The Tawny Man Series Books 2 and 3: The Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate. Robin Hobb

you let me know you were coming?’ There was more than surprise or annoyance in the Fool’s voice. It was almost despair.

      ‘How could I let you know?’ Jek demanded cheerfully. ‘The Chalcedeans keep sinking all the ships that head this way. From the few letters I’ve received from you, it’s obvious that half my own have gone awry.’ Then, ‘So, admit it. You are Lord Golden?’

      ‘Yes.’ He sounded exasperated. ‘And it is the only name I am known by in Buckkeep. So I would thank you to bear that in mind at all times.’

      ‘But you told me that you went to visit your old friend, Lord Golden, and that all my correspondence to you must be sent through him. And what of all the transactions I’ve made in Bingtown and Jamaillia? All the inquiries I’ve made and the information I’ve sent you? Were all of those actually for you, as well?’

      He spoke tightly. ‘If you must know, yes.’ And then, pleading, ‘Jek, you look at me as if I’ve betrayed you. I haven’t. You are my friend, and I was not pleased to deceive you. But it was necessary. This ruse, as you put it, all of this, is necessary. And I cannot explain why to you, nor can I tell you the whole of it. I can only repeat to you, it is necessary. You hold my life in your hands. Tell this tale in a tavern some night, and you might as well have slit my throat now.’

      I heard the sound of Jek’s body dropping into a chair. When she spoke, there was a trace of hurt in her voice. ‘You deceived me. And now you insult me. After all we’ve been through, do you really doubt my ability to hold my tongue?’

      ‘I did not set out to do either,’ said someone. And the hair on the back of my neck rose, for the voice was neither Lord Golden’s nor the Fool’s. This voice was lighter and devoid of any Jamaillian accent. Amber’s voice, I surmised. Yet another façade for the person I thought I knew. ‘It is just … you have taken me by surprise, and frightened me badly. I entered this room and there you were, grinning as if it were a fine joke, when actually you … Ah, Jek, I cannot explain it. I simply must trust to our friendship, and to all we have been through together, all we have been to one another. You have stumbled into my play, and now I fear you must take up a role in it. For the duration of your visit, you must speak to me as if I am truly Lord Golden, and as if you are my agent in Bingtown and Jamaillia.’

      ‘That’s easy enough for me to do, for such I have been. And you speak truly when you say we are friends. It hurts me still that you thought any of this deception was needed between us. Still, I suppose I can forgive it. But I wish I understood it. When your man, this … Tom Badgerlock, when he came in and I recognized his face, I was filled with joy for you. I watched you carve that figurehead. Don’t deny to me what you feel for him. “They are reunited at last,” I thought to myself. But then you bark at him and send him off as if he were a servant … Lord Golden’s serving-man, in fact, is what he told me he was. Why the masquerade, when it must be so difficult for both of you?’

      A long silence followed. I heard no sound of footsteps, but I recognized the chink of a bottle’s neck against a glass’s lip. I guessed that he poured wine for both of them as Jek and I awaited his answer.

      ‘It is difficult for me,’ the Fool replied in Amber’s voice. ‘It is not so difficult for him, because he knows little of it. There. Fool that I am and have been, truly, to have ever let that secret have breath to anyone, let alone shape. Such a monstrous vanity on my part.’

      ‘Monstrous? Immense! You carved a ship’s figurehead in his likeness, and hoped no one would ever guess what he meant to you? Ah, my friend. You manage everyone’s lives and secrets so well and then when it comes to your own … Well. And he doesn’t even know that you love him?’

      ‘I think he chooses not to. Perhaps he suspects … well, after chatting with you, I am certain that he suspects now. But he leaves it alone. He is like that.’

      ‘Then he’s a damned fool. A handsome damned fool, though. Despite the broken nose. I’ll wager he was even prettier before that happened. Who spoiled his face?’

      A small sound, a little cough of laughter. ‘My dear Jek, you’ve seen him. No one could spoil his face. Not for me.’ A pretty little sigh. ‘But come. I’d rather not talk of it, if you don’t mind. Tell me of other things. How is Paragon?’

      ‘Paragon. The ship or the pirate princeling?’

      ‘Both. Please.’

      ‘Well, of the heir to the Pirate Islands throne, I know little more than what is common gossip. He’s a lively, lusty boy, the image of King Kennit, and his mother’s delight. The whole Raven fleet’s delight and darling, actually. That’s his middle name, you know. Prince Paragon Raven Ludluck.’

      ‘And the ship?’

      ‘Moody as ever. But in a different way. It’s not that dangerous melancholy he used to sink into, more like the angst of a young man who fancies himself a poet. For that reason, I find it much more annoying to be around him when he’s moping. Of course, it’s not entirely his fault. Althea’s pregnant, and the ship obsesses about the child.’

      ‘Althea’s pregnant?’

      This ‘Amber’ took a woman’s delight in such tidings.

      ‘Yes,’ Jek confirmed. ‘And she’s absolutely furious about it, despite Brashen walking on air and choosing a new name for the child every other day. In fact, I think that’s half of why she’s so irritable. They were wed in the Rain Wild Traders Concourse … I wrote to you about that, didn’t I? I think it was more to placate Malta, who seemed humiliated by her sister’s cavalier attitude towards her arrangement with Brashen than for any desire on Althea’s part to be married. And now she’s with child, and puking her guts up every dawn, and spitting at Brashen whenever he gets solicitous.’

      ‘She must have known that eventually she’d get with child?’

      ‘I doubt it. They’re slow to conceive, those Traders, and half the time they can’t carry the calf to term. Her sister Malta’s lost two already. I think that’s part of Althea’s anger; that if she knew she’d have a baby to show for all the puking and cramps, she might accept it gracefully, even welcome it. But her mother wants her to come home to have it, and the ship insists the babe will be born on his decks and Brashen would let her give birth in a tree, so long as he had a baby to dandle and brag over afterwards. The constant stream of advice and suggestions just leaves her spitting mad. That’s what I told Brashen. “Just stop talking to her about it,” I said to him. “Pretend you don’t notice and treat her as you always have.” And he said, “How am I to do that, when I’m watching her belly rub the lines when she tries to run the rigging?” But of course, she was just around the corner when he said that, and she overheard, and like to burn his ears off with the names she called him.’

      And so they went on, gossiping together like goodwives at a market. They discussed who was pregnant, and who was not but wished to be, doings at the Jamaillian harbours and courts, politics of the Pirate Islands and Bingtown’s war with Chalced. If I had not known who was in the other room, I would not have guessed. Amber bore no resemblance to Lord Golden or the Fool. The change was that complete.

      And that was the second thing that scalded me that evening. Not just that he had spoken of me to strangers, in such detail that Jek could recognize me and believe I was his lover, but that there still remained a life or lives of his about which I had no knowledge. Strange, how being left out of a secret always feels like a betrayal of trust.

      I sat alone by the light of my candle and wondered who, in truth, the Fool was. I scraped together in a small heap all the tiny hints and clues that I had gathered over the years and considered them. I’d put my life in his hands any number of times. He’d read all my journals, demanded a full report of all my travels, and I’d given such to him. And what had he offered to me in return? Riddles and mysteries and bits of himself.

      And like cooling tar, my feelings for the Fool hardened as they grew colder. The injury grew in me as I thought about it. He had excluded me. The heart knows but one reaction to that. I would now exclude him. I stood and then