Fool’s Errand

‘Ridiculous. Folk claim happenstance is malice. The Witted do not have the kind of powers you are ascribing to them.’ I spoke with great surety.

She gave me a disdainful look. ‘Then why do the Piebalds claim credit for such acts, if the work is not theirs?’

‘The Piebalds? Who are the Piebalds?’

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. ‘No one knows. They do not announce themselves. They leave messages pegged to inn doors or trees, and send missives to the nobles. They always sing the same tune with different words: “Such a one was killed unjustly, for no crime but merely for possessing Old Blood magic. Now our wrath falls on you. When the Piebald Prince returns, he will have no mercy on you.” And it is signed with no name, but only an image of a piebald stallion. It makes folk furious.

‘The Queen has refused to send out her guard to hunt them down. So now the gossip among some of the nobility is that Queen Kettricken herself is at fault for the increased executions of Witted ones, for her punishing of Lord Doplin has made them think they have the right to their perverted magic.’ At my scowl, she reminded me, ‘A minstrel but repeats what she has heard. I do not create the rumours, nor put words in people’s mouths.’ She came closer to me and from behind me, set her hands on my shoulders. She bent down, her cheek by mine. Gently, she added, ‘After all the years we have been together, surely you know by now that I do not consider you tainted.’ She kissed my cheek.

Our current conversation had almost driven my resolve from my mind. Nearly, I took her in my arms. Instead, I stood, awkwardly, for she was right behind my chair. When she tried to embrace me, I chilled my heart. I set her at arm’s length from me. ‘You are not mine,’ I told her quietly.

‘Nor am I his!’ She blazed at me suddenly. Her dark eyes shone with her anger. ‘I belong to myself, and I shall decide who shares my body. It hurts nothing for me to be with both of you. I will not get pregnant by either of you. If any man could get me with child, it would have happened long ago. So what does it matter whose bed I share?’

She was quick-witted and words served her tongue far better than mine. I had no clever reply. So I echoed her own words. ‘I, too, belong to myself, and I decide who will share my body. And I will not share it with another man’s wife.’

I think then that she finally believed it. I had set her belongings in a neat pile beside the hearth. She flung herself to her knees beside it. Snatching up her saddle pack, she began to stuff it furiously. ‘I don’t know why I ever bothered with you,’ she muttered.

Mishap, true to his name, chose that moment to enter the cabin. The wolf was at his heels. At the sight of Starling’s angry face, Hap turned to me. ‘Should I leave?’ he asked baldly.

‘No!’ Starling spat the word. ‘You get to stay. I’m the one he’s throwing out. Thanks to you. You might ponder a moment or two, Hap, on what would have become of you if I had left you digging in that village garbage heap. I deserved gratitude from you, not this betrayal!’

The boy’s eyes went wide. Nothing she had ever done, not even how she had deceived me, angered me as much as witnessing her hurt him. He gave me a stricken look, as if he expected I, too, would turn on him. Then he bolted out of the door. Nighteyes gave me a baleful look, then spun to follow him.

I’ll come soon. Let me finish this first.

Better you had never started it.

I let his rebuke hang unanswered, for there was no good reply to it. Starling glared up at me, and as I glowered back, I saw something almost like fear pass over her face. I crossed my arms on my chest. ‘Best you were gone,’ I said tightly. The wary look in her eye was as great an insult to me as the abuse she had flung at Hap. I left the cabin and went to fetch her horse. A fine horse and a fine saddle, doubtless both gifts from a fine young man. The animal sensed my agitation and pranced restlessly as I saddled her. I took a breath, gathered control over myself and set my hand to the horse. I sent calmness to her. In doing so, I calmed myself. I stroked her sleek neck. She turned to whuffle her nose against my shirt. I sighed. ‘Take care of her, would you? For she takes no care with herself.’

I had no bond with the creature, and my words were only reassuring sounds to her. I sensed in return her acceptance of my mastery. I led her to the front of the cottage and stood outside, holding her reins. In a moment, Starling appeared on the porch. ‘Can’t wait for me to leave, can you?’ she observed bitterly. She threw her pack across the saddle, unsettling the horse once more.

