Fool's Quest (43 page)

“I was nearly seven when she revealed the truth to me. Having never seen anyone naked but a woman, I knew nothing of how a man's parts differed. I had believed myself a boy, all that time. I was shocked and distressed. And afraid. For in our house, there were girls not much older than me who toiled at my mother's trade sadly, though they must always pretend to be merry and giddy. That, my mother told me, was why she had made me a boy and why I must remain a boy. My true name, she told me, is Spark. Ash is what covers a coal and hides its light, and so she made my names.”

Despite himself, the Fool was rapt in her tale, his mouth slightly ajar in either wonder or horror. I felt a deep sadness for her.

“How is it that women work that trade as if they were slaves? Slavery is not permitted in the Six Duchies.”

She shook her head at my ignorance. “No. But when you incur a debt you cannot pay, often the judgment is that you must labor to pay it off. When my mother was young and new to Buckkeep Town, she learned to love the gaming tables. She was pretty and clever, but not clever enough to see that the owner of the gaming establishment gave her credits too easily. And when she was deeply enmeshed, he closed his trap.” She cocked her head at me. “She is not, by far, the first woman or man to be so coerced. It is well known that there is a judge, Lord Sensible, who presides over many debtors' judgments, and often sends comely men and women into the flesh trade. Discreet houses, such as the one where my mother worked, pay off the gambling debts and claim the new debt. If anyone complains, the owners threaten to sell the debt to the ones who put debtors on the docks and streets, to service their trade in the alleys. But once my mother was in the house, she was charged for the food she ate and her clothing and her bed and clean bedding. The whores can never emerge from their debts. When I was born and my mother kept me, I became an additional expense for her.”

“Lord Sensible.” I committed the name to my memory and vowed coldly that Dutiful would hear it from my lips. How had I lived so long in Buck and never known of such a thing?

Spark resumed her tale. “The women of the house began to use me as their little errand boy. I was allowed out and about, to run notes to their gentlemen or bring special items from the markets. Our lives went on. I met Lord Chade one evening when he asked for a lad to take a message from him to a ship at the river docks. I took it from him and did as he bade. When I returned, I gave him the written reply. I had turned to leave when he called me back, holding up a silver penny. But when I went to take it from him, he seized my hand, even as you did, and then in a whisper asked what my game was. I told him I had no game, that I was my mother's errand boy and if he had questions, he should ask them of her. And that night he sought her out instead of his favorite, and spent the whole evening with her. He was very impressed with how well she had taught me. And after that, whenever he came for his visit, he always made excuse to see me, to send me on an errand and always to pay me a silver penny. He began to teach me more things. To push my chin out to have more of a jaw, and to roughen my hand with cold water, and to pad out my shoes to make my feet look bigger.

“My mother was very good at her trade, but it was not what she had wanted for herself, and still less for me. Lord Chade promised that when I turned fifteen he would take me as his servant and teach me a different trade.” She paused, sighing. “Fate intervened. He took me when I was eleven.”

“Wait. How old are you?”

“As a girl? Thirteen. When I am Ash, I tell people I am eleven. I'm a rather spindly boy, even though I'm strong for a girl.”

“What happened when you were eleven?” the Fool demanded.

Spark's face lost all expression. Her eyes were unreadable. But she kept her voice steady. “A gentleman thought it would amuse him to share a bed with a mother and her son. He had already paid the lady of our house a substantial sum for such a night when he came to our quarters. No one asked our permission. When my mother objected, the owner of the house said that the debt to her was mine as well as my mother's. And that if my mother and I did not comply, she would turn me out of the house that very minute.” Her face went paler, her nostrils pinched with distaste. “The gentleman came to our rooms. He told me that first I would watch as he did his business with my mother. And then she would watch as he taught me ‘a new little amusement.' I refused and he laughed. ‘You've raised him to have spirit. I've always wanted a spirited little mount.'

