The Golden Fool

SEVEN Lessons

In this manner are the best coteries formed. Let the Skillmaster assemble together those he would train. Let them be at least six in number, though a greater number is preferable if sufficient students are available. Let the Skillmaster bring them together daily, not just for lessons, but for meals and amusements, and even to a shared sleeping chamber, if he judge that will not be a cause for distraction and rivalries amongst them. Give them time together, let them form their own bonds, and at the end of the year, the coterie will have formed itself. Those who have not formed bonds, let them serve the King as Solos.

It may be difficult for some Skillmasters to restrain themselves from directing the formation of a coterie. It is tempting to put the best with the best, and dismiss those who seem slow or difficult of temperament. The wisest Skillmaster will refrain from this, for only a coterie can know what strengths it will take from each member. He who seems dull may provide steadiness and temper impulse with caution. The difficult member can also be the one who displays flashes of inspiration. Let each coterie find its own membership, and choose its own leader.

Treeknee’s translation of Skillmaster Oklef’s Coteries

‘Where have you been?’ Dutiful demanded as he strode into the tower room. He shut the door firmly behind himself and then came to the middle of the room, his arms crossed on his chest. I stood up slowly from Verity’s chair. I had been watching the white tips of the waves. There was impatience and annoyance in my prince’s voice and a scowl on his face. It did not seem the most auspicious beginning to our relationship as tutor and student. I took a breath. A light hand, first. I spoke in a pleasant, neutral voice.

‘Good morning, Prince Dutiful.’

Just as a young colt might, he bridled. Then, I watched him gather himself. He took a breath and visibly began anew. ‘Good morning, Tom Badgerlock. It has been some time since I last saw you.’

‘Important business of my own took me away from Buckkeep for a time. It is settled now, and I fully expect that the rest of this winter, most of my time will be at your disposal.’

‘Thank you.’ Then, as if the last of his annoyance had to find vent somewhere, ‘I do not suppose I can ask more than that of you.’

I suppressed a smile and told him, ‘You could. But you would not get it.’

And then Verity’s smile broke on the boy’s face and he exclaimed, ‘Where did you come from? No one else in this keep would dare speak to me so.’

I purposefully misunderstood his question. ‘I had to spend a bit of time at my old home, packing up or disposing of my possessions. I hate to leave loose ends. It’s settled now. I’m here at Buckkeep, and I’m to teach you. So. Where shall we begin?’

The question seemed to unnerve him. He glanced around the room. Chade had added furnishings and clutter to the Seawatch tower since Verity had manned it as his Skill-outpost against the Red Ship Raiders. This morning I had made my own contribution, in the form of Verity’s map of the Six Duchies newly hung on the wall. In the centre of the room there was a large table of dark, heavy wood. Four massive chairs crouched around it. I pitied whatever men had had to haul them up the narrow, winding steps. Against one of the curved tower walls there was a scroll-rack stuffed with scrolls. I knew that Chade would claim they were in perfect order, but I had never been able to understand the logic behind how he grouped his scrolls. There were also several trunks, securely locked, that held a selection of Skillmistress Solicity’s scrolls on the Skill. Both Chade and I had judged them too dangerous to be left where the curious might paw through them. Even now, a man stood watch at the bottom of the tower steps. Access to this room was limited to Councillor Chade, the Prince and Queen. We would not chance losing control of this library again.

Long years ago, when Skillmistress Solicity had died, all these scrolls had passed into the control of Galen, her apprentice. He had claimed her post as Skillmaster, even though his training had been incomplete. He had supposedly ‘completed’ the training of both Prince Chivalry and Prince Verity, but Chade and I suspected that he had deliberately truncated their education in the Skill. Thereafter, he had trained no others, until the time when King Shrewd had demanded that he create a coterie. And during all Galen’s time as Skillmaster, access to those scrolls had been denied to all. Eventually, he disputed that such a library had ever even existed. When he died, no trace of them had been found.

