herself for years before … Fool, I've never really taken care of her. I was near her, but she always stood on her own.' I felt both shamed and proud as I said that. Shamed that I had given her so little besides trouble, and proud that such a woman had cared for me.
'But you would at least want me to take word to her, would you not?'
I shook my head slowly. 'She believes me dead. They both do. If in fact I die, I'd just as soon let her believe I died in Regal's dungeons. For her to learn otherwise would only tar me blacker in her eyes. How could you explain to her that I did not come to her immediately? No. If something happens to me, I wish no tales told her.' Bleakness gripped me once more. And if I survived and went back to her? That was almost worse to consider. I tried to imagine standing before her and explaining to her that once more, I had put my king ahead of her. I clenched my eyes tight shut at the thought of it.
'Still, when all this is done and gone, I should like to see her again,' the Fool observed.
I opened my eyes. 'You? I did not know that you had even spoken to one another.'
The Fool seemed a bit taken aback at this. 'But, that is, I meant for your sake. To see for myself that she is well provided for. '
I felt oddly touched. 'I don't know what to say,' I told him.
'Say nothing, then. Tell me only where I may find her,' he suggested with a smile.
'I don't precisely know that myself,' I admitted to him. 'Chade knows. If … if I do not live through what we must do, ask it of him.' It felt unlucky to speak of my own death, so I added, 'Of course, we both know we shall survive. It is foretold, is it not?'
He gave me an odd look. 'By whom?'
My heart sank. 'By some White Prophet or other, I had hoped,' I muttered. It occurred to me that I had never asked the Fool if my survival was foretold. Not every man survives winning a battle. I found my courage. 'Is it foretold that the Catalyst lives?'
He appeared to be thinking hard. He suddenly observed, 'Chade leads a dangerous life. There is no assurance that he will survive either. And if he does not, well, surely you must have some idea of where the girl is. Will not you tell me?'
That he had not answered my question seemed suddenly answer enough. The Catalyst did not survive. It was like being hit by a wave of cold salt water. I felt tumbled in that cold knowledge, drowning in it. I'd never hold my daughter, never feel Molly's warmth again. It was almost a physical pain, and it dizzied me.
'FitzChivalry?' the Fool pressed me. He lifted a hand to suddenly cover his mouth tightly, as if he could speak no more. His other hand rose to grip his wrist suddenly. He looked sickened.
'It's all right,' I said faintly. 'Perhaps it's better that I know what is to come.' I sighed and racked my brain. 'I've heard them speak of a village. Burrich goes there to buy things. It cannot be far. You could start there.'
The Fool gave a tiny nod of encouragement to me. Tears stood in his eyes.
'Capelin Beach,' I said quietly.
A moment longer he sat staring at me. Then he suddenly toppled over sideways.
'Fool?'
There was no response. I stood, the warm water running off me and looked over at him. He sprawled on his side as if asleep. 'Fool!' I called irritably. When there was still no response, I waded out of the pond and over to him. He lay on the grassy bank, miming the deep, even breathing of sleep. 'Fool?' I asked again, half expecting him to come leaping up in my face. Instead he made a vague motion as if I disturbed his dreaming. It irritated me beyond words that he could go so abruptly from serious words to some kind of knavery. Yet it was typical of his behavior over the past few days. There was suddenly no relaxation or peace left in the hot water. Still dripping, I began to gather my clothes. I refused to look at him as I brushed and shook most of the water from my body. The clothing I pulled on was slightly damp anyway. The Fool slept on as I turned away from him and walked back to camp. Nighteyes trailed at my heels.
Is it a game? he asked me as we walked.
Of a kind, I suppose, I told him shortly. Not one I enjoy.
The women were already back at the camp. Kettricken was poring over her map while Kettle gave the jeppas tiny shares of the remaining grain. Starling was sitting by the fire, worrying a comb through her hair, but looked up as I approached. 'Did the Fool find clean water?' she asked me.
I shrugged. 'Not when I last saw him: At least, if he had, he wasn't carrying it with him.'
'We've enough in the waterskins to get by with, anyway. I just prefer fresh for the tea.'
'Me, too.' I sat down by the cook fire and watched her. She seemed to give no thought to her fingers at all as they danced over her hair, binding the wet shining hair into smooth braids. She coiled them to her head and pinned them down securely.
'I hate Wet hair flapping around my face,' she observed, and I realized I had been staring. I glanced away, embarrassed.
'Ah, he can still blush,' she laughed. Then added, pointedly, 'Would you like to borrow my comb?'
I lifted my hand to my own draggled hair. 'I suppose I should,' I muttered.
'Truly,' she agreed, but did not pass it to me. Instead she came to kneel behind me. 'How did you do all this?' she wondered aloud as she began to tug the comb through it.
'It just gets that way,' I mumbled. Her gentle touch, the soft tugging at my scalp felt incredibly good.
'It's so fine, that's the problem. I never met a Buck man with hair so fine.'
My heart moved sideways in my chest. A Buck beach on a windy day, and Molly on a red blanket beside me, her blouse not quite laced. She had told me I was considered the best thing to have come out of the stables since Burrich. 'I think it is your hair. It is not as coarse as most Buck men's.' One brief interlude, of flirtatious compliments and idle talk and her sweet touch under the open sky. I almost smiled. But I could not recall that day without also recalling that, like so many of our times together, it had ended in quarreling and tears. My throat closed up and I shook my head, trying to clear the memories away.
'Sit still,' Starling chided me with a sharper tug on my hair. 'I've almost got it smooth. Brace yourself, this is the last snarl.' She caught hold of my hair above it, and ripped out the snarl with a swift jerk that I almost didn't feel. 'Give me the thong,' she told me, and took it from me to bind my hair back for me.
Kettle came back from tending the jeppas. 'Any meat?' she asked me pointedly.
I sighed. 'Not yet. Soon,' I promised. I hauled myself to my feet wearily.
'Watch him, wolf,' Kettle asked Nighteyes. He gave a slight wag of his tail and then led me away from the camp.
It was past dark when we returned to camp. We were well pleased with ourselves, for we brought, not rabbit, but a cloven-hoofed creature rather like a small kid, but with a silkier hide. I had opened its belly at the kill site, both to let Nighteyes have the entrails and to lighten it for carrying. I slung the meat over my shoulder, but regretted that after a short time. Whatever biting vermin it had been carrying were only too happy to transfer to my neck. I would have to wash myself again this night.
I grinned at Kettle as she came to meet me and unslung the kid to hold it up for her inspection. But instead of congratulations, she only demanded, 'Have you any more elfbark?'
'I gave you all I had,' I told her. 'Why? Have we run out? The way it makes the Fool behave, I'd almost welcome that news.'
She gave me an odd look. 'Did you quarrel?' she demanded. 'Did you strike him?'
'What? Of course not!'
'We found him by the pool where you bathed,' she said quietly. 'Twitching in his sleep like a dreaming dog. I woke him, but even awake, he seemed vague. We brought him back here, but he only sought his blankets. Since then, he has been sleeping like a dead thing.'
We had reached the cook fire and I dropped the kid beside it and hurried into the tent, Nighteyes pushing his way in front of me.
'He revived, but only for a bit,' Kettle continued. 'Then he dropped off to sleep again. He behaves like a man recovering from exhaustion, or a very long illness. I fear for him.'
I scarcely heard her. Once in the tent, I dropped to my knees beside him. He lay on his side, curled in a ball. Kettricken knelt by him, her face clouded with worry. He looked to me simply like a man sleeping. Relief warred with irritation in me.
'I've given him almost all the elfbark,' Kettle was going on. 'If I give him what's left now, we have no reserves
