Hobb, Robin - Tawny Man 02 - 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.
‘Where is your wolf, Tom Badgerlock?’ a voice called, and this time it was a woman’s,
melodic with suppressed laughter. ‘Do you miss him, renegade?’
The fear that had been flowing with my blood turned suddenly to the ice of fury. I
would stand here and I would kill them all and leave their entrails smoking on the road.
My fist that had been clenched on my knife haft suddenly loosened, and a relaxed
readiness spread through me. Poised, I waited for them. It would come as a sudden
rush from all directions, the animals coming in low, and the people attacking high, with
weapons. I had only the knife. I’d have to wait until they were close. If I ran, I knew
they’d take me from behind. Better to wait and force them to come to me. Then I would
kill them, kill them all.
I truly don’t know how long I stood there. That sort of readiness can make time stand
slill or run swift as wind. I heard a dawn bird call, and then another answered it, and still I
waited. When light began to stain the night sky, I drew a deeper breath. I took a long
look around myself, peering into the trees, but saw nothing. The only movement was the
high flight of small birds as they flitted through the branches and the silver fall of the
raindrops they shook loose. My stalkers were gone. The little creature that had snapped
at me had left no trace of his passage on the wet stone of the road. The larger animal
that had crossed behind me had left a single print in the mud at the road’s edge. A small
dog. And that was all.
I turned and resumed my walk up to Buckkeep Castle. As I strode along, I began to
tremble, not with fear, but with the tension that was now leaving me, and che fury that
replaced it.
What had they wanted? To scare me. To make me aware of them, to let me know
that they knew what I was and where I denned. Well, they had done that, and more. I
forced my thoughts into order and tried to coldly assess the full threat they presented. I
extended it heyond myself. Did they know about Jinna? Had they followed me from her
door, and if so, did they know about Hap as well?
I cursed my own stupidity and carelessness. How could I have ever imagined the
Piebalds would leave me alone? The Piebalds knew that Lord Golden came from
Buckkeep, and that his servant Tom Badgerlock was Witted. They knew Tom
Badgerlock had lopped off Laudwine’s arm and stolen their prince-hostage from them.
The Piebalds would want revenge. They could have it as easily as posting one of their
cowardly scrolls, denouncing me as practising the Wit, the despised beast magic. I
would be hanged, quartered and burned for it. Had I supposed chat Buckkeep Town or
Castle would keep me safe from them?
I should have known that this would happen. Once I plunged back into Buckkeep’s
court and politics and intrigue, I had become vulnerable to all the plotting and schemes
that power attracted. I had known this would happen, I admitted bitterly. And for some
fifteen years that knowledge had kept me away from Buckkeep. Only Chade and his
plea for help in recovering Prince Dutiful had lured me back. Cold reality seeped through
me now. There were only two courses open to me. I either had to sever all ties and flee,
as I had once before, or I had to plunge fully into the swirling intrigue that had always
been the Farseer court at Buckkeep. If I stayed, I would have to start thinking like an
assassin again, always üware of the risks and threats to myself, and how they affected
those around me.
Then I wrenched my thoughts into a more truthful path. I’d have to be an assassin
again, not just think like one. I’d have to be ready ro kill when I encountered people that
threatened my prince or me. For there was no avoiding the connection: those who came
to taunt Tom Badgerlock about his Wit and the death of his wolf were folk who also knew
that Prince Dutiful shared their despised beast magic. It was their handle on the Prince,
the lever they would use not just to end the persecution of those with the Wit, but to gain
power for themselves. It was no help to me that my sympathies were, in part, with them.
In my own life, I had suffered from the taint of being Witted. I had no desire to see
摘要：

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

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