Robin Hobb - Tawny Man 2 - Golden Fool

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Robin Hobb

Tawny Man 02

Golden Fool

PROLOGUE

Losses Sustained

The loss of a bond beast is a difficult event to explain to the non-Witted. Those

who can speak of the death of an animal as ‘it was only a dog’ will never grasp it.

Others, more sympathetic, perceive it as the death of a beloved pet. Even those

who say, ‘It must be like losing a child, or a wife’ are still seeing only one facet of

the toll. To lose the living creature that one has been linked with is more than the

loss of a companion or loved one. It was the sudden amputation of half my

physical body. My vision was dimmed, my appetite diminished by the insipid

flavour of food. My hearing was dulled and…

The manuscript, begun so many years ago, ends in a flurry of blots and angry

stabbings from my pen. I can recall the moment at which I realized I had slipped

from writing in generalities into my own intimate rendering of pain. There are

creases on the scroll where I flung it to the floor and stamped on it. The wonder

is that I only kicked it aside rather than committing it to the flames. I do not know

who took pity on the wretched thing and shelved it on my scroll rack. Perhaps it

was Thick, doing his tasks in his methodical, unthinking way. Certainly I find

nothing there that I would have saved.

So it has often been with rny writing efforts. My various attempts at a history of

the Six Duchies too often meandered into a history of myself. From a treatise on

herbs my pen would wander to the various treatments for Skill-ailments. My

studies of the White Prophets delve too deeply into their relationships with their

Catalysts. I do not know if it is conceit that always turns my thoughts to my own

life, or if my writing is my pathetic effort to explain my life to myself. The years

have come and gone in their scores of turnings, and night after night I still take

pen in hand and write. Still I strive to understand who I am. Srill I promise myself,

‘Next time I will do better’ in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered

a ‘next time’.

Yet I did not do that when I lost Nighteyes. I never promised myself that I

would bond again, and do better by my next partner. Such a thought would have

been traitorous. The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through

my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like

the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts

from the immense knowledge that one will ever after hobble through life. So the

immediate grief at his death concealed the full damage done to me. I was

confused, thinking that my pain and my loss were one and the same thing,

whereas one was but a symptom of the other.

In a curious way, it was a second coming-of-age. This one was not an arrival

at manhood, but rather a slow realization of myself as an individual.

Circumstances had plunged me back into the intrigues of the court at Buckkeep

Castle. I had the friendship of the Fool and Chade. I stood at the edge of a true

relationship with Jinna, the hedge-witch. My boy Hap had flung himself headlong

into both apprenticeship and romance, and seemed to be floundering desperately

through both. Young Prince Dutiful, poised on the lip of his betrothal to the

Outislander Narcheska, had turned to me as a mentor; not just as a teacher for

both Skill and Wit, but as someone to guide him through the rapids of

adolescence to manhood. I did not lack for people who cared about me, nor for

folk I deeply cherished. But for all that, I stood more alone than ever I had before.

The strangest part was my slow realization that I chose that isolation.

Nighteyes was irreplaceable; he had worked a change on me in the years that

we had shared. He was not half of me; together, we made a whole. Even when

Hap came into our life, we regarded him as a juvenile and a responsibility. The

wolf and I were the unit that made the decisions. Ours was the partnership. With

Nighteyes gone, I felt I would never again share chat arrangement with any

other, animal or human.

When I was a lad, spending time in the company of Lady Patience and her

companion, Lacey, I often overheard their blunt appraisals of the men at court.

One assumption Patience and Lacey had shared was that a man or woman who

had passed their thirtieth year unwed was likely to remain so. ‘Set in his ways,’

Patience would declare at the gossip that some greying lord had suddenly begun

to court a young girl. ‘Spring has turned his head, but she’ll find soon enough

there is no room in his life for a partner. He’s had it all his own way too long.’

And so I began, very slowly, to see myself. I was often lonely. I knew that my

Wit quested out for companionship. Yet that feeling and that questing were like a

reflex, the twitching of a severed limb. No one, human or animal, could ever fill

the gap that Nighteyes had left in my life.

