Chapter 8 Day 8 The Pain You Must Bear Day After Day

I can't help but scream.I staggered up from the bed, but had no strength to stand, so I could only crawl slowly towards her. The laughing robbers pried open the door.As they laughed, Molly leaped over the broken gate, stabbed the axeman in the throat and killed him.But the beauty with the silvery hair had a sword, and just as Molly was pulling it free from the dying robber, the sword fell, fell. Suddenly, there was a sharp cracking sound from the house, and the structure of the house collapsed and scattered into pieces of sparks and burst into flames.The fire raged like a curtain between me and the wine cellar, and the raging fire also blocked my view.Did the fire burn into the wine cellar during the attack by the robbers?I couldn't see at all, I just lunged forward at Molly.But in an instant it was all over.No burning houses, no looted towns, no raiding ports, no red ships, just me curled up by the hearth.I had put my hand into the fire, and my fingers still clenched a lump of coal, when the Fool seized my wrist with a cry, and pulled my hand from the fire, and I flung his hand away. , looking dully at the blistered fingers.

"Your Majesty the King." The Fool looked sad.Kneeling beside me, he carefully moved the bowl of soup to my knees, then dipped a napkin into a glass of wine, wrapped my fingers in the damp napkin, and I let him go, Just because my battered heart can no longer feel the skin being burned.He gazed at me sadly, but I could scarcely see him, for he was now like an unreal thing, with flickering fires in his dim eyes, and this shadow, like other shadows, tormented me continually.The burned fingers twitched so suddenly I had to squeeze them with the other hand.What did I do, what did I think?The Skill came and went like an attack, leaving me dry and exhausted like an empty cup, while the pain rode my sick body like a horse, forcing me to struggle to recall what had just happened. "Who is that woman? Is she important?"

"That's it!" The Fool looked even more tired, but he still tried his best to pull himself together. "The woman in Muddy Cove?" He paused, looking like he was racking his brains. "No. I don't know. It's muddy water, Your Majesty, and it's hard to understand." "Molly has no kids," I told him. "It won't be her." "Molly?" "Her name is Molly?" I asked, followed by a throbbing pain in my head and a flood of anger. "Why are you torturing me like this?" "Your Majesty, I don't know what Molly is. Come on! Come back and lie on the bed, and I will bring you something to eat."

He helped me lift my feet up onto the bed, and I let him do the same.I had a voice again, and I felt ecstatic, and my vision became clear and blurred for a while.One moment I felt his hand on my arm, the next moment it seemed to be a dream, and the room and the people talking in the room appeared in the dream, so I reluctantly said: "I have to know if that person is Molly, I have to know Whether she is about to die. I must know, Fool." The Fool sighed deeply. "It's out of my control, Your Majesty. You know, like your sight, my sight rules me, not me. I can't draw a thread from the tapestry, but I have to follow mine Look forward. As for the future, my lord, it is like a stream in the bed of a river. I cannot tell you where a drop of water goes, but I can tell you where the current is strongest."

"The woman in Muddy Cove." I insisted, and although I sympathized with the poor fool, I still insisted on my point of view. "If she wasn't so important, I wouldn't be able to see it so clearly. Try to think about it, who is she?" "Is she important?" "Yes, I'm sure. Oh, it is." The Fool sat cross-legged on the floor, nudging his temples with his slender fingers, as if opening a door. "I don't know, I don't understand... This is really muddy water, with weird twists and turns. The footprints are all trampled, and the smell is gone..." He looked up at me.I finally stood up, and I saw him sitting at my feet looking up at me, his pale eyes widened on his eggshell face, then he relaxed his eyes and smirked, resting his nose on the rat nose of the token think on. "Do you know a woman named Molly, Rat? No? I think so. Maybe he should ask someone else in the know. Maybe he should ask a bug." He let out a giggle.What a useless thing!Can only speak riddle-like prophecies.Well, that's what he is.I left him and walked slowly to the edge of the bed and sat down.

I found myself shaking like a chill, and now I was going to be sick again.I have to steady myself, or it will really happen.Do I want the jester to watch me spasm and pant?I don't care, I really don't, I just want to know if it's Molly.If so, is she dead?I must know, I must know whether she is dead or alive, and if she is dead, how.To me, nothing has ever been more important than confirming that she is alive or dead. The Fool crouched like a pale toad on the fur rug, licking his lips and smiling at me.Pain can really make people squeeze out such a smile sometimes. "It's a joyous song, about Muddy Bay," he said to me. "A victory song, and the villagers won, you see. They didn't win their lives, but they died clean. Yeah, anyway. It is death, death and not forged, at least it is an achievement. It is a good time to recite such deeds and grasp the feeling, because this is the situation in the Six Duchies. We kill our loved ones so that they do not fall into the hands of robbers , and then sing the song of victory. When people lose hold of anything, they seek comfort in surprising places.”

My vision gradually softened, and I suddenly understood what I dreamed about. "I'm not here at all," I said drowsily. "It was a dream, and I dreamed that I was King Shrewd." The Fool held out his bony and pale hand towards the firelight. "If you say so, Your Majesty, then yes, I dreamed that you were King Shrewd too. If I pinch you, I may be sure! Shall I wake myself?" I looked down at my old, scarred hands, and then closed them, looking at the veins and tendons beneath the papery skin, feeling the swollen, trembling knuckles.I thought to myself that I was already an old man and continued to age.It's not sick because sickness will heal.This is aging.Every passing day is more difficult, every month is another burden on the body, and everything is off track.I thought that I was only fifteen years old, but I could smell the burning smell of flesh and hair.No, it's savory beef stew.No, it is an incense burner for ginger to smoke herbs.The combination of smells made me sick and made me forget who I was and what was important.I rummaged through the loose logic, trying to make sense of it, but to no avail. "I don't know," I murmured, "I don't understand all this."

"Oh," said the Fool, "as I told you, you can't really understand until you become what you want to understand." "You mean I have to be King Shrewd?" I asked.I was utterly shocked, for I had never seen King Shrewd in such a state of distress, not only suffering from old age and sickness, but also from all the misery of his people. "Is this what he has to live with day in and day out?"