Fool’s Fate

His voice did not quaver or shake. He spoke calmly and his eyes met mine. Yet his words left me feeling as if a horse had kicked me. He spoke like a man who knew he was going to die, a man tidying up all the loose ends of his life. I experienced a shift in perception. My awkwardness with him was because of our recent quarrel, and because I knew I deceived him. I did not fear his death, because I knew I had already prevented it. But his discomfort had a different root. He spoke to me as a man who knew he faced death would speak to an old friend who seemed indifferent to that fact. How callous I must have seemed to him, avoiding him all those days. Perhaps he had thought I was carefully severing the contact between us before his death could do it suddenly and painfully. The words burst from me, the only completely true thing I’d said to him that day. ‘Don’t be stupid! I’m not going to let you die, Fool!’ My throat suddenly closed. I picked up my cooling cup of tea and gulped from it hastily.

He caught his breath and then laughed, a sound like glass breaking. Tears stood in his eyes. ‘You believe that so thoroughly, don’t you? Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the one most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.’

I slammed my cup down. Tea splattered the table between us. ‘Stop talking like that! Eda and El in a tangle, Fool! Is that why you’ve been squandering your fortune and living like some degenerate Jamaillian? Please tell me that you haven’t spent all your windfall, that there is something left for … for you to come back to.’ And there my words halted, as I teetered at the edge of betraying myself.

He smiled strangely. ‘It’s gone, Fitz. It’s all gone, or else arranged to be bestowed. And getting rid of that much wealth has not only been a challenge, but a far greater pleasure than possessing it ever was. I’ve left papers that Malta is to go to Burrich. Can you imagine his face when someone hands her reins to him? I know he will value her and care for her. And for Patience, oh, you should have seen it before I sent it on its way! A cartload of scrolls and books on every imaginable topic. She’ll never imagine where they came from. And I’ve provided for Garetha, my garden maid. I’ve bought her a cottage and a plot of earth to call her own, as well as left her the coin to keep herself well. That should cause a mild scandal; folks will wonder why Lord Golden left a garden girl so well endowed. But let them. She will understand and she won’t care. And for Jofron, my Jhaampe friend? I’ve sent her a selection of fine woods and all of my carving tools. She’ll value them, and recall me fondly, regardless of how abruptly I left her. She’s made her reputation as a toy-maker. Did you know that?’

As he divulged his generous mischief to me, he smiled and the shadow of imminent death nearly left his eyes. ‘Please stop talking like that,’ I begged him. ‘I promise you, I won’t let you die.’

‘Make me no promises that can break us both, Fitz. Besides,’ he took a breath. ‘Even if you manage against all the fore-ordained grinding of fate to keep me alive, well, Lord Golden still must vanish. He’s lived to the end of his usefulness. Once I leave here, I shall not be him again.’

As he spoke on of how he’d dismantled his fortune and how his name would fade to obscurity, I felt sick. He had been determined and thorough. When we left him behind on the docks, we’d be leaving him in a difficult situation. That Kettricken would provide for him, no matter how he had squandered his wealth, I had no doubt. I resolved to have a quiet word with her before we left, to prepare her to rescue him if need be. Then I reined my thoughts back to the conversation, for the Fool was watching me oddly.

I cleared my throat and tried to think of sensible words. ‘I think you are too pessimistic. If you have a coin or two left to your name, you’d best be frugal with it. Just in case I’m right and I keep you alive. And now I must go, for Swift will be waiting for me.’

He nodded, rising as I did. ‘Will you come down to my old chambers when it is time for us to meet Chade for the Skill-lesson?’

‘I suppose so,’ I concurred, trying not to sound reluctant.

He smiled faintly. ‘Good luck with Burrich’s boy,’ he said, and left.

The teacups and charts were still on the table. I suddenly felt too weary to tidy them away, let alone hasten to my lesson with Swift. But I did, and when I arrived on the tower-top garden, he was waiting for me in a square of crenellated sunlight, his back to a chill stone wall, idly playing on a penny whistle. At his feet, several doves bobbed and pecked, and for a moment, my heart sank. As I approached, they all took flight, and the handful of grain that had drawn them scattered in their wind. Swift noticed the relief on my face. He took the whistle from his lips and looked up at me.

‘You thought I was using the Wit to draw them in, and it scared you,’ he observed.

