Assassin's Quest

"But I am. I should have trusted you and told you about my daughter." Nothing, not a fever, not an arrow in my back would keep me from smiling when I said that phrase. My daughter. I tried to speak the simple truth. It embarrassed me that it seemed a new experience. "I've never seen her, you know. Only with the Skill, anyway. It's not the same. And I want her to be mine. Mine and Molly's. Not a child that belongs to a kingdom, with some vast responsibility to grow into. Just a little girl, picking flowers, making candles with her mother, doing …" I floundered and finished, "Whatever it is that ordinary children are allowed to do. Chade would end that. The moment that anyone points to her and says, `There, she could be the Farseer heir,' she's at risk. She'd have to be guarded and taught to fear, to weigh every word and consider every action. Why should she? She isn't truly a royal heir. Only a bastard's bastard." I said those harsh words with difficulty, and vowed never to let anyone say them to her face. "Why should she be put in such danger? It would be one thing if she were born in a palace and had a hundred soldiers to guard her. But she has only Molly and Burrich."

"Burrich is with them? If Chade chose Burrich, it is because he thinks him the equal of a hundred guards. But far more discreet," the Fool observed. Did he know how that would wrench me? He brought the cups and the brandy and poured for me. I managed to pick up my own cup. "To a daughter. Yours and Molly's," he offered, and we drank. The brandy burned clean in my throat.

"So," I managed. "Chade knew all along and sent Burrich to guard her. Even before I knew, they knew." Why did I feel they had stolen something from me?

"I suspect so, but I am not certain." The Fool paused, as if wondering at the wisdom of telling me. Then I saw him discard the reserve. "I've been putting pieces together, counting back the time. I think Patience suspected. I think that's why she started sending Molly to take care of Burrich when his leg was injured. He didn't need that much care, and he knew it as well as Patience did. But Burrich is a good ear; mostly because he talks so little himself. Molly would need someone to talk to, perhaps someone that had once kept a bastard himself. That day we were all up in his room … you had sent me there, to see what he could do for my shoulder? The day you locked Regal out of Shrewd's rooms to protect him …" For a moment he seemed caught in that memory. Then he recovered. "When I came up the stairs to Burrich's loft I heard them arguing. Well, Molly arguing, and Burrich being silent, which is his strongest way to argue. So, I eavesdropped," he admitted frankly. "But I didn't hear much. She was insisting he could get some particular herb for her. He wouldn't. Finally, he promised her he would tell no one, and bade her to think well and do what she wished to do, not what she thought was wisest. Then they said no more, so I went in. She excused herself and departed. Later, you came and said she had left you." He paused. "Actually, looking back, I was as dull-wilted as you, not to have worked it out just from that."

"Thank you," I told him dryly.

"You're welcome. Though I will admit we all had much on our minds that day."

"I'd give anything to be able to go back in time and tell her that our child would be the most important thing in the world for me. More important than king or country."

"Ah. So you would have left Buckkeep that day, to follow her and protect her." The Fool quirked an eyebrow at me.

After a time, I said, "I couldn't." The words choked me and I washed them down with brandy.

"I know you couldn't have. I understand. You see, no one can avoid fate. Not as long as we are trapped in time's harness, anyway. And," he said more softly, "no child can avoid the future that fate decrees. Not a fool, not a bastard. Not a bastard's daughter."

A shiver walked up my spine. Despite all my disbelief, I feared. "Are you saying that you know something of her future?"

He sighed and nodded. Then he smiled and shook his head. "That is how it is, for me. I know something of a Farseer's heir. If that heir is she, then doubtless, years from now, I shall read some ancient prophecy and say, Ah, yes, there it is, it was foretold how it would come to be. No one truly understands a prophecy until it comes true. It's rather like a horseshoe. The smithy shows you a bit of iron stock and you say, it will never fit. But after it's been through the fire and hammered and filed, there it is, fitting perfectly to your horse's hoof as it would never fit any other."

"It sounds as if you are saying prophets shape their prophecies to be true after the fact."

He cocked his head. "And a good prophet, like a good smith, shows you that it fits perfectly." He took the empty glass from my hand. "You should be sleeping, you know. Tomorrow the healer is going to draw the arrowhead out. You will need your strength."

I nodded, and suddenly found my eyes were heavy