Somehow, they had passed to Regal the Pretender. Eventually, with Regal’s death, they were recovered and had been returned to the Queen and thence into Chade’s safekeeping. Both Chade and I suspected that once the library had been substantially larger. Chade had advanced the theory that many of the choicest scrolls that had to do with Skill, dragons and Elderlings had been sold off to Outisland traders in the early days of the Red Ship raids. Certainly neither Regal nor Galen had felt any great loyalty to the Coastal Duchies that suffered from the raiders. Perhaps they would not have scrupled to traffic with our tormentors, or their go-betweens. The scrolls would undoubtedly have brought a good sum of coin into Regal’s hands. At a time when the Six Duchies treasury had come close to being depleted, Regal had never seemed to lack money with which to entertain himself and court the loyalty of the Inland dukes. And the Red Ship Raiders had gained their knowledge of the Skill and the possible uses of the black Skill-stone from somewhere. It was even possible that somewhere, in one of those straying scrolls, they had found the knowledge of how to Forge folk. But it was not likely that Chade or I would ever be able to prove it.

The Prince’s voice pulled my straying attention back to the present. ‘I thought you would have planned it all out. Where to begin and all.’ The uncertainty in the boy’s voice was wrenching. I longed to reassure him, but decided to be honest with him instead.

‘Pull up a chair and join me here,’ I suggested to him. I resumed Verity’s old seat.

For a moment he stared at me as if puzzled. Then he crossed the room, seized one of the heavy chairs and lugged it over to place it beside mine. I said nothing as he sat in it. I had not forgotten our relative ranks, but I had already decided that within this room, I would treat him as my student rather than my prince. For an instant I hesitated, wondering if my candid words might not undermine my authority over him. Then I took a breath and spoke them.

‘My prince, roughly a score of years ago I sat in this room on the floor by your father’s feet. He sat here, in this chair, and he looked out over the water and Skilled. He used his talents mercilessly, against both the enemy and the health of his own body. From here, he used the strength of his mind to reach out, to find Red Ships and their crews before they could touch our shores, and confound them. He made the sea and the weather our ally against them, confusing navigators to send the enemy ships onto rocks, or persuading captains to a false confidence that bid them steer straight into storms.

‘I am sure that you have heard of Skillmaster Galen. He was supposed to create and train a Skill-coterie, a unified group of Skill-users who would provide their strength and talent to aid King-in-Waiting Verity against the Red Ships. Well, he did create a coterie, but they were false, their loyalty bound to Regal, Verity’s ambitious younger brother. Instead of aiding your father’s efforts, they hindered him. They delayed messages, or failed to deliver them at all. They made your father look incompetent. For the sake of breaking the loyalty of his dukes to him, they delivered our people into the hands of the raiders, to be killed or Forged.’

The Prince’s eyes were locked onto my face. I could not meet his earnest gaze. I stared past him, out of the tall windows and over the grey and billowing sea. Then I steeled myself and trod the precipice path between deadly truth and cowardly falsehood. ‘I was one of Galen’s students. Because of my illegitimate birth, he despised me. I learned what I could from him, but he was a cruel and unjust master to me, driving me away from the knowledge he did not wish to share with me. Under his brutal tutelage, I learned the basics of Skilling, but no more than that. I could not predictably master my talent, and so I failed. He sent me away with the other students who did not meet his standards.

‘I continued to work as a servant here in the keep. When your father laboured most heavily here, he had his meals brought up to him. That was my task. And it was here that we discovered, most providentially, that even though I could not Skill on my own, he could draw Skill-strength from me. And later, in the brief times he was able to give me, he taught me what he could of Skilling.’

I turned to face Dutiful and waited. His dark eyes probed mine. ‘When he left on his quest, did you go with him?’

I shook my head and answered truthfully. ‘No. I was young and he forbade it.’

‘And you didn’t try to follow him later?’ He was incredulous, his imagination fired with what he was sure he would himself have done in my place.

It was hard to say the next words. ‘No one knew where he had gone, or by what paths.’ I held my breath, hoping that would still his questions. I didn’t want to lie to him.

He turned away from me and looked out over the sea. He was disappointed in me. ‘I wonder how different things might have been if you had gone with him.’

I had often told myself that if I had, Queen Kettricken would never have survived Regal’s reign at Buckkeep. But I said, ‘I’ve often pondered that question myself, my prince. But there is no knowing what might have happened. I might have helped him, but looking back on those days, I think it just as likely I would have been a hindrance to him. I was very young, quick-tempered and impetuous.’ I took a breath and steered the conversation as I wished it to go. ‘I tell you these things to be sure you understand well that I am no Skillmaster. I have not studied all those scrolls … I have read only a few of them. So. In a sense we are both students here. I will do my best to educate myself from the scrolls, even as I teach you the basics of what I know. It is a hazardous path that we will tread together. Do you understand this?’

