Robin Hobb - The Golden Fool

I had taken the Fool’s warning to heart. In addition to raiding Chade’s armoury for an impressive array of small and deadly items, I had undertaken modifying my clothing to accommodate them. It was a lengthy and frustrating process and I often missed the Fool’s deft suggestions and defter hands. I saw little of him in those days. I might glimpse Lord Golden about the halls and courtyards of the keep, but other young and dashing nobles of the court always accompanied him. The halls of Buckkeep seemed to be swarming with such youngsters. The Prince’s quest seemed to have a fascination for a certain type of young man, one eager both to prove himself and to spend his ancestral fortune on amusing himself at the same time. They were attracted to Lord Golden as moths are to a lamp. Then I heard a rumour that Lord Golden was completely enraged that Chalcedean vessels were disrupting trade and delaying the arrival of the Jamaillian cloaks that he had specially commissioned for the Outislander expedition wardrobe. They were, according to gossip, to have been patterned with dragons in black, blue and silver thread.

I asked Chade about it. He had come up to the tower that evening to help me work on speaking basic Outislander. The language shared many words with the common tongue of the Six Duchies, but the Outislanders twisted them and spoke gutturally. My throat was sore from my attempts. ‘Did you know that Lord Golden still plans to accompany us?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I’ve given him no reason to think otherwise. Use your head, Fitz. He’s a very resourceful man. As long as he thinks he will simply take ship with the Prince, he will make no alternate arrangements. And the less time we give that one to think of alternate arrangements, the less chance that he can circumvent our will.’

‘I thought you said you could prevent him from taking ship from Buckkeep.’

‘I did. I can. But he seems to have a goodly supply of coin at his command, Fitz, and that can make many things possible. Why give him any extra time to plan?’ He glanced away from me. ‘When the time comes to board, he will simply be told that there has been a miscalculation. There is no room for him. Perhaps he can follow on a later vessel. But I will be sure that there are no such vessels with available space.’

I was silent for a time. I tried to imagine that scene, and winced. Then I said softly, ‘It seems a hard way to treat a friend.’

‘We treat him thus precisely because he is your friend. You were the one who wished him stopped. He told you he had foreseen his death on Aslevjal, and that you must somehow prevent the Prince from slaying the black dragon. As I told you then, I put little weight on either event happening. If Lord Golden does not accompany us, he cannot die there. Nor can he provoke you into interfering with Dutiful’s mission. I doubt it will be much of an adventure, anyway. He will have missed only some cold and difficult work. I think that the Prince’s “slaying” may be no more than chopping free the head of something that was buried in the ice ages ago. How are you two getting along lately?’

He added the final question so adroitly that I answered it without thinking. ‘Not well and not poorly. Mostly I don’t see much of him.’ I looked down at my fingers and scraped at a hanging nail. ‘It’s as if he has become someone else, someone I don’t know very well. And would have no reason to know, in this life we live now.’

‘And I the same. I’ve the feeling that he has been very busy of late, and yet I am not sure with what. The common gossip tells me only that he has begun to gamble heavily on games of chance. He spends his money lavishly, on dinners and gifts of wine and fine garment for his friends, but even more on gambling with them. No fortune will withstand that for long.’

I scowled. ‘That does not sound like the man I know. He so seldom does anything without a purpose, yet I see no reason for that.’

Chade laughed without humour. ‘Well, so many say when they see a friend fall to a weakness. He would not be the first intelligent man I’ve known to succumb to an unreasoning appetite for games of chance. And in a way, you may blame yourself. Since Dutiful introduced the Stone game, it has roared into popularity. The young men call it, “the Prince’s Stones”. As with all such caprices, what started out as simple has become terribly expensive. Not only do opponents wager against each other, but now men back favourite players, and the wagers on a single game may mount to a small fortune. Even the game-cloths and stones have increased in value. Instead of a cloth, Lord Valsop has created a board of polished walnut set with lines of ivory, and his playing pieces are of jade, ivory and amber. One of the better taverns in town has refitted its upper room exclusively for Stones players. It is expensive even to enter it. Only the finest wine and foods are served there, by only the comeliest servants.’

I was appalled. ‘All this from a simple game supposed to help Dutiful focus his mind on the Skill.’

Chade laughed. ‘One never knows where such things will lead.’

It recalled another question to my mind. ‘Speaking of something that led to something else: of those we felt stir when Dutiful and Thick Skilled out, have any come to Buckkeep?’

‘Not yet,’ Chade replied, and tried to keep disappointment from his voice. ‘I had hoped they would hasten here, but I suppose that summons was both too strange and too abrupt. We should make a time when we can all sit down and intentionally reach forth in that way again. Last time, it only occurred to me in that instant that we could summon those we had wakened. My thoughts to them were rushed and unclear. And now we have so little time before we sail that there is no point in calling them here now. Nonetheless, it should be one of the first things we attend to when we return. How I wish that our prince were setting out with a traditional coterie of six trained Skill-users at his beck and call. Instead we are five, and one is the Prince himself.’

‘Four, for we leave Lord Golden behind.’ I pointed out

‘Four,’ Chade agreed sourly. He looked at me and Nettle’s name hung, unuttered, between us. Then, as if to himself, he said, ‘And there is no time now to train any others. In truth, there is scarcely time enough to train those we have.’

I cut him off before he could voice his frustration with himself. ‘It will come with time, Chade. I am convinced you cannot force it, any more than a swordsman can use will alone to make himself better. It must be coupled with endless practice and with drills that seemingly have nothing to do with his goals. Patience, Chade. Patience with yourself, and with us.’

He still could not hear any individual of the coterie Skill to him, unless there was physical contact as well. He was aware of Thick’s Skilling but it was like the humming of a gnat by his ear; it conveyed nothing. I did not know why we could not break through to him, and I did not know why he could not reach out to us. He had the Skill. Both my healing and my scarring had proven that he possessed great talent with it in that specialized area. But Chade was a man consumed by his ambition, and he would not rest until he had mastered the full spectrum of his magic.

But my efforts to reassure Chade had only turned his thoughts into a different channel. ‘Would you rather have an axe?’ he asked me abruptly.

I goggled at him for a moment, and then grasped his thought. ‘I haven’t fought with an axe in years,’ I told him. ‘I suppose I could try to get some practice in before we sailed. But I thought you just told me that this would probably be more drudgery than battle. After all, what enemy do we expect to fight?’

‘Even so. Still, an axe might prove more useful against the ice around the dragon than a sword. Request one from the Weaponsmaster tomorrow. And begin some drill with it to refresh your skills.’ He cocked his head at me and smiled. I knew that smile. I was already braced when he added, ‘You’ll be teaching weapons to Swift, along with reading and numbers. He is not doing well in the hearth classes with the other children. Burrich has taught him ahead of his years, so he is bored when put with the lads his own age and uncomfortable with the older boys. Kettricken has decided he would do best with an individual tutor. The Queen chose you.’