Golden Fool

He approached me cautiously. “No.” He looked at the robe suspiciously. “Why are you giving me this?”

“Because it’s like a pink cake or raisins or a feather. Your prince wants you to have better clothes. This will keep you warm until your old clothes dry. And soon, the Prince will have new clothes made for Thick.”

Walls up, I took a cautious step toward him. I held the neck hole of the robe open, looked at him through it, then slipped it over his head. It was still too long. It fell to the floor around him, and even after he had found the sleeves, the cuffs hung past his hands. I helped him fold them back. I used a piece from the cut-off length of robe to make a makeshift tie for the robe. With the robe belted up, he could walk without tripping. He hugged it against himself. “It’s soft.”

“Well. Softer than your old clothes, perhaps. Mostly because it’s cleaner.” I walked back to my chair and sank down in it. The headache was already abating. Perhaps Chade had been right about Skill-pain. My body was still smarting from my fall to the floor; it had wakened the bruises and lumps that Svanja’s father had dealt me. I sighed heavily. “Thick. How many times have you been to see them?”

He stood, tongue out, considering. Then, “Washing days.”

“I know. You go on washing days. But how often? How many times?”

His tongue curled up over his upper lip while he thought. Then he nodded and said emphatically, “Every washing day.”

That was as good as I was going to get. “Do you go alone to see him?”

That brought a scowl to his face. “No. I could, but he don’t let me.”

“Because he wants the coins they give him. And the coins they give you.”

His scowl darkened. “Hit Thick, take the coins. Then one-arm got mad. I told him. Now he takes the coins, but gives me back some pennies. For sweets.”

“Who does?”

He stood for a while. “I’m not to talk about him.” I caught an echo of his dread as his Skill music surged, full of goat bleats and jangling harness. He scratched his head, then pulled his hair around to where he could see it. “Are you going to cut my hair? My mother used to cut my hair, sometimes, after I washed.”

“Actually, yes, that’s a good idea. Let’s cut your hair.” I stood creakily. I must have hit my knee when I went down. It hurt. I was frustrated, but trying to force information from Thick would only bury it under his fear. “Sit at the table, Thick, while I find the scissors. Is there anything you can tell me about them? Can you tell me about the one-arm man? Where does he live?”

Thick didn’t answer. He went back to the table and sat down. Almost immediately, he picked up the pink cake and examined it closely. As he turned it in his hands, he seemed to forget all else. I brought the shears to the table. “Thick. What does the one-arm man talk to you about?”

Thick didn’t look at me; he spoke to the cake. “Not supposed to talk about him. To anyone. Or they’ll kill me, and my guts will fall in the dirt.” With both hands he patted his round belly, as if comforting himself that it was still whole.

I found the comb and smoothed his hair flat again. It calmed him and he went back to his contemplation of the cake. “I’ll cut your hair to chin-length. That way it will still keep your ears and the back of your neck warm.”

“Yea,” he agreed softly, lost in pink sugar musing.

Cutting Thick’s hair again put me in mind of Hap. I suddenly and acutely missed him being a little boy. When Hap had been ten, it had been so much easier to know that I was doing the right things for him. Feed him well, teach him to fish, see that he had clean clothes and slept well at night. That was most of what a boy needed. A young man was a different animal entirely. Perhaps I could get away to check on him this evening. The silver blades snicked and uneven hanks of Thick’s hair fell to the floor around the chair. I thought of another approach. “I know you can’t tell me about the one-arm man. I know you are not to talk about that. So we won’t. I won’t even ask you what he asks you. But you can tell me what you told him, can’t you? They never said not to say that, did they?”

“No-o,” he said in slow consideration. He sighed deeply, relaxing under my touch. Then, “The one-armed man,” he said softly, and an image of Laudwine rippled into my mind with his music. He was gaunter than I recalled him, but the loss of a limb and the fever that follows will do that to a man. He was looking down at me, and for a moment it disoriented me, and then I accepted Thick’s viewpoint of the towering man. Even so, the image was vague. Thick recalled more sound than sight; what he saw in his mind’s eye was far more indistinct than what he heard. I listened to Laudwine’s voice rippling through Thick’s memory and cowered with him at the disapproval. “This is your source of information? What were you thinking, Padget? Is this how you take charge of my most important concerns? He won’t do at all. He doesn’t have the sense to remember his own name, let alone anything else.”