Twenty: Jhaampe

In a blinding night storm, the wounded Fitz staggers toward lights as Nighteyes urges him to seek help. At a garden stone, a white-cloaked figure approaches; Fitz sends Nighteyes away and collapses into the stranger’s arms. He awakens inside a Mountain dwelling as his frozen, blood-stiffened clothing is cut away and warm water soaks his back.

A young woman, Jofron, and an older healer assess Fitz’s frostbitten extremities and severe, infected arrow wound, deciding to draw the poison with poultices and wait a week before removing the arrowhead to avoid fatal bleeding. While Jofron feeds him, Fitz drifts in and out, sensing Nighteyes hunting nearby.

By firelight, Fitz recognizes his rescuer as the Fool, now changed—grown lean, robed in white, and with golden, catlike eyes. The Fool, believing Fitz dead for a year, grieves over his scars, then revives Fitz with water and brandy. He recounts fleeing Buckkeep with Kettricken, their hard winter journey, reaching Jhaampe, and learning of a battle site where Kettricken took Verity for dead. Kettricken later bore a stillborn child, deepening despair.

The Fool reports Regal’s provocations toward the Mountain Kingdom, bandit raids, and failing Six Duchies defenses. Chade has passed secretly through Jhaampe, hoping for a Farseer heir. The Fool insists there must be an heir and that Regal is not fated to sire one. Fitz reveals Verity still calls to him by Skill and that he must find the King.

Fitz asks the Fool to tell no one he lives—not even Kettricken or Chade—so as not to raise false hopes. He plans to seek an old map, then depart alone to find Verity. The Fool, though reluctant, agrees to secrecy. They share weary, drunken candor; the Fool declares his joy at Fitz’s survival and their intertwined fates, and sends Fitz to sleep, vowing they have work ahead.