Fool's Fate (6 page)

    “I was minded to give Gindast some money to hold for you, so that you'd have funds of your own as you needed them while I'm gone.”

    Hap shook his head, mouth full. A moment later he said quietly, “That wouldn't work. Because if he was displeased with me for any reason, he'd withhold it.”

    “And you expect your master to be displeased with you?”

    For a time he didn't answer. Then he said, “He thinks he needs to regulate me as if I were ten years old. My evenings should be my own, to do as I please. You've paid for my apprenticeship, and I do my work during the day. That should be all that concerns him. But no, he would have me sit about with the other apprentices, mending socks until his wife shouts at us to stop wasting candles and go to sleep. I don't need that sort of supervision, and I won't tolerate it.”

    “I see.” We ate more insipid food in silence. I struggled with a decision. Hap was too proud to ask me to give the money to him directly. I could refuse him to express my disapproval. Certainly I didn't like what he was doing. I foresaw it would lead him to trouble...and if that trouble came while I was gone, he might need money to extricate himself. Certainly I'd seen enough of the Buckkeep Town gaol to know I didn't want my boy to spend time there, unable to pay a fine. Yet if I left him money, would I not perhaps be giving him enough rope to hang himself? Would it all go for gifts to impress his sweetheart and tavern meals and drink? It was possible.

    It came down to this: did I trust this boy that I'd raised for the last seven years? He had already set aside much of what I had taught him. Yet so Burrich would have said of me at that age, if he had known how much I used the Wit. So would Chade have said, if he'd known of my private excursions into town. Yet here I sat, very much still the man they had made me. So much so that I would not show a purse of coins in a tavern so ill-reputed as this one. “Then I shall simply give you the money and trust you to be wise with it,” I said quietly.

    Hap's face lit up, and I knew it was for the trust I offered him, not the coins. “Thank you, Tom. I'll be careful with it.”

    After that, our meal went more pleasantly. We spoke of my upcoming trip. He asked how long I would be gone. I told him I didn't know. Hap asked if my journey would be dangerous. All had heard that the Prince was setting forth to kill a dragon in the Narcheska's honor. I mildly ridiculed the idea that we would find any such beast in the ice of the Out Islands. And I told him, truthfully, that I expected to be bored and uncomfortable for much of the journey, but not at risk. I was, after all, only a minor guardsman, honored to be chosen to accompany the Prince. Doubtless I would spend most of my time waiting for someone to tell me what to do. We laughed together over that, and I hoped he had taken my point: that obeying one's superior was not a childish limit, but a duty that any man could expect in his life. But if he saw it in that light, he made no mention of it.

    We did not linger over our meal. The food didn't warrant it and I sensed that Hap was anticipating his assignation with Svanja. Whenever I thought of it, my heart sank, but I knew there was no turning him aside from it. So when our hasty meal was finished, we pushed away our greasy plates and left the Stuck Pig. We walked together for a short time, watching evening creep up on Buckkeep Town. When I was a boy, the streets would have been near empty at this hour. But Buckkeep Town had grown and the duskier trades of the city had increased. At a well-traversed crossroad women lingered on the streets, walking slowly. They eyed the passing men, speaking desultorily to one another as they waited to be approached. There Hap halted. “I have to go now,” he said quietly.

    I nodded, forbearing to make any comment. I took the purse I'd prepared out of my jerkin and slipped it to him. “Don't carry it all about with you, but only what you think you'd need that day. Do you have a safe place to put the rest?”

    “Thank you, Tom.” He took it gravely, tucking it inside his shirt. “I do. At least, Svanja does. I'll have her keep it for me.”

    It took every bit of control and deception that I'd ever learned to keep my misgivings from showing in my eyes or on my face. I nodded as if I had no doubt all would be well. Then I embraced him briefly as he bid me to be careful on my journey, and we parted.

