The Tawny Man 1 - Fools Errand
Chapter XI
CHADE'S TOWER
Between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands as much blood has been shared as has been shed. Despite the enmity of the Red Ship War, and the years of sporadic raiding that preceded it, almost every family in the Coastal Duchies will acknowledge having “a cousin in the Out Islands.” All acknowledge that the folk of the Coastal Duchies are of those mingled bloodlines. It is well documented that the first rulers of the Farseer line were likely raiders from the Out Islands who came to raid and settled instead.
Just as the history of the Six Duchies has been shaped by geography, so too has the chronicle of the Out Islands. Theirs is a harsher and than ours. Ice rules their mountainous islands ear round. Deep fjords slash their islands and rough water divides them. We consider their islands immense, yet the domination of glaciers grants men only the edges of those islands as dwelling places. What arable land they have along the coasts of their islands is stingy and thin in its yield. Thus no large cities can be supported there, and few towns. Barriers and isolation are the hallmark of that land, and so the folk dwell in fiercely independent villages and townstates. In times past, they were raiders by necessity as well as by inclination, and robbed one another as often as they ventured across the seas to harry the Six Duchies coastline. It is true that during the Red Ship War, Kebal Rawbread was able to force a brief alliance among the island folk, and from that alliance, he hammered together a powerful raiding fleet. Only the devastation of the Six Duchies dragons was sufficient to shatter his merciless hold over his own people.
Having once seen the strength of such an alliance, the individual headmen of the Out Island villages realized that such power could be used for more than war. In the years of recovery that followed the end of the Red Ship War, the Hetgurd was formed. This alliance of Out Island headmen was an uneasy one. At first, they sought only to replace interisland raiding with trading treaties between individual headmen. Arkon Bloodblade was the first headman to point out to the others that the Hetgurd could use its unified strength to normalize trade relations with the Six Duchies.
ê- , BRAWNKENNER, “THE OUT ISLAND CHRONICLES”
As always, Chade had planned well. His silent messenger seemed very familiar with his ways. Before noon the next day, we had changed our exhausted horses for two others at a decrepit farmhouse. We traveled across brown hillsides seared by summer, and left those two horses at a fisherman's hut. A small boat was waiting and the surly crew took us swiftly up the coast. We put in at a landing at a tiny trading port, where two more horses awaited us at a rundown inn. I stayed as silent as my guide, and no one questioned me about anything. If coin was exchanged, I never saw it. It is always best not to see what is meant to be concealed. The horses carried us to yet another waiting boat, this one with a scaly deck that smelled much of fish. It struck me that we were approaching Buckkeep not by the swiftest possible path, but by the least likely one. If anyone watched the roads into Buckkeep for us, they were doomed to disappointment.
Buckkeep Castle is built on an inhospitable strip of coast. It stands, tall and black, atop the cliffs, but it commands a fine view of the Buck River mouth. Whoever controls that castle controls trade on the Buck River. For that reason was it built there. The vagaries of history have made it the ruling seat of the Farseer family. Buckkeep Town clings to the cliffs below the castle like lichens to rock. Half of it is built out on docks and piers. As a boy, I had thought the town had grown as large as it could, given its geography, but on the afternoon that we sailed into it, saw that I had been wrong. Human ingenuity had prevailed over nature's harshness. Suspended pathways now vined across the face of the cliffs, and tiny houses and shops found purchase to cling there. The houses reminded me of mudswallows' nests, and I wondered what pounding they took during the winter storms. Pilings had been driven into the black sand and rock of the beaches where I had once run and played with Molly and the other children. Warehouses and inns squatted on these perches, and at high tide, one could tie up right at their doorsteps. This our fishing boat did, and I followed my mute guide “ashore” onto a wooden walkway.
As the small boat cast off and left us there, I gawked about us, a country farmer come to town. The increase in structures and the lively boat commerce indicated that Buckkeep prospered, yet I could take no joy in it. Here was the final evidence of my childhood erased. The place I had both dreaded and longed to return to was gone, swallowed by this thriving port. When I glanced about for my mute guide, he had vanished. I loitered where he had left me a bit longer, already suspecting he would not return. He had brought me back to Buckkeep Town. From here, I needed no guide. Chade never liked any of his contacts to know every link of the convoluted paths that led to him. I shouldered my small rucksack and headed toward home.
