Fool's Quest (62 page)

Both Sawyer and Reaper had returned with six extra Rousters. “Make camp,” I told them, and they did. They built a fire where Dwalia's had burned. Three shelters were thrown up rapidly, from tree limbs and pine boughs. They'd brought bedrolls, and they floored the shelter with those. They had food and they shared it among themselves. I had no appetite, but when they melted water for drinking, I heated some and made a tea for us. They exchanged some sidelong glances and did not drink until after I did. Evidently FitzVigilant or Perseverance had made complaint about my trickery.

Long after they had gone to bed, I sat and stared at the fire. I do not know how often I stood and walked to the stone and put my hand on it. It was foolish. I could feel that my Skill was quenched. It was the same ear-stoppered mental isolation that I had felt on Aslevjal the first time I'd accidentally eaten Outislander elfbark. I tried to reach out with the Skill without success. I unfolded my Wit, and sensed the sleeping men and an owl hunting nearby, and very little else. Toward dawn I crawled into the tumbledown shelter the Servants had left, and slept. I woke after the others were long risen. My head hurt and my spirits were less than low. I was cold and hungry and angry with myself.

I walked to the stone and put my hand on the rune.

Nothing.

The morning passed. More snow fell. I dismissed four of the Rousters to go and find meat. I wasn't hungry but it gave them something to do. We had seen no sign of anyone else in the forest and they were chafing with boredom. The sun wandered the sky behind a layer of clouds. The hunters came back with two grouse. They cooked them. They ate them. I drank tea. The afternoon meandered toward evening. Too much time had passed. Was no one coming?

The light was going away when they arrived and I saw the reason why they had taken so long. Riddle led the way, and Nettle rode behind him. She sat her horse, but a litter followed: she'd probably disdained it. A full coterie of six Skill-users, armed and armored, followed them. And the baggage train, and attendants appropriate to Nettle's station, trailed after them. I went to meet them. Her public greeting to me was restrained, but I read anger, weariness, disappointment, and sorrow on her face. Riddle was subdued to stillness.

She allowed Riddle to hand her down from her horse but I sensed the chill between them and knew I was the cause. She looked at me, not him, as she said, “The Skill-pillar?”

I led the way wordlessly. All around us her entourage was busy setting up a camp with a stout tent for her. I heard the ring of hatchets as firewood was gathered and horses were led away. Her coterie trailed her, their faces grim. When we reached the Skill-pillar, I touched the rune once again. “I know where it goes.”

“The ancient marketplace on the trail to the stone dragons,” Nettle said. She met my gaze and said, “Did you think I would not know that?”

“I would like to describe it for the coterie, so they can know what to expect as they emerge from the pillar.”

“Do that. But we all know that there is no assurance the pillar has not toppled, and we cannot know if there are people there or if it is deserted. The Killdeer Coterie has offered to risk their lives to rescue Lady Bee.”

I turned and bowed gravely to the six strangers. “I thank you.” And I did, but I also hated them a little for being able to do what I could not. Then I told them of the pillar as last I had seen it, a pillar standing in what might have been a market-circle at some ancient time. Any town that had once existed there was long gone. The last time I had seen it, it had been surrounded by forest with no sign of human occupation. It would be cold in the Mountains in the winter. They nodded. Their leader, Springfoot, knit her brow and listened earnestly, and then formed her coterie up as if it were a military patrol. Left hands on the shoulder of the Skill-user before them, and right hands holding bared blades, they advanced to the Skill-stone and then looked to Nettle.

She nodded gravely. I watched what I had never seen before: a line of Skill-users swallowed one after another by the black stone. The appearance of the pillar never altered. The coterie simply walked into stone and was gone. When the last of them had vanished I lowered my face into my hands and breathed into the darkness I cupped, imagining a thousand possibilities.

“Fitz.”

I looked up. Nettle's expression was strange. I saw her swallow and then she spoke again.

“Springfoot has Skilled to me. They found no one. Only the plaza as you described it. Unbroken snow. No tracks leading away from the pillar. No one is there.”

I stared at her. “They must have gone on from there! Blowing snow must have covered their tracks.”