I made myself pause before answering him. ‘I was frightened for a moment,’ I agreed. ‘But not at the idea you might be using your Wit. Rather I feared that you were trying to establish a bond with one of them.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘No. Not with a bird. I’ve touched minds with birds, and my thoughts glance off their minds like a stone skipping on moving water.’ Then he smiled condescendingly and added, ‘Not that I expect you to understand what I mean.’

I reined myself to silence. Eventually I asked him, ‘Did you finish reading the scroll about King Slayer and the acquisition of Bearns?’

He nodded and we proceeded with the day’s lessons, but his attitude still vexed me. I vented it on the practice court, insisting that he pick up an axe and try his strength against me before I would let him go to his bow lesson. The axes were heavier than I recalled, and even with the heads well muffled in leather wraps, the bruises from such a session are formidable. When he could no longer hold the weapon aloft, I let him go to Cresswell for his bow lesson. Then I punished myself for taking out my temper on the boy by finding a new partner, one seasoned to the axe. When I was well and truly aware of just how rusty my skills were, I left the courts and went briefly to the steams.

Cleansed of sweat and frustration, I ate a hasty meal of bread and soup in the guardroom. The talk there was loud and focused on the expedition, Outislander women and drink. Both were acclaimed strong and palatable. I tried to laugh at the jests, but the single-mindedness of the younger guards made me feel old and I was glad to excuse myself and hasten back to my workroom.

I took the secret passage from there down to the chamber I had occupied when I had been Lord Golden’s servant. I listened carefully before I triggered the concealed door. All was quiet on the other side, and I hoped that the Fool was not there. But no sooner had I closed the portal to the hidden access than he opened the outer door of the room. I blinked at him. He wore a simple tunic and leggings, all in black, with low black shoes. The light from the window gilded his hair. Daylight reached past his silhouette into the tiny room and revealed my old cot heaped with possessions I had abandoned when I left his service. The wonderful sword he had given me nestled upon a mound of colourful and extravagant garments tailored for me. I gave the Fool a puzzled look. ‘Those are yours,’ he said quietly. ‘You should take them.’

‘I doubt I’d ever have occasion to dress in such styles again,’ I said, and then heard how hard a rejection that sounded.

‘You never know,’ he said quietly, looking away. ‘Perhaps one day Lord FitzChivalry will again walk the halls of Buckkeep Castle. If he did, those colours and cuts would suit him remarkably well.’

‘I doubt any of that would ever come to be.’ That, too, sounded cold, so I tempered it with, ‘But I thank you all the same. And I will take them, just in case.’ All the awkwardness fell on me again like a smothering curtain.

‘And the sword,’ he reminded me. ‘Don’t forget the sword. I know it’s a bit showy for your taste but …’

‘But it’s still one of the finest weapons I’ve ever drawn. I’ll treasure it.’ I tried to smooth over the slight of my first refusal. I saw now that by leaving it behind when I shifted my den, I’d hurt his feelings.

‘Oh. And this. Best that this come back to you now, too.’ He reached to unfasten the carved wooden earring that Lord Golden always wore. I knew what was concealed within it: the freedom earring that had passed from Burrich’s grandmother to Burrich, to my father and eventually to me.

‘No!’ I gripped his wrist. ‘Stop this funeral rite! I’ve told you, I’ve no intention of letting you die.’

He stood still. ‘Funeral rite,’ he whispered. Then he laughed. I could smell the apricot brandy on his breath.

‘Take charge of yourself, Fool. This is so unlike you that I scarcely know how to talk to you any more,’ I exclaimed in annoyance, feeling the anger that uneasiness can trigger in a man. ‘Can’t we just relax and be ourselves in the days we have left?’

‘The days we have left,’ he echoed. With a twist of his wrist, he effortlessly freed himself from my grip. I followed him back into his large and airy chamber. Stripped of his possessions, it seemed even larger. He went to the brandy decanter and poured more for himself, and then filled a small glass for me.

‘In the days we have left before we sail,’ I expanded my words for him as I took the glass. I looked around the chamber. Necessities had been left in place: a table, chairs, a desk. All else was either gone or in the process of being cleared out. Rolled tapestries and rugs were fat sausages against the wall. His workroom stood open, bare and empty, all his secrets tidied away. I walked into the room, brandy in hand. My voice reverberated oddly as I said, ‘You’ve eradicated every trace of yourself.’

He followed and we stood together looking out of the window. ‘I like to leave things tidy. One must leave so many things incomplete in life that I take pleasure in finishing those I can.’