‘That’s not true and you know it,’ I replied. I tried to keep my voice level and calm. The pain I had been denying broke through my humiliation at how gullible I had been, and my anger that she had used me so. Our bond had not been a tender, heartfelt love; rather it had been a companionship that had included the sharing of our bodies and the trust of sleeping in one another’s arms. The betrayal of a friend differs from the treachery of a lover only in the degree of pain, not the kind. I suddenly knew I had just lied to her; I desperately wanted her to leave. Her presence was like an arrow standing in a wound; it could not be healed until she was gone.

Nevertheless, I tried to think of some significant words, something that would salvage the good part of what we had shared. But nothing came to me, and in the end I stood dumbly by as she snatched the reins from my hand and mounted. She looked down on me from the animal’s back. I am sure she felt some pain, but her face showed only her anger that I had thwarted her will. She shook her head at me.

‘You could have been someone. Regardless of how you were born, they gave you every chance of making something of yourself. You could have mattered. But this is what you chose. Remember that. You chose this.’

She tugged the horse’s head around, not so badly as to injure her mouth, but rougher than she needed to be. Then she kicked the horse to a trot and rode away from me. I watched her go. She did not look back. Despite my pain I felt, not the regret of an ending, but the foreboding of a beginning. A shiver ran over me, as if the Fool himself stood at my elbow and whispered words at my ear. ‘Do not you sense it? A crossroads, a vertex, a vortex. All paths change from here.’

I turned, but there was no one there. I glanced at the sky. Dark clouds were hastening from the south; already the tips of the trees were stirring with the oncoming squall. Starling would begin her journey with a drenching. I told myself I took no satisfaction in that, and went looking for Hap.

FOUR

The Hedge-Witch

There was a hedge-witch in those parts, Silva Copperleaf by name, whose charms were of such a strength that their potency lasted not just from year to year, but continued to protect the folk who possessed them for generations. It is said that she made for Baldric Farseer a marvellous sieve such that it purified all waters that passed through it. This was a great boon for a king so often threatened by poisoners.

Above the gate of the walled town of Eklse, she hung a charm against pestilence, and for many years the grain bins were free of rats and the stables clean of fleas and other vermin. The town prospered under this protection, until the town elders foolishly built a second gate in their walls, to admit more trade. This opened a way for pestilence to enter the town, and all there perished from the second wave of the Blood Plague.

Selkin’s Travels in the Six Duchies

High summer found Hap and me just as it had found us for the last seven years. There was a garden to tend, poultry to mind, and fish to salt and smoke against winter’s need. Day followed day in its round of chores and meals, sleeping and waking. Starling’s departure, I told myself, had effectively quenched the restlessness that Chade’s visit had sparked. I had spoken to Hap, in a desultory way, of putting him out to an apprenticeship. With an enthusiasm that surprised me, he told me of a cabinetmaker in Buckkeep whose work he had greatly admired. I balked at that, having no desire to visit Buckkeep Town, but I think he suspected I could not pay such a high prentice fee as a fine workman like Gindast could demand. In that, he was likely correct. When I asked him of any other woodworkers he had noticed, he stoutly replied that there was a boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove whose work was often praised. Perhaps we might try there. This was a far humbler master than the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep. I uneasily wondered if the boy was not tailoring his dreams to the depths of my pockets. His apprenticeship would determine the course of his life’s work. I didn’t want my lack of coin to condemn him to a trade he found merely tolerable.

Yet despite the boy’s interest, the apprenticeship remained a topic for late night talks by the hearth and little more. Oh, I set aside the small store of coins that remained to me against a prentice fee. I even told the boy that we would make do with fewer eggs for meals if he wished to let the hens set some. There was always a market for chickens, and whatever he got for them he could save towards his fee. Even then, I wondered if it would be enough to buy him a good place. Willing hands and a strong back could buy a lad an apprenticeship, it was true, but the better artisans and craftsmen usually demanded a fee before they would take a likely boy into their shops. It was the way of Buck. The secrets of a man’s trade and the good livelihood he made at it were not to be carelessly given to strangers. If parents loved their children, they either raised them in their own trades, or paid well to see them apprenticed to those who had mastered other arts. Despite the humbleness of our fortunes, I was determined to see Hap well placed. That, I told myself, was why I delayed, to muster more coin. It was not that I dreaded parting with the boy. Only that I wished to do well by him.

