We walked for a time in silence. I could see what an effort it was for him to keep to the pace, and wished vainly there had been a way to keep one of the horses and get it past the slide area.
'Can you read weather sign, Fitz? Or animal tracks?'
'Some, for weather. I am better at animal tracks.'
'But in either one, are you always sure you are right?'
'Never. You don't really know until the next day dawns, or you bring the beast to bay.'
'So it is with my reading of the future. I never know … Please, let us stop, even if for only a bit. I need to get my breath, and take a sip of water.'
I obliged him reluctantly. There was a mossy boulder just off the road, and he seated himself there. Not too far from the road were evergreens of a type I did not know. It rested my eyes to look on trees again. I left the road to sit beside him, and was instantly aware of a difference. As subtle as bees' humming was the working of the road, but when it suddenly ceased, I felt it. I yawned to pop my ears, and suddenly felt more clearheaded.
'Years ago I had a vision,' the Fool observed. He drank a bit more water, then passed the skin to me. 'I saw a black buck rising from a bed of shining black stone. When first I saw the black walls of Buckkeep rising over the waters, I said to myself, Ah, that is what that meant! Now I see a young bastard whose sigil is a buck walking on a road wrought from black stone. Maybe that is what the dream signified. I don't know. But my dream was duly recorded, and someday, in years to come, wise men will agree as to what it signified. Probably after both you and I are long dead.'
I asked a question that had long prickled me. 'Kettle says there is a prophecy about my child … the child of the Catalyst ….'
'That there is,' the Fool confirmed calmly.
'Then you think Molly and I are doomed to lose Nettle to the throne of the Six Duchies?'
'Nettle. You know, I like her name. Very much, I do.'
'You did not answer my question, Fool.'
'Ask me again in twenty years. These things are so much easier when one looks back.' The sideways glance he gave me told me he would say no more on that topic. I tried a new tack.
'So you came, all that way, so that the Six Duchies would not fall to the Red-Ships.'
He gave me an odd look, then grinned as if astonished. 'Is that how you see it? That we do all this to save your Six Duchies?' When I nodded, he shook his head. 'Fitz, Fitz. I came to save the world. The Six Duchies falling to the Red-Ships is but the first pebble in the avalanche.' He took another deep breath. 'I know the Red-Ships seem disaster enough to you, but the misery they make to your folk is no more than a pimple on the world's buttocks. Were that all, were it simply one set of barbarians seizing land from another, it would be no more than the ordinary working of the world. No. They are the first stain of poison spreading in a stream. Fitz, do I dare tell you this? If we fail, the spread is fast. Forging takes root as a custom, nay, as an amusement for the high ones. Look at Regal and his `King's Justice.' He has succumbed to it already. He pleasures his body with drugs and deadens his soul with his savage amusements. Aye, and spreads the disease to those around him, until they take no satisfaction in a contest of skill that draws no blood, until games are only amusing if lives are wagered on the outcome. The very coinage of life becomes debased. Slavery spreads, for if it is accepted to take a man's life for amusement, then how much wiser to take it for profit?'
His voice had grown in strength and passion as he spoke. Now he caught his breath suddenly and leaned forward over his knees. I set a hand on his shoulder, but he only shook his head.
After a moment, he straightened. 'I declare, talking to you is more wearying than hiking. Take me at my word, Fitz. As bad as the Red-Ships are, they are amateurs and experimenters. I have seen visions of what the world becomes in the cycle when they prosper. I vow it shall not be this cycle.'
He heaved himself to his feet with a sigh and crooked out his arm. I took it and we resumed our walking. He had given me much to think about, and I spoke little. I took advantage of the gentling countryside to walk alongside the road rather than upon it. The Fool did not complain of the uneven ground.
As the road plunged ever deeper into the valley, the day warmed and the foliage increased. By evening, the terrain had mellowed so much that we were able to pitch the tent, not only off the road, but quite a distance from the road. Before bedtime, I showed Kettle my solution to her game, and she nodded as if well pleased. She immediately began to set out a new puzzle. I stopped her.
'I do not think I will need that tonight. I am looking forward to truly sleeping.'
'Are you? Then you shouldn't look forward to waking up again.'
I looked shocked.
She resumed setting out her pieces. 'You are one against three, and those three a coterie,' she observed more gently. 'And possibly those three are four. If Regal's brothers could Skill, he most likely has some ability. With the aid of the others, he could learn to lend his strength to them.' She leaned closer to me and lowered her voice, although the others were all busy with camp chores. 'You know it is possible to kill with the Skill. Would he wish to do less than that to you?'
'But if I sleep off the road,' I began.
'The force of the road is like the wind that blows alike on all. The ill wishes of a coterie are like an arrow that targets only you. Besides, there is no way you can sleep and not worry about the woman and the child. And every time you think of them, it is possible the coterie sees them through your eyes. You must crowd them out of your mind.'
I bent my head over the gamecloth.
I awoke the next morning to the pattering of rain on the tent skins. I lay for a time listening to it, grateful that it was not snow but dreading a day of walking in rain. I sensed the others waking up around me with a keenness I had not had in days. I felt almost as if I had rested. Across the tent, Starling observed sleepily, 'We walked from winter to spring yesterday.'
Next to me the Fool shifted, scratched and muttered, 'Typical minstrel. Exaggerate everything.'
'I see you are feeling better,' Starling retorted.
Nighteyes thrust his head into the tent, a bloody rabbit dangling in his jaws. The hunting is better, too.
The Fool sat up in his blankets. 'Is he offering to share that?'
My kill is your kill, little brother.
Somehow it stung to hear him call the Fool 'brother.' Especially when you've already eaten two this morning? I asked him sarcastically.
No one forced you to lie in bed all dawn.
I was silent a moment. I have not been much companion to you lately, I apologized.
I understand. It is no longer just we two. Now we are pack.
You are right, I told him humbly. But this evening, I intend to hunt with you.
The Scentless One may come too, if he wishes. He could be a good hunter, did he try, for his scent could never give him away.
'He not only offers to share meat, he invites you to hunt with us this evening.'
I had expected the Fool to decline. Even at Buck he had never shown any inclination toward hunting. Instead he inclined his head gravely toward Nighteyes and told him, 'I would be honored. '
We struck camp speedily and were soon on our way. As before I walked beside the road rather than upon it, and felt clearer-headed for it. The Fool had eaten voraciously at breakfast and now seemed almost his old self. He walked upon the road, but within hailing distance, and kept up a merry chattering to me all day. Nighteyes ranged ahead and behind as always, frequently at a gallop. All of us seemed infected with the relief of warmer weather. The light rain soon gave way to a streaky sunlight, and the earth steamed fragrantly. Only my constant ache over Molly's safety and a nagging fear that at any time Will and his cohorts might attack my mind kept it from being a lovely day. Kettle had warned me about letting my mind dwell on either problem, lest I attract the coterie's attention. So I carried my fear inside me like a cold black stone, resolutely telling myself there was absolutely nothing I could do.
Odd thoughts popped into my head all day. I could not see a flower bud without wondering if Molly would have used it for scent or color in her work. I found myself wondering if Burrich was as good with a wood axe as he was with a battle-axe, and if it would be enough to save them. If Regal knew of them, he would send soldiers after them. Could he know of them without knowing exactly where they were?