Perhaps, I thought as I wended my way through Buckkeep's steep and narrow streets, Chade had even known that I would prefer to make this part of my journey alone. I did not hurry. I knew I could not contact Chade until after nightfall. As I explored the oncefamiliar streets and byways, I found nothing that was completely familiar. It seemed that every structure that could sprout a second story had, and on some of the narrower streets the balconies almost met overhead, so that one walked in a perpetual twilight. I found inns I had frequented and stores where I had traded, and even glimpsed the faces of old acquaintances overlaid with fifteen years of experience. Yet no one ex claimed with surprise or delight to see me; as a stranger was visible only to the boys hawking hot pies in the street. I bought one for a copper and ate it as I walked. The taste of the peppery gravy and the chunks of river fish in it were the taste of Buckkeep Town itself.
The chandlery that had once belonged to Molly's father was now a tailor's shop. I did not go inside. I went instead to the tavern we had once frequented. It was as dark, as smoky, and as crowded as I recalled. The heavy table in the corner still bore the marks of Kerry's idle whittling. The boy who brought my beer was too young ever to have known me, but I knew who had fathered him by the line of his brow and was glad the business had remained in the same family. One beer became two, and then three, and the fourth was gone before twilight began to venture through the streets of the town. No one had uttered a word to the dourfaced stranger drinking alone, but I listened all the same. But whatever desperate business had led Chade to call on me, it was not common knowledge. I heard only gossip of the Prince's betrothal, complaints about Bingtown's war with Chalced disrupting trade, and the local mutterings about the very strange weather. Out of a clear and peaceful night sky, lightning had struck an unused storage hut in the outer keep of the castle and blown the roof right off. I shook my head at that tale. I left an extra copper for the boy, and shouldered my pack once more.
The last time I had left Buckkeep it had been as a dead man in a coffin. I could scarcely reenter the same way, and yet I feared to approach the main gate. Once I had been a familiar face in the guardroom. Changed I might be, but would not take the chance of being recognized. Instead, I went to a place both Chade and I knew, a secret exit from the castle grounds that Nighteyes had discovered when he was just a cub. Through that small gap in Buckkeep 's defenses, Queen Kettricken and the Fool had once fled Prince Regal's plot. Tonight, I would return by that route.
But when I got there, I found that the fault in the walls that guarded Buckkeep had been repaired a long time ago. A heavy growth of thistles cloaked where it had been. A short distance from the thistles, sitting crosslegged on a large embroidered cushion, a goldenhaired youth of obvious nobility played a pennywhistle with consummate skill. As I approached, he ended his tune with a final scattering of notes and set his instrument aside.
“Fool,” I greeted him fondly and with no great surprise.
He cocked his head and made a mouth at me. “Beloved,” he drawled in response. Then he grinned, sprang to his feet, and slipped his whistle inside his ribboned shirt. He indicated his cushion. “I'm glad I brought that. I had a feeling you might linger a time in Buckkeep Town, but I didn't expect to wait this long.”
“It's changed,” I said lamely.
“Haven't we all?” he replied, and for a moment there was an echo of pathos in his voice. But in an instant it was gone. He tidied his gleaming hair fussily and picked a leaf from his stocking. He pointed at his cushion again. “Pick that up and follow me. Hurry along. We are expected.” His air of petulant command mimed perfectly that of a foppish dandy of the noble class. He plucked a handkerchief from his sleeve and patted at his upper lip, erasing imaginary perspiration.
I had to smile. He assumed the role so deftly and effortlessly. “How are we going in?”
“By the front gate, of course. Have no fear. I've put word about that Lord Golden is very dissatisfied with the quality of servants he has found in Buckkeep Town. None have suited me, and so today I went to meet a ship bringing to me a fine fellow, if a bit rustic, recommended to me by my second cousin's first valet. By name, one TomBadgerlock.”
He proceeded ahead of me. I picked up his cushion and followed. “So. I'm to be your servant?” I asked in wry amusement. sn, “Of course. It's the perfect guise. You'll be virtually invisible to all the nobility of Buckkeep. Only the other servants will speak to you, and as I intend that you will be a downtrodden, overworked, poorly dressed lackey of a supercilious, overbearing, and insufferable young lord, you will have little time to socialize at all.” He suddenly halted and looked back. One slender, longfingered hand clasped his chin as he looked down his nose at me. His fair brows knit and his amber eyes narrowed as he snapped, “And do not dare to meet my eyes, sirrah! I will tolerate no impertinence. Stand up straight, keep your place, and speak no word without my leave. Are you clear on these instructions?”
“Perfectly.” I grinned at him.
He continued to glare at me. Then suddenly the glare was replaced by a look of exasperation. “FitzChivalry, the game is up if you cannot play this role and play it to the hilt. Not just when we stand in the Great Hall of Buckkeep, but every moment of every day when there is the remotest chance that we might be seen. I have been Lord Golden since I arrived, but I am still a newcomer to the Queen's court, and folk will stare. Chade and Queen Kettricken have done all they could to help me in this ruse, Chade because he perceived how useful I might be, and the Queen because she feels I truly deserve to be treated as a lord.”
