‘Did they all die in such an ugly and painful way?’
‘I do not think so. But any records of how it was done were lost when Regal sold off the Skill-scroll library. I hope we may find information in the memory-cubes from Aslevjal. But as yet, we have not.’
I took no comfort from anything she had told me. My father’s worm-ridden body was on display like that of a caged criminal in a Chalcedean town. If die he must, I wanted him to do it in a comfortable bed in a well-appointed chamber. Or to be like my mother, and simply fall down in the midst of doing something he loved to do. I wanted to be able to take his hand and offer him comfort. I sighed and shifted my feet.
‘You do not have to watch this. I can ask one of my Skill-users to take you back to Buckkeep Castle.’
‘You have already explained to me why I cannot.’
‘True.’
Night fell and we built up the fire, and he still had not died. I felt I might die of this before he did. There was a terrible tension in the air. We wanted him to die now, and hated that we wanted that.
His real family, as I thought of us, sat in a tight circle by the fire, our backs to the quarry. ‘Can we help him?’ Per asked suddenly. ‘Could each of us put something into his wolf?’ He told the first lie I’d ever heard from him. ‘I’m not afraid to try it.’
He stood up. ‘Per!’ Nettle warned him but he slapped his hand onto the wolf. ‘I don’t know how to do this. But I’ll give you my mother forgetting me and turning me from her door. I don’t need that memory. I don’t need to feel that.’
My father’s human hand twitched slightly. Per stood, waiting. Then he lifted his hand. ‘I don’t think anything happened,’ he admitted.
‘Don’t feel bad,’ Nettle told him. ‘I think you must have a bit of the Skill to be able to do it. But I think it’s a good idea. And he’s in no position to prevent us from doing it.’ She stood, graceful as she always was. She put her hand on the wolf’s muzzle. ‘Dream Wolf, take something sweet from my memories of you.’ She did not say what it was, but I could tell by how she stood that she gave him something.
When she sat down, Lant stood. ‘I want to try,’ he said. ‘I’d like him to take my first meeting with him. I was terrified.’ He set his hand to the wolf’s shoulder. He stood for a very long time. Then he put his finger on my father’s fleshly hand. ‘You take it, Fitz,’ he said, and perhaps he did.
Spark tried but failed. Kettricken gave a small smile. ‘I already gave him what I wished him to put into our wolf,’ she said. She left us all wondering.
‘No,’ Hap said. ‘I’m keeping every memory and emotion I have about him. I need them. How else do you think minstrels make up songs? He knows that. He wouldn’t want me to give them up.’
Dutiful stood, and motioned his two sons back. ‘Lads, you need to hold tight what little you knew of him. But I have something. There was a night we fought, and I hated him. I’ve always regretted that. Perhaps it will be useful now.’
When he was finished, he wiped tears from his cheeks and sat down. I glowered at the Fool. For he was the Fool now, all of Lord Chance and Lady Amber and Lord Golden scraped away by sorrow. He was no one’s Beloved now. He was a sad little man, a broken jester. But he did not stand and say he would give anything to my father. I was very still. I needed a strategy, for I knew they would drag me away before I could succeed. I hung my head as if I feared to try, and after a moment, people shifted and Spark offered to bring tea for us all.
‘And some cool water,’ Kettricken requested. ‘I’d like to try to at least moisten his mouth. He looks so uncomfortable.’
Not now. I must not do it while there were onlookers. They were accustomed to me sleeping near my father’s wolf. Some of them, at least, would fall asleep. Don’t die just yet, I thought fiercely at my father. I dared not Skill the thought, and I kept my walls tight lest Nettle hear what I intended.
Night had never deepened so slowly. We shared tea, and Kettricken wiped my father’s broken lips with a wet cloth. His eyes were closed and likely to remain so. His bony back rose and fell with his slow breaths. Spark persuaded Kettricken to lie down and sleep. Then she and Lant went to the upper lip of the quarry to keep watch. Dutiful and Nettle had withdrawn a small distance to have an intense conversation. The princes sat back to back, leaning on one another and drowsing. Hap sat at a distance, his fingers wandering on the strings of his instrument. I knew he played his memories and I wondered if the sound could sink into the wolf.
I curled up and pretended to sleep. After a very long time, I opened my eyes. All quiet. I edged closer to the wolf, moving as if I shifted in my sleep. I slid my hand along the gritty stone toward his leg. As I lifted my hand and opened my fingers to clutch the wolf’s leg, the Fool spoke. ‘Bee, don’t do it. You know I can’t allow it.’
He did not leap to stop me but leaned forward to put two more pieces of wood on the fire. I drew my hand back a little. ‘Someone has to do it,’ I told him. ‘He’s holding on, experiencing the pain so he has something more to put into the stone. Because he doesn’t have enough to fill it.’
‘He would not want you to pour yourself into his wolf!’
I stared at him, refusing to look away from his eyes. I knew the most terrible truth. My father would not want me to join him in the stone. He would want his Fool. I nearly said the words aloud. Nearly. Instead I asked a question. ‘Why don’t you go, then?’
I wanted to hear him say that he wanted to live, that he had important things still to do with his life. That he was afraid. Instead he said very calmly, ‘We both know why, Bee. You wrote it, and he said as much to me. It’s his decision to make, and finally it’s his own decision. Your dreams spoke of it. You wrote it all down for me to read. A black-and-white rat that runs away from him. His final letter to me saying that he wished I’d never come back, wished that he could reach his own decisions without me. That he knew how I had used him, so very many times.’ He took a sudden gasping breath and covered his face. A terrible sob shook him. ‘If he ever wanted vengeance on me for all I did, he has it now. This is the worst thing he could do to me. Now I know how it feels to be left behind. As I left him.’
What had I done?