“My mother said, ‘You will not have him, now or ever.' I thought he would be angry but it only seemed to make him excited. My mother was wearing a pretty wrap, as the women of the house often did. He seized the neck of it, tore it open, and pushed my mother down on the bed, but instead of fighting back, she wrapped her arms and legs about him and told me to run away, to leave the house and never come back.” She paused, her mind going back. Her upper lip twitched up twice: If she had been a cat, she would have spat out a hiss.

“Spark?” the Fool prompted her quietly.

Her voice was flat. “I ran. I obeyed her as I always had and I ran. I hid. For two days, I lived on the streets of Dingyton. I did not do very well at it. One day a man caught me. I thought he was going to kill me or rape me, but he told me Lord Chade wished to see me. It was a different name, of course, from the name I knew him by when he patronized my mother's house. But he had a token I recognized, so even though I feared a trap, I went with him. Two days of hunger and cold had made me wonder if I had been a fool to refuse my mother's gentleman.” She sighed out a breath. “The man took me to an inn, gave me a meal, and locked me in a room. I waited for hours, fearing what would happen next. The Lord Chade came. He said that my mother had been murdered and he had feared for me …”

That was the point at which life and pain came back into her voice. She gasped her way through the rest of her tale. “I thought I had left her to face a beating. Or to having the lady of the house dock her earnings. Not to be raped and strangled and left like a dirtied handkerchief on the floor of her chamber.”

Her words stopped and for a time she breathed like a bellows. Neither the Fool nor I spoke. Finally she said, “Lord Chade asked me who had done it. The lady of the house had refused to say who had bought my mother's time that evening. I did not know his name but I knew everything else about him. I knew the name of the scent he wore and the pattern of the lace on his cuffs, and that he had a birthmark below his left ear. I do not think I will ever be able to forget exactly how he looked as my mother clutched him to herself so that I could escape.”

Her words dwindled away and a long silence followed. She hiccuped, a strangely normal sound at the end of such a dark tale. “So I came here. To work for Lord Chade. I came here as a boy and I live here mostly as a boy, but sometimes he bids me dress as a maidservant. To learn how to be a girl, I suppose. Because as I become a woman, I suspect that it will not be as easy for me to wear my boy's disguise. But also to hear the sort of thing that folk do not say in front of a serving lad. To witness the sorts of things a lord or a lady does in front of a simple maidservant that they would not do before anyone else. And to bring such observations back to Chade.”

Chade. And with that speaking of his name, my errand flew back into my mind. “Chade! He has a wound fever, and that was why I came here. To fetch something for his pain. And to send for a healer to come to him later to cleanse the wound again.”

Spark leapt to her feet. The concern on her face was not feigned. “I'll fetch a healer for him now. I know the old man he prefers. He is not swift, but he is good. He talks to Lord Chade and offers him this or that treatment, and listens to what Lord Chade thinks would be best. I'll go for him now, though he will be slow to rouse, and then I'll come immediately to Lord Chade's room.”

“Go,” I agreed, and she hurried to the tapestry door and vanished from the den. For a short time we sat in silence.

Then, “Poppy,” I said, and rose to go to the shelves. Chade had it stored in several forms. I chose a potent tincture that I could dilute with a tea.

“She was a very convincing boy,” the Fool observed. I could not identify the emotion in his voice.

I was looking for a smaller container to carry some of the tincture in. “Well, you would know better about that than I would,” I said without thinking.

He laughed. “Ah, Fitz, I would indeed.”

He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. I turned in surprise to watch that. “Your hands seem much better.”

“They are. But they are still painful. Any poppy for me?”

“We need to be careful with how much pain medicine we give you.”

“So.
No
is what you are saying. Ah, well.” I watched him try to steeple his fingers. They were still too stiff. “I want to apologize. No. Not apologize exactly but … I get those surges of terror. Panic. And I become someone else. Someone I don't want to be. I wanted to hurt Ash. That was my first impulse. To hurt him for frightening me.”

“I know that impulse.”

“And?”

