Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2)

by Robin Hobb

“That he wasn’t afraid. I told him that had nothing to do with it. And that sometimes being stupid and being not afraid were two twigs of the same bush.”

Why must you take full credit for everything that goes wrong in the world?

I left her that night, I resolved to treat our patched friendship gently and to keep it within bounds I felt I could deal with.

The enthusiasm for a young man roaring like a bull that he would meet a challenge overpowered any shred of common sense that any man in the room might have held. Even I felt a surge of pride in my chest for this young Farseer prince.

In the wake of the departure of the Outislanders, many of the lesser lords and ladies of the Six Duchies began to leave the court also. The festivities and occasions of the Prince’s betrothal were over, and they had many stories to share with the folks at home. Buckkeep Castle emptied out like an upended bottle. The stables and servants’ quarters suddenly became roomier, and life settled into a quieter winter routine.

“Perhaps ‘Lord Golden’s secret’ is not what you think it is. Or perhaps you have lived among Jamaillians for too long,”

Not that I rapped at his door and demanded entrance. I had been maintaining a sullen silence toward him, waiting hungrily for him to demand just what ailed me. The problem was that he did not. He seemed focused elsewhere; it was as if he did not notice my silence or my surliness. Is there anything more provoking than waiting for someone to open the lowering quarrel? My mood became ever darker. That Jek believed the Fool was some woman named Amber did nothing to soothe my irritation.

But what was a vow? Words said aloud with good intentions of keeping them. To some, they were no more than that, words that could be discarded when the situation or the heart changed. Men and women who had vowed faithfulness to one another dallied with others or simply abandoned their mates. Soldiers under oath to a lord deserted in the cold and lean winters. Noblemen vowed to one cause cast off their obligations when another side offered them more advantage. So. Truly, was I bound to obey her? I found that my hand had strayed to the little fox pin inside my shirt.

He felt he was entitled to it. He was a Farseer, and the Farseer magic was rightfully his, but his birthright had been denied him, because he was a bastard Farseer. Just as my daughter was.

Chade, born on the wrong side of the sheets, had been judged unworthy and callously denied any education in the Skill.

Not a request to think about. In my youth, there had been so many things that I hadn’t thought about. I’d simply done my duty. But I had been a boy then. Now I was a man. And I teetered, not between duty and not duty, but between right and wrong. I took a step back from the question. Was it right to teach another generation the Skill and preserve it in our world? Was it right to let that knowledge fail and pass beyond humanity’s reach? If there would always be some who could not have it, was it more righteous to deny it to all? Was the guarded possession of magic like the hoarding of wealth, or was it simply a talent one did or did not have, like the ability to shoot a bow well or sing each note of a song perfectly?

The wolf had been with me then. I had seen the little stones set in their places on the crossing lines of the game cloth not as a fixed situation but as only one point in a spreading flow of possibilities. I could not win Chade’s game by saying no. But what if I said yes? You always chose to be bound by who you are. Now choose to be freed by who you are.

“You would ask a promise of your queen? Do you not think you presume too much?” I set my jaw. “Perhaps. But perhaps for a long time, the Farseers have presumed too much of me.”

And gold may be seen as a cold thing. Some nobles may even think it is worth the price to rid their realms of Witted ones. Like a fee paid to a rat catcher.”

Quarrel

And the Fool. Best to settle that festering as well.

Now that the moment had come to confront him, I couldn’t find a place to begin. I hungered to have this over with. Yet, the first words out of my mouth were “I need a red whistle. On a green string. Do you think you could make one for me?”

“The Prince himself has already interfered with that, by not coming to his lessons for the last several days. Elfbark or no, I cannot teach a student who does not come to me.” Again, I felt a small twinge of surprise to find how much I was upset by that. Somehow, the act of sitting down at table with my old friend, knowing I intended to confront him, was making all these odd and painful truths bubble out of me. As if somehow they were all his fault for holding himself so aloof from me for the past week, while allowing his friend to believe falsehoods about us.

and I was surprised by the weariness on his face. “Is there?” he asked unwillingly.

all encouraging her to form a mistaken opinion. At one time it had seemed a trifle uncomfortable but humorous all the same, to watch her laboring under her delusion. Now it seemed humiliating and deceitful that he had led her to believe that.

“I insist.” “I refuse.”

You let both Starling and Jek believe that we could be lovers.” The word came out harshly, like an epithet. “Perhaps you deem it of little importance that Jek believes you are a woman and in love with me. I cannot be so blithe about such assumptions. I’ve already had to deal with rumors of your taste in bed partners. Even Prince Dutiful has asked me. I know that Civil Bresinga suspects it. And I hate it. I hate that people in the keep look at us, and wonder what you do to your servant at night.”

I almost let him go. It was such a long habit with me, to accept the Fool’s decisions on such things. But suddenly it did matter to me what others in the keep gossiped about, what Hap might overhear as a crude jest in a Buckkeep Town inn. “I want to know!”

