Fool's Errand

It seemed as much memory as vision. In the dream, I ghosted through the Great Hall at Buckkeep. Scores of elegant folk decked out in their finest clothes filled the hall. Music wafted through the air and I glimpsed dancers, but I moved slowly through standing folk conversing with one another. Some turned to greet me as I passed, and I murmured my responses, but my eyes never lingered on their faces. I did not wish to be here; I could not have been more uninterested. For a moment, my eye was caught by a fall of gleaming bronze hair. The girl's back was to me. Several rings rode on the slender hand that lifted to nervously tug her collar straight. As if she felt my gaze, she turned. She had caught my eyes on her, and she blushed pink as she curtseyed deeply to me. I bowed to her, proffered some greeting, and moved on through the crowd. I could feel her looking after me; it annoyed me.

Even more annoying was to see Chade, so tall and elegant as he stood on the dais beside and slightly behind the Queen's chair. He too had been watching me. He bent now to whisper something in her ear, and her eyes came unerringly to me. A small gesture of her hand beckoned me to join them there. My heart sank. Would I never have time that was my own, to do as I pleased? Bleakly and slowly, I moved to obey her.

Then the dream changed, as dreams will. I sprawled on a blanket before a hearth. I was bored. It was so unfair. Below, they danced, they ate, and here I was ... A ripple in the dream. No. Not bored, simply not engaged with anything. Idly I unsheathed my claws and inspected them. A bit of bird down was caught under one of them. I freed it, then cleaned my whole paw thoroughly before dozing off before the fire again.

What was that? Amusement tinged the sleepy thought from Nighteyes, but to reply to him would have required more effort than I was willing to make. I grumbled at him, rolled over, and burrowed back into sleep.

In the morning I wondered at my dream but briefly, dismissing it as a mixture of errant Skill and my own boyhood memories of Buckkeep mingling with my ambitions for Hap. As I did the morning chores, the dwindling firewood stack caught my attention. It needed replenishing, not only for the sake of summer's cooking and night comfort, but to begin a hoard against winter's deep cold. I went in to breakfast, thinking I would attend to it that day.

Hap's neatly packed carrysack leaned beside the door. The lad himself had a freshly washed and brushed air to him. He grinned at me, suppressed excitement in his smile as he dqlloped porridge into our bowls. I sat down at my place at the table and he took his place opposite me. “Today?” I asked him, trying to keep reluctance from my voice.

“I can't start sooner,” he pointed out pleasantly. “At market, I heard the hay was standing ready at Gormen. That's only two days from here.”

I nodded slowly, at a loss for words. He was right. More than right, he was eager. Let him go, I counseled myself, and bit back my objections. “I suppose there's no sense in delaying it,” I managed to say. He took this as both encouragement and an endorsement. As we ate, he speculated that he could work the hay at Gormen, and then perhaps go on to Divden and see if there was more work to be had there.

“Divden?”

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“Three days past Gormen. Jinna told us about it, remember? She said their barley fields looked like an ocean when the wind stirred the growing grain. So I thought I might try there.”

“Sounds promising,” I agreed. “And then you'd come home?”

He nodded slowly. “Unless I heard of more work.” “Of course. Unless you heard of more work.” In a few short hours, Hap was gone. I'd made him pack extra food, and take some of the coins with him in case of extreme need. He'd been impatient with my caution. He'd sleep by the roadside, he told me, not in inns. He told me that Queen Kettricken's patrols kept the highwaymen down, and that robbers would not bother with poor prey like himself. He assured me that he would be fine. At Nighteyes' insistence, I asked him if he wouldn't take the wolf with him. He smiled indulgently at this, and paused at the door to scratch Nighteyes' ears. “It might be a bit much for the old fellow,” he suggested gently. “Best he stays here where you two can look after one another until I get back.” As we stood together and watched our boy walk down the lane to the main road, I wondered if I had ever been so insufferably young and sure of myself, but the ache in my heart had the pleasant afterglow of pride.

. The rest of the day was oddly difficult to fill. There was work to be done, but I could not settle into it. Several times, I came back to myself, realizing I was simply staring off into the distance. I walked to the cliffs twice, for no more reason than to look out over the sea, and once to the end of our lane to look up and down the road in both directions. There was not even dust hanging in the air. All was still and silent as far as I could see. The wolf trailed me disconsolately. I began a halfdozen tasks and left them all halfdone. I found myself listening, and waiting, without knowing for what. In the midst of splitting and stacking firewood, I halted. Carefully not thinking, I raised my axe and drove it into the FOOL'S ERR AND chopping block. I picked up my shirt, slung it over my sweaty shoulder, and headed toward the cliffs.