The chandlery that had once belonged to Molly’s father was now a tailor’s shop. I did not go inside. I went instead to the tavern we had once frequented. It was as dark, as smoky, and as crowded as I recalled. The heavy table in the corner still bore the marks of Kerry’s idle whittling. The boy who brought my beer was too young ever to have known me, but I knew who had fathered him by the line of his brow and was glad the business had remained in the same family. One beer became two, and then three, and the fourth was gone before twilight began to venture through the streets of the town. No one had uttered a word to the dour-faced stranger drinking alone, but I listened all the same. But whatever desperate business had led Chade to call on me, it was not common knowledge. I heard only gossip of the Prince’s betrothal, complaints about Bingtown’s war with Chalced disrupting trade, and the local mutterings about the very strange weather. Out of a clear and peaceful night sky, lightning had struck an unused storage hut in the outer keep of the castle and blown the roof right off. I shook my head at that tale. I left an extra copper for the boy, and shouldered my pack once more.
The last time I had left Buckkeep it had been as a dead man in a coffin. I could scarcely reenter the same way, and yet I feared to approach the main gate. Once I had been a familiar face in the guardroom. Changed I might be, but would not take the chance of being recognized. Instead, I went to a place both Chade and I knew, a secret exit from the castle grounds that Nighteyes had discovered when he was just a cub. Through that small gap in Buckkeep’s defenses, Queen Kettricken and the Fool had once fled Prince Regal’s plot. Tonight, I would return by that route.
But when I got there, I found that the fault in the walls that guarded Buckkeep had been repaired a long time ago. A heavy growth of thistles cloaked where it had been. A short distance from the thistles, sitting cross-legged on a large embroidered cushion, a golden-haired youth of obvious nobility played a penny whistle with consummate skill. As I approached, he ended his tune with a final scattering of notes and set his instrument aside.
“Fool,” I greeted him fondly and with no great surprise.
He cocked his head and made a mouth at me. “Beloved,” he drawled in response. Then he grinned, sprang to his feet, and slipped his whistle inside his ribboned shirt. He indicated his cushion. “I’m glad I brought that. I had a feeling you might linger a time in Buckkeep Town, but I didn’t expect to wait this long.”
“It’s changed,” I said lamely.
“Haven’t we all?” he replied, and for a moment there was an echo of pathos in his voice. But in an instant it was gone. He tidied his gleaming hair fussily and picked a leaf from his stocking. He pointed at his cushion again. “Pick that up and follow me. Hurry along. We are expected.” His air of petulant command mimed perfectly that of a foppish dandy of the noble class. He plucked a handkerchief from his sleeve and patted at his upper lip, erasing imaginary perspiration.
I had to smile. He assumed the role so deftly and effortlessly. “How are we going in?”
“By the front gate, of course. Have no fear. I’ve put word about that Lord Golden is very dissatisfied with the quality of servants he has found in Buckkeep Town. None have suited me, and so today I went to meet a ship bringing to me a fine fellow, if a bit rustic, recommended to me by my second cousin’s first valet. By name, one Tom Badgerlock.”
He proceeded ahead of me. I picked up his cushion and followed. “So. I’m to be your servant?” I asked in wry amusement. “Of course. It’s the perfect guise. You’ll be virtually invisible to all the nobility of Buckkeep. Only the other servants will speak to you, and as I intend that you will be a downtrodden, overworked, poorly dressed lackey of a supercilious, overbearing, and insufferable young lord, you will have little time to socialize at all.” He suddenly halted and looked back. One slender, long-fingered hand clasped his chin as he looked down his nose at me. His fair brows knit and his amber eyes narrowed as he snapped, “And do not dare to meet my eyes, sirrah! I will tolerate no impertinence. Stand up straight, keep your place, and speak no word without my leave. Are you clear on these instructions?”
“Perfectly.” I grinned at him.
He continued to glare at me. Then suddenly the glare was replaced by a look of exasperation. “FitzChivalry, the game is up if you cannot play this role and play it to the hilt. Not just when we stand in the Great Hall of Buckkeep, but every moment of every day when there is the remotest chance that we might be seen. I have been Lord Golden since I arrived, but I am still a newcomer to the Queen’s court, and folk will stare. Chade and Queen Kettricken have done all they could to help me in this ruse, Chade because he perceived how useful I might be, and the Queen because she feels I truly deserve to be treated as a lord.”
“And no one recognized you?” I broke in incredulously.
He cocked his head. “What would they recognize, Fitz? My dead-white skin and colorless eyes? My jester’s motley and painted face? My capers and cavorting and daring witticisms?”
“I knew you the moment I saw you,” I reminded him.
He smiled warmly. “Just as I knew you, and would know you when first I met you a dozen lives hence. But few others do. Chade with his assassin’s eyes picked me out, and arranged a private audience at which I made myself known to the Queen. A few others have given me curious glances from time to time, but no one would dare to accost Lord Golden and ask him if fifteen years ago he had been King Shrewd’s jester at this selfsame court. My age appears wrong to them, as does my coloring, as does my demeanor, as does my wealth.”
“How can they be so blind?”
He shook his head and smiled at my ignorance. “Fitz, Fitz. They never even saw me in the first place. They saw only a jester and a freak. I deliberately took no name when first I arrived here. To most of the lords and ladies of Buckkeep, I was just the fool. They heard my jokes and saw my capers, but they never really saw me.” He gave a small sigh. Then he gave me a considering look. “You made it a name. The Fool. And you saw me. You met my eyes when others looked aside, disconcerted.” I saw the tip of his tongue for a second. “Did you never guess how you frightened me? That all my ruses were useless against the eyes of a small boy?”
“You were just a child yourself,” I pointed out uneasily.
He hesitated. I noticed he did not agree or disagree with me when he went on. “Become my faithful servant, Fitz. Be Tom Badgerlock, every second of every day that you are at Buckkeep. It is the only way you can protect both of us. And the only guise in which you can aid Chade.”
“What, exactly, does Chade need of me?”
“That would be better heard from his lips than mine. Come. It grows dark. Buckkeep Town has grown and changed, as has Buckkeep itself. If we try to enter after dark, we may well be turned away.”
It had grown later as we talked and the long summer day was fading around us. He led and I followed as he took me roundabout to the steep road that led to Buckkeep Castle’s main gate. He lingered in the trees to let a wine merchant round a bend before we ourselves stepped out on the road. Then Lord Golden led and his humble servant Tom Badgerlock trudged behind him, bearing his embroidered cushion.
At the gate he was admitted without question and I followed at his heels, unnoticed. The guard on the gate wore Buckkeep’s blue and their jerkins were embroidered with the Farseer leaping buck. Small things like that twisted my heart unexpectedly. I blinked and then coughed and rubbed my eyes. The Fool had the kindness not to look back at me, Buckkeep had changed as much as the town that clung to the cliffs below it. Overall, the changes were ones I approved. We passed a new and larger stable. Paving stones had been laid where once muddy tracks had run. Although more folk thronged the castle than I recalled, it seemed cleaner and better maintained. I wondered if this was Kettricken’s Mountain discipline applied to the keep, or simply the result of peace in the land. All the years that I had lived in Buckkeep had been years of the Outislander raids and eventually outright war. Relative peace had brought a resumption of trade, and not just with the countries to the south of the Six Duchies. Our history of trading with the Out Islands was as long as our history of fighting with them. I had seen the Outislander ships, both oared and sailed, in Buckkeep’s harbor when I arrived.