Fool's Quest (83 page)

He maintained his brisk pace up the steps and weary as I was, I strove to keep up with him. The entrance hall was furnished in what I believed was a Bingtown style. There were clusters of chairs around small elegant tables. The room still looked oddly empty to me until I realized that it was missing a grand hearth with a fire. Despite the high ceilings and wide windows of thick yellow glass, it was still warm inside; I judged this further evidence of Elderling magic at work. We did not pause in this room, but entered a flagged hall and walked along it, our boots ringing while the softly shod feet of the king whispered along. We passed half a dozen ornately carved doors before he opened one and gestured us in.

In the center of the room was a table with an elegant cloth and fine dishes set out upon it. Chairs with carved wooden backs and green cushions awaited us. The art on the walls was foreign to my eyes, but pleasant. Images were suggested—the deep twining greens of a forest or the wide rippled face of a river—but nothing was precisely depicted. A woman had been straightening the silverware on the table, but she turned to greet us as we entered.

Queen Malta of the Dragon Traders. She was legendary for her exotic beauty, and there was no mistaking her for anyone else. Her curling hair was not blond but gold, gold as a gleaming coin. Delicate scaling followed the lines of her brow and emphasized her high cheekbones and decided chin. Like her king, she was dressed in an Elderling robe over loose trousers. The soft little slippers she wore sparkled gold. The fabric of her clothing shimmered from green to gold and back again as she moved to greet us. Caution made me drop to one knee before her, and Lant followed my example. She laughed, and I thought it was at me until I realized that young Perseverance, caught in her beauty, was standing behind us, staring at her with eyes wide and mouth ajar.

She shifted her gaze back to me, and her smile grew even broader. “And that expression honors me more than any presentation of gifts,” she observed, and Perseverance abruptly dropped to his knees. Her eyes twinkled at me as if we shared some splendidly funny secret. She swept me a curtsy. “Prince FitzChivalry, you honor us with this unexpected visit. Yet I feel as if we have met before. I do hope you will forgive General Rapskal. He is sometimes both officious and suspicious.” She transferred her gaze to her husband. “Reyn, dear, as you can see, I've added some extra place settings to our table. I was so glad to receive your message. And I think we shall have all our unexpected guests join us at table!” Again her sparkling gaze came back to me. “Prince FitzChivalry, do you believe in coincidence?”

“I have known some that were passing strange,” I told her.
Careful, Fitz.
I knew I was treading onto unstable ground and would have to be ready to change my tale at a moment's notice. I turned my smile to Lant and Perseverance, hoping they could read my warning.

“And here is my coincidence,” Queen Malta exclaimed with a smile as a door on the opposite side of the room opened.

Spark, her hair freshly brushed and braided into tidy coils on her head, entered the room. Her cheeks were pink, and Lady Thyme's elegant black lace overskirt looked better on her than it ever had on that noisome old woman. Behind her came, not the Fool, not Gray, but Amber, and Amber as I had never even imagined her. The butterfly cloak hung gracefully from her narrow shoulders. The Fool's short hair had been damped and tousled into curls, and a touch of paint reddened his pale lips and cheeks. I knew the sparkling earrings were glass, but the sparkle was as convincing as the Fool's painted mouth and black-lined eyes. My boyhood friend had vanished and there was absolutely nothing of King Shrewd's jester. I stared and knew again that jab of betrayal. How could he be so completely this person that I knew not at all? The gulf of uncertainty I felt was painful. I felt both deceived and excluded.

But I had no time to indulge in my feelings. The play had begun and I must find my role. The fingertips of her gloved hand rested on Spark's shoulder as she was guided into the room. “Oh, my lady, they are here!” Spark exclaimed when she saw us. “Prince FitzChivalry and Lord Lant and even Perseverance. And they appear uninjured.”

At this news, Amber's fingertips fluttered up to the Fool's painted mouth in a completely feminine gesture of surprise and relief. He found my shape and exclaimed as Amber, “Oh, Fitz! Lant and Perseverance! You are safe. I am so relieved to know that you have taken no harm! Oh, Queen Malta, thank you, thank you for finding them and rescuing them. I am forever in your debt.”