“And no one recognized you?” I broke in incredulously.
He cocked his head. “What would they recognize, Fitz? My deadwhite skin and colorless eyes? My jester's motley and painted face? My capers and cavorting and daring witticisms?”
“I knew you the moment I saw you,” I reminded him.
He smiled warmly. “Just as I knew you, and would know you when first I met you a dozen lives hence. But few others do. Chade with his assassin's eyes picked me out, and arranged a private audience at which I made myself known to the Queen. A few others have given me curious glances from time to time, but no one would dare to accost Lord Golden and ask him if fifteen years ago he had been King Shrewd 's jester at this selfsame court. My age appears wrong to them, as does my coloring, as does my demeanor, as does my wealth.”
“How can they be so blind?”
He shook his head and smiled at my ignorance. “Fitz, Fitz. They never even saw me in the first place. They saw only a jester and a freak. I deliberately took no name when first I arrived here. To most of the lords and ladies of Buckkeep, I was just the fool. They heard my jokes and saw my capers, but they never really saw me.” He gave a small sigh. Then he gave me a considering look. “You made it a name. The Fool. And you saw me. You met my eyes when others looked aside, disconcerted.” I saw the tip of his tongue for a second. “Did you never guess how you frightened me? That all my ruses were useless against the eyes of a small boy?” “You were just a child yourself,” I pointed out uneasily. He hesitated. I noticed he did not agree or disagree with me when he went on. “Become my faithful servant, Fitz. Be Tom Badgerlock, every second of every day that you are at Buckkeep. It is the only way you can protect both of us. And the only guise in which you can aid Chade.” “What, exactly, does Chade need of me?” “That would be better heard from his lips than mine. Come. It grows dark. Buckkeep 'Town has grown and changed, as has Buckkeep itself. If we try to enter after dark, we may well be turned away.”
It had grown later as we talked and the long summer day was fading around us. He led and I followed as he took me roundabout to the steep road that led to Buckkeep Castle's main gate. He lingered in the trees to let a wine merchant round a bend before we ourselves stepped out on the road. Then Lord Golden led and his humble servant Tom Badgerlock trudged behind him, bearing his embroidered cushion.
At the gate he was admitted without question and I followed at his heels, unnoticed. The guard on the gate wore Buckkeep's blue and their jerkins were embroidered with the Farseer leaping buck. Small things like that twisted my heart unexpectedly. I blinked and then coughed and rubbed my eyes. The Fool had the kindness not to look back at me, Buckkeep had changed as much as the town that clung to the cliffs below it. Overall, the changes were ones I approved. We passed a new and larger stable. Paving stones had been laid where once muddy tracks had run. Although more folk thronged the castle than I recalled, it seemed cleaner and better maintained. I wondered if this was Kettricken's Mountain discipline applied to the keep, or simply the result of peace in the land. All the years that I had lived in Buckkeep had been years of the Outislander raids and eventually outright war. Relative peace had brought a resumption of trade, and not just with the countries to the south of the Six Duchies. Our history of trading with the Out Islands was as long as our history of fighting with them. I had seen the Outislander ships, both oared and sailed, in Buckkeep 's harbor when I arrived.
We entered through the Great Hall, Lord Golden striding imperiously along while I hastened, eyes down, at his heels. Two ladies detained him briefly with greetings. I think it was hardest then for me to keep my guise of servingman in place. Where once the Fool had inspired unease or outright distaste, Lord Golden was greeted with fluttering fans and eyelashes. He charmed them both with a score of elegantly woven compliments on their dresses, their hair, and the scents they wore. They parted with him reluctantly, and he assured them he was as loath to leave them, but he had a servant to be shown his duties, and certainly they knew the drudgery of that. One simply could not get good servants anymore, and although this one came with a high recommendation, he had already proven to be a bit slowwitted and woefully countrified. Well, one had to make do with what one could get these days, and he hoped to enjoy their company on the morrow. He planned to stroll through the thyme gardens after breakfast, if they cared to join him?
They would, of course, with great delight, and after several more rounds of exchanged pleasantries, we were allowed to go our way. Lord Golden had been given apartments on the west side of the keep. In King Shrewd's day, these had been considered the less desirable rooms, for they faced the hills behind the keep and the sunset, rather than the water and the sunrise. In those days, they had been furnished more simply, and were considered suitable for lesser nobility.
