#rote microfic

“I thought, perhaps, a gown for Lacey? I had it spare,” I explained, “And I hardly know what to do with fabrics.” She flicked a disparaging glance at my own—perfectly serviceable—quilted jerkin.

“You certainly don’t.” She huffed. “And yet you had spare yardage of fine scarlet gabardine. Imported, I should think. Oh, what a dullard you take me for! You bought that cloth for Molly.” This last was punctuated with a sharp, knobby little finger pointed accusingly in my direction.

I had. Daft of me to assume Patience wouldn’t make the connection. I suppose I’d hoped she associated Molly with servant’s blue. I’d come across the bolt of scarlet wool at market in Buckkeep Town and thought of Molly’s bygone red skirts at once. Since the formal end of her period of mourning for Burrich, the two of us had stepped into a sort of stumbling courtship. She alternately rejected and encouraged my clumsy overtures, which was my fault—I had no idea what I was doing in the best of circumstances, and I had the whole disaster of my presumed death to make up for besides. It was far lonelier than I had expected it to be, this attempt to regain the love of my youth.

But my determination to court her always rose in me most strongly in town, where the wheeling seabirds keened like hired mourners and I remembered running down each crooked lane with Nosy in a carefree pack of children. How clearly I could picture Molly Nosegay standing on the pier in her vivid red skirt, favoring me with a bright, knowing smile. I ached for the easy kindness of that image. So I had impulsively purchased the red gabardine as though by bringing the skirt back into my world I might manifest the smile alongside it. And perhaps Newboy himself, as well.

“Stop that—don’t look at me like a boy expecting a scolding,” Patience scolded me, “You’re a man grown! And she, a widow. There’s no scandal in you sending courting gifts to her. What I wonder at is that it wound up in my possession instead. What happened, Tom? Did she turn you away again?”

“No,” I said. In truth I had second guessed my impulse nearly as soon as I crossed back through the keep gates. Sick unease gnawed at me; I worried that the gesture would seem juvenile. Like an admission of how long it had been since we last lived our lives in common. A reminder of how callow I had been as a youth: courting Molly by accident, disappearing when she needed me, putting her and Nettle in harm’s way. I had a thoroughly middling record of guessing at what would please her, and I fretted suddenly that this offering would not. 

Patience frowned at my terse reply. “It’s a well-conceived gift. You did well to think of it. We could still send it to her—shall I package up the fabric?”

But my doubts had not been the impetus that drove me to dispose of the cloth in haste. Patience was right that it was a particularly striking hue, much bolder than most of the red fabrics on offer. At the Keep I had taken it out to wrap up and to write a corresponding note, and I had once more marveled at it, at how the color seemed to glow independent of the firelight. Once, that would have been the extent of my understanding of it—‘particularly striking’—but for a remembered conversation I had overheard between Lord Golden and his court of admirers on a late winter’s ride. 

His riding costume and mantle, both fashioned of red silk brocade, had been the talk of the afternoon. Lord Golden had given a short but heartfelt dissertation on fibers and mordants and the different types of red dye: madder root, which is common, versus the rarer kermes and sappanwood, which produce a more vibrant, fade-resistant hue. His hands, gloved in soft carmine kidskin, gesticulated wildly in the frigid, brittle air. As usual, I had caught a welcome glimpse of my Fool in the nearly-earnest spectacle of Lord Golden’s enthusiasm for textiles.

That red had been every bit as shocking as this one; more so, for the lustre of the silk and the richness of the brocade weave. A parade of golden lions prowled the hem of his mantle; their ferocity did nothing at all to deter the half-moon of fawning courtiers jostling to press up next to my friend, each of them eager to warm their hands on the flame of his presence. In the weak winter sun he had seemed a bonfire come to life. Tom Badgerlock followed behind the nobles on his black mare: I was the shadow they cast on the ground. Against the gray, osseous tree line, the Fool was the brilliant memory of autumn itself.

So now when I stood in my chambers and looked again at the red gabardine, I had a name for the color before me. That’s the kermes dye, I could not help but think. And then I had recalled my friend, the luminous tones of his skin and hair swathed in scarlet silk like the wreath of red flames that lick at the pale gold center of a fire. A fire that burns blue at the hottest point, I had thought, irrepressibly, and then had unwillingly pictured the bright sapphire teardrop, cleverly concealed, against the curve of his neck. 

My thoughts slipped too far. The Fool was gone. I abruptly needed the fabric gone, as well. I had sent the red cloth off to Patience with a hasty note and the vague hope that it would disappear into her vast heap of projects and I'd never see it again.  

“Tom? No attention span on you at all. A miracle you ever get anything done. Did you hear me? Shall I send it?” 