The wolf did not ask me about the journey I had earlier proposed. I think that, in his heart, he was relieved to see it postponed. There were days when I felt that Starling’s words had made an old man of me. Years had done that in truth to the wolf. I suspected he was very old for his kind, though I had no idea how long a wild wolf usually lived. I wondered, sometimes, if our bond did not lend him an unnatural vitality. Once it even crossed my mind that perhaps he used up my years to lengthen his own. Yet that thought came not with any resentment that he might borrow my days but with hope that we might still have a good long span together. For once the boy was apprenticed out, whom else did I have in the world besides Nighteyes?

For a time, I wondered if Chade might come to call again, now that he knew the way, but the long days of summer simmered away and the trail to our cabin remained empty. I went to market with the boy twice, taking fledged chickens and my inks and dyes and such roots and herbs as I thought might be unusual there. Nighteyes was as pleased to remain at home, for he disliked not only the long walk to the trade crossroads but the dust and noise and confusion of the crowded market. I felt much the same about it but forced myself to go anyway. We did not do as well as I had hoped, for folk at the small market we frequented were more accustomed to trade in goods than to buy with coin. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how many folk recalled Tom Badgerlock, and commented that it was good to see me come to market again.

It was the second time we went to market that we chanced to meet Hap’s hedge-witch from Buckkeep. We had set our wares out on the tail of our pony cart in the market. Midway through the morning, she found us there, exclaiming with pleasure at seeing Hap again. I stood quietly to one side, watching them talk. He had told me Jinna was pretty, and so she was, but I confess I was startled to find her closer to my age than his. I had supposed her a girl who had turned his head when they met in Buckkeep. Instead she was a woman nearing her middle years, with hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles, and curly hair that shaded from auburn to brown. She had the round and pleasant figure of a mature woman. When he told her that her charm against pickpockets had been stolen from him before the day was out, she laughed aloud, an open hearty laugh. Then she calmly replied to him that that was exactly how the charm was intended to work. His purse had been protected when the thief took the charm instead of it.

When Hap glanced about to include me in the conversation, her eyes had already found me. She was regarding me with that expression parents usually reserve for possibly dangerous strangers. When I smiled and nodded to Hap’s introduction and offered her good day, she relaxed visibly and her smile expanded to include me. She stepped closer as she did so, peering up at my face, and I realized her eyesight was not keen.

She had brought her wares to market, and spread her mat in the shadow of our cart. Hap helped her arrange her charms and potents, and the two of them made a merry day of our marketing after that, exchanging news since Springfest. I listened in as Hap told her of his apprenticeship plans. When he spoke to Jinna, it became very clear to me just how much he had wished for the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep rather than the boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove. I found myself pondering if there was yet some way it might be arranged, not only the higher fee but for someone other than myself to negotiate the apprenticeship on his behalf. Could Chade be persuaded to help me in such an endeavour? From there my mind wandered to what the old man might ask of me in return. I was deep in such thoughts when Hap’s elbow in my ribs jolted me from my wandering.

‘Tom!’ he protested, and I instantly perceived that in some way I had embarrassed him. Jinna was looking at both of us expectantly.

‘Yes?’

‘See, I told you it would be fine with him,’ Hap crowed.

‘Well, I do thank you, as long as you are sure it would be no trouble,’ Jinna replied. ‘It’s a long road, with inns both far-spaced and expensive to one such as myself.’

I nodded my agreement to the statement, and in the next few minutes of conversation, I realized that Hap had extended the hospitality of our cottage to her the next time she happened to pass our way. I sighed privately. Hap loved the novelty of our occasional guests, but I still regarded any new stranger as a potential risk. I wondered how long I would have to live before my secrets were so old that they no longer mattered.

I smiled and nodded as they conversed, but added little. Instead, I found myself studying her as Chade had taught me but I found nothing to suggest she was anything other than the hedge-witch she claimed to be.

