Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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Following a short excerpt from an instructional manual in one use of the Skill, “A Time of Healing” opens with Fitz, the Fool, and Riddle emerging from the Witness Stones at Buckkeep, the three in poor condition as Nettle and a retrieval party arrive. Nettle rebuke Fitz for his treatment of Riddle, and the group proceeds to Buckkeep and healing. Fitz attends to the Fool himself as keep staff under Nettle’s direction address Riddle’s needs, and he finds marks of long torture upon his old friend. Chade, Kettricken, and Dutiful enter, and some jurisdictional questions arise as Fitz quietly continues to attend to the Fool. Matters soon resolve themselves, however, with Riddle prescribed food and bedrest, and the Fool adjudged a poor candidate for Skill-healing.

Kettricken asks Fitz if the figure he attends is, indeed, the Fool, and she is shocked at the affirmative response. Reports of events begin to be made; Fitz tapped Riddle for Skill-strength, some of which powered the trip through the Skill-pillars, and some of which stabilized the Fool. Arrangements begin to be made for the Fool, and Riddle receives more attention, nodding to Fitz and humbling him with his acceptance. Chade offers some rebuke to Fitz, which he accepts, even as he accepts that Chade’s accommodations of them will have costs to come. The Fool reports a desire for Skill-healing as soon as he can withstand it, and Fitz makes to conduct him to the chambers being prepared. Nettle pulls Fitz aside briefly before letting him and the Fool proceed, and a page guides them to their destination.

There, Fitz keeps an open ear while the Fool bathes and dresses, and as they talk together afterward, the Fool identifies those who have so assailed him–the Servants–and lays out the peril they present. The Fool also lays out his history since his ragged parting from Fitz, turning to the idea of his own child being some pivotal figure in–or powerful force against–the plans of the Servants. And he asks Fitz if he will kill the Servants for him.

The present chapter is a long one–some thirty pages in the edition I am reading–and there is a lot going on in it. (Again, I long to be able to do the counting project of which I have long thought. But, alas, time and resources do not presently permit it!) Among the things happening is the confirmation of what appears to be the central conflict of the present series: between the Fool and the Servants. While there is a bit of retcon going on in the chapter (openly acknowledged as being a refiguring or adjustment to previous understandings, admittedly), and there is some annoyance in seeing it (again, and alongside some character inconsistencies), having clarification about a central focus of the books to come is useful; having a guide to reading often helps the reading that takes place, although it is also the case that such a guide can constrain readership. But then, it should be the case that the text constrains the ways in which it can be read (as opposed to should, which is a whole ‘nother thing).

If I indulge my (ongoing) affective reading, I find myself taken a bit by the exchanges between Fitz and Riddle and between Fitz and Nettle in the infirmary at Buckkeep in the present chapter. Fitz, as often throughout the novels that feature him, doubts the regard in which others hold him, always expecting to be shut out; a psychological reading (always fraught, since characters are not people and the narratives of fiction are necessarily curated) might suggest that the traumas of separation from his maternal family and the strangeness with which his paternal “accepted” him prompt such doubts and expectations, as well as the horrors wrought upon him by Regal. Both Riddle and Nettle reassure him of their inclusion of him, the latter outright rebuking him for his doubts. All ’round, it’s something I found resonant; I don’t think I am the only one, either.

Less affectively, the indications of how court at Buckkeep has changed are telling. It is clear that the court thrives from the number of people in attendance at and in service to it, the specializations on display and the clear training patterns at work within them. The relative privileging of some specializations over others is perhaps less a joy to see; in addition to moving Hobb’s work back towards more “mainstream” Tolkienian-tradition fantasy works (I am, for some reason, put in mind of Feist’s Midkemia), it speaks to hierarchical models that are often, if not always, problematic. But that issue gets toward deeper questions surrounding speculative literature, generally, such as “what is the purpose of it?” My studies suggest that one answer is “to show what can be,” hence the frequency of science-fiction dystopias–but also fantasy utopias. It’s something to consider more thoroughly, yet another scholarly someday for me; I look forward to having the time to address some of them!

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