Robin Hobb - The Golden Fool

‘Well.’ Her hands tangled together as she spoke. Then she gave herself a little shake as if coming back to herself. She cleared her voice and spoke more strongly. ‘It doesn’t surprise me a bit. You’re no more than bones, Tom Badgerlock. Look how your shirt hangs on you! Sit still a bit and I’ll make you a strengthening tisane.’ At the look on my face, she amended that to, ‘Or perhaps just a cup of tea. And some bread and cheese.’

Fish? Fennel asked me.

Jinna says cheese.

Cheese isn’t fish, but it’s better than nothing.

‘Tea and bread and cheese sounds good. I grew very weary of broth and tisanes and mush when I was recovering. In truth, I am most tired of all of being an invalid. I’m determined that I’ll get up and move around a bit every day from now on.’

‘Probably the best thing for you,’ she agreed distractedly. She cocked her head and stared at me. ‘But what’s this? Your Badgerlock is gone!’ and she pointed at my hair.

I managed a blush. ‘I’ve dyed it. In an effort to look more youthful, I’m afraid. My sickness has taken a grave toll on my appearance.’

‘It has, I must agree. But to dye your hair as a remedy… well. Men. Now.’ She gave her head a small shake as if to clear it. I wondered what was troubling her, but an instant later she seemed to have set it aside. ‘Have you heard what has happened between Hap and Svanja?’

‘I have,’ I assured her.

‘Well. I saw it coming.’ And then, as she put water on to heat, she went on to tell me, with many tongue cluckings, what I already knew: that Svanja had forsaken Hap for her returning sailor, and had shown her silver earrings to every other girl in town.

I let her explain it all to me as she sliced bread and cheese for us. When she had finished her say, I observed, ‘Well, it’s likely the best for both of them. Hap is more focused on his apprenticeship, and Svanja has a suitor her parents approve of. His heart is a bit bruised over it, but I think he’ll recover.’

‘Oh, aye, he’ll recover, while Svanja’s sailor boy is in port,’ Jinna observed sourly as she brought a tray to the little table between the chairs. ‘But you mark my words. The moment that lad has a deck under his feet again, Svanja will be after Hap once more.’

‘Oh, I doubt that,’ I observed mildly. ‘And even did she come to him, I think Hap has learned his lesson. Once burnt, twice shy.’

‘Hmph. Once bedded, ever eager, would be a better saying in this case. Tom, you need to warn him and warn him severely. Don’t let him fall to her wiles again. Not that she’s a wicked girl, only one that wants what she wants, when she wants it. She does as much damage to herself as she does to those young men.’

‘Well. I hope my lad has more common sense than that,’ I observed as she took the other chair.

‘So do I,’ she rejoined. ‘But I doubt it.’ Then, as she looked at me, her voice and face lapsed into stillness again. She looked at me as if she saw a stranger. I saw her start to speak twice and then each time still her words.

‘What?’ I asked finally. ‘Is there more to this Svanja-sailor tale that I don’t know? What’s wrong?’

After a heavy silence, she asked quietly, ‘Tom, I—We’ve been friends for a time, now. And we know more than just a bit about each other. I’ve heard… Never mind what I’ve heard. What really happened that afternoon on Falldown Street?’

‘Falldown Street?’

She looked aside from me. ‘You know the place. Three men dead, Tom Badgerlock. And some tale of a stolen purse of gemstones and a serving-man determined to get them back. Another might believe it. But then, half-dead yourself, you stop to kill a horse?’ She got up to take the purring kettle off the fire and poured water into the teapot. In a very soft voice, she said, ‘I’d been warned off you the week before, Tom. Someone told me you were a dangerous man to befriend. That something bad might befall you soon, and it would be better for me if it didn’t happen in my house.’

I gently pushed the cat from my lap and took the kettle of hot water from her shaking hands. ‘Sit down,’ I suggested gently. She sat and folded her hands in her lap. As I put the kettle back on the hearth, I tried to think calmly. ‘Will you tell me who warned you?’ I asked as I turned back to her. I already knew the answer.

She looked down at her hands. Then she shook her head slowly. After a moment, she said, ‘I was born here in Buckkeep Town. I’ve done my fair share of wandering about, but this is home when the snow comes down. The people here are my neighbours. They know me and I know them. I know… I know a great many people in this town, people of all kinds. Some of them I’ve known since I was just a girl. I’ve read the hands of many of them and I know many of their secrets. Now, I like you, Tom, but… you killed three men. Two of them Buckkeep Town men. Is that true?’

‘I killed three men,’ I admitted to her. ‘If it makes a difference to you, they would have killed me first, if I’d let them.’ A cold was creeping through me. Suddenly it seemed that perhaps her hesitations and apprehension today weren’t concern for me at all.

She nodded to that. ‘I don’t doubt that. But it remains that you went to where they were. They didn’t hunt you down. You went to them, and you killed them.’

I tried on the lie Chade had supplied for me. ‘I pursued a thief, Jinna. Once I was there, they gave me no choice. It was kill or be killed. I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t seek it,’

She just sat and looked at me. I sat back down in my chair.

Fennel stood, waiting for me to invite him back into my lap, but I didn’t. After a moment, I said, ‘You’d rather that I didn’t come here anymore.’

‘I didn’t say that.’ There was an edge of anger in her voice, but I think it was anger that I’d stated it so flatly. ‘I… it’s difficult for me, Tom. Surely you can see that.’ Again, that telling pause.

‘When we first came together, well… I thought that the, that the differences between us would make no difference. I’ve always said that all that things that folk said of Witted ones were mostly lies. I’ve always said that!’

She snatched the teapot up and poured tea defiantly, for both of us, as if to prove she still welcomed me there. She sipped from her cup and then set it down. The she picked up a piece of bread, put a piece of cheese with it and set it down. She said, ‘I’d known Padget since we were babes. I played with his girl-cousins when we were children. Padget was many things, and a number of them I didn’t like. But he wasn’t a thief.’

‘Padget?’

‘One of the men that you killed! Don’t pretend you don’t know his name! You had to know who he was to find him. And I know that he knew who you were. And his poor cousins were too frightened even to claim his body. For fear of being linked with him. Because it might make people think they were like him. But that is what I don’t understand, Tom.’ She paused, and in a quiet voice said, ‘Because you are like he was. You’re one, too. Why hunt and kill your own kind?’

I had just lifted up my teacup. I set it down carefully and took a breath, thinking I would speak. Then I let it out, waited, and began again. ‘I’m not surprised there is gossip about this. What folk say to the guard and what they say to one another are two different things. And I know there were Piebald scrolls put about town, claiming all sorts of wild things. So. Let us speak bluntly. Padget was Witted. Like me. That isn’t why I killed him, but it is true. It is also true that he was a Piebald. Which I am not.’ At her look of confusion, I asked her, ‘Do you know what a Piebald is, Jinna?’

‘Witted are Piebalds,’ she said. ‘Some of your kind say “Old Blood” instead. It’s all one.’