Which is to say that I knew very little of her at all. Hedge-witches and wizards are fairly common at any market, fair or festival. Unlike the Skill, common folk attach no awe to hedge-magic. Unlike the Wit, it does not mark the practitioner for execution. Most folk seem to regard it with both tolerance and scepticism. Some of those who claim the magic are complete and unapologetic charlatans. These are the ones who pull eggs from the ears of the gullible, tell fortunes of vast riches and lofty marriages for milkmaids, and sell love potions that are mostly lavender and chamomile, and peddle luck charms made from dismembered rabbits. They are harmless enough, I suppose.

Jinna was not, however, one of those. She had no friendly patter of talk to attract the passing folk, nor was she dressed in the gaudy veils and jewellery that such frauds usually affected. She was clad as simply as a forester, her tunic shades of green over brown buckskin trousers and soft shoes. The charms she had set out for sale were concealed within the traditional bags of coloured fabric: pink for love charms, red to rouse lagging passions, green for good crops, and other colours whose significance I did not know. She offered packets of dried herbs as well. Most were ones I knew and they were correctly labelled as to their virtues: slippery elm bark for sore throats, raspberry leaves for morning sickness and the like. Mixed amongst the herbs were fine crystals of something which Jinna claimed increased their potency. I suspected salt or sugar. Several pottery dishes on her mat held polished discs of jade or jasper or ivory, inscribed with runes for luck or fertility or peace of mind. These were less expensive than the constructed charms, for they were merely general good wishes, though for an extra copper or two Jinna would ‘hone’ the pocket stone to the individual customer’s desire.

She did a fairly lively trade as the long morning ventured towards afternoon. Several times customers enquired about the covered charms, and at least three made purchases with good silver. If there was a magic to the gadgets she sold them, it was one that neither my Wit nor my Skill could detect. I caught a glimpse of one of the charms; it was an intricate assembly of glittering beads and small rods of wood and, I thought, a tuft of feathers. She sold it to a man wishing to attract good fortune to himself and his home as he sought a wife. He was a broad man, muscled as a ploughman and homely as a sod roof. He looked about my age, and I silently wished him well in his quest.

The market was well into its day when Baylor arrived. He came with his cart and ox, and six trussed piglets to sell. I did not know the man well, despite the fact that he was as close to a neighbour as Hap and I had. He lived in the next vale and ran his hogs there. I seldom saw him. In the autumn, we sometimes made a trade, a slaughter-pig in exchange for chickens or labour or smoked fish. Baylor was a little man, skinny but strong, and ever suspicious. He gave us a glare for a greeting. Then, despite the close quarters, he forced his cart into place alongside ours. I did not welcome his company. The Wit gives one an empathy for other living creatures. I had learned to shield myself from it, but could not close it off completely. I knew that his ox was rubbed raw by the badly-fitting harness, and felt the terror and discomfort of the immobilized and sun-scorched piglets in the cart.

So it was as much self defence as neighbourliness for me to greet him with, ‘Good to see you again, Baylor. Fine litter of piglets. Best get some water into them to make them lively, and they should fetch a good price.’

He gave them a careless glance. ‘No sense stirring them up, or taking the chance they’ll get loose. Like as not they’ll be meat before the day is out anyway.’

I took a breath, and with an effort kept from speaking. The Wit is more curse than gift, I sometimes think. Perhaps the hardest part of possessing it is witnessing so completely the casual cruelty of humans. Some speak of the savagery of beasts. I will ever prefer that to the thoughtless contempt some men have towards animals.

I was willing to let our conversation end, but he came to inspect our trade goods. He made a small disparaging noise, as if surprised we had bothered to come to market at all. Then, catching my eye, he observed heavily, ‘These are good piglets, but there were three more in the litter. One was bigger than these.’

Then he paused, waiting. His eyes never left my face. Uncertain of what he expected, I replied, ‘Sounds like a nice, big litter.’

‘Aye. It was. Until the three disappeared.’

‘A shame,’ I rejoined. When he kept his stare on me, I added, ‘Lost while ranging with the sow, were they?’

