Golden Fool (51 page)

Rory Hartshorn was not thinking as clearly. He struggled as a guard dragged him to his feet, and was soundly thumped with her truncheon several times for it. When he was finally still, he was on his knees. Blood from his mouth dripped from his chin. He glared at me malevolently.

“Penalty for brawling in a tavern is six silvers. Each. Pay it now and part peacefully, or go to the lockup, and pay twice as much to get out of there. Tavernkeeper. Any damages within?”

I didn’t hear the man’s reply because Hap hissed suddenly by my ear, “Tom Badgerlock, how could you?”

I turned to look at my boy. He recoiled from my face. I wasn’t surprised. Even in the cold of the winter day, my cheek burned hot. I could feel it puffing. “He started it.” I meant it by way of an explanation, but it sounded like a boy’s sulky excuse.

The guard who held me gave me a shake. “You! Pay attention. Captain asked you if you got the six? Do you?”

“I’ve got it. Give me a hand free to reach for my purse.” I noted that the tavernkeeper had not tallied up any damages against us. Perhaps that was a benefit of being a regular customer there.

The guardsman released both my hands, warning me, “No stupid tricks, now.”

“I’ve already done my stupid trick for the day,” I muttered, and was rewarded with a grudging chuckle from him. My hands were starting to swell. It hurt to tug my purse strings open and count out the coins for them. Now there was my queen’s largesse well spent. My guard took the coins from me and walked away to hand them to his sergeant, who counted them and then slid them into a town bag at his belt. Rory Hartshorn, still gripped by a guard on either side, shook his head sullenly. “I don’t have it,” he said mushily.

One of the guards snorted. “The way you’ve been spending coin on drink the last few days, it’s a wonder you had any money to buy beer today.”

“To the lockup,” the sergeant decreed stonily.

“I’ve got it,” Hap said suddenly. I had almost forgotten he was there until I saw him tug at the sergeant’s sleeve.

“Got what?” the sergeant asked in surprise.

“His fine. I’ll pay Hartshorn’s fine for him. Please don’t lock him up.”

“Don’t want your money! Don’ wan nothin’ from him.” Rory Hartshorn was starting to sag between the men that held him. Bereft of his fury, pain was taking him over. Then, horribly, he began to weep. “Ruined my daughter. Ruined our family. Don’ take his dirty money.”

Hap went white. The sergeant looked him up and down coldly. Hap’s voice cracked as he said, “Please, don’t lock him up. It’s bad enough, isn’t it?” The purse he lifted and tugged open was clearly marked with the sigil of his master, Gindast. Hap scooped coins out of it and proffered them to the guard. “Please,” he said again.

The sergeant turned away from him abruptly. “Take Hartshorn to his home. Fine suspended.” He turned coldly away from my boy, who reeled as if he had been struck. Shame burned his face scarlet. The two guardsmen holding Hartshorn hustled him away, but it was now plain that they were aiding him to walk rather than restraining him. The rest of the city patrol moved off on their regular rounds. Suddenly Hap and I were alone in the middle of the cold street. I blinked and my own hurts began clamoring to make themselves known. The worst was my cheekbone where the heavy mug had connected. My vision in that eye was blurred. I felt a moment of selfish gratitude that Hap was there to help me. But when he turned to look at me, he did not seem to see me at all.

“It’s all ruined now,” he said helplessly. “I’ll never be able to make this right. Never.” He turned to stare after the retreating Hartshorn. Then he swung his gaze back to me. “Tom, why?” he demanded heartbrokenly. “Why did you do this to me? I went to live with Gindast like you told me to. I was getting everything sorted out. Now you’ve ruined it.” He stared after the departing men. “I’ll never make peace with Svanja’s family now.”

“Hartshorn started the fight,” I said stupidly, and then cursed my own pathetic excuse.

“Couldn’t you have walked away?” he asked self-righteously. “You’ve always told me that’s the best choice in a fight. To walk away if you can.”

“He didn’t give me that opportunity,” I said. My anger was starting to swell worse than my face. I walked to the edge of the street and reached up to take a handful of somewhat clean snow from an eave edge. I held it to my face. “I don’t see how you can blame me for any of this,” I added sullenly. “You’re the one who set it all in motion. You had to rush her into bed.”