I had said as much to the Fool during a rare moment of conversation on our

way back to Buckkeep. It had been one of the nights when we had camped

beside our homeward road. I had left him with Prince Dutiful and Laurel, the

Queen’s huntswoman. They had huddled around the fire, making the best of the

cold night and sparse food. The Prince had been withdrawn and morose, still raw

with the pain of losing his bond-cat. For me to be near him was like holding a

previously burned hand near a flame; it woke all my own pain more sharply. So I

had made the excuse of getting more wood for the fire and gone apart from them

all.

Winter was announcing its approach with a dark and chill evening. There were

no colours left in the dim work!, and away from the firelight I groped like a mole

as I searched for wood. At last I gave it up and sat down on a stone by the

creekside to wait for my eyes to adjust. But sitting there alone, feeling the cold

press in around me, I had lost all ambition to find wood, or indeed to do anything

at all. I sat and stared, listening to the sound of the running water and letting the

night fill me with its gloom.

The Fool came to me, moving quietly through the darkness. He sat down on

the earth beside me and for a time we said nothing. I hen he reached over, set a

hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I wish there were some way I could ease your

grieving.’

It was a useless thing to say, and he seemed to feel that, for after those words

he was silent. Perhaps it was the ghost of Nighteyes who reproached me for my

surly silence to our friend, for after a time I groped for some words to bridge the

dark between us. ‘It is like the cut on your head, Fool. Time will heal it, but until it

does all the best wishes in the world cannot make it heal faster. Even if there

were some way to disperse this pain, some herb or drunkenness rhat would

numb it, I could not choose it. Nothing will ever make his death better. All I can

look forward to is becoming accustomed to being alone.’

Despite my effort, my words still sounded like a rebuke, and worse, a self-

pitying one. It is a tribute to my friend that he did not take offence at them, but

rose. Gracefully. ‘I’ll let you be, then. I think you are choosing to mourn alone,

and if that is your choice, I’ll respect it. I do not think it is your wisest choice, but

I’ll respect it.’ He paused and gave a small sigh. ‘I perceive something about

myself now; I came because I wanted you to know that I knew you were in pain.

Not because I could heal you of it, but because I wanted you to be aware that I

shared that pain through our connection. I suspect thete is an aspect of

selfishness to that; that I wished you also to be aware of it, I mean. A burden

shared not only can lighten it; it can form a bond between those who share it. So

that no one is left to bear it alone.’

I sensed there was some germ of wisdom in his words, something I should

consider, but I was too weary and wracked to reach for it. ‘I’ll come back to the

fire in a little while,’ was what I said, and the Fool knew it was a dismissal. He

took his hand from my shoulder and walked away.

It was only when I later considered his words that I understood them. I was

choosing to be alone then; it was not the inescapable consequence of the wolf’s

death, nor even a carefully considered decision. I was embracing my solitude,

courting my pain. It was not the first time I had chosen such a course,

I handled that thought carefully, for it was sharp enough to kill me. I had

chosen my isolated years with Hap in my cabin. No one had forced me into that

exile. The irony was that it had been the granting of my often-voiced wish.

Throughout my youth, I had always asserted that what I truly wanted was to live

a life in which I could make rny own choices, independent of the ’duties’ of my

birth and position. It was only when fate granted chat to me that I realized the

cost of it. I could set aside my responsibilities to others and live my life as I

pleased only when I also severed my ties to them. I could not have it both ways.

To be part of a family, or any communiry, is to have duties and responsibilities, to

be bound by the rules of that group. I had lived apart from all that for a time, but

now I knew it had been my choice. I had chosen to renounce my responsibilities

to my family, and accepted the ensuing isolation as the cost. At the time, I had

insisted to myself that fortune had forced me into that role. Just as I was making

a choice now, even chough I tried to persuade myself I was but following the

inescapable path fate had set out for me.

To recognize you are the source of your own loneliness is not a cure for it. But

it is a step towards seeing that it is not inevitable, and that such a choice is not

irrevocable.