‘I understand. And of the Wit?’

I had not wanted to discuss that today. ‘Well. I came to my Wit-magic much as you did yours, stumbling into it by chance when I bonded with a puppy. I was a man grown before I met anyone who tried to put my random knowledge of my magic into a coherent framework. Again, time was my enemy. I learned much from him, but not all there was to know … far short of that, to be truthful. So, again, I will teach you what I know. But you will be learning from a flawed instructor.’

‘Your confidence is so inspiring,’ Dutiful muttered darkly. Then, a moment later, he laughed. ‘A fine pair we shall make, stumbling along together. Where do we begin?’

‘I am afraid that we shall have to begin by first moving backwards. You must be untaught some of what you have learned by yourself. Are you aware that when you attempt to Skill, you are mingling the Wit with that magic?’

He stared at me blankly.

After a moment of discouragement, I said briskly, ‘Well. Our first step will be to untangle your magics from one another.’ As if I knew how. I was not even certain that my own magics operated independently of one another. I shoved the thought aside. ‘I’d like to proceed with teaching you the basics of Skilling. We’ll set aside the Wit for now, to avoid confusion.’

‘Have you ever known any others like us?’

He had lost me again. ‘Like us in what way?’

‘With both the Wit and the Skill.’

I took a deep breath and let it out. Truth or lie. Truth. ‘I think I once met one, but I did not recognize him as such at the time. I don’t think he even knew what he was doing. At the time, I thought he was just very strong in the Wit. Since then, I’ve sometimes wondered at how well he seemed to know what passed between my wolf and me. I suspect that he had both magics, but thought them the same thing, and thus used them together.’

‘Who was he?’

I should never have begun to answer his questions. ‘I told you, it was a long time ago. He was a man who tried to help me learn the Wit. Now. Let’s focus on why we are here today.’

‘Civil.’

‘What?’ The lad’s mind hopped like a flea. He’d have to learn focus.

‘Civil has been well instructed in the Wit, since he was a small child. Perhaps he would be willing to teach me. As he already knows I am witted, it is not spreading my secret about. And …’

I think the look on my face made him falter into silence. I waited until I trusted myself to speak. Then, I pretended to be a wiser man than I was. I tried to listen before I spoke to him. ‘Tell me about Civil,’ I suggested. Then, because I could not quite control my tongue, I added, ‘Tell me why you think it is safe to trust him.’

I liked that he did not answer immediately. His brow furrowed, and then he spoke as if he were recounting events from a lifetime ago. ‘I first met Civil when he presented me with my cat. As you know, she was a gift from the Bresingas. I think Lady Bresinga had come to Buckkeep Castle before, but I don’t recall ever seeing Civil. There was something about the way he gave me the cat … I think it was that he obviously cared for her welfare; he did not present her to me as if she were a thing, but as if she were a friend. Perhaps that is because he is Witted, also. He told me that he would teach me how to hunt with her, and the very next morning, we went out together. We went alone, Tom, so there would be no distractions for her. And he truly taught me how to hunt with her, paying more attention to that than to the fact that he had time alone with Prince Dutiful.’ Dutiful halted and a slight flush rose on his face.

‘That may sound conceited to you, but it is a thing I must always deal with. I accept an invitation to something that sounds interesting, only to find that the person who invited me is more fixed on gaining my attention than on sharing something with me. Lady Wess invited me to a puppet show performed by masters of the art from Tilth. Then she sat beside me and chattered at me about a land dispute with her neighbour all the way through the play.

‘Civil was not like that. He taught me how to hunt with a cat. Don’t you think that if he had intended ill to me, he could have done it then? Hunting accidents are not that rare. He could have arranged a tumble down a cliff. But we hunted, not just that morning, but every dawn for the week he was in Buckkeep, and each day it was the same. Only better, as I became more skilled at it. And it became best of all when he brought his own cat along with us. I really thought I had finally discovered a true friend.’

Chade’s old trick served me well. Silence asks the questions that are too awkward to phrase. It even asks the questions one does not know to ask.

