Robin Hobb - The Golden Fool

Web had one other student at those sessions, one I had never thought to see again at Buckkeep. Swift, Burrich’s son, often sat silently on the outskirts of Web’s circle.

Word that Queen Kettricken would welcome Witted folk had gone out. Few had responded. The difficulty was plain. How could one offer his son or daughter as page without revealing that the Wit was in the family bloodline? Here at court, the Queen might be able to protect such a child, but what of his kin at home? Lord Brant, a lesser noble of Buck, had brought his ten-year-old son and sole heir. He had presented him to the Queen as Old Blood, but claimed that the magic came from his mother, dead these six years and with few surviving kin. The Queen had accepted him at his word. I also suspected one seamstress who had recently come to Buckkeep, but if she did not wish to openly declare her Wit, I would not ask.

The Queen’s other new page was none other than Swift. He had come, alone and on foot, wearing new boots and a new jacket and bearing a letter from Burrich. I had witnessed him presenting it to the Queen from my usual vantage point. The letter ceded the boy to the Farseers, admitting that Burrich had done his best with the lad but failed to shake him from his course. If he would not leave that base magic, then let him embrace it, and his father was done with him. He could not afford to have the boy around his younger brothers. It also directed that the lad not be known as Burrich’s son at the court. When Queen Kettricken gently asked of him how he wished to be known then, Swift had lifted his pale face and answered quietly but firmly, ‘Witted. It is what I am and will not deny.’

‘Swift Witted it shall be then,’ she had replied with a smile. ‘And I think it a name that will fit you well. I turn you over to my councillor, Chade, now. He will find appropriate duties for you, and lessons as well.’

The boy had given a small sigh, and then bowed deeply, obviously relieved that the ordeal of his royal audience was over. He had walked very stiff and straight as he left the audience chamber.

That Burrich would discard the boy shocked me to the depths of my soul, but I was also relieved. While Swift remained in Burrich’s household and the Wit was a point of contention between them, it could lead only to strife and misery. I suspected the decision had been both difficult and bitter for Burrich, and I lay awake nearly all of one night wondering what Molly thought of it and if she had wept at her son’s departure. I was sorely tempted to reach out to Nettle but had refrained from doing so since the day of Thick and Dutiful’s wild Skilling, It was not only that I did not wish to connect what we shared with that Skill-summons. I still feared the echoing memory of that alien voice. I would not chance a strong sending that would draw its attention to myself or to my daughter.

Yet on that night, as if my heart betrayed my mind, Nettle’s mind touched mine. It seemed almost a chance encounter, as if we had happened to dream of one another at the same moment. I wondered again at how effortlessly our minds could unite with the Skill, and wondered if Chade were correct. Perhaps this was something I had taught her from the time she was small. I dreamed of her sitting on the grass beneath a spreading tree. She held something in her cupped hands, something secret and small, and stared at it sorrowfully.

What troubles you? I asked her. Even as I spoke to her and she focused on me, I felt my dream self assume the shape she always gave me. I sat down and curled my tail around my forefeet. I grinned at her wolfishly. I do not look like this, you know.

How would I know what you look like? she asked me peevishly. You tell me nothing about yourself. Abruptly, there were daisies growing at her feet. A tiny blue bird alighted in a branch over her head and sat fanning its delicate wings.

What do you have there, I asked her curiously.

Whatever I have, it is mine. Just as your secrets are yours. Her hands closed around the treasure she clasped. She pressed it to her chest, concealing it within her heart. Had she fallen in love, then?

Let me see if I can guess yours, I offered playfully. It pleased me unreasonably to think of my daughter in love and treasuring that first secret realization. I hoped the young man was worthy of her.

She looked alarmed. No. Stay away from it. It isn’t even mine. It was only entrusted to me.

Has a young man, perhaps, spoken his heart to you? I hazarded merrily.

Her eyes widened in dismay. Go away! Don’t guess. A wind stirred the tree branches above her head. We both looked up just as the blue bird changed into a bright blue lizard. Its silver eyes sparkled and whirled as it scuttled closer, coming down the trunk almost to her hair. ‘Tell me,’ it chirruped. ‘I love secrets!’

She looked at me disdainfully. Your ruse does not deceive me. She flapped a hand at the lizard. Go away, pest.

Instead the creature leapt into her hair. It dug its claws in, tangling itself in her tresses. It grew suddenly larger, the size of a cat, and wings sprouted from its shoulders. Nettle shrieked and swatted at it, but it clung there. It lifted its head, suddenly at the end of a long neck and regarded me with spinning sliver eyes. Small but perfect, a blue dragon sneered at me. Its voice changed terribly. Alien and freezing, it rasped against my soul. ‘Tell me your secret, Dream Wolf!’ it demanded. Tell me of a black dragon and an island! Tell me now or I tear her head from her shoulders.’

The voice tried to set hooks in me. It endeavored to seize me and know me exactly as I was. I sprang to my feet and shook myself. I willed the wolf to fly free of me so that I could escape the dream, but it held me. I felt the creature’s regard, the prying of another mind at mine, as it demanded silently that I give up my true name.

Suddenly, Nettle stood up. Reaching out, she seized the hissing creatures in both hands and glared at me. It’s only a dream. This is only a dream. You will not trick any secrets from me this way. This is only a dream and I break it and I awake. NOW!

I do not know what she did. It was not so much that she shifted her shape out of the dream as that she trapped the dragon. It became blue glass in her hands, and then she flung it from her. It struck the soil at my feet and exploded in a storm of sharp fragments. The pain of the cuts it dealt me jabbed me back into wakefulness. I sat up with a gasp, throttling Chade’s old blanket between my hands, then sprang from the bed and brushed my hands down my chest, expecting to sweep away shards of glass and feel the sting of bloody cuts. But there was only sweat. I shivered suddenly, and then shook as with an ague and spent the rest of the night sitting up before the fire wrapped in a blanket and staring into the flames. Try as I might, I could make no sense of what I had experienced. What parts were a dream, what parts a Skill-sharing with Nettle? I could not draw any lines, and I feared. I feared not only that something from the Skill-current had found us both, but also I feared the Skill-talent I had sensed in Nettle as she had saved us both from its deadly regard.

I told no one of that dream. I knew what Chade’s answer would be to my concerns. ‘Bring the girl to Buckkeep where we can protect her. Teach her to Skill.’ I would not. It had just been the bizarre ending to a dream in which my worst fears mingled. With all the strength I possessed, I believed that, as if my belief could make it the truth.

By daylight, it was easier to shelve those fears. I had many other concerns to occupy me, and much to arrange before my departure. I went down to Gindast and paid far ahead on Hap’s education. My lad seemed to be prospering at his apprenticeship. Gindast himself told me that the boy surprised him almost daily. ‘Now that he has put his mind to his learning,’ he added heavily, and I heard there the master’s rebuke of my slovenly parenting. But it was Hap who had applied the discipline to himself, and I gave him full credit for it. Every third or fourth day, I would make time in my schedule to visit him at least briefly. We did not speak of Svanja, only of how his work progressed and the approaching Springfest and the like. I had not yet told him that I would be leaving Buckkeep with the Prince. If I had, I was sure he would tell the other apprentices and perhaps pass it on to Jinna as well, for he was still occasionally a guest in her home. Habit made me wish to keep my travelling plans quiet until close to my departure date. Just as well not to connect me with the Prince, I told myself. I did not want to admit that part of that was my own dread at being parted from my foster son for that long, especially as I expected to be going into danger.