Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(78)

It was almost as if he had forgotten I was there. He thought aloud before me, with a carelessness that he had - , never displayed in the years when Shrewd was on the throne. In those years, he would never have spoken a word of doubt on any of the King's decisions. I wonder if he regarded our foreignborn Queen as more fallible, or if he deemed me now mature enough to hear his misgivings. He took his chair across from me and again our eyes met.

In that moment, cold walked up my spine as I realized what I confronted. Chade was not the man he had been. He had aged, and despite his denials, the keen mind fought to shine past the fluttering curtains of his years. Only the structure of his spyweb, built so painstakingly through the years, sustained his power now. Whatever drugs he brewed in his teapot were not quite enough to firm the fafade. To realize that was like missing a step on a dark steep stair. I suddenly grasped just how far and how swiftly we all could fall.

I reached across the table to set my hand atop his. I swear, I strove to will strength into him. I gripped his eyes with mine and sought to give him confidence. “Begin the night before he disappeared,” I suggested quietly. “And tell me all that you know.”

“After all these years, I should report to you, and let you draw the conclusions?” I thought I had affronted him, but then his smile dawned. “Ah, Fitz, thank you. Thank you, boy. After this long while, it is so good to have you back at my side. So good to have someone I can trust. The night before Prince Dutiful vanished. Well. Let me see, then.”

For a time, those green eyes looked far afield. I feared for a moment that I had sent his mind wandering, but then he suddenly looked back at me, and his glance was keen. “I'll go back a bit further than that. We had quarreled that morning, the Prince and I. Well, not quarreled exactly. Dutiful is too mannered to quarrel with an elder. But I had lectured him, and he had sulked, much as you used to. I declare, sometimes it is a wonder to me how much that boy can put me in mind of you.” He huffed out a brief sigh. "Anyway. We had had a little confrontation. He came to me for his morning Skill lesson, but he could not keep his mind on it. There were circles under his eyes, and I knew he had been out late again with that hunting cat of his. And I warned him, sharply, that if he could not regulate himself so as to arrive refreshed and ready for lessons, it could be done for him. The cat could be put out in the stables with the other coursing beasts to assure that my Prince would get a good sleep every night.

“That, of course, ill suited him. He and that cat have been inseparable ever since the beast was given to him. But he did not speak of the cat or his latenight excursions, possibly because he thinks I am less well informed of them than I truly am. Instead he attacked the lessons, and his tutor, as being at fault. He told me that he had no head for the Skill and never would no matter how much sleep he got. I told him not to be ridiculous, that he was a Farseer and the Skill was in his blood. He had the nerve to tell me that I was the one being ridiculous, for I had but to look in the mirror to see a Farseer who had no Skill.”

Chade cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. It took me a moment to realize that he was amused, not annoyed. “He can be an insolent pup,” he growled, but in his complaint I heard a fondness, and a pride in the boy's spirit. It amused me in a different way. A much milder remark from me at that age would have earned me a good rap on the head. The old man had mellowed. I hoped his tolerance for the boy's insolence would not ruin him. Princes, I thought, needed more discipline than other boys, not less.

I offered a distraction of my own. “Then you've begun teaching him the Skill.” I put no judgment in my voice.

“I've begun trying,” Chade growled, and there was concession in his. “I feel like a mole telling an owl about the sun. I've read the scrolls, Fitz, and I've attempted the meditations and the exercises they suggest. And sometimes I almost feel . . . something. But I don't know if it's what I'm meant to feel or only an old man's wistful imagining.”

“I told you,” I said, and I kept my voice gentle. “It can't be learned, nor taught, from a scroll. The meditation can ready you for it, but then someone has to show it to you.”

“That's why I sent for you,” he replied, too quickly. “Because you are not just the only one who can properly teach the Skill to the Prince. You are also the only one who can use it to find him.”

I sighed. “Chade, the Skill doesn't work that way. It ”Say rather that you were never taught to use the Skill that way. It's in the scrolls, Fitz. It says that two who have been joined by the Skill can find one another with it, if they need to. All my other efforts to find the Prjnce have failed. Dogs put on his scent ran well for half the morning, and then raced in circles, whimpering in confusion. My best spies have nothing to tell me, bribes have bought me nothing. The Skill is all that is left, I tell you."

I thrust aside my piqued curiosity. I did not want to see the scrolls. “Even if the scrolls claim it can be done, you say it happens between two who have been joined by the Skill. The Prince and I have no such ” “I think you do.”

There is a certain tone of voice Chade has that stops one from speaking. It warns that he knows far more than you think he does, and cautions you against telling him lies. It was extremely effective when I was a small boy. It was a bit of a shock to find it was no less effective now that I was a man. I slowly drew breath into my lungs but before I could ask, he answered me.