Golden Fool (Tawny Man #2)

The gulf that opened inside my soul at this isolation surprised me. Wider it yawned each day. When I returned one day from my weapons training session with Wim, I found a small packet on my bed. Within the fabric pouch, I found a red whistle threaded onto a green string. “For Thick,” read the note in the Fool’s plain hand. I had hoped it was some sort of peace offering, but when I dared thank Lord Golden, he looked up from the herbal he was perusing with a glance at once distracted and irritated. “I have no idea what you are thanking me for, Tom Badgerlock. I do not recall giving you any gift, let alone a red whistle. Preposterous. Find some other vagary to occupy yourself, man. I am reading.”

And I withdrew from his presence, recognizing that the whistle had not been created as a favor to me, but as a sincere gift to Thick, from someone who knew well what it was to be ignored or mocked. Truly, it had nothing to do with me. And with that thought, my heart sagged a notch lower in my chest.

Worst was that there was no one I could confide my misery to, unless I wanted to share the full depth of my stupidity with Chade. So I bore it silently and did my best to conceal it from all.

On the day the Fool gave me the whistle, I decided I was ready to take my errant students in hand. The Bingtown Traders were gone and Selden Vestrit with them. It was time to do as I had promised my queen.

I visited first Chade’s tower and then clambered up to the Skill tower. When, as had become usual, Dutiful did not arrive, I opened the shutters wide to the chill and dark of the winter morn. I seated myself in Verity’s chair and bleakly stared out into that blackness. I knew that Chade had directed Dutiful to come to me, and had even arranged the Prince’s social schedule to allow him more time with me. It had made no difference. Since he had discovered the Skill command and broken it, he had not come to me once for a lesson. I had let Dutiful go much longer in his errant behavior than Verity would ever have tolerated in me. Left to himself, the Prince would not come back to me. I dismissed my doubts as to the wisdom of my actions. I took several deep, slow breaths of the cold sea air and closed my eyes. I narrowed my Skill to a fine and demanding point.

Dutiful. Come to me now.

I felt no response. Either he had not made one or he was ignoring me. I expanded my awareness of him. It was difficult to grasp him. I concluded he was deliberately blocking me, having set his Skill walls against me. I leaned on them, and became fairly certain that he was sleeping. I tested the strength of his walls. I knew that I could punch past them, if I chose to do so. I took a breath, summoning the strength to do just that. Then, abruptly, I shifted my strategy. Instead I leaned on his walls, an insidious pressure. Distantly, I felt a thin smile stretch my lips. The Nettle technique, I thought to myself as I slipped through his wall and into his sleeping mind.

If he was dreaming, I could not sense it. Only the stillness of his unaware mind spread around me like a quiet pool. I dropped into it like a pebble. Dutiful.

He twitched into awareness of me. Outrage was his instant reaction. Get out! He tried to thrust me from his mind, but I was already inside his defenses. I offered a quiet resistance to him, displaying no aggression but simply refusing to be banished. Just as he had the first time we had wrestled, he threw himself against me in a fury without strategy. I maintained, accepting the mental pummeling as he wore himself out against me. When he was all but stunned with exhaustion, I spoke again.

Dutiful. Please come to the tower.

You lied to me. I hate you.

I did not lie to you. Without intending to, I did you a wrong. I attempted to undo it; I believed I had undone it. Then, at the worst possible moment, we both discovered I had not.

You’ve been restraining me. Forcing me to do your will, ever since we met. You probably forced me to like you.

Search your memories, Dutiful. You will discover that is not so. But I will no longer discuss this matter in this manner. Come to the Skill tower. Please.

I won’t.

I’ll be waiting.

And with that I withdrew from his mind.

For a time, I sat still, gathering both my strength and my thoughts. A headache pressed against my skull, demanding attention. I pushed it to one side. I took a deep breath, and once more reached out.

Finding Thick was easy. Music was spilling from his mind, a music uniquely his own, for it was music without sound. When I let it flow unimpeded into my mind, it became even stranger, for it was not composed of notes from a flute or harp. For a moment, I became caught in it. On one level, the “notes” of his song were bits of ordinary noises from everyday life. The clop of a hoof, the clack of a plate on a table, the sound of wind slipping past a chimney, the ring of a dropped coin on a cobblestone. It was a music made of the sounds of life. Then I slipped deeper into it, and discovered it was not music on this new level, but was instead a pattern. The sounds were separated from one another by different degrees of pitch, but there was a pattern to that as well as to how they were repeated. It was rather like approaching a tapestry. One sees first the whole picture that is formed, then a closer inspection reveals the material used to make up the images. A deeper study reveals the individual stitches, the different colors and textures of the threads.