    I found I did not want to return to Buckkeep Castle yet. It had been an unsettling day, between Web's words and Hap's news. And the food I had eaten at the Stuck Pig had more dismayed than satisfied my belly. I suspected it would not stay with me long. So I turned a different way from Hap lest he think I followed him and wandered for a time through the streets of Buckkeep. Restlessness vied with loneliness. I found myself passing the tailor shop that had once been a chandlery where Molly had worked. I shook my head at myself and deliberately set out for the docks. I wandered up and down them for a time, tallying to myself how many Out Island ships, how many from Bingtown or Jamaillia and beyond, and how many were our own vessels. The docks were longer and more crowded than my boyhood recollection of them, and the number of foreign ships was equal to our own. As I passed a vessel, I heard an Outislander shout a gruff jest to his fellows, and their raucous replies. I was pleased with myself that I could follow their words.

    The ships that would bear us to the Out Islands were tied up at the main docks. I slowed to stare up at their bare rigging. The loading of them had ceased for the night, but men kept watch on their decks by lantern light. The ships looked large now; I knew how small they would become after a few days at sea. In addition to the ship that would carry the Prince and his selected entourage, there were three ships that would carry lesser nobles and their baggage, and a cargo of gifts and trade items. The ship Prince Dutiful would sail on was called the Maiden's Chance. She was an older ship, proven swift and seaworthy. Now that she had been scrubbed and her paint and canvas completely renewed, she looked like a new creation. As a merchant vessel, built for carrying cargo, speed had been traded for capacity and stability: her hull was as rounded as the belly of a pregnant sow. Her forecastle had been enlarged to provide adequate housing for her noble guests. She looked top-heavy to me and I wondered if her master approved of the changes that had been made for Dutiful's comfort. I would travel aboard her, along with the rest of the Prince's Guard. I wondered idly if Chade would wrangle quarters for me, or if I would have to make do with whatever space I could claim for myself as guardsmen usually did. Useless to wonder, I told myself. Whatever would be would be, and I'd have to deal with it as it came. I sourly wished there was no journey to make.

    I could recall a time when a journey anywhere was something I anticipated eagerly. I'd awake on the day of departure at dawn, full of enthusiasm for the adventure to come. I'd be ready to depart when others were still crawling sleepily from their blankets.

    I didn't know when I had lost that ebullience for travel, but it was definitely gone. I felt not excitement but a growing dread. Just the thought of the sea voyage to come, the days spent in cramped quarters as we sailed east and north, was enough to make me wish I could back out of the expedition. I did not even allow my mind to stray beyond it, into the doubtful welcome of the Outislanders and our extended stay in their cold and rocky region. Finding a dragon trapped in ice and chopping its head off was beyond my imagining. Near nightly, I muttered to myself over the Narcheska's strange choice of this task for the Prince to prove himself worthy of her hand. Over and over, I had tried to find a motive that would make it comprehensible. None came to me.

    Now, as I walked the windy streets of Buckkeep, I prodded again at my greatest dread. Most of all, I feared that moment when the Fool would discover I had divulged his plans to Chade. Although I had done my best to mend my quarrel with the Fool, I had spent little time with him since then. In part, I avoided him lest some look or gesture of mine betray my treachery. Yet most of it was the Fool's doing.

    Lord Golden, as he now styled himself, had recently changed his demeanor considerably. Previously, his wealth had allowed him to indulge himself in an extravagant wardrobe and exquisite possessions. Now, he flaunted it in ways more vulgar. He disposed of coin like a servant shaking dirt from a duster. In addition to his chambers in the keep, he now rented the entire upper floor of the Silver Key, a town inn much favored by the well-to-do. This fashionable establishment clung like a limpet to a steep site that would have been considered a poor building location in my boyhood days. Yet from that lofty perch, one could gaze far out over both the town and the water beyond.

    Within that establishment, Lord Golden kept his own cook and staff. Rumors of the rare wines and exotic dishes he served made his table clearly superior to the Queen's own. While he dined with his chosen friends, the finest of Six Duchies minstrels and entertainers vied for his attention. It was not unusual to hear that he had invited a minstrel, a tumbler, and a juggler to perform simultaneously, in different corners of the dining chamber. Such meals were invariably preceded and followed by games of chance, with the stakes set sufficiently high that only the wealthiest and most spendthrift of young nobles could keep pace with him. He began his days late and his nights finished with the dawn.

