Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(60)

That wasn't the complete truth, but it suited my mood. An instant later, I realized I was wallowing in selfpity. My last three attempts at a purple ink were drying to brown, though one did have a very nice shade of rose to the brown. I set aside that scrap of paper, after making notes on it as to how I had gotten the color. It would be good ink for botanical illustrations, I thought.

I unfolded my legs from my chair and rose, stretching. The Fool looked up from his work. “Hungry?” I asked him.

He considered a moment. “ could eat. Let me cook. The food you make fills the stomach but does little more than that.”

He set aside the figurine he was working on. He saw me glance at it, and covered it, almost jealously. “When I'm finished,” he promised, and began a purposeful ransacking of my cupboards. While he was tsking over my lack of any interesting spices, I wandered outside. I crossed the stream, which could have led me gently down to the beach. Idly I walked up the hill, past both horse and pony grazing freely. At the crest of the hill I walked more slowly until I reached my bench. I sat down on it. Only a few steps away, the grassy hill gave way to sudden slate cliffs and the rocky beach below them. Seated on my bench, all I could see was the wide vista of ocean spread out before me. Restlessness walked through my bones again. I thought of my dream of the boy and the hunting cat out in the night and smiled to myself. Run away from it all, the cat had urged the boy, and the thought had all my sympathy.

Yet, years ago, that was what I had done, and this was what it had brought me. A life of peace and selfsufficiency, a life that should have satisfied me; yet, here I sat.

A time later, the Fool joined me. Nighteyes too came at his heels, to lie down at my feet with a martyred sigh. “Is it the Skillhunger?” the Fool asked with quiet sympathy.

“No,” I replied, and almost laughed. The hunger he had unknowingly waked in me yesterday was temporarily crippled by the elfbark I had consumed. I might long to Skill, but right now my mind was numbed to that ability.

“I've put dinner to cook slowly over a little fire, to keep from driving us out of the house. We've plenty of time.” He paused, and then asked carefully, “And after you left the Old Blood folk, where did you go?”

I sighed. The wolf was right. Talking to the Fool did help me to think. But perhaps he made me think too much. I looked back through the years and gathered up the threads of my tale.

“Everywhere. When we left there, we had no destination. So we wandered.” I stared out across the water. “For four years, we wandered, all through the Six Duchies. I've seen Tilth in winter, when snow but a few inches deep blows across the wide plains but the cold seems to go down to the earth's very bones. I crossed all of Farrow to reach Rippon, and then walked on to the coast. Sometimes I took work as a man, and bought bread, and sometimes the two of us hunted as wolves and ate our meat dripping.”

I glanced over at the Fool. He listened, his golden eyes intent on my story. If he judged me, his face gave no sign of it.

“When we reached the coast, we took ship north, although Nighteyes did not enjoy it. I visited Beams Duchy in the depth of one winter.”

“Beams?” He considered that. “Once, you were promised to Lady Celerity of Beams Duchy.” The question was in his face but not his voice.

“That was not of my will, as you recall. I did not go there to seek out Celerity. But I did glimpse Lady Faith, Duchess of Beams, as she rode through the streets on her way to Ripplekeep Castle. She did not see me, and if she had, I am sure she would not have recognized the ragged wanderer as Lord FitzChivalry. I hear that Celerity married rich in both love and lands, and is now the Lady of Ice Towers near Ice Town.”

“I am glad for her,” the Fool said gravely.

“And . never loved her, but I admired her spirit, and liked her well enough. I am glad of her good fortune.”

“And then?”

"I went to the Near Islands. From there, I wished to make the long crossing to the Out Islands, to see for myself the land of the folk who had raided and made us miserable for so long, but the wolf refused to even consider such a long sea journey.

“So we returned to the mainland, and traveled south. We went mostly by foot though we took ship past Buckkeep and did not pause there. We journeyed down the coast of Rippon and Shoaks, and on beyond the Six Duchies. I didn't like Chalced. We took ship from there just to get away from it.”

“How far did you go?” the Fool prompted when I fell silent.

I felt my mouth twist in a grin as I bragged, “All the way to Bingtown.”

“Did you?” His interest heightened. “And what did you think of it?”

“Lively. Prosperous. It put me in mind of Tradeford. The elegant people and their ornate houses, with glass in every window. They sell books in street booths there, and in one street of their market, every shop has its own sort of magic. Just to walk down that way dizzied me. I could not tell you what kind of magic it was, but it pressed against my senses, giddying me like toostrong perfume ...” I shookmy head. “I felt like a backward foreigner, and no doubt sothey thought me, in my rough clothes with a wolf at myside. Yet, despite all I saw there, the city couldn't live up tothe legend. What did we used to say? That if a man couldimagine a thing, he could find it for sale in Bingtown. Well, I saw much there that was far beyond my imagining, butthat didn't mean it was something I'd want to buy. I sawgreat ugliness there, too. Slaves coming off a ship, withgreat cankers on their ankles from the chains. We saw oneof their talking ships, too. I had always thought them just atale.” I grew silent for a moment, wondering how to conveywhat Nighteyes and I had sensed about that grim magic. “Itwasn't a magic I'd ever be comfortable around,” I saidat last.