Fools Errand

Page 186

He speaks of a woman, one of Old Blood. Probably one of those women who rode with him.

He speaks of a woman, but he does not smell of a woman. Does not that strike you odd?

I pondered that on my way back to camp. I dropped the wood in a small tumble. As I set my fuel and then shaved a dry stick for tinder, I watched the boy. He had tidied away the linen napkin but left out the bottle of wine. Now he sat morosely on a blanket, his knees drawn up to his chin, staring out at the deepening night.

I dropped all my guards and quested toward him. The wolf was right. He keened for his Witpartner, but I was not sure if he was even aware of doing it. It was a sad little seeking he sent forth, like a lost pup whimpering for its mother. It grated on my nerves, once I was aware of it. It was not just that he would call his friends down on us; it was the whining aspect of it that appalled me. It made me want to cuff him. Instead, as I worked with my tinder and flint, I asked callously, “Thinking of your girl?”

He swiveled toward me, startled. Lord Golden flinched at the directness of my question. I bent deeper to puff gently at the tiny spark I had conjured up. It glowed, then became a pale, licking flame.

The Prince reached for a measure of dignity. “I am always thinking of her,” he said softly.

I tented several skinny sticks over my tiny fire. “So. What's she look like?” I spoke with a soldier's crude interest, the inflection learned from many a meal with the guardsmen at Buckkeep. “Is she . . . ” I made the unmistakable, universal gesture “any good?”

“Shut up!” He spat the words savagely.

I leered at Lord Golden knowingly. “Ah, we both know what that means. It means he don't know. At least, not firsthand. Or maybe it's only his hand that knows. ” I leaned back and smirked at him challengingly.

“Badgerlock!” Lord Golden rebuked me. I think I had truly scandalized him.

I didn't take the hint. “Well, that's always how it is, isn't it? He's just a moony boy for her. Bet he's never even kissed her, let alone . . . ” I repeated the gesture.

The taunting had the desired effect. As I added larger sticks to the flames, the Prince stood up indignantly. The firelight revealed that his color was high and his nostrils pinched with anger. “It isn't like that!” he grated. “She isn't some . . . Not that I expect you to understand anything other than whores! She's a woman worth waiting for, and when we come together, it will be a higher and sweeter thing than you can imagine. Hers is a love to be earned, and I will prove myself worthy of her. ”

Inside, I bled for him. They were a boy's words, taken from minstrel tellings, a lad's imaginings of something he had never experienced. The innocence of his passion blazed in him, and his idealistic expectations shone in his eyes. I tried to summon some withering crudity worthy of the role I had chosen, but could not force it past my lips. The Fool saved me.

“Badgerlock!” Lord Golden snapped. “Enough of this. Just cook the meat. ”

ROBIN HOB B “My lord,” acknowledged gruffly. gave Dutiful a sidelong sneer that he refused to see. As I picked up the stiff rabbit and the knife, Lord Golden spoke more gently to the Prince.

“Does she have a name, this lady you so admire? Have I met her at court?” Lord Golden was courteously curious. Somehow the warmth in his voice made it flattering that he would care to ask such a question. Dutiful was instantly charmed, not only despite his earlier irritation with me, but perhaps because of it. Here was a chance for him to prove himself a wellbred gentleman, to ignore my crass interest and reply as politely as if did not exist.

He smiled as he looked down at his hands, the smile of a boy with a secret sweetheart. “Oh, you will not have met her at Court, Lord Golden. Her kind is not to be found there. She is a lady of the wild woods, a huntress and a forester. She does not hem handkerchiefs in a garden on a summer's day, nor huddle within walls by a hearth when the wind begins to blow. She is free to the open world, her hair blowing in the wind, her eyes full of the night's mysteries. ” “I see. ” Lord Golden's voice was warm with a worldly man's tolerance for a youth's first romance. He came to sit on his saddle, next to the boy and yet slightly above him. “And does this paragon of the forest have a name? Or a family?” he asked paternally.

Dutiful looked up at him and shook his head wearily. “There, you see what you ask? That is why I am so weary of the Court. As if I cared whether she has family or fortune ! It is her whom I love. ”

“But she must have a name,” Lord Golden protested tolerantly as I slid my knife blade under the rabbit's hide and loosened it. “Else what do you whisper to the stars at night when you dream of her?” I peeled the hide from the rabbit as Lord Golden stripped the layers of secrets from the boy's romance. “Come. How did you meet her?” Lord Golden picked up the wine bottle, drank delicately from it, and then handed it to the Prince. .