Fool's Errand

I swallowed. "Oh. Thank you." I could not even find thecourage to ask what she had made me. Sweat was leaking down my spine despite the coolness of the dim room. She had not intended to threaten me, but her words reminded me how vulnerable I was to her. My assassin's training went deep, I discovered. Kill her, suggested that part of me. She knows your secret and that makes her a threat. Kill her.

I folded my hands on the table before me.

"You must think me strange," she murmured as she rose and went to a cupboard. "To be interfering in your life so when we have only met once or twice." I could tell she was embarrassed, yet determined to give me the gift she had made.

"I think you are kind," I said awkwardly.

Her rising had displaced Fe

She had taken a box from the cupboard. She brought it back to the table and opened it. Inside was an arrangement of beads and rods on leather thongs. She lifted it and gave it a shake and it became a necklace. I stared at it, but felt nothing. "What does it do?" I asked.

She laughed lightly. "Very little, I am afraid. I ca

She walked behind my chair with the dangling necklace. I watched her lower it past my face, and without being told, I bowed my head so she could fasten it at the nape of my neck. The charm made me feel no different, but her cool fingers against my skin sent a prickling chill over me. Her voice came from behind me. "I flatter myself that I got this fit right. It must not be too loose or it will dangle, nor so tight it chokes. Let me see it on you now. Turn around."

I did as I was bid, twisting in my chair. She looked at the necklace, looked at my face, and then gri

She looked down into my face as she tugged my collar more open about the charm. I looked up at her and felt a sudden blush heat my face. Our eyes locked.

"It works very well, indeed," she observed, and unabashedly lowered her face to offer me her mouth. Not to kiss her was unthinkable. She pressed her mouth to mine. Her lips were warm.

We sprang apart guiltily as the door handle rattled. The door scraped open, and a woman's silhouette was outlined against the day's brightness. Then she came inside, pushing jsr

the door shut behind her. "Whew. It's cooler in here, thank Eda. Oh. Beg pardon. Were you doing a reading?"

She had the same scattering of freckles on her nose and forearms. Clearly, this was Ji

Fe

"Not a reading. Testing a charm. It seems to work." Ji

"And I should be going. I'm afraid I have several other errands to do before I am required back at the keep." I wasn't sure that I wanted to leave. But how interested I was in staying did not fit in at all with what I was supposed to be doing in Buckkeep. Most of all, I felt I needed a bit of time alone to decide what had just happened, and what it meanttome.

"Must you go so right away?" Ji

Her impromptu invitation took me aback, as did theinterest in her eyes.

My fish. I'll eat it soon. Fe

"The charm seems to work very well, indeed," Ji

"I really must go, I'm afraid. I've work to do, and I'm expected back at the keep. But thank you for the invitation."

"Perhaps another time, then," the niece offered, and Ji

to keep watch for his son, a young friend of mine named Hap. When Hap arrives, he may stay with us for a day or so. And Tom will certainly have supper with us then. Tom Badgerlock, my niece, Miskya."

"Miskya, a pleasure," I assured her. I lingered long enough to exchange parting pleasantries, and then hurried out into the sunlight and noise of the city. As I hastened back to Buckkeep, I watched the reactions of folk whom I met. It did seem that more smiled at me than usually did, but I realized that might simply be their reaction to my meeting their eyes. I usually looked aside from strangers on the street. A man u

I made my steep way up to the keep gate and was admitted by the guardsmen there. The sun was high, the sky blue and clear, and if any of the passing folk were aware that the sole heir to the Farseer crown had vanished, they showed no sign of it. They moved about their ordinary tasks with no more than the concerns of a working day to vex them. By the stable, several tall boys had converged on a plump young man. I knew him for a dullard by his flat face and small ears and the way his tongue peeped out of his mouth. Slow fear showed in his small eyes as the boys spread to encircle him. One of the older stablehands looked toward them irritably.

No, no, no.

I turned, seeking the source of the floating thought, but of course that availed me nothing. A faint snatch of music distracted me. A stableboy, sent hurrying about his tasks, jolted into me, then, at my startled look, begged my pardon most abjectly. Without thinking, I had allowed my hand to ride my sword hilt. "No harm done," I assured him, and added, "Tell me, where would I find the Weaponsmasterthl heeb oystopped suddenly, looked more closely at me and smiled. "Down at the practice courts, man. They re jus past the new granary." He pointed the way.