Fool’s Quest

For a moment, a silence fell, and I wondered how many of them did imagine I would be that foolish. Then the objections erupted.

“But, FitzChivalry—”

“Fitz, you will need—”

“What is your plan?” Kettricken spoke from her post near the window. Her low voice cut through the others and silence fell.

“It’s not much of a plan.” I clambered to my feet. My knees made small noises. My body healed swiftly but it still objected to some things. “I’ve gathered some tools and supplies. I’ve consulted with the Fool about my journey. And I am ready to leave. Tomorrow.”

Kettricken was shaking her head slowly. I turned to look at Dutiful. “No,” he said succinctly. “You can’t do it that way, Fitz. There has to be a farewell dinner, and you must ride out of Buckkeep like a prince, not slink off like a—”

He fumbled for words. “Lone wolf,” Nettle supplied in a low voice.

“Exactly,” Dutiful concurred. “You have been reintroduced to the court. You can’t simply vanish.”

Dismay rose in me like a tide. “Must all know what I go to do?”

There was a moment of quiet. Dutiful spoke slowly. “There have been rumors. Rumors from Withywoods, gossip among the guard companies. Bodies found. Evidently the pale folk would rather kill themselves than be captured or face hardship surviving alone. They leapt from the sea cliffs. They were seen doing so, and later the remains washed ashore. So there have been questions. And fears. We have to offer some answers.”

Chade would have been proud of me. The perfect deception came immediately to mind. “Let us announce that I am going to ask counsel of the Elderlings, as to what I should do against such an enemy. And that is why I depart by the Skill-stone and alone.”

“The True Elderlings,” Kettricken supplied.

“True Elderlings?”

“Some of the correspondence we have received from Bingtown asserts that the Traders who settled in Kelsingra with their hatched dragons are insisting that they are now Elderlings. A claim I find both preposterous and offensive.” She had seen Verity absorbed into his stone dragon, but some part of her believed in the old legends of the wise Elderlings forever feasting in their halls of stone, their dragons sleeping but ready to wake to the call of the Six Duchies. That same legend had lured Verity to the Mountains in search of the Elderlings, the legendary allies of the Six Duchies.

“I think that will be a very acceptable tale,” I suggested and looked round at my family. They were all nodding except Riddle. He had that weary expression that I had often worn when Chade would announce one of his masquerades.

“Give me five days to make all ready,” Dutiful suggested.

“I should like to leave in two,” I said quietly. One would have been better.

“Three, then,” he compromised.

I still had a difficulty. “I must entrust the Fool to your safekeeping. He will not be pleased about this, for he believes he must go with me. He thinks he can make the journey, despite blindness and his frail health. But I do not think I can care for him and still travel by the stones as swiftly as I need to.”

Kettricken had come to stand beside me. She set her hand on my arm. “Leave our old friend in my hands, Fitz. I will see that he is neither neglected nor overwhelmed. It would be my pleasure to do so.”

“I will send word to my brothers and Hap, to let them know you are departing,” Nettle offered. She shook her head. “I do not think they will have time to journey here and wish you farewell.”

“Thank you,” I told her, and wondered why such niceties never occurred to me. Then I knew. Farewells were always hard for me. And I’d left the most difficult one for last. The Fool was not going to be pleased with my plan.

It was difficult for me to extract myself from that gathering. Suggestions and ideas and warnings from those who loved me battered me until almost the dinner hour. As we left the chamber, I informed them that I had had to visit the Fool again. Kettricken nodded grimly. Riddle, ever pragmatic, said he would see that food and wine were sent up to Mage Gray’s rooms.

I dragged my feet through the halls of Buckkeep, inventing and discarding a hundred ways of telling him that I was leaving him behind. I stood for a long time outside his door. At last I decided there was no good way to give him the news. Once more, I considered a coward’s way out: I simply would not tell him. I would just go.

But I was certain that Ash would be a party to the announcement of my departure, and what he knew, the Fool would know. I lifted my hand and knocked and waited. Spark opened the door to me. She smiled to see me, and I decided that perhaps they had made up their quarrel. “It’s Prince FitzChivalry, sir. Shall I admit him?” she called merrily over her shoulder.