He nodded. ‘One day there were ten. The next day, seven.’

I shook my head. ‘A shame.’

He took a step closer to me. ‘You and the boy. You wouldn’t have happened to see them? I know sometimes my sow ranges almost to your stream.’

‘I haven’t.’ I turned to Hap. The boy had an apprehensive look on his face. I noticed that Jinna and her customer had fallen silent, their interest caught by Baylor’s intent tone. I hated to be the centre of such attention. I felt the blood begin to rise in me, but I pleasantly asked my boy, ‘Hap, have you seen any sign of three of Baylor’s piglets?’

‘Not so much as a track or a pile of dung,’ he replied gravely. He held himself very still when he spoke, as if a sudden movement could precipitate danger.

I turned back to Baylor. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Well.’ He observed heavily, ‘That’s strange, isn’t it? I know you and your boy and that dog of yours range all about those hills. I would have thought you’d have seen something.’ His remark was oddly pointed. ‘And if you saw them, you’d know them for mine. You’d know they weren’t strays, free for the taking.’ His eyes had never left my face.

I shrugged, trying to keep my calm. But now other folk were pausing in their business, watching and listening. Baylor’s eyes suddenly ranged round the audience, and then came back to me.

‘So you’re sure you haven’t seen my pigs? Not found one stuck or hurt somewhere? Not found it dead and used it for dog meat?’

It was my turn to glance about. Hap’s face had gone red. Jinna looked distinctly uncomfortable. My anger surged that this man would dare to accuse me of theft, no matter how indirect his words were. I took a breath and managed to hold my temper. In a low, gratingly civil voice, I replied, ‘I haven’t seen your pigs, Baylor.’

‘You’re sure?’ He took a step closer to me, mistaking my courtesy for passivity. ‘Because it strikes me odd, three disappearing all at once. A wolf might take one, or one the sow might misplace, but not three. You haven’t seen them?’

I had been leaning on the tail of the cart. I stood up straight, to my full height, my feet set solidly wide. Despite my effort at control, I could feel my chest and neck growing tight with anger.

Once, long ago, I had been beaten badly, to the point of death. Men seem to react to that experience in one of two ways. Some become cowed by it, never to offer physical resistance again. For a time, I had known that abject fear. Life had forced me to recover from it: I had learned a new reaction. The man who becomes most efficiently vicious first is most likely to be the man left standing. I had learned to be that man. ‘I’m getting tired of that question,’ I warned him in a low growl.

In the busy market, a quiet circle surrounded us. Not only Jinna and her customer were silent, but across the way the cheese merchant stared at us, and a baker’s boy with a tray full of fresh wares stood silent and gawking. Hap was still, eyes wide, face gone to white and red. But most revealing was the change in Baylor’s face. If a snarling bear had suddenly towered over him, he could not have looked more cowed. He fell back a step, and looked aside at the dust. ‘Well. Of course if you haven’t seen them, well, then –’

‘I haven’t seen them,’ I spoke forcefully, cutting him off. The sounds of the market had retreated into a distant hum. I saw only Baylor. I stalked a step closer.

‘Well.’ He backed another pace, and dodged around his ox so the beast was between us. ‘I didn’t think you had, of course. You’d have chased them back my way, for certain. But I wanted to let you know about it. Odd, isn’t it, for three to go missing at once? Thought I’d let you know, in case you’d had chickens disappearing.’ From conciliating his voice went suddenly to conspiring. ‘Like as not we’ve had Witted ones about in our hills, thieving my beasts as only they can. They wouldn’t have to chase it down, just spell the sow and the piglets and walk right off with them. Everyone knows they can do that. Like as not –’

My temper flared. I managed to divert it into words. I spoke quietly, biting off each word. ‘Like as not the piglets fell down a creek bank and were swept away, or got separated from the sow. There’s fox and cats and wolverine in those hills. If you want to be sure of your stock, keep a better watch on them.’

‘I had a calf go missing this spring,’ the cheese merchant suddenly said. ‘Cow strayed off pregnant, and came home two days later, empty as a barrel.’ He shook his head. ‘Never found a trace of that calf. But I did find a burnt-out firepit.’