ONE

Piebalds

The Piebalds always claimed only to want freedom from the persecution that

has been the lot of the Witted folk of the Six Duchies for generations. This claim

can be dismissed as both a lie and a clever deceit. The Piebalds wanted power.

Their intent was to mould all of the Witted folk of the Six Duchies into a united

force that would rise up to seize control of the monarchy and put their own

people into power. One facet of their ploy was to claim that all Kings since the

Abdication of Chivalry were pretenders, that the bastardy of FitzChivalry Farseer

was wrongly construed as an obstacle to his inheriting the throne. Legends of the

‘True-Hearted Bastard’ rising from the grave to serve King Verity in his quest

proliferated beyond all common sense, ascribing powers to FitzChivalry that raise

the Bastard to the status of a near-deity. For this reason, the Piebalds have also

been known as the Cult of the Bastard.

These ridiculous claims were intended to give some sort of legitimacy to the

Piebald quest to overthrow the Farseer monarchy and put one of their own on the

throne. To this end, the Piebalds began a clever campaign of forcing the Witted

either to unite with them or risk exposure. Perhaps this tactic was inspired by

Kebal Rawbread, leader of the Outislanders during the Red Ship war, for it is

said that he drew men to follow him, not by his charisma, but by fear of what he

would do to their homes and families if they refused to fall in with his plans.

The Piebalds’ technique was simple. Either families tainted with the Wit-magic

joined their alliance or they were exposed by public accusations that led to their

execution. It is said that the Piebalds often began an insidious attack on the

fringes of a powerful family, exposing first a servant or a less affluent cousin, all

the while making it clear that if the head of the stalwart house did not comply with

their wishes he, too, would eventually meet such an end.

This is not the action of folk who wish to bring an end to persecution of their

kin. This is the act of a ruthless faction determined to gain power for themselves,

first by subjugating their own kind.

RowelI’s The Piebald Conspiracy

The watch had changed. The town watchman’s bell and cry came thin through

the storm, but I heard it. Night had officially ended and we were venturing

towards morning and still I sat in Jinna’s cottage waiting for Hap to return. Jinna

and I shared the comfort of her cosy hearth. Jinna’s niece had come in some

time ago and chatted with us briefly before she sought her bed. Jinna and I

passed the time, feeding log after log to the fire and chatting about

inconsequential things. The hedge-witch’s little house was warm and pleasant,

her company congenial, and waiting for rny boy became an excuse that allowed

me to do what I wished, which was simply to sit quietly where I was.

Conversation had been sporadic. Jinna had asked how my errand had gone. I

had replied that it had been my master’s business and that I had but

accompanied him. To keep that from sounding too brusque, I added that Lord

Golden had acquired some feathers for his collection and then chatted to her

about Myblack. I knew Jinna had no real interest in hearing about my horse, but

she listened amiably. The words filled the small space between us comfortably.

In truth, our real errand had had nothing to do with feathers, and had been

more mine than Lord Golden’s. Together, we had recovered Prince Dutiful from

the Piebalds who had first befriended and then captured him. We had returned

him to Buckkeep with none of his nobles the wiser. Tonight the aristocracy of the

Six Duchies feasted and danced, and tomorrow they would formalize Prince

Duriful’s betrothal to the Outisland narcheska Elliania. Outwardly, all was as it

had been.

Few would ever know how much the seamless continuation of their normality

had cost the Prince and me. The Prince’s Wit-cat had sacrificed her life for him. I

had lost my wolf. For close to a score of years, Nighteyes had been my other

self, the repository of half my soul. Now he was gone. It was as profound a

change in my fife as the snuffing of a lamp makes in an evening room. His

absence seemed a solid thing, a burden I must carry in addition to my grief.

Nights were darker. No one guarded my back for me. Yet I knew I would continue

to live. Sometimes that knowledge seemed the worst part of my loss.