Nettle closed her eyes. I watched the lines of her brow deepen as she Skilled. She shook her head slowly, then met my gaze again. “Springfoot does not think so. She reports it is a calm, clear evening there. The snow is not fresh. There are rabbit tracks across the surface. Leaf litter, pine needles. All the signs that there has not been fresh snow or wind. Fitz. Springfoot does not think they ever emerged from the pillar.”

I spoke without breath.

“Did they not sense her at all? In the passage?”

She shook her head slowly as she Skilled to them.

“When Chade and I were delayed, Dutiful found us in the pillar. Cannot they …?”

She lifted her hands, gloved fingers spread. “They are trying, Da. But they sense nothing there. Even to Skill back to me is a challenge, like shouting over the rush of a river. The Skill-current fountains there, they say, and is hard to navigate.”

Riddle put his arm around her, shoring her up. I stood alone. Very alone. A trained coterie was barely able to function. An untrained woman had led a following there; what chance could they possibly have had? “Then … she is gone?”

“They will keep trying.” But I had uttered the unthinkable aloud. Gone. Lost in the Skill-current.

Nettle spoke on. The coterie had supplies for five days and would have to remain for at least three days before using the pillar to return. This particular coterie was as talented with weapons as with Skill. She dared to hope that perhaps Dwalia and the others would still emerge from the pillar; that they were only delayed and not lost. I'd had that experience. I knew it could happen. She reminded me that the old tales were full of instances of folk who had accidentally entered a stone and then emerged months or even years later, untouched by the time that had passed. Her words meant as much to me as the sound of water flowing over icy stones. I'd not had luck that good in a very long time.

After a while, I had become aware that she had stopped speaking. She was silent. Tears, silver in the last light of the day, were tracking down her face. Riddle stood beside her and wept unashamed. No one was talking. There was nothing to say.

We stood and we waited. Nettle Skilled. I attempted to Skill, without result. Eventually, exhaustion claimed her and Riddle guided her off to a sturdy tent and a warm meal. I sat down, put my back to the cold stone, and waited. I spent the night staring into the dark.

It was past noon when we reached Buckkeep Castle.

We had ridden slowly for Nettle's comfort. Riddle rode at her side, and any anger she had felt toward him had vanished, swept away by the even more terrible loss we shared. By way of the Skill, she had kept Dutiful and the others abreast of our tragedy. I was deaf to the Skill and numb to every sense except my loss.

We had camped for five days at the site. Nettle had summoned a fresh coterie from Buckkeep. They had joined us there and attempted to find Bee in the pillar from our location. Their efforts had exhausted them with no results. They had returned to us, frostbitten and hollow-eyed. Nettle had thanked them and the Killdeer Coterie for their heroic efforts. We'd struck camp and left the standing stone in the deeply shaded winter forest. I carried that cold within me as we left.

I had Perseverance's horse as a mount, a beast so well trained he took absolutely no management. Bleak and silent, I dropped back to ride with my Rousters. Not thinking took my entire focus. Every time a blade of hope sprouted, I rooted it out. I refused to think of what I'd done wrong, of what else I might have done. I refused to think at all.

We rode by daylight, but all seemed dimness to me. Sometimes I felt thankful that Molly was dead and not here to witness how badly I had failed. Sometimes I wondered if I was being punished because I had not loved Bee enough when she was small and dumb and helpless. Then I would push my mind back into not thinking.

The Buckkeep Guard admitted us without pause and we rode to the courtyard. There was a flurry around Nettle's horse as servants emerged to welcome her home and all but carry her inside. I was dully surprised to find my Rousters standing in a row, holding their horses and waiting to be dismissed. I sent them off to their barracks and told them to report to Foxglove on the morrow. Time for Foxglove to integrate them, to change their livery and teach them discipline. I could not care about any of it.

I wondered why I had come back here. I wondered what would happen if I got back on the horse and rode away. How long would it take me to get to Clerres? I would travel fastest alone. The horse was tired. No supplies. That was not the way to do this. But how I longed to be that reckless boy again. I stood silent for a long time, aware that Riddle had come to stand beside me, but I didn't turn to look at him.

He spoke quietly. “King Dutiful has summoned all of us to his private audience chamber.”

There would be a royal rebuke for my disobedience. A report demanded. I did not care about any of it, but Riddle just stood there, a presence against my Wit-sense. I didn't turn to him when I spoke. “I need to take care of the horse,” I said.

