Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(3)

The old assassin smiled mockingly as he saw me take in his splendor. “Ah, but a queen's councillor must look the part, if he is to get the respect both he and she deserve in his dealings.”

“I see,” I said faintly, and then, finding my tongue, “Come in, do come in. I fear you will find my home a bit ruder than what you have obviously become accustomed to, but you are welcome all the same.”

“I did not come to quibble about your house, boy. I came to see you.”

“Boy?” I asked him quietly as I smiled and showed him in.

“Ah, well. To me, always, perhaps. It is one of the advantages of age, I can call anyone almost anything I please, and no one dares challenge me. Ah, you have the wolf still, I see. Nighteyes, was it? Up in years a bit now; I don't recall that white on your muzzle. Come here now, there's a good fellow. Fitz, would you mind seeing to my horse? I've been all morning in the saddle, and spent last night at a perfectly wretched inn. I'm a bit stiff, you know. And just bring in my saddlebags, would you? There's a good lad.”

He stooped to scratch the wolf's ears, his back to me, confident I would obey him. And I grinned and did. The black mare he'd ridden was a fine animal, amiable and willing. There is always a pleasure to caring for a creature of that quality. I watered her well, gave her some of the chickens' grain, and turned her into the pony's empty paddock. The saddlebags that I carried back to the house were heavy and one sloshed promisingly.

I entered to find Chade in my study, sitting at my writing desk, poring over my papers as if they were his own. “Ah, there you are. Thank you, Fitz. This, now, this is the stone game, isn't it? The one Kettle taught you, to help you focus your mind away from the Skillroad? Fascinating. I'd like to have this one when you are finished with it.”

“If you wish,” I said quietly. I knew a moment's unease. He tossed out words and names I had buried and left undisturbed. Kettle. The Skillroad. I pushed them back into the past. “It's not Fitz anymore,” I said pleasantly. “It's Tom Badgerlock.”

“Oh?”

I touched the streak of white in my hair from my scar. “For this. People remember the name. I tell them I was born with the white streak, and so my parents named me.”

“I see,” he said noncommittally. “Well, it makes sense, and it's sensible.” He leaned back in my wooden chair. It creaked. “There's brandy in those bags, if you've cups for us. And some of old Sara's ginger cakes... I doubt you'd expect me to remember how fond you were of those. Probably a bit squashed, but it's the taste that matters with those.” The wolf had already sat up. He came to place his nose on the edge of the table. It pointed directly at the bags.

“So. Sara is still cook at Buckkeep?” I asked as I looked for two presentable cups. Chipped crockery didn't bother me, but I was suddenly reluctant to set it out for Chade.

Chade left the study and came to my kitchen table. “Oh, not really. Her old feet bother her if she stands too long. She has a big cushioned chair, set up on a platform in the corner of the kitchen. She supervises from there. She cooks the things she enjoys cooking, the fancy pastries, the spiced cakes, and the sweets. There's a young man named Duff does most of the daily cooking now.” He was unpacking the saddlebags as he spoke. He set out two bottles marked as Sandsedge brandy. I could not remember the last time I'd tasted that. The ginger cakes, a bit squashed as foretold, emerged, spilling crumbs from the linen he'd wrapped them in. The wolf sniffed deeply, then began salivating. “His favorites too, I see,” Chade observed dryly, and tossed him one. The wolf caught it neatly and carried it off to devour on the hearthrug.

The saddlebags gave up their other treasures quickly. A sheaf of fine paper, pots of blue, red, and green inks. A fat ginger root, just starting to sprout, ready to be potted for the summer. Some packets of spices. A rare luxury for me, a round ripe cheese. And in a little wooden chest, other items, hauntingly strange in their familiarity. Small things I had thought long lost to me. A ring that had belonged to Prince Rurisk of the Mountain Kingdom. The arrowhead that had pierced the Prince's chest and nearly been the death of him. A small carved box, made by my hands years ago, to contain my poisons. I opened it. It was empty. I put the lid back on the box and set it down on the table. I looked at him. He was not just one old man come to visit me. He brought all of my past trailing along behind him as an embroidered train follows a woman into a hall. When I let him into my door, I had let in my old world with him.

“Why?” I asked quietly. “Why, after all these years, have you sought me out?”

“Oh, well.” Chade drew a chair up to the table and sat down with a sigh. He unstoppered the brandy and poured for both of us. “A dozen reasons. I saw your boy with Starling. And I knew at once who he was. Not that he looks like you, any more than Nettle looks like Burrich. But he has your mannerisms, your way of holding back and looking at a thing, with his head cocked just so before he decides whether he'll be drawn in. He put me so much in mind of you at that age that ”

“You've seen Nettle,” I cut in quietly. It was not a question.

“Of course,” he replied as quietly. “Would you like to know about her?”

I did not trust my tongue to answer. All my old cautions warned me against evincing too great an interest in her. Yet I felt a prickle of foreknowledge that Nettle, my daughter whom I had never seen except in visions, was the reason Chade had come here. I looked at my cup and weighed the merits of brandy for breakfast. Then I thought again of Nettle, the bastard I had unwillingly abandoned before her birth. I drank. I had forgotten how smooth Sandsedge brandy was. Its warmth spread through me as rapidly as youthful lust.