‘I’ve never known you to wallow in emotion like this before. It almost seems that you are enjoying this.’ I tried not to sound disgusted with him.

A strange smile twisted his mouth. Then he took a deep breath as if freed of something. ‘Ah, Fitz, in all the world, only you would say something like that to me. And perhaps you are right. There is drama in facing a definite end; I’ve never encountered these sensations before … yet, in a like situation, I think you would be untouched by them. You tried to explain to me once how the wolf always lived in the present and taught you to take every possible satisfaction you could from the time that you had. You learned that well. While I, who have always lived trying to define the future before I reach it, I suddenly espy a place beyond which all is black. Blackness. That is what I dream of at night. And when I deliberately sit down and try to reach forward, to see where my path might go, that is all I see. Blackness.’

I did not know what to say to him. I could see him trying to shake off his desperation as a dog might try to shake a wolf’s grip from his throat. I took a sip of the brandy. Apricots and the heady warmth of a summer day flooded me. I recalled our days at my cottage, the brandy on my tongue reawakening the pleasure of that simpler time. ‘This is very good,’ I said to him without thinking.

Startled, he stared at me. Then he abruptly blinked away tears and the smile he gave me was genuine. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘You are right. This is very good brandy, and nothing that is to come can change that. The future cannot take from us the days we have left … unless we let it.’

He had passed some sort of crossroads within himself and was more at peace. I took another swallow of the brandy as I stared out over the hills behind Buckkeep. When I glanced at him, he was looking at me with a fondness I could not bear. He would not have looked at me so kindly if he knew how I deceived him. And yet his terror of the days to come only firmed in me my judgment that I had made the best decision for him. ‘A shame to rush this, but Chade and the others will be waiting.’

He nodded gravely, lifted his glass in a small toast to me and then tossed off the brandy. I followed his example and then had to stand still while the liquor spread heat throughout me. I took a deep breath, smelling and tasting apricots. ‘It is very good,’ I told him again.

He smiled small. ‘I’ll leave all the remaining bottles to you,’ he offered very quietly, and then laughed when I glared at him. Yet his step seemed lighter as he followed me through the labyrinth of corridors and stairs that threaded between the walls of Buckkeep. As I moved through the dimness, I wondered how I truly would feel, did I know the hour and day of my death. Unlike Lord Golden, there would be very few possessions for me to disperse. I numbered my treasures to myself, thinking I owned nothing of significance to anyone but myself; then I realized abruptly it wasn’t true. With a pang of selfish regret, I resolved to correct that. We reached the concealed entrance to the Seawatch Tower. I unseated the panel and we emerged from the hearth.

The others had already gathered so I had no opportunity for a private word to prepare Chade. Instead, as we stepped out, the Prince exclaimed with delight and came forward to welcome Lord Golden. Thick was more cautious, scowling suspiciously. Chade sent me one glance full of rebuke, and then smoothed his face and exchanged greetings with the Fool. But after that first moment of welcome, awkwardness ensued. Thick, unsettled by having a stranger in our midst, wandered aimlessly about the room instead of settling into his place at the table. I could almost see the Prince trying to fit Lord Golden, even dressed so simply, into the role of King Shrewd’s Fool as he had heard the Queen tell the tale. Chade finally said, almost bluntly, ‘So, my dear fellow, what brings you here to join us? It’s wonderful to see you, of course, but we’ve still much to learn and little time in which to learn it.’

‘I understand,’ the Fool replied. ‘But there is also little time for me to share with you what I know. So I came hoping for a bit of your time, privately, after the lesson.’

‘I think it’s wonderful that you’ve come,’ the Prince broke in artlessly. ‘I think you should have been included from the first. You were the one who let us link our strength and go through you to heal Tom. You’ve as much a right to be a member of this coterie as anyone here.’

The Fool looked touched by Dutiful’s comments. He looked down at his hands, neatly gloved in black, rubbed his fingertips together almost idly and then admitted, ‘I don’t have any true Skill of my own. I only used what was left of the touch I’d taken from Verity. And my own knowledge of … Tom.’

At the mention of his father’s name, the Prince had perked up like a foxhound catching a scent. He leaned closer to the Fool, as if his knowledge of King Verity were something that could be absorbed from him. ‘Nonetheless,’ he assured Lord Golden, ‘I look forward to journeying with you. I think you may be a valuable member of this coterie, regardless of your level of Skill. Will not you join us for the day’s lesson and let us explore the extent of your ability?’

