Fool’s Quest

He took a slow breath. “Well, she’s not living at Withywoods, sir. Not anymore. She told Shepherd Lin there’s nothing left here for her except nightmares and loss. She moved to town, to live with her sister and her husband. Her sister has six children, so they’re crowded but she says it’s all right. Her sister welcomes the help, for her youngest is colicky and my mother is patient. She takes in sewing and mending. I went to see her, but the moment she opened the door to me, she started weeping. She hugged me and she said she loved me, but then she went to bed very early. My aunt said that seeing me was hard for her, that I remind her of all she has lost. And that she can’t forgive herself for how she turned me away from her door and didn’t know me.” He suddenly squared his shoulders. “If I may, sir, I’ll return to Buckkeep with you when you go. I gave my aunt my pay to give to my mother, and she said it will help her a great deal. Her husband’s a good man, but six children and then taking in my mother . . . I need to step up to my duty. I think the coin I earn is the best way I can help her.”

That did not sound right to me and yet something in his face convinced me it should be so. Lea brought us tea and looked very wide-eyed to see Perseverance seated at the table beside me, in his fine livery with my charging buck on his breast. She smiled at him shyly. He straightened his jerkin casually and I suddenly saw him with new eyes. He’d gone away a stable boy and returned a young man in service to a prince. A young man who had killed their nemesis and come home with coin in his pockets for his mother.

When Foxglove joined us, her face was grave. She kept silent while Lea brought her fresh tea and set out bread, butter, and jam for us. When the girl left the room, she spoke. “I had no idea what had happened here, Fitz. Small wonder you seemed so dazed when you returned to Buckkeep. The girl who tended to my things used to be Lady Shine’s maid. And helped with your little girl, she said. Oh, Fitz! I didn’t understand the half of what had befallen you. Please forgive me.”

I stared uncomprehending at her. Lea came back with porridge and left again. “Forgive what?”

“I was distant with you after . . . I saw your handiwork, Fitz, on those two men. Now I understand. That’s all I wanted to say.”

I nodded as if I agreed. I just wanted everyone to stop talking. I ate food I had no appetite for.

The rest of the day dragged by. I did the things I had come to do. I inspected the rebuilding of the stables and requested a few changes. I found a man in the village who knew about training dogs and asked him to help the stable girl turn the bulldog into a useful animal. I reviewed which horses and stock had been burned to death and which needed to be replaced. I asked the resident Skill-user to relay my decisions to Lady Nettle. I told Cinch that his position as stablemaster was now permanent. The other hands seemed relieved to have someone properly in charge of things. I arranged for our accounts in Withy and Oaksbywater to be settled and thanked the merchants for allowing us to trade on credit for so long.

All the ordinary business, all that I had neglected, I put in order now. I arranged that the accounts would be sent monthly to Riddle at Buckkeep. Nothing would I leave undone. Dixon was doing a credible job as steward; he showed me his tidy book of accounts and I decided to leave him in place. He could not help that he was not Revel. It was time to stop disliking him for taking the job of a man who had died.

I had come expecting to stay ten days. By the second day I was ready to return to Buckkeep. It was evening and I was in my personal den. I was gathering from there the more personal things I would take back to Buckkeep with me. I had a lively fire going on the hearth and was feeding it my old scrolls at a steady rate. I would leave nothing of myself. I did not expect that I would ever return here to live. Most days I did not expect to return to live anywhere. And so I gathered my treasures from the chest in my room, my keepsakes of Molly and the few I had of Bee, and packed them carefully with the Fool’s carvings and the more valuable scrolls that Chade had sent me for translation.

I looked at the objects I had assembled to take back to Buck with me. It was a pitifully small collection to define a man’s life. The carvings the Fool had made for me in better times. The last shirt Molly had sewn for me, too precious ever to wear.