“Fish leather?” The question leapt from me.
“Indeed, that was my reaction. I’d never heard of such a thing. But there is a trade in it. The rougher pieces are cherished for polishing wood or even stone, and the finer pieces are used on the grips of knives and swords; even soaked in blood, they don’t become slippery.” He coughed again, wiped his mouth, and took more brandy. When he drew breath to go on, it wheezed in his throat. “So. Down we went, in our winter clothes, to that sunny town. Prilkop seemed sure of a welcome there, so he was surprised when the folk stared at us and then turned away. The city on the hilltop was regarded as being haunted by demons. In that town, we saw abandoned buildings that had been built from the stone salvaged from the city but were now considered haunted by dark spirits. No one welcomed us, even when Prilkop showed them silver coins. A few children followed us, shouting and throwing pebbles until their elders called them back. We went down to the docks, and there Prilkop was able to buy us passage on an ill-kept vessel.
“The ship was there to buy fish and oil and stank of it. The crew was as mixed a lot as I’ve ever seen; the youngsters aboard looked miserable and the older hands were either tremendously unlucky or had suffered repeated rough treatment. A missing eye here, a peg for a foot on another man, and one with only eight fingers left to his hands. I tried to persuade Prilkop that we should not board, but he was convinced that if we did not depart that town we’d lose our lives that night. I judged the ship just as poor a choice, but he was insistent. And so we went.”
He paused. He ate some more soup, wiped his mouth, sipped his brandy, and carefully wiped his mouth and fingers again. He picked up the spoon and set it down. Sipped again from his brandy cup. Then he pointed his blind eyes my way, and for the first time since we had met again, a look of pure mischief passed over his face. “Are you listening?”
I laughed aloud, to know he still had that spirit in him. “You know I am.”
“I do. Fitz, I feel you.” He held up his hand, showing me the fingertips that had once been silvered with Skill and were now sliced away to a smooth scar. “I took back my link to you long ago. And they cut the silver from my fingertips, for they guessed how powerful it was. So, in the years of my confinement, I thought I imagined my bond with you.” He tipped his head. “But I think it’s real.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve felt nothing in all the years we were separated. Sometimes I thought you must be dead and sometimes I believed you had forgotten our friendship entirely.” I halted. “Except for the night your messenger was killed in my home. There were bloody fingerprints on the carving you had left for me, the one of you, Nighteyes, and me. I went to brush them away, and I swear that something happened.”
“Oh.” He caught his breath. For a time, he stared sightlessly. Then he sighed. “So. Now I understand. I did not know what it was, then. I did not know one of my messengers had reached you. They were … I was in great pain, and suddenly you were there, touching my face. I screamed for you to help me, to save me or to kill me. Then you were gone.” He blinked his blinded eyes. “That was the night—” He gasped for air suddenly and leaned on the table. “I broke,” he admitted. “I broke that night. They hadn’t broken me, not with the pain or the lies or the starvation. But that moment, when you were there and then you were not … that was when I broke, Fitz.”
I was silent. How had he broken? He had told me that when the Servants tormented him, they wanted him to tell them where his son was. A son he had no knowledge of. That, to me, had been the most horrific part of his tale. A tortured man who is concealing knowledge retains some small portion of control over his life. A tortured man who has no knowledge to barter has nothing. The Fool had had nothing. No tool, no weapon, no knowledge to trade to make his torment cease or lessen. The Fool had been powerless. How could he have told them something he didn’t know? He spoke on.
“After a time, a long time, I realized there was no sound from them. No questions. But I was answering them. Telling them what they needed to know. I was screaming your name, over and over. And so they knew.”
“Knew what, Fool?”