Fool’s Fate. Робин Хобб

secret fully.’

      For two breaths longer, he regarded me, and then looked aside. I thought it was a mercy until he added, ‘Your wolf still looks out of your eyes. You think that if you stand perfectly still, no one will see you. That won’t work with me, young man.’

      I rose. I longed to deny my name, yet his certainty was such that I knew I’d only look a fool in his eyes if I did so. And I did not want Master Web to consider me foolish. ‘I scarcely think myself a young man,’ I rebuked him. ‘And perhaps you are right. I shall speak to Swift myself.’

      ‘You’re younger than I am,’ Web said to my retreating back. ‘And in more ways than years, Master Badgerlock.’ I paused and glanced back at him. ‘Swift is not the only one who needs to be instructed in his magic,’ he said in a voice pitched for my ears alone. ‘But I will not teach anyone who does not come to me and ask for it. Tell that to the lad, too. That he must come to me and ask. I will not impose learning on him.’

      I knew I was dismissed and again I walked away from him. Then I heard his voice lifted again, as if in casual observation. ‘Holly would love a day such as this. Clear skies and a light wind. How her hawk would soar!’

      And there was the answer given to my unasked question, and I surmised that was a true show of mercy. He would not let me wonder who at Buckkeep had betrayed my secret, but told me plain that my true name had come to him from another source. Holly, widow to Black Rolf, who had tried to teach me the Wit so many years ago. I continued walking as if his words were no more than a pleasantry, but now I had to wonder a more unsettling thing. Had Holly passed her knowledge directly to Web, or had it travelled from tongue to tongue to reach him? How many Witted also knew who I really was? How pointed a piece of knowledge was that? How could it be used against the Farseer throne?

      I went about my tasks that day with a distracted air. I had weapons drill with my guard company, and my preoccupation meant that I came away from it with more bruises than usual. There was also a final fitting for the new uniform we all would wear. I had recently become a member of the newly created Prince’s Guard. Chade had arranged that not only was I accepted to this elite group, but that my lot had been drawn to accompany the Prince on his quest. The uniform of the Prince’s Guard was blue on blue, with the Farseer buck insignia on the breast. I hoped that mine would be finished in time for me to privately add the small extra pockets I would require. I had declared that I was no longer an assassin for the Farseer reign. That did not mean I had surrendered the tools of that trade.

      I was fortunate that I had no meetings with Chade or Dutiful in the afternoon, for either one of them would have immediately sensed that something was amiss. I knew that I would tell Chade; it was information he definitely needed to have. But I did not wish to divulge it to him just yet. First, I would try to work it through in my mind, and see how it unfolded.

      And the best way for me to do that, I knew, was to put my thoughts on other matters. When I went down to Buckkeep Town that evening, I decided to give myself a reprieve from the Outislander tavern and spend some time with Hap. I needed to tell my adopted son that I’d been ‘chosen’ to accompany the Prince, and to make an early farewell to him in case there was no time for a later one. I hadn’t seen the lad in some time, and there were few enough days left before I sailed that I decided I would be justified in begging a full evening of Hap’s company from Master Gindast. I had been very pleased with his progress on his training since he had settled into the apprentices’ quarters and earnestly devoted himself to his schooling. Master Gindast was one of the finest woodworkers in Buckkeep Town. I still counted myself fortunate that, with a nudge from Chade, he had agreed to apprentice Hap. If the boy acquitted himself well there, he had a bright future in any part of the Six Duchies where he chose to settle.

      I arrived just as the apprentices were preparing for their evening meal. Master Gindast was not present, but one of the senior journeymen released Hap to me. I wondered at his surly granting of the wish, but put it down to some personal problem of his own. Yet Hap did not seem as delighted to see me as he might have. It took him a long time to fetch his cloak, and as we left, he walked silently beside me.

      ‘Hap, is all well?’ I asked him at last.

      ‘I think it is,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘But doubtless you will disagree. I have given Master Gindast my word that I would regulate myself in this matter. It insults me that he still thought he needed to send word for you to come and rebuke me as well.’

      ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I told him, striving to keep my voice level even as my heart sank into my boots. I could not help but think that I had to sail in only a few days. Was whatever-this-was something I could mend in such a short space? Disturbed, I blurted my news. ‘My name was chosen from among the guards. Soon I leave with the Prince, to accompany him on his mission to the Out Islands. I came to tell you that, and to spend an evening with you before I had to leave.’

      He gave a snort of disgust, but I think it was aimed at himself. He had betrayed his problem to me, whereas if he had been a bit more circumspect, he could have kept it private. I think that outweighed any initial reaction to my news. I walked on beside him, waiting for him to speak. The streets of Buckkeep Town were fairly quiet tonight. The light had begun to linger longer at the end of the bright spring days, but folk were also rising earlier and putting in more hours, and hence more like to seek sleep while light was still in the sky. When Hap kept his silence, I finally offered, ‘The Dog and Whistle is down this way. It’s a pleasant place for food and good beer. Shall we go?’

      His eyes didn’t meet mine as he countered me with, ‘I’d rather go to the Stuck Pig, if it’s all the same to you.’

      ‘It isn’t,’ I said in a determinedly pleasant voice. ‘It’s too close to Jinna’s house, and you know she goes there some evenings. You also know that she and I have come to a parting of the ways. I’d rather not encounter her tonight, if I can avoid it.’ The Stuck Pig, I had also belatedly discovered, was considered a gathering place for Witted folk, though no one made that accusation openly. It accounted for some of the tavern’s shoddy reputation; the rest of it was because it was, in truth, a rather dirty and poorly kept place.

      ‘Isn’t your objection actually that you know Svanja lives close by there?’ he asked me pointedly.

      I suppressed a sigh. I turned my steps in the direction of the Stuck Pig. ‘I thought she had thrown you over for her sailor boy with his pretty gifts.’

      He flinched, but kept his voice level when he replied. ‘So it seemed to me, also. But after Reften went back to sea, she was free to seek me out and speak the truth of it. Her parents arranged and approve of that match. That arrangement is why they so disliked me.’

      ‘Then they thought you knew she was promised, and continued to see her anyway?’

      ‘I suppose so.’ Again, that neutral voice.

      ‘A shame she never thought to tell her parents she was deceiving you. Or to tell you of this Reften.’

      ‘It wasn’t like that, Tom.’ A low growl of anger crept into his voice. ‘She didn’t set out to deceive anyone. She thought, at first, that we would be only friends, and so there was no reason to tell me she was spoken for. After we began to have feelings for one another, she was afraid to speak, for fear I might think her faithless to him. But in reality, she had never given her heart to him; all he had received was her parents’ word.’

      ‘And when he came back?’

      He took a deep breath and refused to lose his temper. ‘It’s complicated, Tom. Her mother’s health is not good, and her heart is set on the match. Reften is the son of her childhood friend. And her father does not want to have to take back his word after he agreed to the marriage. He’s a proud man. So, when Reften came back to town, she thought it best to pretend that all was well for the brief time he was here.’

      ‘And now that he is gone, she’s come back to you.’

      ‘Yes.’ He bit the word off as if there were no more to say.

      I set my hand to his shoulder as we walked. The muscles there