I saw Chade torn. The Fool offered a possibility of greater power for the coterie, which Chade craved; but he feared the Fool’s opposition to our basic mission to take the dragon’s head. I wondered if there was an element of jealousy in how his eyes darted from the Fool to me. The Fool and I had always been close, and Chade knew he wielded a friend’s sway over me. Yet now, more than ever, Chade desired to rule me.

His greed for the Skill won out. He added his voice to Dutiful’s. ‘Please, Lord Golden, take a seat with us. If nothing else, you may find our efforts amusing.’

‘Well, then, I shall,’ the Fool declared almost gladly. He pulled out a chair and sat down expectantly. I wondered if any of the others could see the darker tides running behind the placid affability he presented to them. Chade and I took the chairs on either side of him while Dutiful persuaded Thick to come and join us at the table. When he was settled, four of us simultaneously took a deep breath and reached for that state of openness where we could all reach the Skill. As we did so, I had an insight both affirming and alarming. The Fool was an intruder here. In our short time of striving to become a coterie, we had achieved a unity. I had not perceived it until the Fool interrupted it. As I joined my awareness to Dutiful’s and Thick’s, I could feel Chade fluttering like a frantic butterfly at the edge of our union. Thick reached a reassuring hand to draw him into firmer contact with the rest of us. He belonged with us, but the Fool did not.

He was not so much a presence as an absence. I had noticed years ago that he was invisible to my Wit-sense. Now, as I deliberately reached toward him with the Skill, it was like trying to lift sun dazzle off a still pond.

‘Lord Golden, do you avoid us?’ Chade asked very softly.

‘I am here,’ he replied. His words seemed to ripple softly in the room, as if I felt them as well as heard them.

‘Give me your hand,’ Chade suggested. He set his own, palm up, on the table, outstretched toward my friend. It seemed as much a challenge as an invitation.

I felt a minuscule tickle of fear. It quivered along the Skill-bond between the Fool and me, letting me know that link still existed. Then the Fool lifted his gloved hand and set it in Chade’s.

I could feel him then, but not in any way that is easy to describe. If our combined Skill was a quiet pool, then the Fool was a leaf floating upon it. ‘Reach for him,’ Chade suggested, and we all did. My awareness of the Fool’s uneasiness grew stronger via our bond, but I did not think the others could sense that. They could almost touch him, but he parted before them and joined after them, as if they dragged their fingers through water. It disturbed his presence without making it accessible to them. His fear intensified. I reached along our bond surreptitiously, trying to discover what frightened him.

Possession. He did not wish to be touched in a way that might let another possess him. Belatedly I recalled what Regal and his coterie had once done to him. They had found him, through the link I shared with him, and taken a bit of his consciousness and used it against me, to spy upon me and gain knowledge of Molly’s whereabouts. That betrayal still shamed and pained him. He still carried that burden of guilt for something that had happened so long ago. It stabbed deeper that soon he would know that I had betrayed him as well.

It wasn’t your fault. I offered him comfort through our link. He refused it. Then, as if from a distance and yet clear, his thoughts reached mine.

I knew it would happen. I’d foretold it myself, when I was a child. That the one closest to you would betray you. Yet I could not believe that it would be me. And so I fulfilled my own prophecy.

We all survived.

Barely.

‘Are you Skilling to one another?’ Chade asked testily. I both heard and felt his words.

I took a deeper breath and sank deeper into the Skill. ‘Yes,’ I breathed. ‘I can reach him. But only just. And only because we have been Skill-linked before.’

‘Would you have more than this?’ The Fool’s voice was less than a whisper. I discerned a challenge in his words, but could not understand it.

‘Yes, please. Try,’ I bade him.

Beside me at the table, I was aware of the Fool making some small movement but my vision was unfocused on the room and I had no warning of his intentions until his hand settled on my wrist. His fingertips unerringly found their own faded grey fingerprints, left on my flesh so many years ago. His touch was gentle, but the sensation was an arrow in my heart. I physically spasmed, a speared fish, and then froze. The Fool ran through my veins, hot as liquor, cold as ice. For a flashing instant, we shared physical awareness. The intensity of it went beyond any joining I’d ever experienced. It was more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust, beyond a Skill-link and beyond sexual coupling, even beyond my Wit-bond with Nighteyes. It was not a sharing, it was a becoming. Neither pain nor pleasure could encompass it. Worse, I felt myself turning and opening to it, as if it were my lover’s mouth upon mine, yet I did not know if I would devour or be devoured. In another heartbeat, we would be one another, know one another more perfectly than two separate beings ever should.

