Fool’s Fate. Робин Хобб

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СКАЧАТЬ enjoy having the whole bed to himself. He already believed that the pillow belonged to him. My gaze wandered over the room. Chade had taken possession of all the scrolls I’d brought back from my cabin. He’d sorted them, adding the harmless ones to the Buckkeep library and securing in his cabinets any that told too many truths too plainly. I felt no sense of loss.

      I carried the armload of clothing over to one of Chade’s old wardrobes, intending to stuff it all inside. Then my conscience smote me, and I carefully shook out and folded each garment before putting it away. In the process, I realized that, taken individually, many of the garments were not as ostentatious as I had imagined them. I added the warmly-lined cloak to my sea chest. When all of the clothing was stored or packed, I set the jewelled sword on top of the chest. It would go with me. Despite its showy hilt, it was well made and finely balanced. Like the man who had given it to me, its glittering appearance obscured its true purpose.

      There was a courteous tap and the wine rack swung out of the way. As Dutiful stepped wearily into the room, Gilly leapt from the bed and sprang to confront him, menacing him with white teeth as he made abortive springs at his feet.

      ‘Yes, I’m glad to see you, too,’ Dutiful greeted him and swept the little animal up in one hand. He scratched the ferret’s throat gently and then set him down. Gilly immediately attacked his feet. Being careful not to tread upon him, Dutiful came into the room, saying, ‘You had something extra for me to pack?’ With a heavy sigh, he dropped down on the bed beside me. ‘I’m so tired of packing,’ he confided. ‘I hope it’s something small.’

      ‘It’s on the table.’ I told him. ‘And it’s not small.’

      As he walked toward the worktable, I knew a moment of intense regret and would have undone the gift if I could. How could it possibly mean to this boy what it had to me? He looked at it, and then looked up at me, shock on his face. ‘I don’t understand. You’re giving me a sword?’

      I stood up. ‘It’s your father’s sword. Verity gave it to me, when last we parted. It’s yours, now,’ I said quietly.

      The look that overtook Dutiful’s face in that moment erased any regret I might have felt. He put out a hand toward it, drew it back, and then looked at me. Incredulous wonder shone in his face. I smiled.

      ‘I said it was yours. Pick it up and get the feel of it. I’ve just cleaned and sharpened it, so be careful.’

      He reached his hand down and set it on the hilt. I waited, watching, for him to lift it and discover its exquisite balance. But he drew his hand back.

      ‘No.’ The word shocked me. Then, ‘Wait here. Please. Just wait.’ And then he turned and fled the room. I heard the scuff of his running footsteps fade in the hidden corridor.

      His reaction puzzled me. He had seemed so delighted at first. I walked over and looked again at the blade. Freshly oiled and wiped, it gleamed. It was both beautiful and elegant, yet there was nothing in its design that would interfere with its intended function. It was a tool for killing other men. It had been made for Verity by Hod, the same Weaponsmaster who had taught me to wield both blade and pike. When Verity had gone on his quest, she had gone with him, and died for him. It was a sword worthy of a king. Why had Dutiful rejected it?

      I was sitting before the hearth, a cup of hot tea between my two hands, when he returned. He carried a long, wrapped bundle with him. He was talking and untying the leather thongs that bound it as he came through the door. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of this a long time ago, when my mother first told me who you were. I guess because it was given to me so long ago, and then my mother put it away for me. Here!’

      The wrappings fell away from it and he flourished it aloft. Grinning widely, he suddenly reversed his grip on it, and proffered it to me, the hilt resting on his left forearm. He grinned at me, his eyes blazing with delight and anticipation. ‘Take it, FitzChivalry Farseer. Your father’s sword.’

      A shiver ran over me, standing up every hair on my body. I set the teacup aside and came slowly to my feet. ‘Chivalry’s sword?’

      ‘Yes.’ I had not thought his grin could grow wider, but it did.

      I stared at it. Yes. Even without his words, I would have known it. This blade was the elder brother to the one Verity had carried. It resembled the other sword, but this one was slightly more ornate and longer, designed for a man taller than Verity. There was a stylized buck on the cross guard. It was, I suddenly knew, a sword made for a prince who would be king. I knew I could never bear it. I longed for it all the same. ‘Where did you get it?’ I asked breathlessly.

      ‘Patience had it, of course. She’d left it at Withywoods when she came to Buckkeep. Then, when she was “sorting the clutter” as she put it, after the end of the Red Ship War, when she was moving her household to Tradeford, she came across it. In a closet. “Just as well I never took it to Buckkeep”, she told me when she gave it to me. “Regal would have taken it and sold it. Or kept it for himself.”’

      It was so like Patience that I had to smile. A king’s sword, amongst her ‘clutter’.

      ‘Take it!’ Dutiful commanded me eagerly, and I had to. I had to feel, at least once, how my hand would fit where my father’s had rested. As I took it from him, it felt near weightless. It perched in my hand like a bird. The moment I relieved Dutiful of it, he stepped to the table and took up Verity’s sword. I heard his exclamation of satisfaction, and grinned as he gripped it two-handed and swept it through the air. These blades were proper swords, as fit to shear through flesh as skewer some vulnerable point. For a time, we were both like boys as we moved the blades in a variety of ways, from the small shifts of the hand and wrist that would block and divert an opponent’s thrust to a reckless overhand slash by Dutiful that stopped just short of the scrolls on the tabletop.

      Chivalry’s blade fit me. There was satisfaction in that, even as I realized how woefully unworthy my skills were to a weapon such as this. I was little more than competent with a sword. I wondered how the abdicated king would have felt to know that his only son was defter with an axe than with a sword, and more inclined to use poison than either of those. It was a disheartening line of thought, but before I could give in to that blight, Dutiful was at my side, comparing his blade to mine.

      ‘Chivalry’s is longer!’

      ‘He was taller than Verity. Yet this blade, I think, is lighter. Verity had the brawn to put behind a heavy stroke, and so I think Hod made his weapon. It will be interesting to see which weapon fits you best when you are grown.’

      He took my meaning instantly. ‘Fitz. I gave you that sword to keep. I mean it.’

      I nodded. ‘And I thank you for that thought. But I shall have to be satisfied with the intention in place of the reality. This is a king’s sword, Dutiful. It’s not for a guardsman, let alone an assassin, or a bastard. See, look here, on the hilt. The Farseer buck, large and plain. It’s on Verity’s too, but smaller. Even so, I wrapped the hilt in leather to disguise it in the years after the Red Ship Wars. Anyone who had seen it would have known it couldn’t properly belong to me. This would be even more obvious.’ Regretfully and respectfully, I set it down on the worktable.

      Dutiful deposited Verity’s blade carefully beside it. A stubborn look came over his face. ‘How can I take my father’s sword from you, if you won’t take Chivalry’s from me? My father gave you that blade. He meant you to have it.’

      ‘I’m sure he did, at that moment. And for many years, it has served me well. To see it in your hands will serve me even better. I know that Verity would agree with me. For СКАЧАТЬ