Please move the stone and free me!’
I didn’t make a sound as I crouched there, watching with one eye. Kerf stepped over to the stone. ‘Ware the dust!’ he called to Vindeliar and stooped to set his shoulder to the blocking stone. I heard it grate against the ancient floor and saw smaller stones and grit vanish in a crack that opened in the top of the rockpile as he did so. Dwalia screamed but the rocks that fell would do no more than bruise her. Kerf seized Vindeliar’s thick legs and dragged him out. Vindeliar jammed for a moment and howled as Kerf grunted and pulled him out anyway. I saw him sit up, grey with dust and with a bleeding scrape on the side of his face.
‘I’m free!’ he announced as if no one else would know it.
‘Get out of my way!’ Dwalia shouted. I did not wait to see her emerge. Ducking low, I crept away. I threaded my way through the maze of fallen stone, silent as a mouse. The slanting sunlight of a spring evening created shapes from the shadows. I came to a place where a fallen wall leaned against a collapsed column like a stone tent and crept into it.
Stay hidden. It is easier for them to see motion and hear your footsteps than to search this rubble.
I was alone, and hungry and thirsty, in a city far from home where I did not speak the language.
But I was free. I’d escaped them.
A snake is in a stone bowl. There is soup around it. It smells bad and then I know it is not soup. It is very dirty water, full of snake-piss and waste. A creature comes to the bowl and suddenly I see how big the snake is and the bowl. The snake is many times longer than the creature is tall. The creature reaches through bars around the bowl to scoop up some of the dirty water. He slurps some of the filthy water and smiles with an ugly wide mouth. I do not like to look at him, he is so wrong. The serpent coils in on itself and tries to bite him. He laughs and shuffles away.
From Bee Farseer’s dream journal
As comfortable as the Elderling robes might be, I did not feel decently clad for my meeting with the keepers until I was in my own clothes again. As I snugged my leather belt tight and buckled it I noticed I had gained two notches of travel since I’d left Buckkeep. My leather waistcoat would function as light armour. Not that I expected anyone to knife me, but one never knew. The small items in my concealed pockets would expedite any deadly task of my own. I smiled to realize that someone had unloaded my secret pockets before my garments were laundered and then restored all to their proper location. I said nothing to Spark as I tugged my waistcoat straight and then patted the pocket that concealed a very fine garrotte. She quirked her brows at me. It was enough.
I vacated the room to allow Spark to attend to Lady Amber’s dressing and coiffing. I found Lant ready and Perseverance keeping him company and chased a foggy memory of a conversation between the two and then let it go. Done was done. Lant no longer seemed to fear me, and as Chade’s instructions to him to watch over me, well, that would demand a private conversation.
‘So, are we ready?’ Lant asked as he slid a small, flat-handled knife into a sheath concealed at his hip. It startled me. Who was this man? The answer came to me. This was the Lant that Riddle and Nettle had both admired and enjoyed. I understood suddenly why Chade had asked him to watch over me. It was not flattering but it was oddly reassuring.
Perseverance had a worried frown. ‘Am I to be seated with you at the dinner? It seems very strange.’
In the space of a few months, he had gone from being a stableboy on my estate to being my serving man. And companion, if I were truthful. ‘I don’t know. If they send you and Spark to another table be sure to stay close to her.’
He nodded grimly. ‘Sir? May I ask you something?’
‘What is it?’ I asked guardedly. I was on edge for our meeting with the keepers.
He shot Lant a sideways look as if shy about asking his question. ‘About Mage Gray. Sometimes you call him Fool, but he’s being Lady Amber now.’
‘He is,’ I conceded and waited.
Lant was silent, as intrigued by the Fool’s many guises as the lad was.
‘And Ash is Spark now.’
I nodded. ‘True, also.’
‘And Spark is a girl.’
I nodded again.
He folded his lips in as if to imprison his question. Then he blurted, ‘Do you feel at all … odd about it? Uncomfortable?’
I laughed. ‘I’ve known him for many years, in many guises. He was King Shrewd’s jester when I was a boy. The Fool. Then Lord Golden. Mage Gray. And now Lady Amber. All different. Yet always my friend.’ I reached for honesty. ‘But when I was your age, it would have bothered me a great deal. It doesn’t now because I know who he is. And who I am, and who we are to each other. That doesn’t change, no matter what name he wears or what garb he dons. Whether I am Holder Tom Badgerlock or Prince FitzChivalry Farseer, I know he’s my friend.’
He gave a sigh of relief. ‘Then it’s all right that it doesn’t matter to me about Spark? I saw it didn’t bother you and I decided it need not bother me.’ He shook his head, perplexed, and added, ‘When she’s being Spark, she’s pretty.’
‘She is,’ Lant said quietly. I fought to keep from smiling.
‘So that’s who she really is? A girl named Spark?’
That was a harder question. ‘Spark is whoever she is. Sometimes that’s Ash. It’s like being a father and a son and perhaps a husband. All different facets of the same person.’
He nodded. ‘But it was easier to talk to Ash. We had better jokes.’
A tap at the door announced Lady Amber and Spark. Lady Amber had gone to every possible effort to be dazzling and had succeeded. The long skirt and lacy beribboned blouse with the embroidered waistcoat were dated by Buckkeep standards. Amber, or more likely Spark, had given special attention to the rouge that shaped her lip and the powder that concealed her scars. Her blind eyes were outlined in black, emphasizing their opacity.
Spark was a pretty girl but no more than that today. She had chosen to present herself in a way that would not invite too much attention. Her hair, released from Ash’s warrior tail, hung in black waves to her shoulders. Her high-collared blouse was the colour of butterscotch and the simple smock over it denied she had breasts or a waist. Amber wore an amused smile. Could she sense how Per and Lant were gazing at them, dumbfounded?
‘The clothes look much better on you than they did on Lady Thyme,’ I complimented her.
‘I hope they also smell better,’ was the Fool’s response.
‘Who is Lady Thyme?’ Lant asked.
For a moment, the silence held. Then both the Fool and I burst into laughter. I had almost recovered when the Fool gasped, ‘Your father.’ And we were both lost again to merriment. Lant was torn between confusion and offence.