‘So. When I … when I thought I was falling in love with someone, when I thought I had to flee this betrothal, well, I went to Civil. I sent him a message; when we had parted, he told me that if ever there was anything he could do for me, I had but to ask. So I sent the message, and a reply came, telling me where to go and who would help me. But here’s the odd thing, Tom. Civil says now that he never got any message from me, nor sent me a reply. Certainly I never saw him after I left Buckkeep. Even when I reached Galeton, even when I stayed there, I did not see Civil. Or Lady Bresinga. Only servants. They made a place for my cat in their cattery.’

He fell silent and this time I sensed he would not go on without a nudge.

‘But you did stay in the manor?’

‘Yes. The room had been made up fresh, but I do not think that wing of the house was used much. Everyone kept emphasizing the need for secrecy if I was to slip away. So my meals were brought to me, and when word reached us that … that you were coming, then it was decided I had to leave again. But the people who were supposed to take me hadn’t arrived yet. The cat and I went out that night and … your wolf found me.’ He halted again.

‘I know the rest,’ I said, out of pity for both of us. Yet I asked, to be certain, ‘And now Civil says he did not even know you were there?’

‘Neither he nor his mother knew. He swore it. He suspects a servant intercepted my message to him and passed it on to someone else, who replied to it and arranged all the rest.’

‘And this servant?’

‘Is long gone. He vanished the same night I left there. We counted back the days and so it seems.’

‘It seems to me you and Civil have discussed this in depth.’ I could not keep the disapproval out of my voice.

‘When Laudwine revealed himself and his true intentions, I thought that Civil must have been part of it. I felt betrayed by him. That was a part of my despair. I had not only lost my cat, but also discovered that my friend had betrayed me. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt to learn that I was wrong.’ Relief and earnest trust shone in his face.

So he trusted Civil Bresinga, even to the point of believing that Civil could teach him the illegal magic of the Wit and never betray him. Or lead him into danger with it. How much of that trust, I wondered, was based on his aching need for a real friend? I compared it to his willingness to trust me and winced. Certainly I had given him small reason to bond with me, and yet he had. It was as if he were so isolated that any close contact at all became a friendship in his mind.

I held my tongue. I sat in silent wonder that I could do it, even as cold resolve flowed through me. I would get to the core of this Civil Bresinga, and see for myself what lurked there. If he were wormy with treachery, he would pay for it. And if he had betrayed Dutiful and then lied about it to him, if he trafficked upon the Prince’s trusting nature, he would pay doubly. But for now, I would not speak of my suspicions to the lad. So, ‘I see,’ I said gravely.

‘He offered to teach me about the Wit … Old Blood, he calls it. I didn’t ask him, he offered.’

That didn’t reassure me, but again I kept the thought to myself. I replied truthfully, ‘Prince Dutiful, I would prefer you did not begin any lessons about Old Blood just now. As I have told you, we need to separate these two magics from each other. I think it would be best if we let the Wit lie fallow for now and concentrated on developing your Skill.’

For a time he stared out over the sea. I knew that he had looked forward to Civil teaching him, that he had hungered for that sharing. But he took a breath and replied quietly, ‘If that is what you think best, that is what you and I shall do.’ Then he turned and met my eyes. There was no reluctance in his face. He accepted the discipline I offered him.

He was of good temperament, amiable and willing to be taught. I looked into his open glance and hoped I could be an instructor worthy of him.

We began that day. I sat down across the table from him and asked him to close his eyes and relax. I asked him to lower all barriers between himself and the outside world, to try to be open to all things. I spoke to him quietly, calmingly as if he were a colt waiting to feel the first weight of harness. Then I sat, watching the stillness in his unlined face. He was ready. He was like a pool of clear water that I could dive into.

If I could force myself to make the leap.

My Skill-walls were a defensive habit. They had, perhaps, been worn thin by carelessness, but I had never completely forsaken them. Reaching out to the Prince was different from simply plunging myself into the Skill. There was a risk of exposure. I was out of practice at Skilling, one person to another. Would I reveal more of myself than I intended? Even as I wondered such things, I felt the protective barriers around my thoughts grow thicker. To lower them completely was more difficult than one might think. They had been my protection for so long, the reflex was difficult to overcome. It was like looking into bright sunlight and trying to command my eyes not to squint. Slowly I pushed my walls down, until I felt I stood naked before him. There was just the distance of the tabletop to travel. I knew I could reach his thoughts but still I hesitated. I did not wish to overwhelm him, as Verity had me the first time we touched minds. Slowly, then. Gently.