“No,” I said, “I don’t want to send it.” Patience waited, as though I might expound, but I could not. I heard a laughing voice, mocking, did you love Molly or that which was under her skirts? and felt a prickling, unplaceable discomfort. “I’ll write her a letter,” I added, hearing and hating the mulish tone of my words. And then there was a short burst of anger, that Patience expected me to explain something I could barely understand myself. The characters on the scroll before me blurred and danced; I stared diligently at them nonetheless.

“There’s time before Winterfest,” she finally said, “And plenty of yardage. I’ll have the cloth made into a cloak and a winter gown for Nettle. You’ll give it to her then.” I should have chafed at the frankly commanding tone of this decree, but I was only relieved; it was solely by virtue of Patience’s tireless efforts that Nettle was willing to have any relationship with me at all. 

A bastard, Chivalry? You? Beget a bastard? I thought I raised you better than that! It was clear how upset my father was that I could hear not only the thoughts he directed to me, but I could see what he was doing. Shrewd paced his office on a path worn deeply into the rug. As a child, Verity and I had considered moving all the furniture and rotating the rug to see if his pacing would follow the same path on the rug in its new location, or the same path in the stone. We had spent perhaps fifteen minutes clearing the desk before we realized the immensity of the task before us.

You did, Father. I’m sorry, I responded.

We need to deal with this. What was Verity thinking, letting that guard parade the boy through Moonseye! Everyone knows about your byblow. We need to do something about him. He notched his chin between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing his beard thoughtfully.

I knew that look, even as I sensed him doing it instead of seeing it with my own eyes. I did not like it.

I will, Father, I Skilled placatingly. I’ll do what’s right. You know I will.

He glanced at me, his dark eyes sharp under his heavy brows. I had received his piercing look enough times that I did not flinch, though there was always something inside me that wanted to. I was twenty-six years old, yet under his gaze, I felt a child. Six perhaps. The age of my boy.

Whatever he saw in me calmed him. He sat heavily on his desk chair, picking up a quill and dipping it into ink. See that you do, he returned. I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I cut the connection.

I opened my eyes and lit a thyme-scented candle, placing it carefully in an alcove. I burned only this candle in this spot, and only rarely. I had barely placed the candle before a section of the wall opened. My uncle emerged, his short gray-speckled hair sticking up at all angles and lightly sprinkled with dust. He wore a thick brown robe, one of his finer ones, and slippers than kept his movements silent. He bustled in quickly, taking the time to set the candle on the nearest surface before he wrapped me in a hug.

I relaxed into it. How strange was it that I was so rigid and suspicious with my father the king, yet I trusted his assassin with the softer parts of me?

“It’s alright, my boy. We’ll find a solution for this.”

“I think Father wishes to have him killed.” It spilled out of me, a torrent of words rounded and thick with emotion.

“I have heard nothing,” he soothed me. “Tell me, what did he say?”

We sat by my fire, and he poured wine for us both. I told him of the two conversations, the first with Verity and the second with Shrewd.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Or them?” He asked. His voice was carefully curious and thus I knew the hurt he felt.

“His mother loved him and wanted to keep him. I sent money when I could, not so much that it was suspicious, and I thought that would be enough. I had hoped he would never learn who his father was. It seemed kinder.” I swirled my wine and held it up to the light. It was as red as blood but far thinner. “It was enough for her.”

“But her father,” he said slowly.

“But her father,” I repeated.

“You did not tell Patience?”

“No.”

“She will not take it well.”

“At first, maybe. But after a time, I think she will want to meet him. She wants a child so badly, I think she’ll adopt him the moment she sees him.”

“If he lives that long.” The words were an arrow to my heart.

“If he lives that long,” I echoed forlornly. I took a sip of my wine before turning toward him. “Plot with me, Chade. How can we make sure he lives that long?” I begged him without shame. My cheeks were wet with tears.

He drew back from me, his green eyes shuttered and face closed off. “That conversation would be treason. If the King wishes the boy to die…”

“Then commit treason with me. Please, uncle. I want my son to live. I want him—” My words were cut off by a sob. I curled in on myself, cradling the glass of wine to my chest as though it were my boy. I pressed my hand to my head, willing my emotions to stay inside as I firmed my walls. My father could not know my agony at this. He would not take it well.

I coughed to clear my throat. “I want to meet him.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible, even if the boy survives the next few months.” My uncle’s words held only apology and by that I knew them to be true.

“But why?” I demanded. “Why must it be like this?”

