Fool’s Errand recap

Fifteen years after the Red Ship war, FitzChivalry Farseer lives as Tom Badgerlock in a remote cottage with his wolf Nighteyes and his foster son Hap, letting the kingdom go on believing him dead. His old mentor Chade wants him back at Buckkeep to teach the Skill to Prince Dutiful, and his old friend the Fool returns in a new guise as the wealthy foreigner Lord Golden. When Dutiful vanishes days before a politically vital betrothal to an Outislander noblewoman, Fitz agrees to find him and takes service with Lord Golden as cover. The search leads through country full of Witted folk to the Piebalds, a militant faction who have deliberately bonded the prince to a hunting cat carrying the spirit of their leader's dead sister, intending to take his body and his throne. Fitz kills the cat, frees Dutiful, and brings him home for the betrothal, and in the process is bound to the boy mind to mind and drawn permanently back into Farseer service. The victory costs him Nighteyes, who dies soon after their return, leaving Fitz alone at Buckkeep as Lord Golden's servant and the prince's secret Skill master.

Previously, in the Farseer trilogy: FitzChivalry Farseer is the acknowledged bastard of Prince Chivalry, heir to the Six Duchies throne, whose existence forced his father to abdicate. Raised in the stables of Buckkeep Castle by the stablemaster Burrich, he was claimed by King Shrewd, trained in secret as a royal assassin by the old poisoner Chade, and taught the Farseer magic called the Skill. He also carried the Wit, the despised bond-magic between human and animal, and joined for life with a wolf, Nighteyes. Through the long Red Ship war he served Chivalry's brother Verity and Verity's Mountain-born queen, Kettricken, and was betrayed by the youngest brother, Regal, who usurped the throne, killed King Shrewd, and had Fitz beaten and left to die in a cell. Fitz survived only by sheltering his mind in the wolf; the kingdom buried him, and so did Molly, the woman he loved, who married Burrich and bore Fitz's daughter Nettle without Fitz ever claiming either of them. Guided by the Fool, the pale court jester who called himself the White Prophet and Fitz his Catalyst, Fitz crossed the kingdom to find Verity, who had spent his life carving a stone dragon. The waking dragons drove the Red Ships from the coast and ended the war. Verity died in the making of his, leaving Kettricken carrying his heir, and Fitz, presumed dead and content to remain so, walked away from the court with his wolf. Far to the south, in Bingtown and the Rain Wilds, dragons were returning to the world by other means entirely, none of which he knows anything about.

Fifteen years on, Fitz lives as Tom Badgerlock in an isolated cottage with Nighteyes and Hap, the foundling he has raised, scratching a living from ink and a garden. Chade appears after years of silence to tell him the Farseer line needs him: Prince Dutiful, Verity and Kettricken's son, has the Skill in him and no one to teach it, and Chade himself has never been able to learn the magic he covets. Fitz refuses. Starling, the minstrel who has been his occasional lover, visits and finds the refusal foolish, and their long, unequal arrangement runs out; Fitz learns how little of her life he was ever part of. On the road he meets Jinna, a travelling hedge-witch, and is reminded that the world has gone on without him. Then the Fool arrives, changed again: his skin and eyes have gone gold, and he is playing the part of Lord Golden, a rich and affected Jamaillian noble touring the Six Duchies. He tells Fitz that he is still the White Prophet, that Fitz is still his Catalyst, and that their work is not finished.

Hap needs an apprenticeship Fitz cannot afford, and Nighteyes is visibly aging; the quiet life is closing. Fitz's old grievances with Chade, with Starling, and with his own choices are aired without being settled. Then the summons Chade always expected to send arrives in earnest: Prince Dutiful has disappeared from Buckkeep only days before a betrothal ceremony that is meant to end generations of hostility with the Out Islands. If the heir cannot be produced, the alliance collapses and the court will learn the Farseer boy has run. Fitz takes the sword Chade sends with the message and agrees to go, on the understanding that this is one task and not a return to service.

