Fool’s Errand. Robin Hobb
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below. Outside, in the square, folk began to gather. I thought it might be a market or a Spring fair. But then they dragged a woman out there, all bruised and bloody. They tied her to a whipping post, and I thought they would flog her. Then I noticed that some of those gathered had brought full baskets of stones. I woke Starling and asked her what it was all about, but she bid me be quiet, there was nothing either of us could do about it. She told me to come away from the window, but I did not. I could not. I could not believe it could happen; I kept thinking someone would come and make them all stop. Tom, she was tied there, helpless. Some man came up and read from a scroll. Then he stood back, and they stoned her.’
He stopped speaking. He knew that in the villages there were harsh punishments for horse thieves and murderers. He’d heard of floggings and hangings. But he’d never had to watch one. He swallowed in the silence between us. Cold crept through me. Nighteyes whined, and I set a hand to him.
It could just as well be you.
I know.
Hap took a deep breath. ‘I thought I should go down there, that someone should do something, but I was too scared. I was shamed to be so scared, but I couldn’t make myself move. I just stood there and watched, and the stones hit her. And she kept trying to hide her head in her arms. I felt sick. Then I heard a sound such as I had never heard before, as if a river rushed through the air. The morning sky dimmed, as if storm clouds were blowing in, but there was no wind. It was crows, Tom, a flood of black birds. I’d never seen so many, cawing and screeching, just as they do when they find an eagle or a hawk and set out to roust it. Only they weren’t after an eagle. They rose out of the hills behind the town and filled the sky, like a black blanket flapping on a clothesline. Then they suddenly fell on the crowd, diving and cawing. I saw one land in a woman’s hair and strike at her eyes with his beak. People were running in every direction, screaming and slapping at the birds. They spooked a team and the horses went crazy, dragging their waggon right through the crowd. Everyone was screaming. Even Starling got up to come to the window. Soon the streets were empty of everything save the birds. They perched everywhere, on roofs and window ledges, and they filled the trees so that the branches drooped with their weight. The woman who had been tied, the Witted one, she was gone. Just the bloody ropes were left there, tied to the post. Then all at once, all the birds just lifted and took flight. And then they were gone.’ His voice dropped to a hush. ‘Later that morning, the innkeeper said that he deemed she had just turned into a bird and flown off with the others.’
Later, I told myself. Later I would tell him that wasn’t true, that she might have called the birds down to help her escape but that not even Witted ones could change their shapes like that. Later I would tell him he was not a coward for not going down there, that they would only have stoned him alongside her. Later. This story he was telling now was like poison running from a wound. Best to let it drain unhindered.
I picked up the trail of his words again. ‘… And they call themselves Old Blood. The innkeeper said they’ve begun to have high ideas of themselves. They’d like to come to power, he says, like they did in the days when the Piebald Prince ruled. But if they do, they’ll take vengeance on us all. Those that don’t have the Wit-magic will be their slaves. And if any try to defy them, they’ll be thrown to the Witted ones’ beasts.’ His voice died away to a whisper. He cleared his throat. ‘Starling told me that that was stupid, that Witted folk aren’t like that. She said that mostly they just want to be left alone to live quietly.’
I cleared my throat. I was surprised at the rush of gratitude I felt towards Starling. ‘Well. She’s a minstrel. They know many kinds of folk, and have many odd corners of knowledge. So you can believe what she told you.’
He had given me far too much to think about. I could scarcely keep my mind on the rest of his tales. He was intrigued by some wild story that Bingtown was hatching dragons and that soon towns could buy a Bingtown dragon for a watch beast. I assured him that I had seen real dragons, and that such tales were not to be believed. More realistic were the rumours that Bingtown’s war with Chalced might spread to the Six Duchies. ‘Would a war come here?’ he wanted to know. Young as he was, he had only vague but frightening memories of our war with the Red Ships. Still, he was a boy, and a war seemed as interesting an event as Springfest.
‘Sooner or later, there is always war with Chalced,’ I quoted the old proverb to him. ‘Even when we are not at war with Chalced, there are always border skirmishes and a certain amount of piracy and raiding. Don’t let it worry you. Shoaks and Rippon Duchies always take the brunt of it, with relish. Shoaks Duchy would like nothing better than to carve themselves another chunk out of the Duke of Chalced’s lands.’
So the conversation moved to safer and more prosaic news of his Springfest. He told of jugglers who hurled flaming clubs and bare blades hand to hand, recounted the best jests from a bawdy puppet show he’d seen, and told me of a pretty hedgewitch named Jinna who had sold him a charm against pickpockets and promised some day to visit us here. I laughed aloud when he told me that within the hour, the charm had been plucked from him by a sneak-thief. He’d eaten pickled fish and liked it very much until he had too much wine one evening and vomited them together. He swore he’d never be able to eat it again. I let him talk on, glad he was finally taking pleasure in sharing his Buckkeep adventures with me. Yet, every story he told me showed me more plainly that my simple life was no longer suitable for Hap. It was time I found him an apprenticeship and let him strike out on his own.
For an instant, it was like standing on the lip of an abyss. I must turn Hap over to a master who could teach him a true trade, and I must set Starling out of my life as well. I knew that if I turned her out of my bed, she would not humble herself to come back to me as a friend. All the simple comfort of their companionship of the last few years would vanish. Hap’s voice pattered on, his words falling around me like a soft rain. I would miss the boy.
I felt the warm weight of the wolf’s head as he set it on my knee. He stared steadily into the fire. Once you dreamed of a time when it would be only you and me.
A Wit-bond leaves very little room for polite deception. I never expected to hunger so for the company of my own kind, I admitted.
A brief lambent glance from his deep eyes. Only we are our own kind. That has always been the problem with the links we sought to forge with others. They were wolves or they were human. But they were never our own kind. Not even those who call themselves Old Blood are as deeply twined as we.
I knew he spoke true. I set my hand to his broad skull and silked his ear through my fingers. I did not think at all.
He could not let it be. Change comes upon us again, Changer. I can feel it at the edge of the horizon, almost smell it. It is like a bigger predator come into our hunting territory. Do not you feel it?
I feel nothing.
But he heard the lie and sighed out a heavy breath.
The Wit is a dirty magic, most often afflicting the children of an unclean household. Although it is often blamed on having congress with beasts, there are other sources for this low magic. A wise parent will not allow his child to play with puppies or kittens that are still at suckle, nor permit his offspring to sleep where an animal sleeps. A child’s sleeping mind is most vulnerable to invasion by the dreams of a beast, and hence to taking the tongue of an animal as the language of his heart. Often this foul magic will afflict generations of a household due to their filthy habits, but it is not unknown for a Wit-child to appear suddenly in the midst of families of the best blood. When this happens, the parents must harden their hearts and do what must be done, for the sake of all the family’s children. They should look, too, amongst their servants to see whose malice or carelessness is the source of this contagion, and the offender should be dealt with accordingly.
Sarcogin’s