Either the status of the rooms had improved, or the Fool had been very lavish with his own money. I opened a heavy oak door for him at his gesture, and then followed him into chambers where both taste and quality had been indulged in equal measure. Deep greens and rich browns predominated in the thick rugs underfoot and the opulently cushioned chairs. Through a door I glimpsed an immense bed, fat with pillows and feather bed, and so heavily draped that even in Buck's coldest winter, no draft would find the occupant. For the summer weather, the heavy curtains had been roped back with tasseled cords, and a fall of lace sufficed to keep all flying insects at bay. Carved chests and wardrobes stood casually ajar, the volume of garments within threatening to cascade out into the room. There was an air of rich and pleasant disorder, completely unlike the Fool's ascetic tower room that I recalled of old.
Lord Golden flung himself into a chair as I closed the door quietly behind us. A last slice of sunlight from the westering sun came in the tall window and fell across him as if by accident. He steepled his graceful hands before him and lolled his head back against the cushions, and suddenly I perceived the deliberate artifice of the chair's position and his pose. This entire rich room was a setting for his golden beauty. Every color chosen, every placement of furniture was done to achieve this end. In this place and time, he glowed in the honey light of the sunset. I lifted my eyes to consider the arrangement of the candles, the angles of the chairs. sv, “You take your place like a figure stepping into a carefully composed portrait,” I observed quietly.
He smiled, his obvious pleasure in the compliment a confirmation of my words. Then he came to his feet as effortlessly as a cat. His arm and hand twined through a motion to point at each door off the room. “My bedchamber. The privy room. My private room.” This door was closed, as was the last one. “And your chamber, Tom Badgerlock.”
I did not ask him about his private room. I knew his need for solitude of old. I crossed the room and tugged open the door to my quarters. I peered inside the small, dark room. It had no window. As my eyes adjusted, I could make out a narrow cot in the corner, a washstand, and a small chest. There was a single candle in a holder on the washstand. That was all. I turned back to the Fool with a quizzical look.
“Lord Golden,” he said with a wry smile, “is a shallow, venal fellow. He is witty and quicktongued, and very charming to his fellows, and completely unaware of those of lesser stations. So. Your chamber reflects that.”
“No window? No fireplace?”
“No different from most of the servants' chambers on this floor. It has, however, one singularly remarkable advantage that most of the others lack.”
I glanced back into the room. “Whatever it is, I don't see it.”
“And that is exactly what is intended. Come.”
Taking my arm, he accompanied me into the dark little room. He shut the door firmly behind us. We were instantly plunged into complete darkness. Speaking quietly next to me, he observed, “Always remember that the door must be shut for this to work. Over here. Give me your hand.”
I complied, and he guided my hand over the rough stone of the outer wall adjacent to the door. “Why must we do this in the dark?” I demanded.
“It was faster than kindling candles. Besides, what I am showing you cannot be seen, only felt. There. Feel that?”
“I think so.” It was a very slight unevenness in the stone.
“Measure it off with your hand, or whatever you want to do to learn where it is.”
I obliged him, discovering that it was about six of my handspans from the corner of the room, and at the height of my chin. “Now what?”
“Push. Gently. It does not take much.”
I obeyed and felt the stone shift very slightly beneath my hand. A small click sounded, but not from the wall before me. Instead, it came from behind me.
“This way,” the Fool told me, and in the darkness led me to the opposite wall of the small chamber. Again, he set my hand to the wall and told me to push. The darkness gave way on oiled hinges, the seeming stone no more than a facade that swung away at my touch. “Very quiet,” the Fool observed approvingly. “He must have greased it.”
I blinked as my eyes adjusted to a subtle light leaking down from high above. In a moment I could see a very narrow staircase leading up. It paralleled the wall of the room. A corridor, equally narrow, snaked away into darkness, following the wall. “I believe you are expected,” the Fool told me in his aristocratic sneer. “As is Lord Golden, but in far different company. I will excuse you from your duties as my valet, at least for tonight. You are dismissed, Tom Badgerlock.”
“Thank you, master,” I replied snidely. I craned my neck to peer up the stairs. They were stone, obviously built into the wall when the castle was first constructed. The gray quality of the light that seeped down suggested daylight rather than lamplight.
The Fool's hand settled briefly on my shoulder, delaying me. In a far different voice he said, “I'll leave a candle burning in the room for you.” The hand squeezed affectionately. “And welcome home, FitzChivalry Farseer.”
I turned to look back at him. “Thank you, Fool.” We nodded to one another, ah oddly formal farewell, and I began to climb the stair. On the third stair, I heard a snick behind me, and looked back. The door had closed.
