“Does anything show?” I asked him, turning for his inspection.

He surveyed me with a smile and then assured me salaciously, “Everything shows. But nothing that you’re worried about showing. Here. Put on the doublet and let me see the entire effect.”

I took the garment from him reluctantly. “Time was when a jerkin and leggings was good enough to wear anywhere in Buckkeep,” I observed resentfully.

“You deceive yourself,” the Fool replied implacably. “You got away with such dress because you were little more than a boy, and Shrewd did not wish attention called to you. I seem to recall that once or twice Mistress Hasty had her way with your garments and dressed you stylishly.”

“Once or twice,” I conceded, cringing at the memory. “But you know what I mean, Fool. When I was growing up, folk at Buckkeep dressed, well, like folk from Buck. There was none of this ‘Jamaillian style’ or Farrow cloaks with tailed hoods that reach to the floor.”

He nodded to that. “Buckkeep was a more provincial place when you were growing up. We had a war, and when a war demands your resources, there is less to spend on dress. Shrewd was a good king, but it suited him to keep the Six Duchies a backwater. Queen Kettricken has done all she can to open the Duchies to trade, not just with her own Mountain Kingdom, but with the Jamaillians and Bingtowners and folk even farther away. It’s bound to change Buckkeep. Change isn’t a bad thing.”

“Buckkeep as it was wasn’t a bad thing, either,” I replied grumpily.

“But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely. If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die.”

“That’s cheery.”

“It’s true,” the Fool insisted. “Bingtown just went through such an upheaval. Now they war with Chalced, mostly because Chalced refuses to recognize the need for change. And that war may spread to include the Six Duchies.”

“I doubt it. I don’t really see where it has anything to do with us. Oh, our southern duchies will jump into the fray, but only because they have always relished the conflict with Chalced. It’s a chance to carve away a bit more of their territory and make it ours. But as far as the whole Six Duchies engaging . . . I doubt it.”

I shrugged into the Jamaillian doublet and buttoned it. It had far more buttons than it needed. It fitted tightly to my waist, with skirtlike panels that reached nearly to my knees. “I hate dressing in Jamaillian clothing. And how am I to reach my knife if I need it?”

“I know you. If you need it, you’ll find a way to reach it. And I assure you, in Jamaillia you’d be at least three years out of date. In Jamaillia, they’d assume you were a provincial from Bingtown, attempting to dress like a Jamaillian. But it’s enough. It reinforces the myth that I am a Jamaillian nobleman. If my clothing looks exotic enough, folk accept the rest of me as normal.” He stood up. His right foot wore an embroidered dancing slipper. The left was bound as if his ankle needed support. He took up a carved walking stick. I recognized it as the work of his own hands; to anyone else, it would seem extravagantly expensive.