He’d know my secret.

‘No!’ I cried before he could discover my plot against him. I wrenched myself free, mind and body. For a long time I fell, until I struck the cold stone floor. I rolled under the table to escape that touch, gasping. My time of blackness seemed to last for hours, yet it was only an instant before Chade dragged my curled body from under the table. He propped me against his chest as he knelt beside me. Dimly I was aware of him demanding, ‘What happened? Are you hurt? What did you do to him, Fool?’

I heard a sob escape Thick. He alone, perhaps, had sensed what had transpired. A prickling shiver ran over my body. I could not see anything. Then I realized my eyes were tightly clenched shut, my body huddled in a ball. Knowing those things, it still took me a time to persuade myself I could change them. Just as I opened my eyes, the Fool’s thought uncurled in my mind like leaf opening to sunlight.

And I set no limits on that love.

‘It’s too much,’ I said brokenly. ‘No one can give that much. No one.’

‘Here’s brandy,’ Dutiful said close by me. It was Chade who hauled me into a sitting position and put the cup to my lips. I gulped it as if it were water, then wheezed with the shock. When I managed to turn my head, the Fool was the only one still sitting in his chair at the table. His hands were gloved again, and the look he gave me was opaque. Thick crouched in a corner of the room, hugging himself and shivering. His Skill-music was his mother’s song, a desperate attempt to comfort himself.

‘What happened?’ Chade demanded in a fierce voice. I still leaned against his chest, and I could feel the anger emanating from him like heat. I knew he directed his accusatory glare at the Fool, but I answered anyway.

‘It was too intense. We formed a Skill-link that was so complete, I couldn’t find myself. As if we’d become one being.’ I called it the Skill yet I was not sure that was a proper name for it. As well call a spark the sun. I took a deeper breath. ‘It scared me. So I broke free of it. I wasn’t expecting anything like that.’ And those words were spoken as much to the Fool as to the others. I saw him hear them, but I think he took a different message from them than what I had intended.

‘And it affected you not at all?’ Chade demanded of him.

Dutiful helped me to my feet. I needed his aid. I sank down into a chair almost immediately. Yet it was not weariness I felt, but a loose energy. I could have scaled Buckkeep’s highest tower, if I could have recalled how to make my knees bend.

‘It affected me,’ the Fool said quietly. ‘But in a different way.’ He met my eyes and said, ‘It didn’t frighten me.’

‘Shall we try it again?’ Dutiful proposed innocently, and ‘No!’ Chade, the Fool and I all replied with varying degrees of emphasis.

‘No,’ the Fool repeated more quietly in the tiny silence that followed. ‘For myself, I’ve learned enough today.’

‘Perhaps we all have,’ Chade concurred gruffly. He cleared his throat and went on, ‘It’s time we dispersed to our own tasks anyway.’

‘We’ve still plenty of time,’ Dutiful protested.

‘Ordinarily, yes, that would be so,’ Chade agreed. ‘But the days run away from us now. You’ve much to do to prepare for our journey, Dutiful. Rehearse your speech thanking the Outislanders for their welcome again. Remember, the “ch” is sounded toward the back of the throat.’

‘I’ve read it a hundred times now,’ Dutiful groaned.

‘And when the time comes, the words must seem to come from your heart, not from a scroll.’

Dutiful nodded grudgingly to this. He gave one longing look at the bright and breezy day outside the window.

‘Off you both go, then,’ Chade told him, and it was suddenly clear he was dismissing both Thick and Dutiful.

Disappointment crossed the Prince’s face. He turned to Lord Golden. ‘When we are at sea, and have more time and fewer tasks, I’d like to hear of your time with my father. If you wouldn’t mind. I know that you cared for him when he … at the end of his days.’

‘I did,’ the Fool replied gently. ‘And I’d be glad to share my memories of those days with you.’

‘Thank you,’ Dutiful replied. He went to the corner, and gently chivvied Thick along, asking him what on earth had frightened him, for no one had been hurt. I was grateful that Thick had no intelligible answer to that.

They were nearly at the door when I recalled my earlier resolution. ‘Prince Dutiful, would you come to my workroom this evening? I’ve something for you.’

