Robin Hobb - The Golden Fool

Silvereye stirred a muck more difficult to settle. She spoke of those who had murdered her family. As she spoke, her voice rose in anger and hatred and pain, and I saw those emotions echoed in many faces around her. Web looked sick and sorrowful, and my Queen’s face grew very still. Chade’s features were graven in stone. But anger most often begets anger, and the faces of Queen Kettricken’s Six Duchies representatives became set in surly expressions. The vengeance and punishment she demanded were far too steep for anyone to consider granting.

It was as if she set a jump that no negotiator could clear and then declared that she could be satisfied with nothing less. This, she declared, was the only way to end persecution of the Old Blood. Make it a crime so hideously punished that none would consider committing it again. Further, search out and eliminate all who had ever committed or tolerated such treatment of Old Bloods. Out of her personal sorrow Silvereye expanded her grievance to include all Witted executed in the last century. She demanded both punishment and restitution, with the punishment to mirror exactly what had befallen their victims. Kettricken had the wisdom to allow her to keep speaking until she had run out of words. Surely I could not have been the only one to hear the edge of madness in her demands. And yet if grief powered that madness, then who was I to criticize it?

By the time Silvereye had finished, there were many other Old Bloods anxious to take up the tally of all that had been lost to the persecution. Names were called out of folk who deserved death, and the anger in the room swirled like a gathering storm. But my queen held up a hand and asked them quietly, ‘Then where should it end?’

‘When every last one has been punished!’ Silvereye declared passionately. ‘Let the gallows sway with their weight, and the smoke of their burning blacken the skies all summer. Let me hear their families wail aloud in a sorrow like the sorrows that we have been forced to conceal, lest others know us for Old Bloods. Let the punishment be apportioned exactly. For every father killed, let a father die. For every mother, a mother. For every child, a child.’

The Queen sighed. ‘And when those who have suffered your vengeance come seeking from me a vengeance of their own? How then could I turn them aside? You propose that if a man has killed the children of an Old Blood family, then the children of his family should die alongside him. But what of the cousins of those children and the grandparents? Should not they then come before me and ask of me what you now demand? Would not they be just as right in saying that innocents had died in mad persecution? No. This cannot be. You ask what I cannot give you, and well you know it.’

I saw hatred and fury leap into Silvereye’s gaze. ‘So I knew it would be,’ she declared bitterly. ‘Empty promises are what you offer us.’

‘I offer you the same justice that anyone in the Six Duchies may seek, the Queen said wearily. ‘Come before me on a judging day, with witnesses to the wrongs done to you. If murder has been done, then the murderer will be punished. But not his children. There is no justice in what you seek, only revenge.’

‘You offer us nothing!’ Silvereye declared. ‘Well you know that we do not dare come before you seeking justice. Too many would stand between us and Buckkeep Castle, anxious to silence us with death.’ She paused. Queen Kettricken remained still in the face of her wrath, and Silvereye made the mistake of pressing what she thought was her advantage. ‘Or has that always been your intention, Farseer Queen?’ Silvereye swept the gathering with a righteous glance. ‘Does she lure us out into the open with empty promises so that she can do away with all of us?’

A brief silence followed her words. Then Kettricken spoke quietly. ‘You throw words that you do not yourself believe. Your intention is to wound. Yet, if your accusations had any basis in fact, I would not be wounded by them, but would rather feel justified in hating Old Bloods.’

‘Then you admit that you hate Old Bloods?’ Silvereye demanded with satisfaction.

‘That is not what I said!’ Kettricken responded both in horror and anger.

Tempers were rising, and not just among the Old Bloods. Kettricken’s Six Duchies councillors looked both insulted and uneasy at the brewing storm in the room. I do not know what would have become of the negotiation if fate had not intervened in the person of Sally, the cow-woman. She stood abruptly, saying, ‘I must go to the stables. It is Wisenose’s time, and she wishes me to be there.’

Someone in the back of the room laughed resignedly, and someone else cursed at her. ‘You knew she was due to calve. Why did you bring her?’

‘Would you have me leave her alone at home, then? Or that I stay away entirely, Briggan? Well do I know that you think me scatter-brained, but I’ve as good a right to be here as you.’

‘Peace,’ Web said suddenly. He croaked the word, then cleared his voice and tried again. ‘Peace. It is as good a time as any to let tempers and hearts cool, and if Wisenose has need of her partner, then surely no one here will argue that she must go. And I will accompany her, if she wishes it. And perhaps by the time we return, all here will recall that we seek a solution to our present problems, not a way to change what is past, however grievous it may be.’

It struck me then that Web had a firmer control over this meeting than the Queen herself, but I doubt that any within the room noticed it. That is the advantage to watching from the outside, as Chade had often told me. Then it all becomes a show, and one scrutinizes the players equally. I observed them now as the Six Duchies delegation filed out behind the Queen and Chade, and then Web accompanied Sally down to the stables. I remained at my post, for I judged that what would follow might be most revealing of all.

And it was. Some, including the minstrel and the woman who had earlier spoken of her son paging for the Queen, asked Silvereye if she would destroy their future for the sake of a past that could not be remedied. Even Boyo seemed inclined to think Silvereye had taken their argument too far. ‘If this Farseer queen holds to her word, then perhaps our grievances could be brought before her at a judging. I have heard it said she is fair in her decisions. Perhaps we should accept her offer.’

Silvereye all but hissed. ‘Cowards, all of you. Cowards and-boot-lickers! She offers you bribes, safety for one or two of your children, and in return you are ready to let the whole past forgotten. Do you forget the screams of your cousins, do you forget: coming to visit friends and finding only a scorched patch by a stream? How can you be so false to your own blood? How can you forget?’

‘How can we forget? It isn’t a matter of forgetting. It is a matter of remembering.’ This from an Old Blood I had not particularly noted before. He was a man of middle years and slight build, a man with the look of a town about him. He was not a good speaker; he gulped his words and looked nervously about, but folk still listened to him. ‘I will tell you what I remember. I remember that when my parents were taken from their cottage, it was because Piebalds betrayed them. Yes, and a Piebald rode with those who hanged and quartered them. Laudwine’s cult dared to call my parents traitors to Old Blood and threatened to punish them because they would not offer haven to those who stir the hatred against us. Well, who was the true traitor that day? My parents who wished only to live in what peace they could find, or the Piebald betrayer who carried the torch that burned their bodies? We have worse enemies than this Farseer queen to fear. And what I intend to ask of her when she comes back is justice against those who terrorize and betray us. Justice against the Piebalds.’