Six Duchies a backwater. Queen Kettricken has done all she can to open the duchies to trade, not just with her own Mountain Kingdom, but with the Jamaillians and Bingtowners and folk even farther away. It’s bound to change Buckkeep. Change isn’t a bad thing.’
‘Buckkeep as it was wasn’t a bad thing either,’ I replied grumpily.
‘But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.’
‘That’s cheery.’
‘It’s true,’ the Fool insisted. ‘Bingtown just went through such an upheaval. Now they war with Chalced, mostly because Chalced refuses to recognize the need for change. And that war may spread to include the Six Duchies.’
‘I doubt it. I don’t really see where it has anything to do with us. Oh, our southern duchies will jump into the fray, but only because they have always relished the conflict with Chalced. It’s a chance to carve away a bit more of their territory and make it ours. But as far as the whole Six Duchies engaging … I doubt it.’
I shrugged into the Jamaillian doublet and buttoned it. It had far more buttons than it needed. It fitted tightly to my waist, with skirt-like panels that reached nearly to my knees. ‘I hate dressing in Jamaillian clothing. And how am I to reach my knife if I need it?’
‘I know you. If you need it, you’ll find a way to reach it. And I assure you, in Jamaillia you’d be at least three years out of date. In Jamaillia, they’d assume you were a provincial from Bingtown, attempting to dress like a Jamaillian. But it’s enough. It reinforces the myth that I am a Jamaillian nobleman. If my clothing looks exotic enough, folk accept the rest of me as normal.’ He stood up. His right foot wore an embroidered dancing slipper. The left was bound as if his ankle needed support. He took up a carved walking stick. I recognized it as the work of his own hands; to anyone else, it would seem extravagantly expensive.
Tonight, we were purple and white. Rather like turnips, I thought to myself savagely. Lord Golden’s garments were far more elaborate and showy than mine were. The cuffs of my striped shirt were loose at the wrist, but his were dagged and extended past his hands. His shirt was white, but the purple Jamaillian doublet that snugged his chest had embroidered skirts that glittered with thousands of tiny jet beads. Rather than the trousers of a servant, he wore silk leggings. He had chosen to let his hair fall loose to his shoulders in long ringlets of gleaming gold. I had no idea what he had put on his hair to persuade it to such excess. And as I had heard some Jamaillian nobles did, he had painted his face, a scale-like pattern of blue above his brows and across the tops of his cheeks. He caught me staring at him. ‘Well?’ he demanded, almost uneasily.
‘You’re right. You’re a very convincing Jamaillian lord.’
‘Then let us descend. Bring my footstool and cushion. We’ll use my injury as an excuse for arriving early in the Great Hall and watching the others come in.’
I picked up his stool in my right hand and tucked the cushion for it under my right arm. My left I offered to him as he affected a very convincing hobble. As always, he was a consummate actor. Perhaps because of the Skill-bond between us, I was aware of the keen pleasure he took in such dissembling. Certainly, it did not show in his demeanour as he grumbled and rebuked me for clumsiness all the way down the stairs.
A short distance from the immense doors that led to the Great Hall, we paused briefly. Lord Golden appeared to be catching his breath as he leaned heavily on my arm, but the Fool spoke closely by my ear. ‘Don’t forget you’re a servant here now. Humility, Tom Badgerlock. Regardless of what you see, don’t look at anyone in a challenging way. It wouldn’t be proper. Ready?’
I nodded, thinking I scarcely needed his reminder, and tucked his cushion more firmly under my arm. We entered the Great Hall. And here, too, I encountered change. In my boyhood, the Great Hall had been the gathering place for all of Buckkeep. Near that hearth I had sat to recite my lessons to Fedwren the scribe. As often as not, there would have been other gatherings at the other hearths throughout the hall: men fletching arrows, women embroidering and chatting, minstrels rehearsing songs or composing new ones. Despite the roaring hearths and the serving boys who fetched wood for them, the Great Hall was always, in my memories, slightly chill and dank. The light never seemed to reach to the corners. In winter, the tapestries and banners that draped the walls retreated into dimness, a twilight interior night. For the most part, I recalled the cold flagged floor as being strewn with rushes, prone to mildew and damp. When the boards were set for meals, dogs sprawled beneath them or cruised amongst the benches like hungry sharks awaiting a tossed bone or dropped crust. It had been a lively place, noisy with the tales of warriors and guardsmen. King Shrewd’s Buckkeep, I thought to myself, had been a rough and martial place, a castle and keep before it was a king’s palace.
Was it time or Queen Kettricken that had changed it so?
It even smelled different, less of sweat and dogs, more of burning applewood and food. The dark that the hearth fires and candles had never been able to disperse had yielded, albeit grudgingly, to the overhead candelabra suspended by gilded chains over the long blue-clothed tables. The only dogs I saw were small ones, temporarily escaped from a lady’s lap to challenge another feist or sniff about someone’s boots. The reeds underfoot were clean and backed by a layer of sand. In the centre of the room a large section of the floor was bared sand, swept into elaborate designs that would soon fall prey to the dancers’ tread. No one was seated at the tables, yet there were already bowls of ripe fruit and baskets of fresh bread upon them. Early guests stood in small groups or sat in chairs and on cushioned benches near the hearths, the hum of their conversations mingling with the soft music of a single harper on a dais near the main fire.
The entire room conveyed a carefully constructed sense of waiting. Rows of standing torches lit the tiered high dais. Their brightness drew the eye, the light as much as the height proclaiming the importance of those who would be seated there. On the highest level, there were throne-like chairs for Kettricken and Dutiful and Elliania and two others. The slightly humbler but still grand chairs of the second dais would be for the dukes and duchesses of the Six Duchies who had gathered to witness their prince’s betrothal. A second dais of equal height had been provided for Elliania’s nobles. The third dais would be for those who were high in the Queen’s regard.
Almost as soon as we entered the Great Hall, several lovely women broke away from the young noblemen they had been talking to and converged on Lord Golden. It was rather like being mobbed by butterflies. Gauzy wraps seemed to be the fashion, an imported foolishness from Jamaillia that offered no sort of warmth in the permanent chill of the Great Hall. I studied the goosebumps on the arms of Lady Heliotrope as she sympathized with Lord Golden. I wondered when Buckkeep had become so avid for these foreign styles of dress and grudgingly admitted that I resented the changes I saw around me, not only because they eclipsed more and more of the Buckkeep I remembered from my childhood, but also because they made me feel stodgy and old. Cooing and clucking over his injured foot, the women escorted Lord Golden to a comfortable chair. I assisted him obediently there, set his footstool in place, the cushion upon it. Young Lord Oaks reappeared and with a firm, ‘Let me do that, man,’ insisted on helping Lord Golden position his foot upon it.
I stepped aside, lifted my eyes and seemed to glance past a group of Outislanders who had just entered. They moved almost as a phalanx of warriors might, entering the hall as a compact group. Once within the hall, they did not disperse but kept to their own. They reminded me of the Outisland warriors I had fought on Antler Island, so long ago. The men wore not only their furs and leather harness but some of the