I took a breath and eased towards him.

He smiled, his eyes still closed. ‘I hear music.’

It was a double revelation to me. To this boy, Skilling came as easily as being told that he could. And his sensitivity was great, far greater than mine. When I reached out wide all around us, I became aware of Thick’s music. It was there, trickling like running water in the back of my mind. It was like the wind outside the window, a thing I had unwittingly trained myself to ignore, like all the other susurrus of thoughts that float on the ether like fallen leaves on the surface of a woodland stream. Yet, as I brushed my mind against Dutiful’s, he heard Thick’s music clear and sweet, like a minstrel’s pure voice standing strong amidst a chorus. Thick was indeed strong.

And the Prince’s talent was as great, for at my grazing touch of Skill, he turned his regard towards me, and I was aware of him. It was a moment of shared cognizance as we saw one another through the bond. I looked into his heart and found within it not a shard of deception nor guile. The openness he had to the Skill was the same clarity that he offered to his life. I felt both small and dark in his presence, for I myself stood masked and let him behold only that which I could share with him, the single facet of myself that was his teacher.

Before I even bade him reach to me, his thoughts mingled with mine. Is the music how you test me? I hear it. It’s lovely. His thoughts came clear and strong to me, but I sensed a Wit-edge to them. It was how he chose me to receive his Skill. He used his Wit-awareness of me to single my thoughts out from all the tangled muttering of thoughts in Buckkeep and beyond. I wondered how I was going to break him of that. I think I’ve heard that tune before, but I can’t recall the name of it. His musing brought me back to the moment. Drawn towards the music, it was as if he took one step away from his self.

That settled it. Chade had been right. Thick would either have to be taught, or done away with. I shielded the Prince from that dark thought. Careful now, lad. Let’s go slowly. That you can hear the music is clear proof that you can Skill. What you sense now, the music and the random thoughts, is rather like the debris that floats upon a stream. You have to learn to ignore it and find instead the clear empty water where you can send your thoughts as you will. The thoughts you hear, the bits of whispers and notes of emotions, they all come from folk who have a tiny ability to Skill. You have to learn to ignore those sounds. As for the music, that comes from one stronger in the Skill, but for now he, too, must be ignored.

But the music is so lovely.

It is. But the music is not Skill. The music is but one man’s sending. It’s like a leaf floating on the river’s current. It’s lovely and graceful, but beneath it flows the cold force of the river. If you let the leaf distract you, you may forget the strength of the river and be swept away by it.

Fool that I was, I had called his attention to it. I should have known that his talent outran his control of it. He turned his regard to it, and before I could intervene, he focused on it. And as quickly as that, he was swept away from me.

It was like watching a child wading in the shallows suddenly caught and borne away on a current. I was at first transfixed with horror. Then I plunged into it after him, well aware of how difficult it would be to catch up with him.

Later, I tried to describe it to Chade. ‘Imagine one of those large gatherings where many conversations are being held at once. You start out listening to one, but then a comment from someone behind you catches your interest. Then, a phrase from someone else. Suddenly you are lost and tumbling in everyone else’s words. And you cannot recall who you first began listening to, nor can you find your own thought. Each phrase you hear captures your attention, and you cannot distinguish one as more important than another. They all exist at once, equally attractive, and each one tears a piece of you free and carries it off.’

The Skill is not a place where sight exists, or sounds, or touch. Only thought. One moment, the Prince had been beside me, strong and intact and only himself. The next, he had given too much of his attention to a strong thought not his own. As one may swiftly unravel a large piece of knitting simply by drawing one loose thread out of it, so the Prince began to come undone. Catching up the thread and rolling it up does not restore the garment. Yet as I plunged through the maelstrom of random thoughts, I reached for him, snatching at the threads of him, gathering and grasping them even as I sought frantically for their ever-diminishing heart and source.

I had been in far stronger Skill-currents than the ones I navigated now, and I held myself intact. But the Prince’s experience was far more limited. He was being torn apart, shredding rapidly in the clawing flow of sentience. To call him back, I would have to risk myself, but as the fault was mine, it seemed only fair.