I reined back before I plunged completely inco self-pity. I was not the only one

who was bereaved. Despite the Prince’s briefer bond with his cat, I knew he

suffered deeply. The magic link that the Wit forms between a human and an

animal is a complex one. Severing it is never trivial. Yet the boy had mastered his

grief and was staiwartly going through the motions of fulfilling his duties. At least I

did not have to face my betrothal tomorrow night. The Prince had been plunged

immediately back into his routine since we returned to Buckkeep yesterday

afternoon. Last night he had attended the ceremonies that welcomed his bride to

be. Tonight, he must smile and eat, make conversation, accept good wishes,

dance and appear well pleased with what fate and his mother had decreed for

him. I thought of bright lights and skirling music and laughter and loud

conversations. I shook my head in sympathy for him.

‘And what makes you shake your head like that, Tom Badgerlock?’

Jinna’s voice broke in on my introspection, and I realized that the silence had

grown long. I drew a long breath and found an easy lie. ‘The storm shows no sign

of dying, does it? I was pitying those who must be out in it this night. I am grateful

that I am not one of them.’

‘Well. To that, I’ll add that I am thankful for the company,’ she said, and

smiled.

‘And I the same,’ I added awkwardly.

To pass the night in the placid companionship of a pleasant woman was a

novel experience for me. Jinna’s cat sat purring on my lap, while Jinna’s hands

were occupied with knitting. The cosy warmth of the firelight reflected in the

auburn shades of Jinna’s curly hair and the scattering of freckles on her face and

forearms. She had a good face, not beautiful, but calm and kind. Our

conversation had wandered wide this evening, from the herbs she had used to

make the tea to how driftwood fires sometimes burned with coloured flames and

beyond, to discussing ourselves. I had discovered she was about six years

younger than I truly was, and she had expressed surprise when I claimed to be

forty-two. That was seven years past my true age; the extra years were part of

my role as Tom Badgerlock. It pleased me when she said that she had thought I

was closer to her age. Yet neither of us really gave mind to our words. There was

an interesting little tension between us as we sat before the fire and conversed

quietly. The curiosity suspended between us was like a string, plucked and

humming.

Before I had left on my errand with Lord Golden, I had spent an afternoon with

Jinna. She had kissed me. No words had accompanied that gesture, no avowals

of love or romantic compliments. There had been just the one kiss, interrupted

when her niece had returned from the market. Right now, neither of us quite

knew how to return to the place where that moment of intimacy had been

possible. For my part, I was not sure that I wished to venture there. I was not

ready even for a second kiss, let alone what it might bring. My heart was too raw.

Yet I wanted to he here, sitting before her fireside. It sounds a contradiction, and

perhaps it was. I did not want the inevitable complications that caresses would

lead to, yet in my Wit-bereavement, I took comfort in this woman’s company.

Yet Jinna was not why I had come here tonight. I needed to see Hap, my

foster son. He had just arrived at Buckkeep Town and had been staying here

with Jinna. I wished to be sure his apprenticeship with Gindast the wood-worker

was going well. I must also, much as I dreaded it, give him the news of

Nighteyes’ death. The wolf had raised the lad as much as I had. Yet even as I

winced at the thought of telling him I hoped it would, as the Fool had said,

somehow ease the burden of my sorrow. With Hap, I could share my grief,

however selfish a thing that might be. Hap had been mine for the last seven

years. We had shared a life, and the wolf’s companionship. If I still belonged to

anyone or anything, I belonged to my boy. I needed to feel the reality of that.

‘More tea?’ Jinna offered me.

I did not want more tea. We had already drunk three pots of it, and I had

visited her back-house twice. Yet she offered the tea to let me know I was

welcome to stay, no matter how late, or early, the hour had become. So, ‘Please,’

I said, and she set her knitting aside, to repeat the ritual of filling the kettle with

fresh water from the cask and hanging it from the hook and swinging it over the

fire again- Outside, the storm rattled the shutters in a fresh surge of fury. Then it

became not the storm, but Hap’s rapping at the door. ‘Jinna?’ he called unevenly.

‘Are you awake still?’

‘I’m awake,’ she replied. She turned from putting the kettle on. ‘And lucky for

you that I am, or you’d be sleeping in the shed with your pony. I’m coming.’