Fitz reaches Buckkeep for the first time in fifteen years and is installed as Tom Badgerlock, manservant to Lord Golden, a disguise that lets him move through the castle unremarked. He climbs to Chade's tower rooms, sees Kettricken again, and learns the part of the problem no one will say aloud: the prince is Witted, the beast-magic the Six Duchies still hangs people for, and there are signs he has been drawn away by others of Old Blood. Fitz begins reaching for his own long-neglected Skill and finds it painful and unreliable. Jinna's charms and Buckkeep Town's gossip fill in a little more. With Laurel, the Queen's Huntswoman, and the Fool riding as Lord Golden, Fitz sets out to track Dutiful down quietly before the court notices he is gone.

The trail leads to Galekeep, the Bresinga holding where Dutiful was hunting when he vanished. The family and their young heir Civil are nervously hospitable and clearly complicit in something, and Fitz finds evidence that the household keeps company with the Witted. Laurel admits she has Old Blood kin of her own, and that a faction called the Piebalds has broken with the old rule of hiding: they mean to force the kingdom to accept the Wit, and they punish Witted folk who stay silent. Riding on with the Fool and Nighteyes, Fitz pieces together that the prince was not simply lured away but deliberately caught. Between Fitz and the Fool, old feeling surfaces that neither of them resolves.

Following the trail through inns, standing stones and Wit-signs, Fitz finally reaches Dutiful and finds the boy in company with a hunting cat he is Wit-bonded to and entirely besotted with. The bond is wrong: the animal directs the prince rather than partnering him, and Dutiful, lonely and untaught, has given himself over to it. Fitz makes contact with him mind to mind through the Skill, which links the two of them more deeply than either intended, and tries to talk him into coming home. Dutiful refuses to leave the cat. Meanwhile the Piebalds close in, and it becomes clear the prince was taken for a purpose rather than for ransom.

On the coast the trap closes. The Piebalds, led by Laudwine, have arranged everything: the cat carries the lodged spirit of his dead sister Peladine, an Old Blood woman who refused to die and has been waiting for a human body. Dutiful is being hollowed out so she can wear him, and a Witted Farseer under Piebald control would give them the throne. Fitz, Nighteyes, the Fool and Laurel fight to get the prince clear. Fitz kills the cat, which destroys Peladine with it, and Laudwine escapes with terrible injuries and with his faction's other weapon intact: he can name Witted nobles, including the prince, to a kingdom that hangs them. Dutiful, freed and grieving the animal he loved, agrees to come home.

The party returns to Buckkeep in time for the betrothal, which proceeds with the Outislander narcheska as arranged. Dutiful, bound to Fitz by the Skill contact that saved him, knows who his mother's new servant really is, and Kettricken and Chade take Fitz formally back into Farseer service as the prince's secret Skill master. He will stay at Buckkeep as Tom Badgerlock, servant to Lord Golden, with Hap apprenticed to a woodworker in Buckkeep Town below. Nighteyes, spent by the journey and by carrying Fitz through the fight, dies, and Fitz is left without the companion who has shared his mind since boyhood. The Piebalds are still free and still able to expose the Witted, the Wit is still a hanging matter in the Six Duchies, and the price of the Outislander marriage has not yet been named.

Fitz kills the cat, ending Peladine with it, and the prince is freed of the compulsion that had been eating him. Laudwine escapes badly maimed, still holding the Piebalds' threat to expose Witted nobles, and Fitz and Dutiful bring the party home in time for the betrothal, which goes forward with the Outislander narcheska as planned. During the rescue Fitz and Dutiful were joined mind to mind, so the prince now knows exactly who his mother's new servant is, and Kettricken and Chade formally take Fitz back into the family's service as Dutiful's Skill teacher and the Queen's man. He will live at Buckkeep as Tom Badgerlock, servant to Lord Golden, with a stool in Chade's tower and a boy to teach. Nighteyes, worn out by the journey and by carrying Fitz through the fight, dies quietly, and Fitz is left for the first time in his adult life without the other half of himself. Hap is apprenticed to a woodworker in Buckkeep Town, Starling is gone from his life for good, and the Fool has taken up residence at court in his Lord Golden guise with Fitz at his shoulder. The Piebalds remain at large, the Six Duchies still hang their Witted, and the marriage bargain with the Out Islands is only beginning to be paid for.