Fool's Fate

He did not ask anyone permission, but leaned in past Burrich to set his hand on the shoulder of one of the injured Outislanders. I was not even holding Thick's hand, but in that instant I knew the Outislander. He had been the Pale Woman's slave for he knew not how many years. He wondered if his son had prospered in his mother's house, and wondered too about his sister's three sons. He had promised to teach them swordmanship, all those years ago. Had anyone stepped forward to do that duty for him?

These thoughts tormented him as much as his injury, a sweeping sword wound that Bear had dealt him. It had laid open the flesh of his chest and bitten deep into his upper arm. He'd lost a lot of blood and that weakened him. If he could find the strength to live, his body would heal. Then, without regard to that, his flesh began to knit itself up. The man gave a roar and lifted a hand to clutch at his closing wound. Just like a rent garment sewing itself up, his flesh reached for the severed ends of itself. Bits that were dead or past repair were expulsed from him. In a sort of horror, I watched the pads of flesh on the man's face melt away. Luckily for us, he was a burly man, possessed of the reserves that his body now burned.

He sat up suddenly on his pallet, and wrenched the caked bandages from his body, throwing them aside. All the witnesses gasped. His newly healed flesh shone, not with the poreless sheen of a scar but with the health of a child's body. It was a pale and hairless stripe down his swarthy body. He stared down at himself, and then, with a rough laugh of amazement, he thumped himself on the chest as if to convince himself of its soundness. A moment later, he had swung his legs over the side of the sled and hopped off it, to caper barefoot in the snow. An instant later, he was back, to sweep Thick off his stubby legs and swing him in a wide circle before setting the astonished little man back on his feet. In his own language, he thanked him, calling him Eda's Hands, an Outislander phrase I did not understand. It conveyed something to Bear, though, for he instantly went to the other wounded man on the sled and, throwing back the man's coverings, gestured at him, for Thick to come to him.

Thick didn't even glance at the rest of us. I scarcely had a thought to spare for him or what he did. My gaze was fixed on Swift, who stared at me with eyes gone blank and hopeless. I held out a useless hand to him, palm up. He swallowed and looked away from me. Then he came, not to me, but to Burrich. He took his place beside his father and picked up his darkening hand. He looked at me, a question in his eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I said, through the exclamations of amazement as the second Outislander stood, healed of his injuries. “He is sealed. My father closed him off to other Skill-users. I cannot get in to help him.”

He looked away from me, his disappointment so deep that it bordered on hatred; not necessarily hatred of me, but of the moment, of the other men who were rising, renewed, and of those who rejoiced over them. Web had moved away from Swift, to allow him his anger. I saw no sense in trying to speak any more to him just then.

Thick seemed to have mastered the knack of Skill-healing, and with moderate supervision from Dutiful he moved on to heal the two men who had burned off their Pale Woman tattoos the night before. Pale smooth skin replaced oozing and blistered flesh. From being an object of disdain, Thick was suddenly the prince of their regard and a living embodiment of Eda's Hands. I heard the Bear begging Prince Dutiful's pardon for their former disrespect of his servant. They had not realized that he possessed Eda's gift, and now they understood the great value the Prince placed on him and why he would have brought him to a battle. It hurt me to see Thick suddenly bask in their approval just as he had cringed before their disdain. I felt somehow betrayed that he could so swiftly forget how they had spurned him. Yet, I was glad that he could, even as I recognized the contradiction of it. Almost, I wished I could be as simple as he was, and accept that people truly meant the expressions they wore.

Chade came up behind me and set his hand lightly on my shoulder. I turned to him with a sigh, expecting some task. Instead, the old man put his arm around me. His grip tightened and he spoke softly by my ear. “I'm sorry, boy. We tried. And I'm sorry too for the Fool's death. We did not always agree, he and I. But he did for Shrewd what no one else could have done, and the same for Kettricken. If we opposed one another this last time, well, be assured I had not forgotten those former times. As it was, he still won.” He glanced up at the sky, as if he almost expected to see dragons overhead. “Won, and left us to deal with whatever it was he won for us. I don't doubt that it will be as unpredictable as he was. And that, I am sure, would please him.”