“I became Amber because she most suited my purpose and needs in Bingtown. I walked amongst them as a foreigner and a woman, unthreatening and without power. In that guise, all felt free to speak to me, slave and Trader, man and woman. That role suited my needs, Fitz. Just as Lord Golden fulfills them now.” His words cut right to my heart. I spoke coldly what injured me most. “Then the Fool too was only a role? Someone you became because it ‘suited your purpose’? And what was your purpose? To gain a doddering king’s trust? To befriend a royal bastard? Did you become what we most needed in order to get close to us?”

“Of course I did. Make of that what you will.” His words were like spurs to my fury. “I see. None of it was real. I’ve never known you at all then, have I?”

Who and what are you? What is it you feel for me?” He looked at me at last. His eyes were stricken. But as I continued to gaze at him, demanding this knowledge, I saw his own anger come to life there. He suddenly stood straight and gave a small huff of disdain, as if unbelieving that I could ask. He shook his head then drew a deep breath. The words rushed out of him in a torrent. “You know who I am. I have even given you my true name. As for what I am, you know that, too. You seek a false comfort when you demand that I define myself for you with words. Words do not contain or define any person.

And why must I truncate myself in order to please you? I would never ask that of you. And by those words, admit another truth. You know what I feel for you. You have known it for years. Let us not, you and I, alone here, pretend that you don’t. You know I love you. I always have. I always will.”

“And you know that I love you, Fool.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?”

“I would never…do you understand me? I could never desire you as a bed partner. Never.”

“And that too is a thing that we both have known for years. A thing that never needed speaking, those words that I must now carry with me for the rest of my life.”

“So. So love and hope blind us all. I thought the flowers were from you, Fitz. A fatuous notion. Instead they are from someone who, long ago, was infatuated with the King’s Fool. Infatuated, I thought. But like me, she loves where love is not returned. Yet she remained true enough of heart to recognize me, despite all other changes. True enough of heart to keep my secret, yet let me know privately that she knew it.”

“Fool, why do you not let your desires go where they would be welcome? Garetha is a fairly attractive woman. Perhaps, if you gladly received her attention—”

“Then? Then what? Then I could be like you, sate myself with whoever was available merely because it was offered to me? That, I would find ‘distasteful.’

“Wait. I see. You imagine that I have never known intimacy of that sort. That I have been ‘saving myself’ for you.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “Don’t flatter yourself, FitzChivalry. I doubt you would have been worth the wait.”

“Don’t touch me!” he snarled, thrusting my hands aside.

“Please leave,” he replied in a voice that rendered the courtesy an empty word.

I left the remaining supplies outside the door of his room. Anger and pain simmered in my heart. A great deal of my anger was for me. Why hadn’t I realized he was truly ill? Why had I insisted on pursuing this discussion over all his objections? Above all, why had not I trusted the instincts of our own friendship over the gossip of know-nothings? And the pain that ate at me was the pain of knowing what Chade had told me so often; that saying I was sorry could not always mend everything.

I recall the next three or four days as a time foggy with misery. I did not see the Fool at all.

I needed you to have a cool head for that, Fitz. I could not help but recall your temper of old, and how it had often led you to wild actions. So, I withheld what I feared might distract you from the most important part of our task.”

When had all those who knew me best decided that I was such an unreasonable, ill-tempered man? And then I reined aside from even considering who might be at fault for that.

In the welter of my own concerns, I too often forgot that other people had burdens just as heavy.

But of the Fool, I saw nothing at all. By no word or sign to me did Lord Golden ever indicate that we were anything other than what Buckkeep believed us to be: master and servant. At no time did he address any words to me that would have been out of character for Lord Golden to speak. And if I vouchsafed some pleasantry that strayed outside the limit of those roles, he ignored it.

Worst was that there was no one I could confide my misery to, unless I wanted to share the full depth of my stupidity with Chade. So I bore it silently and did my best to conceal it from all.

He looked up, blinking, and it wrung me to see that his lashes were wet with unshed tears. “You can speak his name,” he said huskily. “And yet do not perceive that he is why I take the stand I do? My lady queen, but for the Wit, Fitz would have learned the Skill well. But for the Wit, he could never have been thrown into Regal’s dungeons. But for the Wit, he might even now be alive. The Wit doomed him to die, and not even as a man. As a beast.”

“Every day I live, I live with my failure. My prince, Prince Chivalry, entrusted me with his only child, with the sole command that I raise him well. I failed my prince. I failed Fitz and I failed myself. Because I was weak. Because I had not the strength of will to be harsh with the boy where harshness was needed. And so he fell into the way of that vile magic, and he practiced it, and it brought about his downfall. He paid the price for my misplaced tenderness. He died, horribly, and alone, and as a beast. “My lady queen, I loved Fitz, first as my friend’s son, and then as my friend. I loved him just as I love my own son now. And I will not lose another boy to that low magic. I will not.”

In a numbed stillness, I stood and peered at the man who felt responsible for my death. He must continue to carry that guilt. I could not change it.

“No one dies from being forbidden the Wit. There’s a loneliness to giving it up, and well do I know that. But no one dies from avoiding the Wit. Using the Wit is how one dies from it.”

“Good man, your honor is the only thing as stiff as your stubbornness.

My hand was on the door latch before he had finished his hateful charade.