Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(135)

I forced my eyes open wider. I looked up into the Fool's concerned face, and then dazedly gazed at the walls that surrounded me. Black stone. Veined with silver. And when I looked at it, I recognized it for what it was, stone scavenged from a much older building. The stones of the inner wall of the room fitted almost seamlessly together, but the outer wall was built more roughly. No, I suddenly knew, that wasn't completely right. The building predated the town, but it had been a ruin, rebuilt from the same ancient stone. And that ancient stone was memory stone, worked by Elderling hands.

I do not know what the Fool thought as I tottered to my feet. “Stones. Memory stone,” I told him thickly as I groped my way toward the fresh air. I heard his astonished cry when I threw myself out of the window into the dusty innyard. The wolf landed more softly beside me. An instant later, Nighteyes faded into the shadows as someone leaned out of a window and demanded, “What goes on there?”

“It's my idiot servingman!” Lord Golden retorted in disgust. “So drunk he has fallen out the window trying to close it for me. Well, let him lie there. Serves the soddenoaf right.”

I lay still in the dust of the innyard and felt the plucking dreams recede. In a moment or two, I would stand and walk farther from the stone walls. I just needed a momentor two.

The terrible tiredness that had been burdening me all evening gradually eased. I floated in relief. I stared up into the night sky and felt as if I could rise right up into it. Somewhere a couple was arguing. He was miserable but she was insistent. It was too much trouble to focus on their words, but then they came closer, and I could not avoid overhearing them.

“I should go home,” he said. He sounded very young. “I should go back to my mother. If I had not left her, none of this would have happened. Arno would still be alive. And those others.”

She inserted her head under his arm, and then rested it on his chest. That's true. And we would be apart, you forever given to another. Is that truly what you want?

They had drifted closer. With him, I breathed the sweet scent of her, musky and wild. He held her close. The wind blew through my dream of them, tattering the edges. He stroked her fur; her long dark hair threaded through his fingers. “It isn't what I want. But perhaps it is my duty.”

Your duty is to your people. And to me. She wrapped her hand around his forearm. Her fingernails pressed against his flesh like claws. She tugged at him with them. Come on. Itis time to get up again. We cannot tarry, we must ride.

He looked down into her green eyes. “My love, I must go back. I would be more useful to all of us there. I could speak out, I could press for change. I could We would be apart. Could you stand that? ”I would find a way for us to be together." No.' She cuffed his cheek, and her palm rasped against his skin. There was a hint of claws in the gesture. No. They would not understand. They would force us apart. They would kill me, and perhaps you, too. Recall the tale of the Piebald Prince. His royal blood was not enough to protect him. Yours would be no shield to you. A pause, then: I am the only one who truly cares about you. Only can save you. But I dare not come to you completely until you have proven you are one of us. Always you hold back. Are you ashamed of your Old Blood? No. Never that.

Then open yourself. Be what you know you are. He was silent for a long time. “I have a duty,” he said softly. Infinite regret was in his voice.

“Get him up!” The man's voice came from behind me. “There's no time for delay. We need to gain some distance.” I twisted on the ground to see who spoke but saw no one.

Green eyes stared into his. I could have fallen forever into those eyes. Trust me, she begged him, and he had to do as she requested. Later you can think of these things. Later you can think of duty. For now, think of living. And of me. Get up. The Fool took my arm and draped it across his shoulders. “Up you come,” he said persuasively, and heaved me to my feet. He was dressed all in black. More time must have passed than I had thought. Laughter and talk still spilled from the common room of the inn along with light. Once I was up, I found I could walk, but the Fool still insisted on keeping my arm as he guided me to a dark corner of the innyard. I leaned against the rough wood of the stable wall and collected myself.

“Are you going to be all right?” the Fool asked me again.

“I think so.” The cobwebs were clearing from my mind. But the feel of these cobwebs was more familiar. felt the familiar twinges of a Skillheadache, but they were less determined than usual. I drew a deep breath. “I'll be all right. But I don't think I should try to sleep in the inn tonight. It's built from memory stone, Fool, like the black road. Like the stone in the quarry.”

“Like the dragon Verity carved,” he filled in.

I took a deep breath. My head was clearing rapidly. “It's full of memories. That's so strange, to find stone like that here in Buck. I never supposed the Elderlings had come this far.”

“Of course they had. Think about it. What do you think the old Witness Stones are, if not Elderling handiwork?”

His words shocked me. Then, it was so obvious that I didn't waste time agreeing. “Yes, but standing stones are one thing. That inn is the rebuilt remains of an Elderling structure. I had never expected to see that here in Buck.”

He was silent for a time. As my eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness where we sheltered, I could see that he was actually chewing at the corner of his thumbnail. After a moment, he realized I was looking at him and snatched his hand away from his mouth. “Sometimes I get so caught up in the immediate puzzle that I overlook the pieces of the larger question that are all around us,” he said as if confessing a fault. “So. You are all right now?”