For an instant he looked as if I had struck him. But even before I could feel regret for my words, he shifted into anger. “You speak as if I had a choice,” he said coldly. “But that’s to be expected, I suppose, from a man who has never known real love in his life. You think all women are like Starling. They’re not. Svanja is my true love forever, and true love should not be made to wait. You and her father and mother would have us hold back from completing our love, as if tomorrow were a certainty for any of us. But we won’t. Love demands that we grasp it all, today.”

His words inflamed my anger. I was certain that they were not his own, but had been harvested from some tavern minstrel. “If you think I’ve never known love, then you don’t know anything about me,” I retorted. “As for you and Svanja, she’s the first girl you’ve ever said more than ‘hello’ to, and you tumble into her bed and proclaim it love. Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn’t come first and linger after, if love can’t wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it’s not love. Love doesn’t require bedding to make it true. It doesn’t even demand day-to-day contact. I know this because I have known love, many kinds of love, and amongst them, I’ve known what I felt for you.”

“Tom!” he barked in rebuke. He glanced behind his shoulder at a passing couple.

“You fear they will misunderstand what I say?” I sneered. At the anger in my voice, the man took the woman’s arm and hurried her past us. I must have looked a madman. I didn’t care. “I fear you’ve misunderstood it all along. You came to Buckkeep Town and forgot everything that I ever tried to teach you. I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore.” I went back to the eaves for another scoop of snow. I glanced back at Hap, but he was staring stonily into the distance. In that instant, my heart gave him up. He was gone from me, following his own path, and there was nothing I could do. This arguing with him was as useless as all the words Burrich and Patience had spent on me. He’d go his own way, make his own mistakes, and maybe, when he was my age, learn his own lessons from them. Wasn’t that what I had done? “I’ll still finish paying for your apprenticeship,” I said quietly. I spoke as much to myself as to him, telling myself that there it would end. That it had already ended save keeping that bargain with myself.

I turned and began the long walk back up to Buckkeep Castle. Breathing the cold air made my battered ribs ache. Not much choice about that. There was a sick familiarity to the pain of my puffing knuckles. I wondered dully when was I going to be old enough and wise enough to stop getting into physical fights. And I wondered at the curious disconnection in my chest, the gap where Hap had been in my life but moments before. It felt like a mortal injury.

When I heard running footsteps behind me, I spun to confront them, fearing another attack. Hap skidded to a halt at sight of my battle grimace. For a frozen instant, we just stood and regarded one another. Then he reached out and clutched at my sleeve, saying, “Tom, I hate this. I’m trying hard, and I’m doing and saying all the wrong things. Svanja’s parents are angry with her all the time, and when she complained to me about it and I said perhaps I should meet them and promise to go more slowly, she got angry at me. And she’s mad at me for living at Gindast’s and having to stay in most nights. But I did go to Gindast, on my own, and ask to move in. And he made me eat dirt, but I kept my head down and took it, and I’m there now, doing it his way, like you said. I hate how early we get up, and how he rations how many candles we can burn at night, and how I can’t go out at all most nights. But I’m doing it. And today, for the first time, he sent me on an errand, to pick up some brass fittings over on the smith’s street. And now I’m going to be late getting back with them, and I’ll have to bow my head to that when he scolds me. But I can’t let you walk away and think I’ve forgotten everything you taught me. I haven’t. But I have to find my own life here, and sometimes the things you taught me just don’t seem to fit with how everyone else thinks. Sometimes the things you taught me don’t seem to work here. But I’m trying, Tom. I’m trying.”

The words tumbled out from him in a rush. When they had cascaded away and silence threatened to fill in, I put my arm across his shoulders and hugged him despite the pain in my ribs. “Hurry on your errand,” I said by his ear. I tried to think of other words to add, but couldn’t find any. I couldn’t tell him it would come out right, because I wasn’t sure it would. I couldn’t tell him that I’d trust his judgment, because I didn’t. Then Hap found the words for both of us.

“I love you, Tom. I’ll keep trying.”

I sighed in relief. “Me, too. I love you, and I’ll keep trying. Hurry, now. You’re long-legged and swift. Perhaps you won’t be late if you run.”

