pasts, both real and imagined, aside. I did not need to think of them. I had Starling to busy my mind. As was customary, I was the listener and she was the teller of tales. She began a long account of some upstart minstrel at Springfest who had not only dared to sing one of her songs, with only a verse or two changed, but then had claimed ownership of it. She gestured with her bread as she spoke, and almost managed to catch me up in the story. But my own memories of other Springfests kept intruding. Had I lost all content in the simple life I had created for myself? The boy and the wolf had been enough for me for many years. What ailed me now?

I went from that to yet another discordant thought. Where was Hap? I had brewed tea for the three of us, and portioned out food for three as well. Hap was always ravenous after any sort of a task or journey. It was distracting that he could not get past his bad mood to come and join us. As Starling spoke on, I found my eyes straying repeatedly to his untouched bowl of stew. She caught me at it.

‘Don’t fret about him,’ she told me almost testily. ‘He’s a boy, with a boy’s sulky ways. When he’s hungry enough, he’ll come in.’

Or he’ll ruin perfectly good fish by burning it over a fire. The wolf’s thought came in response to my Wit questing towards him. They were down by the creek. Hap had made a temporary spear out of a stick, and the wolf had simply plunged into the water to hunt along the undercut banks. When the fish ran thick, it was not difficult for him to corner one there, to plunge his head under the water and seize it in his jaws. The cold water made his joints ache, but the boy’s fire would soon warm him. They were fine. Don’t worry.

Useless advice, but I pretended to take it. We finished eating, and I cleared the dishes away. While I tidied, Starling sat on the hearth by the evening fire, picking at her harp until the random notes turned into the old song about the miller’s daughter. When everything was put to rights, I joined her there with a cup of Sandsedge brandy for each of us. I sat in a chair, but she sat near the fire on the floor. She leaned back against my legs as she played. I watched her hands on the strings, marking the crookedness where once her fingers had been broken, as a warning to me. At the end of her song, I leaned down and kissed her. She kissed me back, setting the harp aside and making a more thorough job of it.

She stood then and took my hands to pull me to my feet. As I followed her into my bedroom, she observed, ‘You’re pensive tonight.’

I made some small sound of agreement. Sharing that she had bruised my feelings earlier would have seemed snivelling and childish. Did I want her to lie to me, to tell me that I was still young and comely when obviously I was not? Time had had its way with me. That was all, and to be expected. Even so, Starling kept coming back to me. Through all the years, she’d kept returning to me and into my bed. That had to count for something. ‘You were going to tell me about something?’ she prompted.

‘Later,’ I told her. The past clutched at me, but I put its greedy fingers aside, determined to immerse myself in the present. This life was not so bad. It was simple and uncluttered, without conflict. Wasn’t this the life I had always dreamed of? A life in which I made my decisions for myself? And I was not alone, really. I had Nighteyes and Hap, and Starling, when she came to me. I opened her vest and then her blouse to bare her breasts while she unbuttoned my shirt. She embraced me, rubbing against me with the unabashed pleasure of a purring cat. I clasped her to me and lowered my face to kiss the top of her head. This, too, was simple and all the sweeter that it was. My freshly-stuffed mattress was deep and fragrant as the meadow grass and herbs that filled it. We tumbled onto it. For a time, I stopped thinking at all, as I tried to persuade both of us that despite appearances I was a young man still.

A while later, I lingered in the hinterlands of sleep. Sometimes I think there is more rest in that place between wakefulness and sleep than there is in true sleep. The mind walks in the twilight of both states, and finds the truths that are hidden alike by daylight and dreams. Things we are not ready to know abide in that place, awaiting that unguarded frame of mind.

I came awake. My eyes were open, studying the details of my darkened room before I realized that sleep had fled. Starling’s wide-flung arm was across my chest. In her sleep, she had kicked the blanket away from both of us. Night hid her careless nakedness, cloaking her in shadows. I lay still, hearing her breathe and smelling her sweat mixed with her perfume, and wondered what had wakened me. I could not put my finger on it, yet neither could I close my eyes again. I slid out from under her arm and stood up beside my bed. In the darkness I groped for my discarded shirt and leggings.

The coals of the hearth fire gave hesitant light to the main room, but I did not linger there. I opened the door and stepped barefoot into the mild spring night. I stood still for a moment, letting my eyes adjust, and then made my way away from the cottage and garden and down to the stream bank. The path was cool hard mud underfoot, well packed by my daily trips to fetch water. The trees met overhead, and there was no moon, but my feet and my nose knew the way as well as my eyes did. All I had to do was follow my Wit to my wolf. Soon I picked out the orange glow of Hap’s dwindled fire, and the lingering scent of cooked fish.

They slept by the fire, the wolf curled nose to tail and Hap wrapped around him, his arm around Nighteyes’ neck. Nighteyes opened his eyes as I approached, but did not stir. I told you not to worry.

I’m not worried. I’m just here. Hap had left some sticks of wood near the fire. I added them to the coals. I sat and watched the fire lick along them. Light came up with the warmth. I knew the boy was awake. One can’t be raised with a wolf without picking up some of his wariness. I waited for him.

‘It’s not you. Not just you, anyway.’

I didn’t look at Hap, even when he spoke. Some things are better said to the dark. I waited. Silence can ask all the questions, where the tongue is prone only to ask the wrong one.

‘I have to know,’ he burst out suddenly. My heart seized up at the question to come. In some corner of my soul, I had always dreaded him asking it. I should not have let him go to Springfest, I thought wildly. If I had kept him here, my secret would never have been threatened.

But that was not the question he asked.

‘Did you know that Starling is married?’

I looked at him then, and my face must have answered for me. He closed his eyes in sympathy. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have known you didn’t. I should have found a better way to tell you.’

And the simple comfort of a woman who came to my arms when she would, because she desired to be with me, and the sweet evenings of tales and music by the fire, and her dark merry eyes looking up into mine were suddenly guilty and deceptive and furtive. I was as foolish as I had ever been, no, even stupider, for the gullibility of a boy is fatuousness in a man. Married. Starling married. She had thought no one would ever want to marry her, for she was barren. She had told me that she had to make her own ways with her songs, for there would never be a man to care for her, nor children to provide for her old age. Probably, when she had told me those things, she had believed they were true. My folly had been in thinking that truth would never change.

Nighteyes had risen and stretched stiffly. Now he came to lie down beside me. He set his head on my knee. I don’t understand. You are ill?

No. Just stupid.

Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven’t died from that so far.

But sometimes it has been a near thing. I took a breath. ‘Tell me about it.’ I didn’t want to hear it, but I knew he had to tell it. Better to get it over with.

Hap came with a sigh, to sit on the other side of Nighteyes. He picked up a twig from the ground beside him and teased the fire with it. ‘I don’t think she meant for me to find out. Her husband doesn’t live at Buckkeep. He travelled in to surprise her, to spend Springfest with her.’ As he spoke, the twig caught fire. He tossed it in. His fingers wandered to idly groom Nighteyes.

I pictured some honest old farmer, wed to a minstrel in the quiet years of his life, perhaps with children grown from an earlier marriage. He loved her, then, to make a trip to Buckkeep to surprise her. Springfest was traditionally for lovers, old and new.