The Fool took no notice of my whispered comment. Instead, a finger was held aloft, as if to pause not only my thoughts but the very day around us. But I could not have focused my attention more completely on anything, and when he was satisfied of this, the Fool smiled, showing small white separate teeth, like a baby’s new smile in a boy’s mouth.
“Fitz!” he intoned in a piping voice. “Fitz fitz fice fitz. Fatz sfitz.” He stopped abruptly, and again gave me that smile. I stared back uncertainly, without word or movement.
Again the finger soared aloft, and this time was shaken at me. “Fitz! Fitz fix fice fitz. Fats sfitzes.” He cocked his head at me, and the movement sent the dandelion fluff of his hair wafting in a new direction.
I was beginning to lose my fear of him. “Fitz,” I said carefully, and tapped my chest with my forefinger. “Fitz, that’s me. Yes. My name is Fitz. Are you lost?” I tried to make my voice gentle and reassuring so as not to alarm the poor creature. For surely he had somehow wandered off from the keep, and that was why he seemed so delighted to find a familiar face.
He took a breath through his nose, and then shook his head violently, until his hair stood out all around his skull like a flame around a windblown candle. “Fitz!” he said emphatically, his voice cracking a little. “Fitz fitzes fyces fitz. Fatzafices.”
“It’s all right,” I said soothingly. I crouched a bit, though in reality I was not that much taller than the Fool. I , made a soft beckoning motion with my open hand. “Come along, then. Come along. I’ll show you the way back home. All right? Don’t be afraid now.”
Abruptly the Fool dropped his hands to his sides. Then he lifted his face and rolled his eyes at the heavens. He looked back at me fixedly and poked his mouth out as if he wanted to spit.
“Come along now.” I beckoned to him again.
“No,” he said, quite plainly in an exasperated voice. “Listen to me, you idiot. Fitz fixes fyces fitz. Fatsafices.”
“What?” I asked, startled.
“I said,” he enunciated elaborately. “Fitz fixes fyce fits. Fat suffices.” He bowed, turned, and began to walk away from me, up the trail.
“Wait!” I demanded. My ears were turning red with my embarrassment. How do you politely explain to someone that you had believed for years that he was a moron as well as a fool? I couldn’t. So: “What does all that fitzy-ficeys stuff mean? Are you making fun of me?”
“Hardly.” He paused long enough to turn and say, “Fitz fixes feists fits. Fat suffices. It’s a message, I believe. A calling for a significant act. As you are the only one l know who endures being called Fitz, I believe it’s for you. As for what it means, how should I know? I’m a fool, not an interpreter of dreams. Good day.” Again he turned away from me, but this time instead of continuing up the path, he stepped off it, into a clump of buckbrush. I hurried after him, but when I got to where he had left the path, he was gone. I stood still, peering into the open, sun-dappled woods, thinking I should see a bush still swaying from his passage, or catch a glimpse of his motley jacket. But there was no sign of him.
And no sense at all to his silly message. I mulled over the strange encounter all the way back to the keep, but in the end I set it aside as a strange but random occurrence.
Not that night, but the next, Chade called me. Burning with curiosity, I raced up the stairs. But when I reached the top, I halted, knowing that my questions would have to wait. For there sat Chade at the stone table, Slink perched atop his shoulders, and a new scroll half-unwound on the table before him. A glass of wine weighted one end as his crooked finger traveled slowly down some sort of listing. I glanced at it as I passed. It was a list of villages and dates.