He was silent for a time and then said, “I'll tell Nettle that you'll be with us shortly.”

I led the horse into the old stables. I didn't even know his name. I found the empty stall between Fleeter and Priss, removed harness, hauled water, and found grain where it had always been kept. The stable girl named Patience came, looked at me, and then went away silently. No one else approached me until Perseverance appeared. He looked over the stall wall at me. “I should be doing that.”

“Not this time.” He was quiet, watching me do meticulously every small task one does when a hard-used horse is returned to a stable. I knew how his hands must itch to watch someone else take care of his animal. But I needed to do this. I needed to do at least this small task correctly.

“She goes like the wind. That Fleeter. The horse you loaned me.”

“She does
. She's a good one.
” She was watching me over her stall door. I was finished. There was nothing more to do here. No more excuses for delay. I closed the stall door behind myself and wondered where I would go.

“Prince FitzChivalry? Sir?” He spoke in a whisper. “What happened? Where is Bee?”

“Lost. Lost forever.” I said aloud the words that had been echoing endlessly in my mind. “They took her into a Skill-pillar, boy. And they got lost in the magic. They never came out on the other side.”

He stared at me. Then he lifted his hands to his head and seized two great handfuls of his own hair as if he would rip it out. He bowed his head to his chest. “Bee,” he said in a voice so tight it squeaked. “My little Bee. I was teaching her to ride.”

I set a hand to his shoulder and he suddenly butted into me, hiding his face against me. “I tried to save her, sir!” It was a strangled cry, choked against my shirt. “I did, sir. I tried.”

“I know, boy. I know you did.” My back was to the stall wall. When my knees gave out, I slid down, to sit in the straw. Perseverance collapsed beside me. He curled up and wept ferociously. I sat wearily and patted him and wished that I could let my sorrow out as tears or sobs or screams. But it was a black poison that filled me up.

His horse looked over the stall and down at Per. He stretched his neck and whiffled the boy's hair, then lipped at it. Perseverance reached up a hand. “I'll be all right,” he told the horse in a dulled voice. The boy lied well. Fleeter reached for me.

Not now, horse. I can't. Nothing left to give or share.
I felt her bafflement. Don't bond. If you don't bond, you can't fail. Not with Fleeter, not with Perseverance. Cut them off now before it got any deeper. It was the responsible thing to do.

I hauled myself to my feet. “I have to go,” I told the stable boy.

He nodded and I walked away. I hadn't eaten, I hadn't slept, and I hurt all over. I didn't care. I entered by the kitchen door, as if I were still Nameless the dog-boy. I walked stolidly until I reached the door of Dutiful's private audience room. Once it had been King Shrewd's. Here judgment was passed and justice delivered to those of the nobler bloodlines. In older times, princes had been sent into exile from this room, and princesses found guilty of adultery and banished to distant keeps. What fate would Dutiful decree for me? I wondered again why I had come back to Buckkeep. Perhaps because thinking of something else to do was too difficult. The doors were tall, lovely panels of mountain oak. They were ajar. I pushed them open and walked in.

For all its gravitas, it was a simple room. An elevated chair, a stark judgment throne for the king or queen, presided over it. A lower chair beside it for any counselor the ruler might wish. Other chairs, of oak with straight backs, lined the walls for possible witnesses to the misdeed or those bringing the grievance. And in the center, a short wooden railing enclosed a low wooden block where the accused would kneel while awaiting his ruler's judgment. The floor was bare stone, as were the walls. The only decoration was a large tapestry of the Farseer Buck that graced the wall behind the judgment seat. At the other end of the room, a fire burned in a large hearth, but it was not enough to banish the chill or dismiss the smell of disuse in the chamber.

They were waiting for me. Dutiful and Elliania, and the princes Integrity and Prosper. Nettle and Riddle. Kettricken, clad in simple black, her head cowled against the chill, looked older than when I had last seen her. Chade was seated, and next to him, in a heavy woolen shawl as if she would never be warm again, hunched Shine. She leaned on her father as if she were a child. Her cheeks, nose, and brow were still scalded red from the cold she had endured. Lant sat straight at Chade's other side. Chade looked at me but his gaze betrayed nothing. Thick was there also, I noted, seated and looking about with round eyes. King Dutiful had not yet assumed the judgment seat, but he was formally attired and crowned. His queen Elliania had a fine scarf embroidered with narwhals and bucks over her head, and her crown upon that. She looked grave and ethereal. Nettle had changed her clothes but still looked cold and weary. Riddle, dressed in Buck blue with black trim, stood beside her. His arm sheltered her as I never had. Her brother Steady was beside her, as if to offer his strength.

