Fool's Fate

It took me a moment. “Nettle?”

“Of course.”

“You talked about me a lot with her?” Better and better, I thought sourly to myself. Dutiful sensed my dismay.

“I had to,” he said defensively. “She was saying things like, ‘He abandoned my mother when she was pregnant, and never came to see me at all.' I couldn't let her just say things like that, let alone believe them. So I've told her the truth, as you told it to me.”

“Fitz?” He spoke a few moments later.

“Oh. Sorry. Thank you.” I couldn't even recall what I had been thinking.

“You'll like her brothers. I do. Chivalry's a bit full of himself, but I think it's a bluff to make up for how frightened he is of all the changes. Nimble is nothing like Swift. I've never met two twins less alike. Steady lives up to his name, while Just chatters like a magpie. And Hearth, he's the youngest, all he does is run and giggle and try to get his brothers and Nettle to wrestle with him. He's not afraid of anyone or anything.”

“They're all here for Harvest Fest.”

“At the Queen's invitation. Because Swift will be recognized and Burrich honored.”

“Of course.” I looked at the table between my hands. Did I fit anywhere in any of this?

“Well, I suppose that's all I wanted to say. I'm glad you're better. And I think Nettle will come about, if you give her time. She feels tricked. I warned you she would. Oddly enough, I think that what made her angriest was that you disappeared like that. She took it personally, somehow. But I think she'll reconsider her opinion of you, if you give her time.”

“I don't think I've much choice in it.”

“No, I don't suppose you do. But I didn't want you to think it was hopeless and give up and go off somewhere to avoid seeing her. Your place is at Buckkeep now. So is hers.”

“Thank you.”

He glanced aside from me. “I can't tell you what it means to me to have her here at court. She's so outspoken and blunt. I never was friends with a girl like I can be with her. I suppose it's because we're cousins.”

I nodded, unsure how true it was, but glad of it all the same. If she had the Prince's friendship, she had a powerful protector at court.

“I have to go. I've missed my last two fittings for my Harvest Festival clothing. I swear, they take it out on Thick, poking him with pins ‘by accident' if I'm not there to defend him. So I'd best be there.”

I nodded to that as well and then somehow he was up and out the door and the room was silent without my much noticing how it had happened. Chade set a cup of brandy down before me with a firm tap on the table. I looked at it and then up at him. “You may need it,” he observed mildly. Then he revealed, “The Fool was here, two weeks ago. I'd give a lot to know how he comes and goes from here so unseen, but he managed. I heard a tap at the door of my private sitting room, late at night. And when I opened it, there he was. Changed of course, as you said. Brown as an appleseed, all over. He looked weary and half-sick, but I think that could have been his journey through the pillar. He did not speak of the Black Man, or indeed of anything except you. He obviously expected to find you here. That frightened me.”

I set the empty brandy glass down on the table. Without asking, Chade refilled it for me. “When I told him we hadn't seen you, he looked stricken. I told him how thoroughly we'd searched, and that my private premise had been that you'd gone off with him. He asked if we'd used the Skill; I told him that of course we had, but that it had yielded no trace of you. He gave me the name of an inn where he'd be staying for a week, and asked me to send a runner immediately if any news of you came in. At the end of the week, he came back to me again. He looked as if he had aged a decade. He told me he had made inquiries of his own about you, with no positive results. Then he said he had to depart, but that he wished to leave something with me for you. Neither of us expected you'd return to claim it.”

I didn't have to ask for it. He set down a sealed scroll, no bigger than a child's closed fist, and a small bag made from Elderling fabric. I recognized it as coming from the coppery robe. I looked at them, but made no move to touch either of them while Chade was watching me. “Did he say anything? As a message for me, I mean.”

“I think that is what those things are.”

I nodded.

“Hap came to see you while you were in the infirmary. Did you know?”

“No. I didn't. How did he know I was there?”