Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)

by Robin Hobb

I don’t understand. You are ill? No. Just stupid. Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven’t died from that so far.

“It doesn’t matter who a man’s father is. Your parents made a child, but it’s up to you to make the man you’ll be.”

I opened my mouth, then helplessly spread wide my arms. At the gesture that said all I had no words for, an answering look lit his face. He glowed as if a light had been kindled in him. He did not dismount but flung himself from his horse toward me, a launch aided by Nighteyes’ sudden charge from the wood toward him. The horse snorted in alarm and crow-hopped. The Fool came free of his saddle with rather more energy than he had intended, but, agile as ever, he landed on the balls of his feet. The horse shied away, but none of us paid her any attention. In one step, I caught him up. I enfolded him in my arms as the wolf gamboled about us like a puppy.

It was a boy’s thing to do, this immediate offering to share a prized possession, and my heart answered it, knowing that no matter how long or how far apart we had been, nothing important had changed between us.

Then as now he created reality around himself, bringing order and peace to a small island of warm firelight and the simple smell of hearth bread cooking.

The Fool had always been ardent in his washing and scrubbing, using three times as much water as any other man I knew.

me

There is a natural euphoria to the Wit. It is both like and unlike the Skill. With the Wit, one is aware of all the life that surrounds one. It was not just the warmth of the mare nearby that I sensed. I knew the scintillant forms of the myriad insects that populated the grasses, and felt even the shadowy life force of the great oak that lifted its limbs between the moon and me. Just up the hillside, a rabbit crouched motionless in the summer grasses. I felt its indistinct presence, not as a piece of life located in a certain place, but as one sometimes hears a single voice’s note within a market’s roar. But above all, I felt a physical kinship with all that lived in the world. I had a right to be here. I was as much a part of this summer night as the insects or the water purling past my feet. I think that old magic draws much of its strength from that acknowledgment: that we are a part of that world, no more, but certainly no less than the rabbit.

Yet, some of us, my friend, would recognize you even if you were flayed and set afire.”

I had the sense that we had sat together like this, spoken these words before, and that each time we had done so, the words had been sealed with that brief touch.

“I believe in you. You are my new beginning.”

“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.

“You made it a name. The Fool. And you saw me. You met my eyes when others looked aside, disconcerted.”

I suddenly wanted to change the subject, but the only thought that came to me was, “I saw Jinna today. She made this for me.” I opened the collar of my shirt. He stared, first at the charm, then up at my face. He seemed struck dumb. Then a wide and fatuous grin spread over his face. “It’s supposed to make people feel kindly toward me,” I explained. “To counteract my grim appearance, I think, though she was not so unkind as to say that directly.” He took a breath. “Cover it,” he begged, laughing, and as I did so, he turned away from it. He walked almost hastily to the chamber window and looked out. “They are not tuned to my bloodlines, but that does not mean I am completely impervious against them. You often remind me that in some ways I am still very human.”

“My Queen, you imagine the worst, and when you do, your mind stops at the problem and does not consider the solution.”

me

It was as if my sense of touch expanded beyond my skin to make contact with all other forms of life around me. All the world shimmered with life, and I was a part of that network.

A small smile of pleasure at surprising me was playing about his mouth as he lifted his eyes to me. Abruptly, the smile faded. For a time he simply stared at me, mouth slightly ajar. Then his eyes lit. As he advanced to me, satisfaction shone in his face. “It’s perfect,” he breathed. “Exactly as I had hoped. Oh, Fitz, I always imagined that, had I the chance, I could show you off as befitted you. And look at you.”

“Of course. No one is invulnerable to me if I choose to enchant them. No one but you, that is.”

The wolf yielded up the days of his life to me for an allegiance he understood only in terms of his love for me.

I looked at the Fool. I had spoken the thought aloud, with no preamble, but as often seemed with us, his mind had followed the same track.

“He makes me want to hold him tight and keep him safe. Protect him from all the terrible things that were done to you in the name of the Farseer reign.” The Fool paused. “I lie,” he admitted. “I would protect him from all the terrible things that were done to you because I used you as my Catalyst.”

The last smile he gave me was his old Fool’s smile, tremulous and yet mocking the world’s ability to hurt him. There was a wildness in his golden eyes that was not fear of death, but acceptance of it. I could not bear to look at it.

“I hate you,” he told me, in a voice devoid of rancor. “That’s understandable,” I heard myself reply. I sometimes shared that sentiment.

“I’m telling the truth,” I lied sincerely.

Silence, save for the soft crackling of the fire, and the distant music from the common room below. Silence but for unsteady footsteps making their way past our door. But most of all, the crashing silence in my heart where for so long Nighteyes’ awareness had been a steady beacon in my darkness, a warmth in my winter, a guide star in my night.