Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(41)

I had tried to rid myself of my memories of Molly. The stabbing pain of recalling her abused trust of me was the brightest gem in a glittering necklace of painful memories. As much as had always longed to be freed of my duties and obligations, being released from such bonds was as much a severing as an emancipation. As the brief days of winter alternated with the long, cold nights, I numbered to myself those I had lost. Those who still knew I lived did not even take up the fingers of one hand. The Fool, Queen Kettricken, the minstrel Starling, and through those three, Chade: those were the four who knew of my existence. A few others had seen me alive, amongst them Hands the Stablemaster and one Tag Reaverson, a guardsman, but the circumstances of those brief meetings were such that any tales of my survival were unlikely to be believed.

All others who had known me, including those who had loved me best, believed me dead. Nor could return to prove them wrong. I had been executed once for practicing Wit magic. I would not chance a more thorough death. Yet even if that taint could be lifted from my name, I could not return to Burrich and Molly. To do so would destroy all of us. Even if Molly had been able to tolerate my Beast Magic and my many deceptions of her, how could any of us untangle her subsequent marriage to Burrich? To confront Burrich with his usurpation of my wife and my child would destroy him. Could I found future happiness on that? Could Molly?

“I tried to comfort myself with the thought that they were safe and happy.”

“Could not you reach out with the Skill, to assure yourself of that?”

The shadows of the room had deepened and the Fool's .-av, eyes were fixed on the fire. It was as if I recounted my history to myself.

“I could claim I learned the discipline to leave them to their privacy. In truth, I think I feared it would drive me mad, to witness love shared between them.”

I watched the fire as I spoke of those days, yet I felt the Fool's eyes turn to me. I did not turn toward him. I did not want to see pity there. I had grown past the need for anyone's pity.

“I found peace,” I told him. “A bit at a time, but it came to me. There was a morning when Nighteyes and I were returning from a dawn hunt. We'd had a good hunt, and taken a mountain goat that the heavy snows of winter had pushed down from the heights. The hill was steep as we worked our way down, the gutted carcass was heavy, and the skin of my face was stiff as a mask from the cold burning down from the clear blue sky. I could see a thin tendril of smoke rising from my chimney, and just beyond my hut, the foggy steam rose off the nearby hot springs. At the top of the last hill, I paused to catch my breath and stretch my back.”

It all came back so clearly to me. Nighteyes had halted beside me, panting clouds. I'd swathed my lower face in the edge of my cloak; now it was halffrozen to my beard. I looked down, and knew that we had meat for days, our small cabin was tight against winter's cold clench, and we were nearly home. Cold and weary as I was, satisfaction was still uppermost in my mind. I hefted my kill to my shoulders. Almost home, I told Nighteyes.

Almost home, he had echoed. And in the sharing of that thought, I sensed a meaning that no man's voice could have put into it. Home. A finality. A place to belong. The humble cottage was home now, a comforting destination where I expected to find all I needed. As I stood staring down at it, I felt a twinge of conscience as for some forgotten obligation. It took rne a moment to grasp what was missing. The whole of a night had passed and I had not once thought of Molly. Where had my yearning and sense of loss gone? What sort of shallow fellow was I, to let go of that mourning and think only of the dawn's hunting? Deliberately I turned my thoughts to the place and the people who were once encompassed in the word HOME.

When I wallow in something dead to reawaken the savor of it, you rebuke me.

I turned to look at Nighteyes but he refused the eye contact. He sat in the snow, ears pricked forward toward our hut. The unpleasant little winter wind stirred his thick ruff, but could not penetrate to his skin.

Meaning? I pressed him, though his meaning was perfectly clear.

You should leave off sniffing the carcass of your old life, my brother. You may enjoy unending pain. I do not. There is no shame in walking away from bones, Changer. He finally swiveled his head to stare at me from his deepset eyes. Nor is there any special wisdom in injuring oneself over and over. What is your loyalty to that pain? To abandon it will not lessen you.

Then he had stood, shaken his coat free of snow, and trotted resolutely down the snowy hillside. I had followed him more slowly.

I finally glanced over at the Fool. He looked at me but his eyes were unreadable in the darkness. “I think that was the first bit of peace I found. Not that I take any credit for discovering it. Nighteyes had to point it out to me. Perhaps to another man it would have been obvious. Leave old pains alone. When they cease coming to call, do not invite them back.”

His voice was very soft in the dim room. “There is nothing dishonorable about abandoning pain. Sometimes peace is most quickly found when a man simply stops avoiding it.” He shifted slightly in the dark. “And you never again lay awake all night, staring at darkness and thinking of them.”

I snorted softly. “I wish. But the most I can say is that I stopped deliberately provoking that melancholy. When summer finally came and we moved on, it was like leaving a castoff skin.” I let a silence follow my words.

“So you left the Mountains and came back to Buck.” He knew I had not; it was just his little prod to get me, talking again.