Fool's Fate

“But it's all changed since last night! Last night, Fitz and I plotted to do her bidding, to give way to her will. Why go to the Pale Woman to tell her that, why not wait until the deed was done?” Dutiful scowled. “When they left us last night, Peottre did not look like a man about to cower before an enemy.”

“I don't know.” Chade's concentration didn't waver. “Make the piles only this size when the powder is this fine, Fitz.” Then, “I don't know, Dutiful. But it is my duty to assume that they mean you harm, and try to think of what move we could make to forestall them.” With a scraper, he corrected one of my piles. “After the dragon is freed,” he added, almost to himself. He lifted his eyes back to Dutiful. “We still need those containers.”

“I'll get them,” the boy replied faintly.

“Good. Set the girl and Peottre out of your mind for a time. If they slipped away last night, they are long gone, and too far away for us to be able to do anything about it. Let us deal with the crisis at hand, and then move on to the next one.”

Dutiful nodded distractedly and left. My heart was heavy for him. “Do you really believe they went to report to her?”

“Perhaps. But I don't think so. As I told Dutiful, we must assume the worst, and there draw our lines of defense. And our best defense may be to free the dragon that you have wakened.” He knit his brows, pondering it, but then seemed to find his piles of powder more interesting. “We will think more on it when Icefyre is freed.”

I feared that Tintaglia's command had sunk deep into his mind. I wanted to believe Chade was thinking clearly, but I was not confident of it.

Longwick came first with the kettles, and then Dutiful with the containers of varying sizes. As soon as he had what he wanted, Chade sent them back to the excavation site, with orders to be sure the six holes he had ordered dug alongside the dragon were progressing. I wondered if he merely intended to keep the Prince busy. Chade seemed very picky to me as he sorted through the containers, first selecting the vessels to hold the powder, making sure of the tightness of the stoppers or lids, and then matching them to their firepots. I offered to help him but he refused. “Eventually, I will devise the perfect container for my powder. It must be one that will yield to fire, but not too swiftly, for whoever sets fire to it must have time to move away. It should be tight enough to keep out moisture, if the powder is to be safely stored in it. And it must be one that can be filled cleanly, with no residual powder clinging to the outside. Eventually, I will fashion a better way to ignite it . . .”

He was now completely focused on what he was doing, a master still puzzling out his new invention, unwilling to trust it to his journeyman's hands. I withdrew from him a small way, sitting on Dutiful's pallet next to a silent Burrich. He seemed deep in his own thoughts. I still felt a terrible sense of urgency, a desire for it all to be over. I could not decide if Tintaglia had imprinted me with a command, or if it was my agony over the Fool. I could not keep my thoughts from turning to him. I tried not to wonder what he might be enduring, or if he was past enduring anything. The dragon's touch seemed to have restored my Skill, yet when I groped for my silk-thin Skill-bond with the Fool, I could not feel him. It frightened me. “I'm doing what you wanted me to do,” I promised the Fool quietly. “I'll try to get the dragon free.”

Chade, absorbed in his sorting and loading of the powder vessels, did not appear to hear me, but Burrich did. Perhaps it is as they say, that his fading sight had sharpened his other senses. He set his hand to my shoulder. Perhaps if Web had never spoken of it, I would never have noticed it. But he was right. I felt Burrich's calm flow into me. It was not his thoughts that reached me, but a sense of connection with his being. It did not match the strength of a Wit-bond between man and animal, and yet it was there. He spoke quietly. “You've been doing that for a long time, boy. Doing what others wanted you to do. Taking on tasks no one else wanted.” It was a statement, not a judgment.

“So did you.”

He was quiet a moment. Then, “Yes. That's true. Like a dog that needs a master, I believe someone once told me.”

The cutting words I had once flung at him now brought bitter smiles to both of us. “Perhaps that has been true for me as well,” I admitted.

We both sat still and silent for a time, finding a moment of respite in the eye of the storm all around us. Outside, I could hear the muffled noises of the working men. Their voices came distantly through the cold. I heard the dull ring of metal tools against ice, and the deeper thuds of chunks of ice flung into the wooden-bottomed sleds. Closer to hand, Chade muttered to himself and scraped his powder into precise loads. I felt for the dragon, and he was there, but my Wit-sense of him was dimmed as if he conserved his strength and now would do no more for himself than remain alive and await rescue. Burrich's hand was still on my shoulder. I suddenly suspected that, just as I did, he quested out toward the dragon.