He gave me a fleeting smile, and turning, raced off toward the smith’s street. I envied him the easy movement of his body. I turned back toward Buckkeep Castle.

Halfway up the hill road to Buckkeep Castle, I met Burrich coming down. Swift rode behind him, his hands clutching his father’s waist. Burrich’s game leg stuck out awkwardly. He’d modified the stirrup for it. For one instant, I stared at him. Swift gaped at me, but doubtless my purpling face was a sight. I damped my Wit to an ember. I kept my head down and trudged past them without another glance. My heart strained to look back at them after they had passed, but I refused it. I feared too terribly that Burrich would be looking back at me.

The rest of the walk to Buckkeep Castle seemed cold and dreary. I went to the steams. The guardsmen, coming and going, left me alone. I had hoped the moist heat would ease some of my aches, but it didn’t. The long climb up to our chambers hurt, and I knew that if I sat still, I would stiffen, but all I could think of was my bed. The day had been a wretched waste, I told myself. I doubted that even my efforts with Dutiful and Thick would bear fruit.

As I approached the door to our chambers, it opened. The garden maid came out of it. Garetha bore a basket of dried flowers. As I gazed at her, startled, she glanced up and her eyes met mine. She suddenly flushed a scarlet that all but obscured her freckles. Then she looked aside from me and rushed off down the hall, but not before I had caught sight of the necklace she wore. It was a single charm on a leather strand. The little carved rose was painted white, with a stem inked black. I knew the Fool’s work when I saw it. Had he taken my ill-conceived advice? Inexplicably, my heart sank in my chest. I tapped cautiously at the door and announced myself before I entered. As I shut the door behind me and looked round, I found a perfectly poised Lord Golden ensconced in the cushioned chair before the hearth. For an instant, his amber eyes widened at the sight of my bruises, but just as swiftly he had control of himself.

“I thought you were going out for the day, Tom Badgerlock,” he observed convivially.

“I did,” I said, and I thought that was all I was going to say. But I found myself rooted to the spot, regarding him as he sat looking back at me, so carefully contained. “I had a conversation with Hap today. I told him that loving someone and bedding someone were two different things.”

Lord Golden blinked slowly. Then he asked, “And did he believe you?”

I took a breath. “I don’t think he completely understood me. But in time, I expect he will.”

“Many things take time,” he observed. He swung his gaze back to the fire, and my hopes, which had leapt high but a moment before, moderated themselves. I nodded a silent agreement to his words and went into my room.

I stripped off my clothes and lay down on my narrow bed. I closed my eyes.

The day had taken more from me than I realized. I slept, not just that afternoon, but into the night. Deep and dreamless was my rest, until in the dark of night I found myself nudged from that blissfully empty sleep into that hovering place that is between sleep and waking. What had roused me? I wondered, and then became aware of it. Outside my Skill walls, Nettle wept. She no longer assaulted those walls or entreated me angrily. She simply stood outside them and mourned. Endlessly.

I lifted my hands and covered my eyes as if that would hold her at bay. Then, I drew a deep breath and let my walls collapse. A single step carried my thoughts to hers. I wrapped her in comfort and told her,
You worry needlessly, my dear. Both your father and your brother are on their way home to you. They are safe. I promise you this is true. Now. Stop your fretting and rest.

But . . . how can you know this?

Because I do
. And I offered her my absolute certainty, and my brief glimpse of Burrich and Swift riding double on a horse.

For a moment, she collapsed into formlessness, so great was her relief. I began to withdraw, but she suddenly clutched at me.
It has been so horrid here. First Swift disappeared, and we thought something awful had befallen him. Then the smith in town told Papa that he had asked him which roads led to Buckkeep Castle. Then Papa was furious and rode off in a temper, and Mama has done nothing but either weep or rant since then. She says that of all places in the world, Buckkeep is the most dangerous for Swift. But she will not say why. It frightens me when she is like this. Sometimes she looks at me, and her eyes don’t even see me. Then she either shouts at me to make myself useful or she starts weeping and cannot stop. None of it makes sense. We all have been creeping about the house like mice. And Nim feels as if half of himself is missing, and somehow it is his fault.

I interrupted her cascading words.
Listen to me. It is going to be all right.

I believe you. But how can I make them know that?