I squared my shoulders, stood straight, and waited. I was surprised to hear someone else enter. I turned to see Hap, my foster son, dragging a wool cap from his head, his cheeks still red with cold. Swift entered on his heels, and his twin, Nimble, behind him. Must they, too, witness my disgrace and failure? Chivalry, Burrich's eldest son, came in behind them. The page who had guided them up bowed deeply and then withdrew, shutting the doors behind him. No one had spoken. Chivalry looked at me with deeply grieved eyes before joining his siblings. Swift and Nimble had gone to Nettle's side, to flank their sister. They huddled together. Hap looked at me but I would not meet his gaze. He hesitated, and then went to stand with Nettle and her brothers.

I stood alone.

I turned to look at Dutiful but he was watching the door. Someone tapped cautiously and then pushed the door open slowly. Spark entered, clad in sedate Buckkeep blue, the guise of a serving girl. And walking slowly beside her, his pale hand on her shoulder, came the Fool. He was clad in a black tunic over a loose-sleeved white shirt, with black leggings and low shoes. A soft black hat covered his sparse hair. His sightless eyes roved the chamber but I knew that it was his hand on Spark's shoulder that guided him. She took him to one of the chairs along the wall and helped him seat himself. Steady looked round at the gathering and then at King Dutiful. The king gave a short nod. Steady walked to the door and shut it firmly.

I waited. I'd only witnessed this once, when I was twelve, and then it had been through a spy-hole in the wall. I remembered it well. I knew that Dutiful would walk to the raised chair and take his place. The others would find chairs along the walls. And I would be commanded to take my place standing at the rail and explain what I had done. And what I had failed to do.

Dutiful drew a deep and ragged breath. I wondered how hard this would be for him, and suddenly I deeply regretted putting him through it. Not what I had done; no regrets there, save that I had not rescued my daughter. He did not speak loudly, but his voice carried. “I think we are all here. I am sorry we must gather like this. Under the circumstances, we must keep this private. Within the family, in a sense.”

The lack of formality shocked me. He turned, not to me, but toward Hap and Chivalry and Nimble. “We sent you word that Bee had been kidnapped. Today we give you worse tidings. She is lost to us.”

“No!” Chivalry's voice shook as he uttered his low denial. “What happened? How was she taken, and how is it possible you could not track down her kidnappers?”

Hap looked around at us. His trained voice broke as he said, “She was so small. So delicate.”

Shine muffled a sob. Dutiful spoke. “Fitz, do you want to tell them? Or shall I?”

So. A public confession before judgment. It was fitting. Dutiful had not taken his proper place but I knew how things should proceed. I walked to the railing. I placed both hands on it. “It began two days before Winterfest. I wanted to give Bee a special day. She'd … things had been difficult in our household.” I hesitated. How much pain did I wish to cause? As little as possible. Chade, Lant, and Shine had tragedy enough. However they had failed me, I had failed them even more.

And so I took it all upon myself. I did not speak of Lant's shortcomings as a teacher and I glossed over Shine's greed and childishness. Of all I had done, I spoke true, from my interference in the dog's death to how I had left my child to the care of others to try to save the Fool. I admitted that I had resisted the idea of having a Skilled one stationed in my home to relay information in my absence, and that I had never seen the need for a house guard.

Dispassionately, I recounted all that had happened in my absence. I did not stop for Shine's gasping sobs. I spoke of the lives shattered at Withywoods and all my futile efforts to find Bee. I said only that the two Chalcedeans I'd questioned had confirmed all our Withywoods folk had told us. I did not say why they had spoken so freely. I confessed that I had taken elfbark and been unable to follow my daughter into the stone. And to those who had never used a Skill-portal, I explained that Bee was now lost. Not dead: no, nothing so simple as dead. Lost. Gone. Unraveled into the Skill-stream. All efforts to recover her failed.