As she lifted the latch, I stood up, gently dumping the cat off my lap.

Imbecile. The cat was comfortable. Fennel complained as he slid to the floor,

but the big orange torn was too stupefied with warmth to make much of a protest.

Instead he leapt onto Jinna’s chair and curled up in it without deigning to give me

a backward glance.

The storm pushed in with Hap as he shoved the door open. A gust of wind

carried rain into the room. ‘Whew. Put the wood in the hole, lad,’ Jinna rebuked

Hap as he lurched in. Obediently he shut the door behind him and latched it, and

then stood dripping before it.

‘It’s wild and wet out there,’ he told her. His smile was beatifically drunken, hut

his eyes were lit with more than wine. Infatuation shone there, as unmistakable

as the rain slipping from his lank hair and running down his face. It took him a

moment or two to realize that I was there, watching him. Then, Tom! Tom, you’ve

finally come back!’ He flung his arms wide in a drunkard’s ebullience for the

ordinary, and I laughed and stepped forward to accept his wet hug.

‘Don’t get water all over Jinna’s floor!’ I rebuked him.

‘No, I shouldn’t. Well. I won’t then,’ he declared, and dragged off his sodden

coat. He hung it on a peg by the door and peeled off his wool cap to drip there as

weil. He tried to take his boots off standing, but lost his balance. He sat down on

the floor and tugged them off. He leaned far to set them by the door under his

wet coat and then sat up with a blissful smile. ‘Tom. I’ve met a girl.’

‘Have you? I thought you’d met a bottle from the smell of you.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he admitted unabashedly. That, too. But we had to drink the Prince’s

health, you know. And that of his intended. And to happy marriage. And for many

children. And for as much happiness for ourselves.’ He gave me a wide and

fatuous smile. ‘She says she loves me. She likes my eyes.’

‘Well. That’s good.’ How many times in his life had folk looked at his

mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue, and made the sign against evil? It

had to be balm to meet a girl who found them attractive.

And I suddenly knew that now was not the time to burden him with any grief of

mine. I spoke gently but firmly. ‘I think perhaps you should go to bed, son. Won’t

your master be expecting you in the morning?’

He looked as if I had slapped him with a fish. The smile faded from his face.

‘Oh. Yes, yes that’s true. He’ll expect me. Old Gindast expects his apprentices to

be there before his journeymen, and his journeymen to be well at work when he

arrives.’ He gathered himself and slowly stood up. ‘Tom, this apprenticeship

hasn’t been what I expected at all. I sweep and carry boards and turn wood that

is drying. I sharpen tools and clean tools and oil tools. Then I sweep again. I rub

oil finishes into the completed pieces. But not a tool have I had in my hand to

use, in all these days. It’s all, “watch how this is done, boy,” or “repeat back what

I just told you” and “This isn’t what I asked for. Take this back to the wood stock

and bring me the fine-grained cherry. And be quick about it”. And, Tom, they call

me names. “Country boy” and “dullard”.’

‘Gindast calls all his apprentices names, Hap.’ Jinna’s placid voice was both

calming and comforting, but it was srill strange to have a third person include

herself in our conversation, ‘it’s common knowledge. One even took the taunt

with him when he went into business for himself. Now you pay a fine price for a

Simpleton table.’ Jinna had moved back to her chair. She had taken up her

knitting but not resumed her seat. The cat still had ic.

I tried not to show how much Hap’s words distressed me. I had expecred to

hear that he loved his position and how grateful he was that I had been able to

get it for him. I had believed that his apprenticeship would be the one thing that

had gone right. ‘Well, I warned you that you would have to work hard,’ I

attempted.

‘And I was ready for that, Tom, truly I was. I’m ready to cut wood and fit it and

shape it all day. But I didn’t expect to be bored to death. Sweeping and rubbing

and fetching… I might as well have stayed at home for all I’m learning here.’

Few things have such sharp edges as the careless words of a boy. His disdain

for our old life, spoken so plainly, left me speechless.

