The Golden Fool

Lord Golden also professed an interest in the Wit, and asked about this strange magic. The virulence of the replies he received from some was shocking even to me. The acrimony against the magic ran deep, past all logic. When he asked what harm the magic did, he was told that Witted ones did everything from coupling with animals to gain their ability to speak their tongues to cursing their neighbours’ flocks and herds. Supposedly Witted ones could take on the guise of animals to gain access to those they would seduce or worse, rape and murder in their beast forms. Some spoke out angrily against the Queen’s leniency for the beast-magic, and told Lord Golden that the Six Duchies were a better place in the days when Witted ones could be dispatched easily. Oh, I learned more than I wished to know of the intolerance that my own people had for their neighbours in the evenings when I was occupied as Lord Golden’s servants. In the hours he left free to me, I tried to further my own studies of the Skill-scrolls. More often than I like to admit, I left my studies and went instead to Buckkeep Town, and not to meet my boy. Sometimes I caught a brief glimpse of Hap as he left Ji

I was in danger of settling into a routine that was, if not comfortable, at least predictable. Despite my intentions to remain ever wary against the Piebalds, their continued silence and inactivity was lulling. I almost dared to hope that Laudwine had died of his injuries. Perhaps his followers had disbanded, and the threat was no more. Despite the way they had terrorized me that night on the road Buckkeep Castle, it was difficult to maintain an ever-watchful stance when drowned by a constant wave of silence from them. Complacency threatened. Periodically, Chade would quiz me on my spying efforts, but I never had anything to report to him. As far as I could determine, the Piebalds had forgotten us.

I spied on Civil Bresinga regularly, but found nothing to justify my suspicions of him. He appeared to be no more than a lesser noble, come to court in a bid to increase his stature amongst the aristocracy. I found no sign of his cat in the stables. He rode out often accompanied by his groom, but on the few occasions when I shadowed him, he appeared to be doing no more than exercising his horse. I searched his room several times, hut discovered nothing of more interesting than a brief note from his mother assuring him that she was well and that she preferred he stay at court, for ‘we are all so pleased that your friendship with Prince Dutiful is prospering’. And indeed, his friendship with the Prince did prosper, despite my frequent entreaties that Dutiful regard him with caution. It was something Chade and I had discussed. Both of us would prefer that the friendship be severed, but we wondered how the Old Blood folk would interpret that.

We had had no more direct communications from any of the Witted, neither the Old Bloods nor the Piebalds. Their continued silence was unca

Chade was correct about the public executions. Queen Kettricken had accomplished this by the simple expedient of a

Then came a night that sharpened my wariness once more. I had gone down to Buckkeep Town. When I knocked at Ji

Yet when I entered the Stuck Pig’s draughty common room, I saw no sign of Hap or Svanja. I wondered briefly where they were, but was sharply distracted from that question when I saw Laurel sitting at one of the stained tables. The Queen’s huntswoman drank alone. I scowled at that, for I well recalled that Chade had assigned a man to guard her. As I watched, the tavern boy came to fill her mug again. The reckless way she lofted it told me it had already been filled several times that night.

I bought myself a beer and studied the population of the common room. Two men and a woman at a corner table seemed positioned to watch the huntswoman. But just as I wondered if they had ill intentions, the obvious couple of the group rose, bid the lone man farewell, and sauntered out without a backward glance. The remaining man gestured a tavern maid to his table. To my glance, it appeared he was trying to purchase something warmer than beer from her. His loutish behaviour calmed my reservations.

I crossed the crowded common room. Laurel seemed startled as I set my mug down, then looked away miserably as I took a seat on the bench beside her. I spoke quietly.

‘Not the sort of place where one would expect the Queen’s Huntswoman to drink.’ I glanced about the grubby tavern pointedly, and then asked, ‘And where is your apprentice tonight?’ I’d had a glimpse or two of Chade’s man. The sheer muscle of him would have daunted any ambusher. I thought less of his intellect, especially at this moment. ‘Doesn’t it seem a bit unwise for you to visit Buckkeep Town without him?’

‘Unwise? Where, then is your keeper? The danger to you is greater than the threat to me,’ she rebuked me bitterly. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but from tears or drink, I could not tell.

I kept my voice low. ‘Perhaps I am more accustomed to this sort of danger.’

‘Well. That might be true. I know little enough of you to know what you are accustomed to. But as for me, I have no intention to becoming accustomed to it. Or limiting the choices in my life by walking in constant fear.’ Laurel looked tired, and there were lines at the sides of her mouth and the comers of her eyes that I did not recall. She had been walking in constant fear despite her brave dismissal of it.

‘Have there been any further threats?’ I asked her quietly.

She smiled, a showing of teeth. ‘Why? Isn’t one enough for you?’

‘What’s happened?’

She shook her head at me and drank the rest of her ale. I signalled to the tavern boy to bring us more. After a moment, she said, ‘The first was nothing that anyone else would have recognized as a threat. Just a sprig of laurel tied to the latch of my horse’s stall. Hung by a little noose of twine.’ Almost unwillingly, she added, ‘There was a feather as well. Cut in four pieces and scorched.’