Assassin's Quest

I refused the spoon. It was suddenly too much effort to eat, even though what I had taken had heartened me. The room seemed darker. When next I awoke night was deep around me. All was silent save for the muted crackling of a fire in the hearth. The light it cast was fitful, but enough to show me the room. I felt feverish and very weak and horribly thirsty. There was a cup of water on a low table near my bed. I tried to reach for it, but the pain in my back stopped my arm's movement. My back felt taut with the swollen wound. Any movement awakened it. "Water," I mouthed, but the dryness of my mouth made it a whisper. No one came.

Near the hearth, my host had made up a pallet for himself. He slept like a cat, lax, but with that aura of constant wariness. His head was pillowed on his outstretched arm and the fire glazed him with light. I looked at him and my heart turned over in my chest.

His hair was smoothed back sleek on his skull, confined to a single plait, baring the clean lines of his face. Expressionless and still, it seemed a chiseled mask. The last trace of boyishness had been burned away, leaving only the clean planes of his lean cheeks and high forehead and long straight nose. His lips were narrower, his chin firmer than I recalled. The dance of the firelight lent color to his face, staining his white skin with its amber. The Fool had grown up in the time we had been apart. It seemed too much change for twelve months, and yet this year had been longer than any in my life. For a time I simply lay and looked at him.

His eyes opened slowly, as if I had spoken to him. For a time he stared back at me without a word. Then a frown creased his brow. He sat up slowly, and I saw that truly he was ivory, his hair the color of fresh ground flour. It was his eyes that stopped my heart and tongue. They caught the firelight, yellow as a cat's. I finally found my breath. "Fool," I sighed sadly. "What have they done to you?" My parched mouth could barely shape the words. I reached out my hand to him, but the movement pulled the muscles of my back and I felt my injury open again. The world tilted and slid away.

Safety. That was my first clear sensation. It came from the soft warmth of the clean bedding, the herb fragrance of the pillow beneath my head. Something warm and slightly damp pressed gently on my wound and muffled its stab. Safety clasped me as gently as the cool hands that held my frostbitten hands between them. I opened my eyes and the fire lit room slowly swam into focus.

He was sitting by my bed. There was a stillness about him that was not repose as he stared past me and into the darkened room. He wore a plain robe of white wool with a round collar. The simple clothes were a shock after the years of seeing him in motley. It was like seeing a garish puppet stripped of its paint. Then a single silver tear tracked down one cheek beside the narrow nose. I was astonished.

"Fool?" My voice came out as a croak this time.

His eyes came instantly to mine and he dropped to his knees beside me. His breath came and went raggedly in his throat. He snatched up the cup of water and held it to my mouth while I drank. Then he set it aside, to take up my dangling hand. He spoke softly as he did this, more to himself than to me. "What have they done to me, Fitz? Gods, what have they done to you, to mark you so? What has become of me, that I did not even know you though I carried you in my arms?" His cool fingers moved tentatively down my face, tracing the scar and the broken nose. He leaned down suddenly to rest his brow against mine. "When I recall how beautiful you were," he whispered brokenly, and then fell silent. The warm drip of his tear against my face felt scalding.

He sat up abruptly, clearing his throat. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes, a child's gesture that unmanned me even more. I drew a deeper breath and gathered myself. "You've changed," I managed to say.

"Have I? I imagine I have. How could I not have changed? I thought you dead, and all my life for naught. Then now, this moment, to be given back both you and my life's purpose … I opened my eyes to you and thought my heart would stop, that madness had finally claimed me. Then you spoke my name. Changed, you say? More than you can imagine, as much as you have plainly changed yourself. This night, I hardly know myself." It was as close as I had ever heard the Fool come to babbling. He took a breath, and his voice cracked on his next words. "For a year, I have believed you dead, Fitz. For a whole year."