exclaimed with false heartiness. ‘Now. What be our tasks for the day?’
I thought it out as I stirred the setting eggs and pushed them closer to the fire. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly.
He looked startled at the sudden change in my voice. ‘Fitz? Are you all right?’
I myself could not explain the sudden lurch in my spirits. ‘Suddenly, it all seems so pointless. When I knew Hap was going to be here for the winter, I always took care to provide for us both. My garden was a quarter that size when the boy first came to me, and Nighteyes and I hunted day to day for our meat. If we did not hunt well and went empty for a day or so, it did not seem of much consequence. Now, I look at all I have already set by and think, if the boy is not here, if Hap is wintering with a master while he starts to learn his trade, why, then I already have plenty for both Nighteyes and me. Sometimes it seems that there’s no point to it. And then I wonder if there’s any point left to my life at all.’
A frown divided the Fool’s brows. ‘How melancholy you sound. Or is this the elfbark I’m hearing?’
‘No.’ I took up the shirred eggs and brought them to the table. It was almost a relief to speak the thoughts I’d been denying. ‘I think it was why Starling brought Hap to me. I think she saw how aimless my life had become, and brought me someone to give shape to my days.’
The Fool set down plates with a clatter, and dished food onto them in disgusted splats. ‘I think you give her credit for thinking of something beyond her own needs. I suspect she picked up the boy on an impulse, and dumped him here when she wearied of him. It was just lucky for both of you that you helped each other.’
I said nothing. His vehemence in his dislike for Starling surprised me. I sat down at the table and began eating. But he had not finished.
‘If Starling meant for anyone to give shape to your days, it was herself. I doubt that she ever imagined you might need anyone’s companionship other than hers.’
I had an uncomfortable suspicion he was right, especially when I recalled how she had spoken of Nighteyes and Hap on her last visit.
‘Well. What she thought or didn’t think scarcely matters now. One way or another, I’m determined to see Hap apprenticed well. But once I do –’
‘Once you do, you’ll be free to take up your own life again. I’ve a feeling it will call you back to Buckkeep.’
‘You’ve “a feeling”?’ I asked him dryly. ‘Is this a Fool’s feeling, or a White Prophet’s feeling?’
‘As you never seemed to give credence to any of my prophecies, why should you care?’ He smiled archly at me and began eating his eggs.
‘A time or three, it did seem as if what you predicted came true. Though your predictions were always so nebulous, it seemed to me that you could make them mean anything.’
He swallowed. ‘It was not my prophecies that were nebulous, but your understanding of them. When I arrived, I warned you that I had come back into your life because I must, not because I wanted to. Not that I didn’t want to see you again. I mean only that if I could spare you somehow from all we must do, I would.’
‘And what is it, exactly, that we must do?’
‘Exactly?’ he queried with a raised eyebrow.
‘Exactly. And precisely,’ I challenged him.
‘Oh, very well, then. Exactly and precisely what we must do. We must save the world, you and I. Again.’ He leaned back, tipping his chair onto its back legs. His pale brows shot towards his hairline as he widened his eyes at me.
I lowered my brow into my hands. But he was grinning like a maniac and I could not contain my own smile. ‘Again? I don’t recall that we did it the first time.’
‘Of course we did. You’re alive, aren’t you? And there is an heir to the Farseer throne. Hence, we changed the course of all time. In the rutted path of fate, you were a rock, my dear Fitz. And you have shifted the grinding wheel out of its trough and into a new track. Now, of course, we must see that it remains there. That may be the most difficult part of all.’
‘And what, exactly and precisely, must we do to ensure that?’ I knew his words were bait for mockery, but as ever, I could not resist the question.
‘It’s quite simple.’ He ate a bite of eggs, enjoying my suspense. ‘Very simple, really.’ He pushed the eggs around on his plate, scooped up a bite, then set his spoon down. He looked up at me, and his smile faded. When he spoke, his voice was solemn. ‘I must see that you survive. Again. And you must see that the Farseer heir inherits the throne.’
‘And the thought of my survival makes you sad?’ I demanded in perplexity.
‘Oh, no. Never that. The thought of what you must go through to survive fills me with foreboding.’
I pushed my plate away, my appetite fled. ‘I still don’t understand you,’ I replied irritably.
‘Yes, you do,’ he contradicted me implacably. ‘I suppose you say you don’t because it is easier that way, for both of us. But this time, my friend, I will lay it cold before you. Think back on the last time we were together. Were there not times when death would have been easier and less painful than life?’
His words were shards of ice in my belly, but I am nothing if not stubborn. ‘Well. And when is that ever not true?’ I demanded of him.
There have been very few times in my life when I have been able to shock the Fool into silence. That was one of them. He stared at me, his strange eyes getting wider and wider. Then a grin broke over his face. He stood so suddenly he nearly overset his chair, and then lunged at me to seize me in a wild hug. He drew a deep breath as if something that had constricted him had suddenly sprung free. ‘Of course that is true,’ he whispered by my ear. And then, in a shout that near deafened me, ‘Of course it is!’
Before I could shrug free of his strangling embrace, he sprang apart from me. He cut a caper that made motley of his ordinary clothes, and then sprang lightly to my tabletop. He flung his arms wide as if he once more performed for all of King Shrewd’s court rather than an audience of one. ‘Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right?’
Infectious as his fey mood was, I still managed to shake my head. ‘I have no idea if you are right or wrong.’
‘Then take my word for it. I am right. For am I not the White Prophet? And are not you my Catalyst, who comes to change the course of all time? Look at you. Not the hero, no. The changer. The one who, by his existence, enables others to be heroes. Ah, Fitz, Fitz, we are who we are and who we ever must be. And when I am discouraged, when I lose heart to the point of saying, “but why cannot I leave him here, to find what peace he may?”, then, lo and behold, you speak with the voice of the Catalyst, and change my perception of all that I do. And enable me to be once more what I must be. The White Prophet.’
I sat looking up at him. Despite my efforts, a smile twisted my mouth. ‘I thought I enabled other people to be heroes. Not prophets.’
‘Ah, well.’ He leapt lightly to the floor. ‘Some
