“We all do,” I pointed out carefully.
“Some more than others,” the Fool said shortly.
Without thinking, my hand rose to tuck the pin tighter in my jerkin. I’d almost lost it today. It had made me think of all it had symbolized all these years. The King’s protection, for a bastard grandson that a more ruthless man would have done away with quietly. And now that he needed protection? What did it symbolize to me now?
“So. What do we do?”
“You and I? Precious little. I’m but a Fool, and you are a bastard.”
I nodded grudgingly. “I wish Chade were here. I wish I knew when he was coming back.” I looked to the Fool, wondering how much he knew..
“Shade? Shade returns when the sun does, I’ve heard.” Evasive as always. “Too late for the King, I imagine,” he added more quietly.
“So we are powerless?”
“You and I? Never. We’ve too much power to act here; that is all. In this area, the powerless ones are always the most powerful. Perhaps you are right; they are who we should consult in this. And now …” Here he rose and made a show of shaking all his joints loose as if he were a marionette with tangled strings. He set every bell he had to jingling. I could not help but smile. “My king will be coming into his best time of day. And I will be there, to do what little I can for him.”
He stepped carefully out of his ring of sorted scrolls and tablets. He yawned. “Farewell, Fitz.”
“Farewell.”
He halted, puzzled, by the door. “You have no objections to my going?”
“I believe I objected first to your staying.”
“Never bandy words with a Fool. But do you forget? I offered you a bargain. A secret for a secret.”