He lifted his eyes to mine accusingly. ‘And where have you been and why

have you been gone so long? Didn’t you know that I’d need you?’ Then he

squinted at me. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

‘I cut it,’ I said. I ran a self-conscious hand over my mourning-shortened locks.

I suddenly did not trust myself to say more than that. He was just a kid, I knew,

and prone to see all things first in how they affected himself. But the very brevity

of my reply alerted him that there was much I had not said.

His eyes wandered over my face. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.

I rook a breath. No help for it now. ‘Nighteyes is dead,’ I said quietly.

‘But… is it my fault? He ran away from me, Tom, but I did look for him, I swear

I did, Jinna will tell you—’

‘It wasn’t your fault. He followed and found me. I was with him when he died. It

was nothing you did, Hap. He was just old. It was his time and he went from me.’

Despite my efforts, my throat clenched down on the words.

The relief on the boy’s face that he was not at fault was another arrow in rny

heart. Was being blameless more important to him than the wolf’s death? But

when he said, ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ I suddenly understood. He spoke the

exact truth. It would take a day, perhaps several, before he realized the old wolf

was never coming back. Nighteyes would never again sprawl beside him on the

hearthstones, never nudge his hand to have his ears scratched, never walk at his

side to hunt rabbits again. Tears rose in my eyes.

‘You’ll be all right. It will just take time,’ I assured him thickly.

‘Let’s hope so,’ he responded heavily.

‘Go to bed. You can still get an hour or so of sleep before you must rise.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose I’d better.’ Then he took a step towards me. ‘Tom.

I’m so sorry,’ he said, and his awkward hug took away much of the earlier hurt he

had dealt me. Then he lifted his eyes to mine to ask earnestly, ‘You’ll come by

tomorrow night, won’t you? I need to talk to you. It’s very impottant.’

‘I’ll come by tonight. If Jinna does not mind.’ I looked past Hap’s shoulder at

her as I released him from my embrace.

‘Jinna won’t mind at all,’ she assured me, and I hoped only I could hear the

extra note of warmth in her voice.

‘So. I’ll see you tonight. When you’re sober. Now to bed with you, boy.’ I

rumpled his wet hair, and he muttered a good night. He left the room to seek his

bedchamber and I was suddenly alone with Jinna. A log collapsed in the fire and

then the small crackling of its settling was the only sound in the room. ‘Well. I

must go. I thank you for letting me wait for Hap here.’

Jinna set down her knitting again. ‘You are welcome, Tom Badgerlock.’

My cloak was on a peg by her door. I took it down and swirled it around my

shoulders. She reached up suddenly to fasten it for me. She pulled the hood of it

up over my shorn head, and then smiled as she tugged at the sides of the hood

to pull my face down to hers. ‘Good night,’ she said breachlessly. She lifted her

chin. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her. I wanted to, and yet I

wondered that I allowed myself to do it. Where could it lead, this exchange of

kisses, but to complications and trouble?

Did she sense my reservations? As I lifted my mouth from hers, she gave her

head a small shake. She caught my hand in hers. ‘You worry coo much, Tom

Badgerlock.’ She lifted my hand to her mouth and put a warm kiss on the palm of

it. ‘Some things are far less complex than you think they are.’

I felt awkward, but I managed to say, ‘If that were true, it would be a sweet

thing.’

‘Such a courtier’s tongue.’ Her words warmed me until she added, ‘But gentle

words won’t keep Hap from running aground. You need to take a firm hand with

that young man soon. Hap needs some lines drawn or you may lose him to

Buckkeep Town. He wouldn’t be the first good country lad to go bad in a town.’

‘I think I know my own son,’ I said a bit testily.

‘Perhaps you know the boy. It’s the young man I fear for.’ Then she dared to

laugh at my scowl and add, ‘Save that look for Hap. Good night, Torn. I’ll see you

tomorrow.’

‘Good night, Jinna.’