He raised an eyebrow, but when I said no more, he replied, ‘I’ll find time. I’ll see you then.’

Dutiful left with Thick trudging at his heels. But at the door, Thick turned and gave the Fool an oddly appraising look before he transferred his gaze to me. I wondered uneasily how much he had sensed of what had passed between the Fool and me. Then Thick was gone, shutting the door rather too firmly behind himself.

For a moment, I feared that Chade would demand to know more of what had happened. But before he could speak, the Fool said, ‘Prince Dutiful must not kill Icefyre. That is the most important thing that I must tell you, Chade. At all costs, the dragon’s life must be preserved.’

Chade had crossed to the bottles of spirits. He selected one, poured from it silently, and then turned back to us. ‘As the creature is frozen in a glacier, don’t you think it might be a bit late to worry about preserving his life?’ He sipped from his glass. ‘Or do you truly think that any beast could survive that long, bereft of warmth, water and food?’

The Fool lifted his shoulders and shook his head. ‘What do any of us know of dragons? How long had the stone dragons slept before Fitz woke them? If they share any of their natures with true dragons, then perhaps some spark of life still glows within Icefyre.’

‘What do you know of Icefyre?’ Chade demanded suspiciously. He came back to the table and sat down. I remained standing, watching the two of them.

‘I know no more of him than you do, Chade.’

‘Then why forbid us the taking of his head, when you know the Narcheska has demanded this as a condition of the marriage? Or do you think the world would be set into a better path if our two realms remained at each other’s throats for another century or two?’

I winced at his sarcasm. Never would I have mocked the Fool’s stated goal to change the world. It shocked me that Chade did, and made me realize the depth of his antagonism.

‘I’ve no love of strife, Chade Fallstar,’ the Fool replied softly. ‘Yet even a war amongst men is not the worst thing that can occur. Better war than that we do deeper, graver damage to our world itself. Especially when we have the briefest grasp at a chance to repair an almost irreparable wrong.’

‘Which is?’

‘If Icefyre lives … and I concede it would be surpassing strange if he did … but if there is some spark of life in him yet, we must abandon all other quests to free him from the ice and restore him to full life.’

‘Why?’

‘You haven’t told him?’ He swung an accusing gaze to me. I didn’t meet it and he didn’t wait for me to reply. ‘Tintaglia, the Bingtown dragon, is the sole adult female dragon in the world. With every passing year, it becomes more apparent that the young ones which emerged from their cases will remain stunted and weak, unable to hunt or fly. Dragons mate in flight. If the hatchlings never fly, they can never mate. Dragons will die out in the world. And this time, it will be forever. Unless there remains one fully-formed male dragon. One who could rise to mate Tintaglia and sire a new generation of dragons.’

I had told Chade all those things. Did he ask his question to test the Fool’s frankness?

‘You are telling me,’ Chade enunciated carefully, ‘that we must put peace between the Out Islands and the Six Duchies at risk for the sake of reviving dragons. And this will benefit us how?’

‘It won’t,’ the Fool admitted. ‘On the contrary. It will present many drawbacks for men. And many adjustments. Dragons are an arrogant and aggressive species. They ignore boundaries and have no concept of ownership. If a hungry dragon sees a cow in a pen, he’ll eat it. To them, it’s simple. The world provides and you take what you need from it.’

Chade smiled archly. ‘Then perhaps I should do the same, on behalf of humanity. The world has provided us a time free of dragons. I think I shall take it.’

I watched the Fool. He was not upset by Chade’s words. For the space of two breaths he held his peace. Then he said, ‘As you will, sir. But when the time comes, that decision may not be yours. It may be mine. Or Fitz’s.’ As Chade’s eyes blazed with anger, he added, ‘And not only the world but humanity itself does need dragons.’

‘And why is that?’ Chade demanded disdainfully.

‘To keep the balance,’ the Fool replied. He glanced over at me, and then past me, out of the window and his eyes went far and pensive. ‘Humanity fears no rivals. You have forgotten what it was to share the world with creatures as arrogantly superior as yourselves. You think to arrange the world to your liking. So you map the land and draw lines across it, claiming ownership simply because you can draw a picture of it. The plants that grow and the beasts that rove, you mark as your own, claiming not only what lives today, but what might grow tomorrow, to do with as you please. Then, in your conceit and aggression, you wage wars and slay one another over the lines you have imagined on the world’s face.’