“Indeed you are,” Malta said quietly. Had Amber forgotten she was dealing with a woman born a Bingtown Trader, one to whom every transaction in life was a bargain or an agreement or a deal? Then Malta added, “As I and much of Bingtown remain in yours. For I believe that a debt can be as mutual as a promise.”

There was something of Chade in Lant after all. He had maintained his aplomb and did not gape. Perseverance struggled, coughing heavily and using it as an excuse to bow his head. I desperately longed to know what tale the Fool had already told Malta. I had said we were emissaries from the Six Duchies and had come down from the Mountains. Had we contradicted each other, and if so, could we find a way to mend it convincingly?

King Reyn looked puzzled and was not trying to cover his confusion. Malta gave him a significant look and I knew that she would be the one to handle us. “Please, come to the table. Let us eat and drink together, and we will see what we can do to help you on your way.”

Reyn seated his queen and took his chair at the head of the table. We were ranged down one side of the table. A servant, very human in appearance, arrived to escort Spark and Perseverance away to refreshments of their own. Spark went as if fully comfortable with this while Per gave me several backward glances even as I nodded to him to go. King Reyn smiled round at us as the door closed behind them and exclaimed, “I am ravenous! I hope you will not find it strange if we stand on little ceremony here.” He looked at Amber and smiled as he said, “Even after years of it,
king
and
queen
sit a bit oddly with us.” With a glance at Lant and me, he added, “After years of the Satrapy extorting money from the Bingtown Traders, we who were raised as Traders still wonder why anyone would think we preferred a monarchy. But it's a convenient way for the outside world to see us, as I'm sure you both understand.”

My thoughts scrabbled. Kettricken had said something of it to me once. Just as she had been trained to see herself as Sacrifice for her people, but outsiders had seen her as a Mountain princess, so Malta and Reyn, while known as the King and Queen of the Rain Wilds, were actually more the chief negotiators for a consortium of merchant traders. I nodded politely and Lant smiled. The “king” was serving himself from a dish of food, which he then passed on to his “queen.” As the dish moved down the table, we each took a portion and passed it on. Dish followed dish, and while it was of a better quality than what we had been offered earlier, it still did not surpass what I'd expect on the Buckkeep table. Lant rose in my estimation as I saw him lean toward Amber, identify the dish for her, and then allot her a serving if she desired it.

Reyn smiled round at all of us. “Let us simply eat before we talk, shall we?”

“Of course!” Amber accepted for all of us. “Bargaining and digestion are not the best companions, as well we must know.”

“Then you come to bargain?” Reyn smiled at her. “And I thought Prince FitzChivalry and his party were emissaries from the Six Duchies.”

“Emissaries in search of a particular bargain. But let us say no more of that now, but only eat and drink together, as old friends and new.” Amber walked her fingertips on the table, found and lifted a glass filled with a golden wine. “To friends well met!” she offered, and all drank to her toast. When she set down her glass, she added, “I had so hoped to see Phron while I was here. He is well, I trust?”

Malta stopped chewing the bit of meat she had taken. Amber smiled innocently but I saw his dart had struck true and wondered why he had launched it. After a moment, Rey said quietly, “Phron's health remains delicate. Perhaps he will join us briefly after the meal, if he feels up to meeting guests.”

“I am grieved to hear that,” Amber replied softly. “The last word I had of him was years ago. At that time, I believe he had begun to thrive.”

“Years ago,” Malta said softly. Sometimes, when a bell is struck, another vibrates in sympathy. The parent in me echoed the concealed pain in her voice, and I wanted Amber to stop pressing her. Something was seriously wrong with her child. I would never make it a bargaining point and I was not sure what Amber was leading up to.

Reyn spoke, his tone a bit acerbic. “I'm surprised you had any tidings of Phron.”

Amber shrugged lightly. Her fingers danced delicately over her food, and then, almost as if she were sighted, she cut a bite from a slice of preserved fruit on her plate. I did not recognize the fruit and took a cautious bite of mine as she spoke. “It was years ago. You know how such gossip travels, from friend to friend. You recall Jek, my shipmate on the
Paragon
?”

