Fool’s Quest

The crow flew away from me, into the shelter of the trees. We moved steadily toward where she had vanished. A short time later she looped back to us, then circled away again. This time she seemed content that we were following her and called no insults.

And there we intersected a trail: not a road, merely an open space that left the field and wound into the scant forest. Perhaps a woodcutter had made it. It could be a cattle-track that led to water. I looked back along it. Had it been used recently? It was hard to say. Were there deeper hollows under the blown and polished snow? We turned and followed it.

When we reached the outskirts of the birch forest, I saw what I could not have seen from the road. The white horse had seemed but another mound of snow in the distance. I did not see the fallen rider until I was almost beside the fur-clad body. And only the crow, looking down from above, could have seen the trail of melted red-and-pink snow that led back into the forest.

The horse was clearly dead, its eyes open and frost outlining the whiskers on its muzzle and coating its out-thrust tongue. Droplets of blood had frozen around its mouth. An arrow stood out of its chest, just behind its foreleg. A good lung shot but not one that had penetrated both lungs. I knew that if I cut the animal open, I would find its body cavity full of blood. There was no saddle on the horse, only a halter. The rider had fled in haste, perhaps. I pulled in Fleeter despite her distaste for the scene and dismounted. The body that lay beyond the horse was too large to be Bee, I told myself as I floundered through the snow toward it. The hair that showed beneath the white fur cap was the right color, but it could not be Bee, it could not, and when I reached her and turned her over, it was not. The pale youngster I revealed was as dead as her horse. The front of her furs was scarlet. Probably an arrow, one that had gone right through her. And she was a White or at least a part-White. She had lived for a short time after she’d fallen facedown in the snow. Frost had formed heavily around her mouth from her last breaths, and her cloudy blue eyes looked at me through ice. I let her fall back into the snow.

I could not get my breath for the shuddering of my heart. “Bee. Where are you?” My words were not even a whisper for I had no air to push them. I wanted to run back down the blood-trail shouting her name. I wanted to mount Fleeter and gallop there as swiftly as possible. I wanted to use my Skill to scream to the sky that I needed help, that I needed everyone in the Six Duchies to come and help me save my child, but I forced myself to stand, sweating and trembling, and do nothing until that fit of reckless urgency had passed. Then I went to my horse.

But as I lifted my foot for the stirrup, Fleeter sank to her front knees. Tired. So tired. She shuddered down, her hind legs folding under her. So tired.

Fleeter! Dismay choked me. I should never have trusted her to know when she was wearied. Carris seed filled one with energy, until it left the user exhausted. Don’t lie down in the snow. Up. Up, my girl. Come on. Come on.

She rolled her eyes at me and for a moment I feared she would drop her head. Then with a shudder and a heave, she stood. I led her slowly from the trail to a stand of evergreens. Under them, the snow was shallower. Stay here and rest. I will be back.

You are leaving me here?

I must. But only for a time. I’ll be back for you.

I don’t understand.

Just rest. I’ll be back. Stay here. Please. Then I closed my mind to her. I’d never ridden a horse to exhaustion. The shame I felt was overwhelming. And useless. I was doing what I had to do. I took from my saddle-packs items that I thought I might need. I shut my heart to Bee. I did not recall Molly or wonder what she would have said, thought, or done. I put the Fool and all his warnings and advice from my mind, and set aside the man that Burrich had hoped I would become. I cut Holder Badgerlock from my heart and banished Prince FitzChivalry to the shadows where he had lived for so many years. I squared my shoulders and closed my heart.

There was another person in the depths of me. Chade’s boy. I took a breath and summoned those memories. I recalled in full that which Chade had shaped me to be. I was an assassin with a mission. I would kill them all, as effectively and efficiently as possible, without remorse or emotion. This was a task to do coldly and perfectly. As I had killed the Bridgemore twins when I was fourteen, as I had killed Hoofer Webling when I was fifteen. I could not remember the name of the innkeeper I had poisoned. Knowing his name had not been part of that task.