I climbed for quite a distance. Then the staircase turned, and I perceived the source of the light. Narrow openings, not even as wide as arrow slits, permitted the set' ting sun to finger in. The light was growing dimmer, and I suddenly perceived that when the sun set, I would be plunged into absolute darkness. I came to a junction in the corridor at that time. Truly, Chade's rat warren of tunnels, stairs, and corridors within Buckkeep Castle were far more extensive than I had ever imagined. I closed my eyes for a moment and imagined the layout of the castle. After a brief - hesitation, I chose a path and went on. As I traveled, from time to time I became aware of voices. Tiny peepholes gave me access to bedchambers and parlors as well as providing slivers of light in long dark stretches of corridor. A wooden stool, dusty with disuse, sat in one alcove. I sat down on it and peered through a slit into a private audience chamber that I recognized from my service with King Shrewd. Evi' dently the magnificent woodwork that framed the hearth furnished this spy post. Having taken my bearings from this, I hastened on.
At last, I saw a yellowish glow in the secret passageway far ahead of me. Hurrying toward it, I found a bend in the corridor, and a fat candle burning in a glass. Far down another stretch, I glimpsed a second candle. From that point on, the tiny lights led me forward, until I climbed a very steep stair and suddenly found myself standing in a small stone room with a narrow door. The door swung open at my touch, and I found myself stepping out from behind the wine rack into Chade's tower room.
I looked about the chamber with new eyes. It was uninhabited at the moment, but a small fire crackling on the hearth and a laden table told me I was, indeed, expected. The great bedstead was overladen with comforters, cushions, and furs as it had always been, yet an elaborate spider J!rê
web constructed amidst the dusty hangings spoke of disuse. Chade used this room still, but he no longer slept here. ventured down to the workroom end of the chamber, past the scrollladen racks and the shelves of arcane equipment. Sometimes, when one goes back to the scene of one's childhood, things seem smaller. What was mysterious and the sole province of adults suddenly seems commonplace and mundane when viewed with mature eyes.
Such was not the case with Chade's workroom. The little pots carefully labeled in his decisive hand, the blackened kettles and stained pestles, the spilled herbs and the, lingering odors still worked their spell on me. The Wit and the Skill were mine, but the strange chemistries that Chade practiced here were a magic I had never mastered. Here was still an apprentice, knowing only the basics of my master's sophisticated lore.
My travels had taught me a bit. A shallow gleaming bowl, draped with a cloth, was a scrying basin. I'd seen them used by fortunetellers in Chalcedean towns. I thought of the night that Chade had wakened me from a drunken stupor to tell me that Neat Bay was under attack from Red Ship raiders. There had been no time, that night, to demand how he knew. I had always assumed it had been a messenger bird. Now I wondered.
The work hearth was cold, but tidier than I recalled. I wondered who his new apprentice was, and if I would meet the lad. Then my musings were cut short by the sound of a door closing softly. I turned to see Chade Fallstar standing near a scroll rack. For the first time, I realized that there were no obvious doors in the chamber. Even here, all was still deception. He greeted me with a warm if weary smile. “And here you are at last. When I saw Lord Golden enter the Great Hall smiling, I knew you would be awaiting me. Oh, Fitz, you have no idea how relieved I am to see you.”
I grinned at him. “In all our years together, I can't recall a more ominous greeting from you.” ?
“It's an ominous time, my boy. Come, sit down, eat. We've always reasoned best over food. I've so much to tell you, and you may as well hear it with a full belly.”
“Your messenger did not tell me much,” I admitted, taking a place at the small lavishly spread table. There were cheeses, pastries, cold meats, fruit that was fragrantly ripe, and spicy breads. There was both wine and brandy, but Chade began with tea from an earthenware pot warm at the edge of the fire. When I reached for the pot, a gesture of his hand warded me off.
“I'll put on more water,” he offered, and hung a kettle to boil. I watched the set of his mouth as he sipped the dark brew in his cup. He did not seem to relish it, yet he sank back in his chair with a sigh. I kept my thoughts to myself.
As I began to heap my plate, Chade noted, “My messenger told you as much as he knew, which was nothing. One of my greatest tasks has been to keep this private. Ah, where do I begin? It is hard to decide, for I don't know what precipitated this crisis.”
I swallowed a mouthful of bread and ham. “Tell me the heart of it, and we can work backward from there.”
His green eyes were troubled. “Very well.” He took breath, then hesitated. He poured us both brandy. As he set mine before me he said, “Prince Dutiful is missing. We think he might have run on his own. If he did, he likely had help. It is possible that he was taken against his will, but neither the Queen nor I think that likely. There.” He sat back in his chair and watched for my reaction.
It took me a moment to marshal my thoughts. “How could it happen? Whom do you suspect? How long has he been gone?”