LITMIR.BIZ

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table. By the time my words had run out, he was pouring steaming tea from a pot into two cups that I had set out. The ritual of putting out food reminded me of how easily we had always worked together. Yet somehow that hollowed me even more when I thought of how I deceived him. I wished to keep him away from Aslevjal because he believed he would die there; Chade aided me because he did not want the Fool interfering in the Prince’s quest. Yet the result was the same. When the day came for us to sail, the Fool would suddenly discover that he was not to be one of the party. And it was my doing.

      Thus my thoughts wrapped me, and silence fell as we took our places. He lifted his cup, sipped from it, and then said, ‘It isn’t your fault, Fitz. He has made a decision and no words or acts of yours will change it now.’ For one brief instant, he seemed to be replying to my thoughts, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck because he knew me so well. Then he added, ‘Sometimes all a father can do is stand by and witness the disaster, and then pick up the pieces.’

      I found my tongue and replied, ‘My worry, Fool, is that I won’t be here to witness it, or to pick up the pieces. What if he gets into real trouble, and there’s no one to step in on his behalf?’

      He held his teacup in both hands and looked at me over it. ‘Is there no one staying behind that you can ask to watch over him?’

      I suppressed an impulsive urge to say, ‘How about you?’ I shook my head. ‘No one that I know well enough. Kettricken will be here, of course, but it would hardly be appropriate to ask the Queen to play such a role to a guardsman’s son. Even if Jinna and I were still on good terms, I no longer trust her judgment.’ In dismay, I added, ‘Sometimes it’s a bit daunting to realize how few people I really trust. Or even know well, as Tom Badgerlock, I mean.’ I fell silent for a moment, considering that. Tom Badgerlock was a façade, a mask I wore daily, and yet I’d never been truly comfortable being him. I felt awkward deceiving good people such as Wim or Laurel. It made a barrier to any real friendship. ‘How do you do it?’ I asked the Fool suddenly. ‘You shift who you are from year to year and place to place. Don’t you ever feel regret that no one truly knows you as the person you were born?’

      He shook his head slowly. ‘I am not the person I was born. Neither are you. I know no one who is. Truly, Fitz, all we ever know are facets of one another. Perhaps we feel as if we know one another well when we know several facets of that person. Father, son, brother, friend, lover, husband … a man can be all of those things, yet no one person knows him in all those roles. I watch you being Hap’s father, and yet I do not know you as I knew my father, any more than I knew my father as his brother did. So. When I show myself in a different light, I do not make a pretence. Rather I bare a different aspect to the world than they have seen before. Truly, there is a place in my heart where I am forever the Fool and your playfellow. And within me there is a genuine Lord Golden, fond of good drink and well-prepared food and elegant clothing and witty speech. And so, when I show myself as him, I am deceiving no one, but only sharing a different part of myself.’

      ‘And Amber?’ I asked quietly. Then I wondered that I dared venture the question.

      He met my gaze levelly. ‘She is a facet of me. No more than that. And no less.’

      I wished I had not brought it up. I levered the conversation back into its old direction. ‘Well. That solves nothing for me, as far as finding someone to watch over Hap for me.’

      He nodded, and again there was a stiff little silence. I hated that we had become so self-conscious with one another but could not think how to change it. The Fool was still my old friend from my boyhood days. And he wasn’t. Knowing that he had other ‘facets’ reordered all my ideas of him. I felt trapped, wanting to stay and ease our friendship back into its old channel, yet also wanting to flee. He sensed it and excused me.

      ‘Well, I regret that I came at a bad time. I know you have to meet Swift soon. Perhaps we shall have a chance to speak again before we sail.’

      ‘He can wait for me,’ I heard myself say suddenly. ‘It won’t hurt him a bit.’

      ‘Thank you,’ he said.

      And then again our conversation lapsed. He saved it by picking up one of the furled charts. ‘Is this Aslevjal?’ he asked as he unrolled it on the table.

      ‘No. That’s Skyrene. Our first port of call is at Zylig.’

      ‘What’s this over here?’ He pointed to a curling bit of scrollwork on one shore of the island.

      ‘Outislander ornamentation. I think. Or maybe it means a whirlpool, or a switching current or seaweed beds. I don’t know. I think they see things differently from us.’

      ‘Undoubtedly so. Have you a chart of Aslevjal?’

      ‘The smaller one, with the brown stain at one end.’

      He unrolled it next to the first, and glanced from one to the other. ‘I see what you mean,’ he murmured, tracing an impossibly lacy edge on the shoreline. ‘What do you think that is?’

      ‘Melting glacier. At least, that is what Chade thinks.’

      ‘I wonder why he didn’t give you my message.’

      I feigned ignorance. ‘As I said, perhaps he forgot. When I see him today, I’ll ask him.’

      ‘Actually, I’d like to speak to him as well. Privately. Perhaps I could come with you to your Skill-lesson today.’

      I felt extremely uncomfortable yet I could think of no way to wriggle out of inviting him. ‘That’s not until afternoon today, after Swift’s lessons and weapon practice.’

      He nodded, unconcerned. ‘That would be fine. I’ve things to tidy up in my chamber below.’ As if inviting me to ask why, he added, ‘I’ve nearly moved out of those rooms completely. There won’t be much left for anyone to trouble about.’

      ‘So you intend to move to the Silver Key permanently?’ I asked.

      For a moment, his face went blank. I had surprised him. Then he shook his head slowly at me, smiling gently. ‘You never believe a thing I tell you, do you, Fitz? Ah, well, perhaps that has sheltered us both through many a storm. No, my friend. I will leave my Buckkeep chambers empty when I go. And most of the wonderful possessions and furnishings in the Silver Key belong to others already, accepted as collateral for my debts. Which I don’t intend to pay, of course. Once I leave Buckkeep Town, my creditors will descend like crows and pick those quarters bare. And that will be the end of Lord Golden. I won’t be returning to Buckkeep. I won’t be returning anywhere.’

      His voice did not quaver or shake. He spoke calmly and his eyes met mine. Yet his words left me feeling as if a horse had kicked me. He spoke like a man who knew he was going to die, a man tidying up all the loose ends of his life. I experienced a shift in perception. My awkwardness with him was because of our recent quarrel, and because I knew I deceived him. I did not fear his death, because I knew I had already prevented it. But his discomfort had a different root. He spoke to me as a man who knew he faced death would speak to an old friend who seemed indifferent to that fact. How callous I must have seemed to him, avoiding him all those days. Perhaps he had thought I was carefully severing the contact between us before his death could do it suddenly and painfully. The words burst from me, the only completely true thing I’d said to him that day. ‘Don’t be stupid! I’m not going to let you die, Fool!’ My throat suddenly closed. I picked up my cooling cup of tea and gulped from it hastily.

      He caught his breath and then laughed, a sound like glass breaking. Tears stood in his eyes. ‘You believe that so thoroughly, don’t you? Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the one most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.’

      I slammed my cup down. Tea splattered the table between us. ‘Stop talking like that! Eda and El in a tangle, Fool! Is that why you’ve been squandering your fortune and living like some degenerate Jamaillian? Please tell me that you haven’t spent all your windfall, that there is something left for …

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