Robin Hobb - The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy - Fool’s Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate

On the narrow ledge of the path, a horse screamed in sudden panic, echoed by the owner’s cry as it went down in an effort to avoid being pushed off the ledge by the warhorse that was backing determinedly towards us. The young woman on the horse kicked free of the stirrups and scrambled to stand, her back pressed against the ledge as the panicky animal, in a frantic bid to regain its footing, wallowed to one side and then slid off the edge. The woman’s horse slid down the steep slope, slowly at first, its churning efforts to halt its fall only loosening more stone to cascade with it. Spindly saplings that had found a footing in the sparse soil and cracked rock were snapped off as the horse crashed through them. The animal screamed horribly as one sapling, stouter than the others, stabbed deep into it and arrested its fall briefly before its struggles tore it loose to slide again.

Behind me, there were other sounds. I gathered without looking that the Fool had arrived, and that he and Malta were busying the other cat. His partner, I trusted, would still be down. My sword-thrust had gone deep.

Ruthlessness soared in me. I could not reach the cat’s owner with my blade, but the spitting cat menacing Myblack was within range. Leaning down, I slashed at him. The creature leapt wildly aside, but I had scored a long, shallow gash across his flank. Cries of anger and pain from both him and his human partner were my reward. The man reeled with his cat’s pain, and I experienced an odd moment of knowing the Wit-curses they flung at me. I closed my mind to them, kicked Myblack and we slammed together, horse to horse. I stabbed at the rider and when he tried to evade my blade, he tumbled from his saddle. Riderless and panicky, his horse was only too glad to flee the moment Myblack gave him room to get past her. In its turn, the Prince’s horse backed away from the struggle before her and off the steep trail onto the small apron of land that approached it.

The cat that rode behind the Prince had bristled its fur to full extension and now confronted me with an angry snarl. There was something wrong with it, something misshapen that appalled me. Even as I struggled to grasp what was awry, the Prince turned his horse and I came face to face with young Dutiful.

I have heard people describe instances when all time seemed to pause for them. Would that it had been so for me. I was confronted suddenly with a young man who, until this moment, had been to me little more than a name coupled with an idea.

He wore my face. He wore my face to the extent that I knew the spot under his chin where the hair grew in an odd direction and would be hard to shave, when he was old enough to shave. He had my jaw, and the nose I had had as a boy, before Regal had broken it. His teeth, like mine, were bared in a battle rictus. Verity’s soul had planted the seed in his young wife to conceive this boy, but his flesh had been shaped from my flesh. I looked into the face of the son I had never seen nor claimed, and a connection suddenly formed like the cold snap of a manacle.

If time had stood still for me, then I would have been ready for the great cut of his sword as he swung it towards me. But my son did not share my moment of stunned recognition. Dutiful attacked like seven kinds of demons, and his battle cry was a cat’s ululating cry. I all but fell out of my saddle leaning back to avoid his blade. Even so, it still sliced the fabric of my shirt and left a stinging thread of pain in its wake. As I sat up, his cat sprang at me, screaming like a woman. I turned to her onslaught, and caught the creature in midflight with the back of my elbow and arm. I yelled in revulsion as she struck me. Before she could lock onto me, I twisted violently, throwing her in the face of the cat-man I had just unseated. She yowled as they collided, and they fell together. She gave a sharp screech as he landed on top of her, then clawed her way out from under him, only to scrabble limpingly back from Myblack’s trampling hooves. The Prince’s gaze followed his cat, a look of horror on his face. It was all the opening I needed. I struck his sword from his unready grip.

Dutiful had expected me to fight him. He was not prepared for me to seize his reins and take control of his horse’s head. I kneed Myblack, and for a wonder she answered, wheeling. I kicked her and she sprang to a gallop. The Prince’s horse came eagerly. She was anxious to escape the noise and fighting, and following another horse suited her perfectly. I think I shouted to the Fool to flee. In some manner that I did not recognize, he seemed to be holding the clawed Piebald at bay. The man on the warhorse bellowed that we were stealing the Prince, but the cluster of struggling people, horses and cats could do nothing. My sword still in my hand, I fled. I could not afford to look back and see if the Fool followed. Myblack set a pace that kept the other horse’s neck stretched. The Prince’s horse could not keep up with Myblack’s best speed, but I forced her to go as fast as she possibly could. I reined Myblack from the trail and led Dutiful’s mount at breakneck speed down a steep hill and then cross-country. We rode through slapping brush, and clattered up steep rocky hills, and then down terrain where a sane man would have dismounted and led his horse. It would have been suicide for the Prince to leap from his horse. My sole plan was to put as much distance between Dutiful’s companions and us as I could.

The first time I spared a glance back at him, Dutiful was hanging on grimly, his mouth set in a snarling grimace and his eyes distant. Somewhere, I sensed, an angry cat followed us. As we came down one steep hillside in a series of leaps and slides, I heard a crashing in the brush behind and above us. I heard a shout of encouragement, and recognized the Fool’s voice as he urged Malta to greater speed. My heart leaped with relief that he still followed us. At the bottom of the hill, I pulled Myblack in for an instant. The Prince’s horse was already lathered, the white foam dripping from her bit. Behind her, the Fool reined Malta in.

‘You’re all in one piece?’ I asked hastily.

‘So it appears,’ he agreed. He tugged his shirt collar straight and fastened it at the throat. ‘And the Prince?’

We both looked at Dutiful. I expected anger and defiance. Instead, he reeled in his saddle, his eyes unfocused. His gaze swung from the Fool to me and back again. His eyes wandered over my face, and his brows furrowed as if he saw a puzzle there. ‘My prince?’ the Fool asked him worriedly, and for that instant, his tone was that of Lord Golden. ‘Are you well?’

For a moment, he just gazed at both of us. Then, life returned to his face and ‘I must go back!’ he suddenly shouted wildly. He started to pull his foot free of the stirrup. I kicked Myblack, and in that instant we were off again. I heard his cry of dismay, and looked back to see him clutching frantically at his saddle as he tried to regain his seat. With the Fool at our heels, we fled on.

The legends of the Catalyst and the White Prophet are not Six Duchies’ legends. Although the writings and lore of that tradition are known to some scholars in the Six Duchies, it has its roots in the lands far to the south, beyond even the reaches of Jamaillia and the Spice Islands. It is not properly a religion, but is more a concept both of history and philosophy. According to those who believe such things, all of time is a great wheel that turns in a track of pre-determined events. Left to itself, time turns endlessly, and all the world is doomed to repeat the cycle of events that lead us all ever deeper into darkness and degradation. Those who follow the White Prophet believe that to each age is born one who has the vision to redirect time and history into a better path. This one is known by his white skin and colourless eyes. It is said that the blood of the ancient lines of the Whites find voice again in the White Prophet. To each White Prophet, there is a Catalyst. Only the White Prophet of that particular age can divine who the Catalyst is. The Catalyst is one who is born in a unique position to alter, however slightly, predetermined events, which in turn cascade time into other paths with possibilities that diverge ever wider. In partnership with this Catalyst, the White Prophet labours to divert the turning of time into a better path.