The Golden Fool

She took several deep breaths, as if I had doused her with cold water. Then she laughed shrilly. ‘And no doubt you mouth her name into your pillow as your Lord Golden mounts you. Oh, yes, that I can imagine well. You’re pathetic, Fitz. Pathetic.’

She gave me no chance to strike back, but spurred her horse cruelly and galloped off into the snowy night. For a savage instant, I hoped the beast would stumble and that she would break her neck.

Then, just when I needed that fury most, it deserted me. I was left feeling sick and sad and sorry, alone on the night road. Why had the Fool done this to me? Why? I resumed my trudge down the road.

Yet I did not go to the Stuck Pig. I knew I wouldn’t find Hap or Svanja there. Instead I went to the Dog and Whistle, an ancient tavern I had once frequented with Molly. I sat in the corner and watched patrons come and go and drank two tankards of ale. It was good ale, far better than I’d been able to afford when Molly and I last sat here. I drank and I remembered her. She, at least, had loved me true. Yet comfort in those memories trickled away. I tried to remember what it was to be fifteen years old and in love and so terribly certain that love conveyed wisdom and shaped fate. I recalled it too well, and my thoughts spun aside to Hap’s situation. I asked myself, once I had lain with Molly, could anyone have said anything to persuade me that it was not both my right and my destiny to do so? I doubted it. The best thing, I concluded a tankard later, would have been not to have allowed Hap to meet Svanja in the first place. And Ji

And the wisdom of three tankards of ale after a sleepless night and a long day of unsettling news persuaded me that the best thing to do would be to go to Ji

The snow had stopped falling. It was a clean blanket, mostly smooth, over Buckkeep Town. It draped eaves and gentled the rutted streets, hiding all sins. My boots scrunched through it as I walked the quiet streets. I nearly came to my senses when I reached Ji

I heard the thud of the cat leaping from her lap, and then her footsteps. She peered out of the top half of her door. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s me. Tom Badgerlock.’

She shut the top half of the door. It seemed like a long time before she unlatched the whole door and opened it to me. ‘Come in,’ she said, but her voice sounded as if she didn’t care if I did or didn’t.

I stood outside in the snow. ‘I don’t need to come in. I just wanted to tell you that you were right.’

She peered at me. ‘And you are drunk. Come in, Tom Badgerlock. I’ve no wish to let the night cold into my house.’

And so I went in instead. Fe

No fish. Sorry.

‘Sorry’ is not fish. What good is ‘sorry’? He curled up again, and hid his face in his tail.

I admitted it. ‘Sorry isn’t much good, but it’s all I have to offer.’

Ji

I stood with the snow from my boots melting on her floor. The fire crackled. ‘You were right about Hap. I should have intervened a lot sooner and I didn’t. I should have listened to you.’

After a time longer she said, ‘Do you want to sit down for a while? I don’t think you should try to walk back to the castle just now.’

‘I don’t think I’m that drunk!’ I scoffed.

‘I don’t think you’re sober enough to know how drunk you are,’ she replied. And while I was trying to unravel that, she said, ‘Take your cloak off and sit down.’ Then she had to move her knitting on one chair and the cat off the other, and then we both sat down.

For a short time we both just looked into her fire. Then she said, ‘There’s something you should know about Svanja’s father.’

I met her eyes unwillingly.

‘He’s a lot like you,’ she said quietly. ‘It takes some time for him get his temper up. Right now, he just feels grief over what his to daughter is doing. But as it becomes common talk in town, there will be men who will goad him about it. Grief will change to shame, and not long after that, to fury. But it won’t be against Svanja that he vents it. He’ll go after Hap, as the culprit who has deceived and seduced his daughter. By then, he’ll be righteous as well as angry. And he is strong as a bull.’

When I sat silent, she added, ‘I told Hap this.’ Fe

‘What did Hap say?’

She made a disgusted sound. ‘That he wasn’t afraid. I told him that had nothing to do with it. And that sometimes being stupid and being not afraid were two twigs of the same bush.’

‘That pleased him, no doubt.’

‘He went out. I haven’t seen him since.’ Ji

She shook her head at me. ‘It’s no use your going after him. It was hours ago, before sundown.’

‘I wouldn’t know where to look for him anyway,’ I admitted. ‘I couldn’t find him last night, and wherever they were then is where they probably are now.’

‘Probably,’ she agreed quietly. ‘Well, at least Rory Hartshorn didn’t find them last night, either. So they’re probably safe for now.’

‘Why can’t he just keep his daughter in at night? Then no one would have a problem.’

She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘No one would have a problem if you could just keep your son in at night, Tom Badgerlock.’

‘I know, I know,’ I admitted resignedly. And a moment later I added, ‘You really shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.’

A few moments later, the rest of that thought forced its way to thee front of my mind. ‘When Svanja’s father decides to look for Hap, he’ll look for him here.’ I squeezed my brows together. ‘I never meant to bring all this trouble to your door, Ji

‘Wallow in it, Tom Badgerlock,’ she said in disgust. ‘What on earth would you say to the man? Why must you take full credit for everything that goes wrong in the world? As I recall, I met Hap and befriended him long before I knew you. And Svanja has been trouble looking for a place to sprout since her family came to Buckkeep Town, if not before. And she has two parents of her own. Nor is Hap the blundering i

I stared at her in amazement.

‘It’s simple,’ she said quietly. ‘Hap needs to discover consequences. As long as you claim that it’s all your fault for being a bad parent, Hap doesn’t have to admit that a good share of this is his own fault. Of course, he doesn’t think it’s a problem yet, but when he suddenly perceives that it is, he’s going to come ru

I sat still, soaking up the words and trying to find the sense in them. ‘So what should I do?’ I demanded at last.