Oh, neatly done. I now guessed the true source of her news. Jek was one of the few names I knew from Chade's network of spies and information gatherers. I suspected that while news of this Phron was years old, the Fool had rummaged it out from Chade's scrolls. No: He was blind. It would have had to come from Spark. Or Ash. So the youngster was deeply, deeply the Fool's now, enough to purloin not only dragon blood but also precious information for him. I was not sure if I was glad that he had such a loyal person at his command or resentful that such a useful resource had been lured away from Chade.

Malta's brow creased briefly, making the scaling wink. “I do not recall her. Perhaps we did not meet.”

“She handled much of my business here after I had to leave Bingtown.”

“Oh, yes. I remember her now. The repayments of the loan were made through her.”

Amber nodded.

“We haven't forgotten,” Reyn said. “Ready money was very scarce at the end of our war with Chalced. When you loaned out much of your share of Igrot's treasure, it helped many in Bingtown to rebuild. So many of our heritage merchants suffered the loss of their shops and stock. And it helped many of the Tattooed to make a fresh start here.”

“And it was financially wise of you,” Malta added, reminding all that Amber had undoubtedly shown a profit on her kindness. “We were years paying it back to you.”

And now I knew the source of Lord Golden's stream of income in his wild gambling days at Buckkeep court. What he had invested wisely in Bingtown, he spent with a shocking profligacy in Buckkeep Town. Because he had known then that he was going to die and saw no point in saving any of it. Oh, this was good. So many bits and pieces of the Fool's lives were being handed to me. I smiled at Amber across the table and somehow she knew, for she showed me her teeth. “It helped me through a difficult time,” Amber responded congenially.

Malta spoke delicately. “I cannot help but notice that life has put you through many changes since last I saw you. I mourn that you have lost your sight. And I had not realized that you had had enough contact with dragons to undergo a change.”

There was a baggage train of questions packed into that comment. I waited. “I promised you my story when I came to you, and you have waited so patiently. Let us finish eating, then, and I shall tell it.” Ah, so I was not the only one he used his delaying tactic upon.

The rest of the meal passed uneventfully. Lant said little except to thank them for the meal and to compliment the food, and I volunteered little more than that. Often I felt Reyn's eyes upon me, measuring me, and I strove to behave as a Farseer prince should, even as I wondered what sort of a tale Amber had spun around us.

Our meal over, a servant cleared the table and set out brandy and glasses for us, with a selection of spicy teas offered as well. The brandy was Sandsedge, from the Six Duchies, and I wondered if that was intended as a compliment. I accepted a small glass with pleasure and sincere thanks. Reyn had just opened his mouth to reply when the door opened and a frail old Elderling came in. He moved slowly, a servant at his side and a cane in his hand. He breathed audibly through his nose, and took short cautious steps as he made his way toward the table. His hair was as golden as Malta's and his scaling as blue as Reyn's. Even so, I was startled when Malta said brightly, “And here is Phron, come to wish us good night.”

Amber could not see but perhaps she could hear Phron's breathing and his hesitant step as he made his way to the table and then eased himself into a chair. The servant stooped, to ask if he would prefer brandy or tea. “Tea. Please.” A gasp punctuated the man's request, for so his voice betrayed him to be. I looked at him afresh. His eyes were an intense blue, and the scaling of blue and silver that marked him was both intricate and fanciful. It was no chance growth, like a calico kitten's fur. The patterns on his face and bared arms were as deliberate and artful as a tattoo. But the purplish tint to his lips that puffed in and out as he breathed and the dark circles under his eyes were not part of that coloring. Phron. Malta's son. Not an old man, but a young one made old by illness.

Malta had gone to her son's side. She extended a hand to indicate us. “Prince FitzChivalry, Lord Lant, Lady Amber, I am pleased to present our son, Ephron Khuprus.”

I stood, took two steps and bowed to him. The closer I got to him, the louder my Wit-sense of him rang. He extended his hand to me, and so I offered mine. He surprised me when he clasped my wrist in the Six Duchies style of warrior greeting warrior, but I returned it. The moment my hand closed against his skin, my awareness of him doubled in a way I had never experienced. It was not comfortable for me and yet it did not seem he was even aware of it. Dragon and boy, boy and dragon rang against my senses in a way I could scarcely stand. And with that doubled sense of him, an even deeper sense of wrong, wrong, wrong within his body. He was weak and breathless, starved and weary from the wrongness. It jangled against my senses unbearably, and thoughtlessly I reached out and touched the error.