Fool's Errand

"Not at all. Sit down and share." She took a seat at the table as she spoke and I could scarcely do otherwise. "Now. Tell me what brings you to Buckkeep." She pushed the platter toward me. It held several jam tarts and smoked fish and cheese. I took a tart to give myself time to think. She must have noticed that I wore servant's garb, but left it to me to tell her what it meant. I liked that.

"I've taken a position at Buckkeep as a manservant to Lord Golden." Even knowing it was false, it was still hard to say those words. I had never realized what a proud fellow I was until I had to masquerade as the Fool's servant. "When. I left home, I told Hap to join me when he could. At that time, I was not sure of my plans. I think that when he gets to Buckkeep Town, he may seek you out. May I leave word for him with you, so you can send him on to me?"

I braced myself for all the inevitable questions. Why had I suddenly taken this employment, why hadn't I simply brought Hap with me, how did I know Lord Golden? Instead, her eyes brightened and she exclaimed, "With great pleasure! But what I propose is simpler. When Hap arrives, I'll keep him here and send word up to the keep. There's a little room in the back he can use; it was my nephew's before he grew up and married away. Let the boy have a day or so in Buckkeep Town; he seemed to enjoy it so at Springfest, and your new duties will probably not allow you time to show him about yourself."

"I know he would love that," I found myself saying. It would be far easier for me to maintain my role as Lord Golden's servant if I did not have Hap in the midst of it. "My hope is that here in Buckkeep I'll be able to earn the coin to purchase him a good apprenticeship."

Coming up. A large tawny cat a

"Fe

"He's a good boy," I fervently agreed with her. "And he deserves a good chance at making something of himself. I'd do anything for him."

Fe

Do aR cats speak so rudely to strangers? I rebuked him.

He leaned back to bump his head possessively against Ji

"That's plain," she agreed. I tried to remember what I had said to her as I watched her give the cat a bit of fish at the edge of the table. I knew Ji

Ji

I forced a smile to my face. "You know of Lord Golden, then?"

She bobbed a nod at me. "By coincidence, he was right here in this very room just last month. He wanted a charm to keep moths from his wardrobe. I told him I had never made such a thing before, but that I could attempt one. So gracious he was for such a noble man. He paid me for it, just on my word that I would make one. And then he insisted on looking at every charm I had in my shop, and bought no less than six of them. Six! One for sweet dreams, one for light spirits, another to attract birds oh, and he seemed quite entranced with that one, almost as if he were a bird himself. But when I asked to see his hands, to tune the charms to him, he told me they were all intended as gifts. I told him he might send each recipient to me, to have the charms tuned if they wished, but as yet none of them have come. Still, they will work well enough as I built them. I do like to tune the charms, though. It's all the difference between a charm built by rote, and one created by a master. And I do regard myself as a master, thank you very much!"

These last words she offered with a hint of laughter in her voice in response to my raised brows. We laughed together, and I had no right to feel as comfortable with her as I did at that moment. "You've put my mind at rest," I declared. "I know Hap is a good lad, and little in need of my care anymore. Yet I'm afraid I'm always imagining the worst befalling him."

Don't ignore me! Fe

"That's just a part of being a father," she assured me. "Or a friend." A strange look came over her face. "I'm not above foolish worries myself. Even when they're none of my business." She gave me a frankly speculative look that evaporated all the ease in my body. "I'm going to speak plainly," she warned me.

"Please," I invited her but every bone in my body wished she would not.

"You're Witted," she said. It was not an accusation. It was more as if she commented on a disfiguring disease. "I travel quite a bit in my trade, more perhaps than you have in the last few years. The mood of the folk has changed toward Witted ones, Tom. It's become ugly everywhere I've been recently. I didn't see it myself, but I heard that in a town in Farrow they displayed the dismembered bodies of the Witted ones they'd killed, with each piece in a separate j cage to prevent them coming back to life."

I kept my face still but I felt as if ice were creeping up my spine. Prince Dutiful. Stolen or run away, but in either case vulnerable. Outside the protective walls of Buckkeep where people were capable of such monstrosities, the young Prince was at risk.

"I'm a hedge-witch," Ji