I had given up my search. I'd have to take the little bottle to Chade's room and then bring it back. “Ash is the one you should apologize to. Or Spark. And for that rush of fury? Time. Time passing with no one trying to hurt you or kill you will lessen that reaction. But in my experience, it never goes away completely. I still have dreams. I still feel flashes of rage.” The face of the man who had stabbed the dog in the market came to my mind. Anger surged in me again.
I should have hurt him more,
I thought.
Stop,
I told myself.
Stop remembering that.

The Fool's fingers pattered lightly on the wood he had been carving. “Ash, Spark. She's good company, Fitz. I like him. I suspect I'll like her as well. Chade is often wiser than I give him credit for. Allowing her to dress and live in both her roles is brilliant of him.”

I was silent. I had just recalled how casually I had stripped to the skin before Ash. A girl. A girl not that many years older than my own daughter, handing me fresh smallclothes. I do not think I had blushed so hotly in years. I would not mention that to the Fool. He'd had enough merriment at my expense lately.

“I should hurry this down to Chade. Fool, is there anything you need or want before I go?”

He smiled bitterly. He held up a hand and began to tick off items on his fingers. “My sight. My strength. Some courage.” He stopped. “No, Fitz, nothing you can give me now. I regret how I reacted to Ash being Spark. I feel oddly ashamed. Perhaps because, as you mentioned, I have played both those roles. Perhaps I understand a bit more of what you felt the first time you knew of Amber. I hope he will forgive me and come back.” He took up his wood and felt about for his carving tool. The crow hopped closer and cocked her head to see what he was doing. Somehow he sensed her. He extended his finger toward her and she hopped closer to have her head stroked. “My time here would have been far lonelier without Ash. And Motley. Much harder to bear. And she was the one to give me the dragon's blood that has done so much for me. I hope I haven't driven her away.”

“Perhaps I can come back and share a meal with you this evening.”

“The duties of Prince FitzChivalry Farseer will most likely prevent that. But some good brandy, late tonight, would be very welcome.”

“Late tonight, then.” I left them there and threaded my way back to Chade's bedchamber, arriving as two young men were leaving. They halted where they were and regarded me with wide eyes. Prosper and Integrity. Dutiful's sons. I had held them when they were babies, and as small boys they had sometimes visited Withywoods with their father. I had rolled them about in autumn leaves, and watched them chase frogs in a stream. And then, as they began to get older, their times on the Out Islands had taken them out of my world.

Prosper elbowed his brother and said smugly, “I told you that was him.”

King-in-Waiting Integrity had a bit more dignity. “Cousin,” he said gravely and held out a hand.

We clasped wrists while Prosper rolled his eyes. “I seem to recall him rinsing you off in the horse trough after you fell in the manure,” he observed to no one in particular.

Integrity strove to maintain his dignity as I lied carefully, “I don't remember that at all.”

“I do,” Prosper asserted. “Grandma Patience scolded you for fouling the horses' water.”

That brought a smile to my lips. I had forgotten that they had considered Patience a grandmother. Abruptly I wanted those days back. I wanted my little girl home, and I wanted that childhood for her. Not burning bodies in the night, nor being kidnapped by Chalcedean mercenaries. I pushed it all down and found my voice. “How is Lord Chade?”

“Our grandmother asked us to visit him and keep his mind busy. He just told us his mind was busy enough and asked us to take ourselves elsewhere. I think his wound is bothering him more than he wants anyone to know. But we are doing as he bade and taking ourselves elsewhere. Would you like to come with us? Lord Cheery is hosting cards today.”

“I—no, thank you. I think I'll take my watch at keeping Lord Chade's mind busy.” Cards. I knew a vague disapproval, then wondered what I thought they should be occupying themselves with. They stood a moment longer, looking at me, and I suddenly realized that we had next to nothing to say to one another. I had stepped back from their lives and now I scarcely knew them.

Integrity recovered before I did. “Well. We shall certainly see you at dinner tonight. Perhaps we can talk more then.”

“Perhaps,” I agreed, but I doubted it. I did not want to tell them grandfatherly tales of how things had been. People I'd killed, how their great-uncle had tortured me. I felt suddenly old, and hastily entered Chade's chambers to remind myself that he was much older than I was.