Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2)

by Robin Hobb

“What need do I have of you? What need do you have of me? Friendship is not always based on need, Dutiful. But I will tell you plainly that I need you in my life. Because of who your father was to me, and because you are your mother’s son. But mostly because you are you, and we have too much in common for me to walk away from you. I would not see you grow up as ignorant of your magics as I did. If I can save you that torment, then perhaps in some way I will have saved myself as well.”

“But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.”

“I loved him through you. Our link was how he became real to me. So, in a sense, I do not mourn Nighteyes as you do. I grieve for your grief.” “You have always been better with words than I am.” “Yes,” he agreed. Then he sighed and crossed his arms on his chest. “Well. I am glad that someone could help you. Even as I envy Kettricken.” That made no sense. “You envy her, that she mourns?” “I envy her, that she could comfort you.”

“There is a love that twines in and out of your days. Sometimes, it leaves, but when it does, it runs alongside you until it returns.”

Silence asks the questions that are too awkward to phrase. It even asks the questions one does not know to ask.

Once he is your friend, no man can ask for a truer one.”

It hurts me still that you thought any of this deception was needed between us. Still, I suppose I can forgive it. But I wish I understood it. When your man, this … Tom Badgerlock, when he came in and I recognized his face, I was filled with joy for you. I watched you carve that figurehead. Don’t deny to me what you feel for him. ‘They are reunited at last,’ I thought to myself. But then you bark at him and send him off as if he were a servant … Lord Golden’s serving man, in fact, is what he told me he was. Why the masquerade, when it must be so difficult for both of you?”

“It is difficult for me,” the Fool replied in Amber’s voice. “It is not so difficult for him, because he knows little of it. There. Fool that I am and have been, truly, to have ever let that secret have breath to anyone, let alone shape. Such a monstrous vanity on my part.” “Monstrous? Immense! You carved a ship’s figurehead in his likeness, and hoped no one would ever guess what he meant to you?

A small sound, a little cough of laughter. “My dear Jek, you’ve seen him. No one could spoil his face. Not for me.” A pretty little sigh.

Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust.

You always chose to be bound by who you are. Now choose to be freed by who you are.

“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. A heart can, if it is willing. But I fear yours is not. You know more of the whole of me than any other person who breathes, yet you persist in insisting that all of that cannot be me. What would you have me cut off and leave behind? 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.” He spoke the words levelly. He said them as if they were inevitable. There was no trace of either shame or triumph in his voice. Then he waited. Words such as that always demand an answer.

“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.”

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

Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn’t come first and linger after, if love can’t wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it’s not love. Love doesn’t require bedding to make it true. It doesn’t even demand day-to-day contact. I know this because

I have known love, many kinds of love, and amongst them, I’ve known what I felt for you.”

“Stop showing off for the Fool. He isn’t impressed,” Chade responded gruffly. If he had not hit the mark so neatly, I would not have been so chagrined. Yes. I had been posturing. I didn’t even dare glance at the Fool to see how he had reacted to Chade’s remark. I shoveled another mouthful of food in to keep from having to say anything.

The brief interlude with him this morning had made me more aware than ever of how much I missed him. It cut me deeply that he would be himself to humor Chade, but not me. If, I reminded myself sourly, the Fool was indeed who he truly was.

I felt the Fool’s honor in that touch, an honor that was like armor between us. It was only my body he probed, not my heart or mind. I knew then with terrible guilt how my earlier accusations had wronged my friend. He would never seek anything from me that I did not first offer him. I heard him speak, and the words Skill-echoed through me even as they washed against my ears.

And the Fool, the Fool was gold gleaming and joy and a flight of jeweled dragons across a pure blue sky.

your deaths. I can’t.” “You can’t?” He gave a giggle of despair. “You see. We’re trapped. I’ve trapped you, my friend. My beloved.” I tried to fit my mind around what he was telling me. “If we lose, I die,” I said. He nodded. “If you die, we lose. It’s all the same.”

“This time, on Aslevjal.” A terrified smile trembled at the corners of his mouth. “It is my turn to die.”

“A man with nothing to lose,” he said at one point, “is often in the best position to sacrifice himself for the gain of others.”

One man armed with the right word may do what an army of swordsmen cannot. — MOUNTAIN PROVERB

“You said once that I might call you ‘Beloved,’ if I no longer wished to call you ‘Fool.’ ” I took a breath. “Beloved, I have missed your company.”

“Well.” He sighed. “I suppose that if you were going to have an appropriate name for me, it would still be Fool. So let us leave it at that, Fitzy. To you, I am the Fool.” He looked into the fire and laughed softly. “It balances, I suppose. Whatever is to come for us, I will always have these words to recall now.” He looked at me and nodded gravely, as if thanking me for returning something precious to him.

“Then, good night, Fool.” I opened the door and went out into the corridor. “Good night, beloved,” he said from his fireside chair. I shut the door softly behind myself.

Perhaps having the courage to find a better path is having the courage to risk making new mistakes.