    It was also rumored that his palate was not the only sense he indulged. Whenever a ship that had stopped in Bingtown or Jamaillia or the Pirate Isles docked, it was certain to bring him a visitor. Tattooed courtesans, former Jamaillian slaves, slender boys with painted eyes, women who wore battle dress, and hard-eyed sailors came to his door, stayed closeted within his chambers for a night or three, and then departed on the ships again. Some said they brought him the finest Smoke herbs, as well as cindin, a Jamaillian vice recently come to Buckkeep. Others said they came to provide indulgence for his other “Jamaillian tastes.” Those who dared to ask about his guests received only an arch look or a coy refusal to answer.

    Strange to say, his excesses seemed only to increase his popularity with a certain segment of the Six Duchies aristocracy. Many a noble youth was sternly called home from Buckkeep, or received a visit from a parent suddenly concerned about the amount of coin it was taking to keep a youngster at court. Amongst the more conservative, there was grumbling that the foreigner was leading Buckkeep's youth astray. But what I sensed more than disapproval was a salacious fascination with Lord Golden's excesses and immorality. One could trace the embroidery of the tales about him as they moved from tongue to tongue. Yet, at the base of each gossip tree was a root that could not be denied. Golden had moved into a realm of excess that no other had approached since Prince Regal had been alive.

    I could not comprehend it and that troubled me greatly. In my lowly role of Tom Badgerlock, I could not call openly on such a lofty creature as Lord Golden, and he did not seek me out. Even when he spent the night in his Buckkeep Castle chambers, he filled them with guests and entertainers until the sky was graying. Some said he had shifted his dwelling to Buckkeep Town to be closer to those places that featured games of chance and depraved entertainment, but I suspected he had moved his lair to be away from Chade's observations, and that his foreign overnight guests were not for his physical amusement but rather spies and messengers from his friends to the south. What tidings did they bring him, I wondered, and why was he so intent on debasing his reputation and spending his fortune? What news did he give them to bear back to Bingtown and Jamaillia?

    But those questions were like my ponderings on the Narcheska's motivation for setting Prince Dutiful to slay the dragon Icefyre. There were no clear answers, and they only kept my thoughts spinning wearily during hours that would have been better spent in sleep. I looked up at the latticed windows of the Silver Key. My feet had brought me here with no guidance from my head. The upper chambers were well lit this night, and I could glimpse passing guests within the opulent chambers. On the sole balcony, a woman and a young man conversed animatedly. I could hear the wine in their voices. They spoke quietly at first, but then their tones rose in altercation. I knelt down as if fastening my shoe and listened.

    “I've a wonderful opportunity to empty Lord Verdant's purse, but only if I have the money to set on the table to wager. Give me what you owe me, now!” the young man demanded of her.

    “I can't.” The woman spoke in the careful diction of one who refuses to be drunk. “I don't have it, laddie. But I soon will. When Lord Golden pays me what he owes me from his gaming yesterday, I'll get your coin to you. Had I known you were going to be so usurious about it, I never would have borrowed it from you.”

    The young man gave a low cry between dismay and outrage. “When Lord Golden pays you his wager? That's as well as to say never. All know he's fallen behind in his debts. Had I known you were borrowing from me to wager against him, I'd never have loaned it.”

    “You flaunt your ignorance,” she rebuked him after a moment of shocked silence. “All know his wealth is bottomless. When the next ship comes in from Jamaillia, he will have coin enough to pay us all.”

    From the shadows at the corner of the inn, I watched and listened intently.

    “If the next ship comes in from Jamaillia...which I doubt, from the way the war is going for them...it would have to be the size of a mountain to bring enough coin to pay all he owes now! Haven't you heard that he is even behind on his rent, and that the landlord only lets him stay on because of the other business he brings here?”

    At his words, the woman turned from him angrily, but he reached out to seize her wrist. “Listen, you stupid wench! I warn you, I won't wait long for what is owed me. You'd best find a way to pay me, and tonight.” He looked her up and down and added huskily, “Not all of it need be in coin.”

    “Ah, Lady Heliotrope. There you are. I've been looking for you, you little minx! Have you been avoiding me?”