Fool’s Quest

I took comfort there, coming and going quietly, enjoying the music, the awkward courtships among the younger staff, the pranks of the boys and girls, and the soft firelight and slower pace. More than once I saw Ash there and Perseverance, and twice I saw Spark, watching Ash’s friend from a distance with a pensive look on her face.

Chade remained genially vague. He took his meals in his room. He was welcoming when I called on him but never addressed me in a way that indicated he clearly recalled who I was and what we had been to each other. He always had an attendant. Often it was Steady or Shine. Sometimes it was a pretty Skill-apprentice named Welcome. He delighted in her attention and she seemed fond of him. I walked in once to find her combing out his white hair and singing a song about seven foxes. The few times I contrived to be alone with him by asking her to run some small errand, she went quickly and returned before I had more than the briefest opportunity to try to jostle some true response from Chade.

Kettricken had taken Shine in hand. The girl dressed more sedately yet elegantly and was occupied whenever I glimpsed her. Nettle began her Skill-lessons. Shine seemed content to be at court and to be part of Kettricken’s circle. No young men were allowed to court her, and Kettricken chose industrious and intelligent young women to be her companions. Shine blossomed in the light of the queen’s interest. I could not be certain, but I wondered if some of her calm was due to herbal teas. Having found her father and his doting affection, she seemed to accept that Lant was lost to her as a suitor. In darker moments I wondered if her experiences at the hands of the Chalcedeans had dampened her enthusiasm for the company of men. My even darker conclusion was that if it was so, there was nothing I could do about it.

I knew I’d have to wring from her a fuller account of her experiences with her kidnappers. I made my request to Nettle, as I feared answering upsetting questions might trigger some sort of Skill-storm with her. Nettle agreed immediately that we must know everything we could. Kettricken was less willing to subject Shine to a detailed interrogation, but when the matter was placed before Dutiful, he agreed it was necessary while suggesting it be done as gently as possible. I prepared a list of questions, but it was Kettricken who asked them, with Nettle present in the room to monitor Shine’s level of distress. I was there also, but behind the wall, back in my old spy-hole, where I could listen and take notes without my presence increasing her anxiety.

It went well, but not at all as I had expected. Kettricken summoned Shine to help in sorting out a large basket of brightly dyed yarn that had become mingled. Nettle joined them, seemingly by chance and, as women seem always to do, joined in the task of sorting and rewinding the yarn. Their talk wandered until I thought I would go mad with waiting for my information. But somehow Kettricken shepherded Shine’s thoughts to that terrible day when she had been snatched out of her old life. Then she did nothing but listen, with occasional exclamations of sympathy or a soft word or two that invited the girl to confide more in them.

I think Shine was almost relieved to tell what had befallen her. Her words were hesitant at first, and then came in a torrent. I learned the names of some of her captors, and listened in sick horror to how they had neglected my child in her grave illness. It was only when Shine mentioned Bee’s shedding of her skin that I recognized what had happened. Just as it had with the Fool, it seemed that as she approached whatever it was she was fated to do, her color darkened. Only to hear Shine tell it, Bee had become paler. I pushed all implications of that aside, stubbornly telling myself that I must stay fixed on Shine’s every word. Later, I would think of what it meant to me. And would mean to the Fool.

I took careful note of every painful detail and became ever gladder that neither the handsome rapist nor Duke Ellik had reached a gentle end at my hands. But as Shine wound the tale to an end, to my horror she confided to both of them her pain at discovering that the man she had regarded as a suitor was actually her brother. She wept then, a girl’s brokenhearted weeping that even when her long nightmare was over, she had woken to the fact that the man she loved could never be hers in the way she had desired.

Nettle covered her shock and Kettricken said simply that there was no way either of them could have known. Neither woman offered any rebuke or advice. They allowed her to weep herself clean, and when she fell asleep in the big cushioned chair in the room, Nettle simply covered her and left her there while Kettricken went on with her yarn tasks.