She let me out, then stood in her doorway watching me walk away. I glanced

back at her, a woman watching me from a rectangle of warm yellow light. The

wind stirred her curly hair, blowing it about her round face. She waved to me, and

I waved back before she shut the door. Then I sighed and pulled my cloak more

tightly around me. The worst of the rain had fallen, the storm decayed to swirling

gusts that seemed to lurk in wait at the street corners. It had made merry with the

festival trim of the town. The blustering gusts sent fallen garlands snaking down

the street, and whipped banners to tatters. Usually the taverns had torches set in

sconces to guide customers to rheir doors, but at this hour they were either

burned out or taken down. Most of the taverns and inns had closed their door for

the night. All the decent folk were long abed, and most of the indecent ones, too.

I hurried through the cold dark streets, guided more by my sense of direction

than my eyes. It would be even darker once I left the cliff-side town behind and

began the winding climb through the forest towards Buckkeep Castle, but that

was a road I had known since my childhood. My feet would lead me home.

I became aware of the men following me as I left the last scattered houses of

Buckkeep Town behind. I knew that they were stalking me, not merely men on

the same path as myself, for when I slowed my steps, they slowed theirs.

Obviously they had no wish to catch up with me until I had left the houses of the

town behind me. That did not bode well for their intentions. I had left the keep

unarmed, my country habits telling against me. I had the belt knife that any man

carries for the small tasks of the day, but nothing larger. My ugly, workaday

sword in its battered sheath was hanging on the wall in my little chamber. I told

myself it was likely that they were no more than common footpads, looking for

easy prey. Doubtless they believed me drunk and unaware of them, and as soon

as they fought hack, they would flee.

It was thin solace. I had no wish to fight at all. I was sick of strife, and weary of

being wary. I doubted they would care. So I halted where I was and turned in the

dark road to face those who came after me. I drew my belt knife and balanced

my weight and waited for them.

Behind me, all was silence save for the wind soughing through the whispering

trees that arched over the road. Presently, I became aware of the waves

crashing against the cliffs in the distance. I listened for the sounds of men moving

through the hrush, or the scuff of footsteps on the road, but heard nothing. I grew

impatient. ‘Come on, then!’ I roared to the night. ‘I’ve little enough for you to take,

save my knife, and you won’t get that hilt first. Let’s get this done with!’

Silence flowed in after my words, and my shouting to the night suddenly

seemed foolish. Just as I almost decided that I had imagined my pursuers,

something ran across my foot. It was a small animal, lithe and swift, a rat or a

weasel or perhaps even a squirrel. But it was no wild creature, for it snapped a

bite ar my leg as it passed. It unnerved me and I jumped back from it. Off to my

right, I heard a smothered laugh. Even as I turned towards it, trying to peer

through the gloom of the forest, a voice spoke from my left, closer than the laugh

had been.

‘Where’s your wolf, Tom Badgerlock?’

Both mockery and challenge were in the words. Behind me, I heard claws on

gravel, a larger animal, a dog perhaps, but when I spun about, the creature had

melted back into the darkness. I turned again to the sound of muffled laughter. At

least three men, I told myself, and two Wit-beasts. I tried to think only of the

logistics of this immediate fight, and nothing beyond it. I would consider the full

implications of this encounter later. I drew deep slow breaths, waiting for them. I

opened my senses fully to the night, pushing away a sudden longing not just for

Nighteyes’ keener perception but for the comforting sensation of my wolf

watching my back. This time I heard the scuttle as the smaller beast approached.

I kicked at it, more wildly than I had intended, but caught it only a glancing blow.

It was gone again.

‘I’ll kill it!’ I warned the crouching night, but only mocking laughter met my

threat. Then, I shamed myself, shouting furiously, ‘What do you want of me?

Leave me alone!’

They let the echoes of that childish question and plea be earned off by the

wind. The terrible silence that followed was the shadow of my aloneness.

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RobinHobbTawnyMan02GoldenFoolPROLOGUELossesSustainedThelossofabondbeastisadifficulteventtoexplaintothenon-Witted.Thosewhocanspeakofthedeathofananimalas‘itwasonlyadog’willnevergraspit.Others,moresympathetic,perceiveitasthedeathofabelovedpet.Eventhosewhosay,‘Itmustbelikelosingachild,orawife’arestillse...

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