Fool's Errand

“Sleep well, Fitz,” the Fool offered. I opened my eyes a crack. He had resumed his chair before the dying fire and smiled at me through the open door of my room. “I'll keep watch,” he offered dramatically. I shook my head at his nonsense and flapped a hand in his direction. Sleep swallowed me.

The Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool

The Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool

The Tawny Man 1 - Fools Errand

Chapter VII

HEART OF A WOLF

One of the most basic misunderstandings of the Wit is that it is a power given to a human that can be imposed on a beast. In almost all the cautionary tales one hears about the Wit, the story involves an evil person who uses his power over animals or birds to harm his human neighbors. In many of these stories, the just fate of the evil magicker is that his beast servants rise up against him to bring him down to their level, thus revealing him to those he has maligned.

The reality is that Wit magic is as much a province of animals as of humans. Not all humans evince the ability to form the special bond with an animal that is at the heart of the Wit. Nor does every animal have the full capacity for that bond. Of those creatures that possess the capacity, an even smaller number desire such a bond with a human. For the bond to form, it must be mutual and equal between the partners. Amongst Witted families, when the youngster comes of age, he is sent forth on a sort of quest to seek an animal companion. He does not go out, select a capable beast, and then bend it to his will. Rather the hope is that the human will encounter a likeminded creature, either wild or domestic, that is interested in establishing a Wit'bond. Simply put, for a Witbond to be established, the animal must be as gifted as the human. Although a Witted human can achieve some level of communication with almost any animal, no bond will be formed unless the animal shares a like talent and inclination.

Yet in any relationship there is always the capacity for abuse. Just as a husband may beat his wife, or a wife pare her husband's soul with belittlement, so may a human dominate his Wit partner. Perhaps the most common formof this is when a Witted human selects a beast partner when the creature is far too young to realize the magnitude of that life decision. Rarer are the cases in which animals debase or dictate to their bondpartner, but they are not unknown. Among the Old Blood, the common ballad of Roving Gray son is said to be derived from a tale of a man so foolish as to bond with a wild gander, and ever after spent his life in following the seasons as his bird did.

badgerlock's “old blood tales”

Morning came, too bright and too early, on the third day of the Fool's visit. He was awake before me, and if the brandy or the late night held any consequences for him, he did not betray them. The day already promised to be hot, so he had kept the cook fire small, just enough to boil a kettle for porridge. Outside, I turned the chickens out for the day, and took the pony and the Fool's horse out to an open hillside facing the sea. I turned the pony loose but picketed Malta. She gave me a reproachful look at that, but went to grazing as if the tufty grass were exactly what she desired. I stood for a time, overlooking the calm sea. Under the bright morning sun, it looked like hammered blue metal. A very light breeze came off it and stirred my hair. I felt as if someone had spoken words aloud to me and I echoed them. “Time for a change.”

A changing time, the wolf echoed me in return. And yet that was not quite what I had said, but it felt truer. I stretched, rolling my shoulders, and letting the little wind blow away my headache. I looked at my hands held out before me, and then stared at them. They were a farmer's hands, tough and callused, stained dark with earth and weather. I scratched at my bristly face; I had not taken the care to shave in days. My clothes were clean and serviceable, yet like my hands they were stained with the marks of my daily work, and patched besides. All that had seemed comfortable and set a moment before suddenly seemed a disguise, a costume donned to protect me through my quiet years of rest. I suddenly longed to break out of my life and become, not Fitz as I had been, but Fitz as he might have been, had I not died to the world. A strange shiver ran over me. I was reminded, suddenly, of a summer morning in my childhood when I had watched a butterfly twitch and tear its way out of its chrysalis. Had it felt so, as if the stillness and translucency that had wrapped and protected it had abruptly become too confining to bear?

I took a deep breath and held it, then sighed it out. I expected my sudden discontent to disperse with it, and most of it did. But not all. A changing time, the wolf had said. “So. What are we changing into, then?”

You. don't know. know only that you change, and sometimes it frightens me . As for me, the change is simpler. I grow old .