“Because he is a bastard, and a bastard is either a tool or a liability.” My bastard uncle’s words fell one after another, battering me in their pain. I curled around my wine glass once more. My uncle was often kind, but he was sometimes not, especially when he viewed something painful now as a kindness for the future. As such, his words did not stop. “He’s not just a Farseer byblow, he’s your Farseer byblow. And we live in a castle with a Queen who wishes a civil war, who argues that her son, third in line, has more right to the crown than Shrewd’s older sons. This bastard is yet another obstacle between her son and what she wants. Even if Shrewd does not order him dead, I have no doubt that she will.”

“I wish he hadn’t married her,” I said morosely.

“Now that is treason,” Chade said tiredly, as though he had given up on a safe conversation.

“It’s true. She’s awful.”

“She is.”

“How can we keep him alive?” I brought us back to the topic he had so gracefully tried to steer us clear of. He poured more wine into our glasses, forcing me to sit up so that it did not spill.

“That is a treasonous question,” Chade reminded me. I shrugged.

“This is a treasonous conversation.”

Chade sighed and drank his wine. I saw from the intensity of his green eyes that he was thinking about it, and seriously so. I tried to think about it as well, to focus my mind on a solution instead of the problem, but even the thought of my child dying diverted my efforts.

“Well, the first step would be to make him less of a threat,” Chade said slowly. “He’s be a royal bastard, yes, and we can’t change his heritage, but we can change how royal he is.”

“We can’t change his parentage,” I groused.

“Who is more dangerous, right now, to Desire? This boy or a bastard from Verity?”

“Verity doesn’t have any bastards,” I said automatically.

“You wanted me to think with you,” he said. “Whether or not he does is immaterial.”

I sighed, thinking hard on his words. “Mine, I suppose.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m King-in-Waiting, and Verity is second in line.”

“So?” He looked at me as though this were a lesson in negotiating, as though he knew the answer but he needed me to say it. Realization dawned on me.

“The boy will be safer if I am not King-in-Waiting.”

Chade shrugged, as though to say you said it, not I. I almost imagined I heard it in my mind. Not for the first time, I wished my uncle had been trained in the Skill.

“I should abdicate.” I sat back in my seat, the words taking something out of me and leaving behind only some twisting rope of terror, guilt, and not a small amount of relief. “Verity would hate that.”

“You asked how to keep you boy alive, not how to make your brother happy,” Chade pointed out. “I expect that abdicate might give him his best chance at survival.”

“I don’t have to do this right away?”

“I expect not. The boy is far away, and we’re finishing up this treaty. Your father will not take kindly if you abdicate before this piece of diplomacy is complete.”

“I doubt he’ll take kindly to this at all,” I said dryly. “But there is no use poking the bear.”

“Or a stag. They may not have sharp teeth or claws, but their antlers can gut a man if he is not careful.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised. Then I took another mental step back, thinking through the ramifications of abdication. “If I do this, father will see your hand in it. He will watch you closer than ever for signs of treason.”

Chade waved a careless hand. “If the boy survives, it will be worth it.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. Now tell me, do you know the boy’s name? Who is it we’re changing the course of the kingdom for?”

“His mother called him Keppet.”

“A Mountain name…” Chade said ponderously. “I doubt he will keep it if he survives.”

“It means—” I said.

“I know what it means, boy. I can see now why you thought she’d keep him safe.”

“Then we’ll pick something better for him, if he can’t be Keppet.”

“I doubt there’s any ‘we’ about this. He’ll go by what he’s called, whatever that is.”

I set my glass down. “And if I do this, I can never see him?”

“Not while Desire lives, I suspect. Is it worth it?”

I thought back to the image my brother had sent me of a sad boy so ready to crumple.

“It’s worth it.”

Months later, the treaty was concluded, and I returned to Buckkeep with Lady Thyme and our entourage. I abdicated my position with a speech about the importance of actions matching intentions, with my faith that my brother Verity, as truthful as his name, would be an excellent King-in-Waiting in my stead. My father was not pleased, but I doubted anything I could do would please him at this point.

Patience was as distraught as I expected, and she left ahead of me towards Withywoods, where we would rule as Lord and Lady of our pasture. My wife would not have the Queen looming over her every action, and I hoped she would learn to forgive me for my actions seven years ago, before we had even met.

I left Buckkeep at last, descending the road slowly. I looked over my shoulder to it every so often, trying to imprint the image on my mind of my home. Where my mother died, and my brother and I played. Where my uncle haunted the walls and my father ruled with an iron will. Where I had expected one day to rule. That future, the one I had been raised to since birth, was dashed. Gone forever.

I turned away one last time, straightening my shoulders. The road to Withywoods was long, and it would not do to mourn something which never happened.