way, covering it over with another piece of deerskin. Door, part of us knows that is the door and we go to it, to whine softly and prod at it with our nose. It rattles against its catch like a trap about to spring shut. The Scentless One comes, stepping lightly, warily. He stretches his body past me, to put a pale paw on the door and open it for me. I slip out, back into a cool night world. It feels good to stretch my muscles again, and I flee the pain and the stuffy hut and the body that does not work to this wild sanctuary of flesh and fur. The night swallows us and we hunt.
It was another night, another time, before, after, I did not know, my days had come unlinked from one another. Someone lifted a warm compress from my brow and replaced it with a cooler one. 'I'm sorry, Fool,' I said.
'Thirty-two,' said a voice wearily. Then, 'Drink,' it added more gently. Cool hands raised my face. A cup lapped liquid against my mouth. I tried to drink. Willowbark tea. I turned my face away in disgust. The Fool wiped my mouth and sat down on the floor beside my bed. He leaned companionably close against it. He held his scroll up to the lamplight and went on reading. It was deep night. I closed my eyes and tried to find sleep again. All I could find were things I'd done wrong, trusts I'd betrayed.
'I'm so sorry,' I said.
'Thirty-three,' said the Fool without looking up.
'Thirty-three what?' I asked.
He glanced over at me in surprise. 'Oh. You're truly awake and talking?'
'Of course. Thirty-three what?'
'Thirty-three `I'm sorry's. To various people, but the greatest number of them to me. Seventeen calls for Burrich. I lost count of your calls for Molly, I'm afraid. And a grand total of sixty-two `I'm coming, Verity's.'
'I must be driving you crazy. I'm sorry.'
'Thirty-four. No. You've just been raving, rather monotonously. It's the fever, I suppose.'
'I suppose.'
The Fool went back to reading. 'I'm so tired of lying on my belly,' I ventured.
'There's always your back,' the Fool suggested to see me wince. Then, 'Do you want me to help you shift to your side?'
'No. That just hurts more.'
'Tell me if you change your mind.' His eyes went back to the scroll.
'Chade hasn't been back to see me,' I observed.
The Fool sighed and set aside his scroll. 'No one has. The healer came in and berated us all for bothering you. They're to leave you alone until she pulls the arrow out. That's tomorrow. Besides, Chade and the Queen have had much to discuss. Discovering that both you and Verity are still alive has changed everything for them.'
'Another time, he would have included me.' I paused, knowing I was wallowing in self-pity, but unable to stop myself. 'I suppose they feel they cannot trust me anymore. Not that I blame them. Everyone hates me now. For the secrets I kept. For all the ways I failed them.'
'Oh, not everyone hates you,' the Fool chided gently. 'Only me, really.'
My eyes darted to his face. His cynical smile reassured me. 'Secrets,' he said, and sighed. 'Someday I shall write a long philosophical treatise on the power of secrets, when kept or told.'
'Do you have any more brandy?'
'Thirsty again? Do have some more willowbark tea.' There was acid courtesy in his voice now, overladen with honey. 'There's plenty, you know. Buckets of it. All for you.'
'I think my fever is down a bit,' I offered humbly.
He lifted a hand to my brow. 'So it is. For now. But I do not think the healer would approve of you getting drunk again.'
'The healer is not here,' I pointed out.
He arched a pale eyebrow at me. 'Burrich would be so proud of you.' But he rose gracefully and went to the oak cabinet. He stepped carefully around Nighteyes sprawled on the hearth in heat-soaked sleep. My eyes traveled to the patched window and then back to the Fool. I supposed some sort of agreement had been worked out between them. Nighteyes was so deeply asleep he was not even dreaming. His belly was full as well. His paws twitched when I quested toward him, so I withdrew. The Fool was putting the bottle and two cups on a tray. He seemed too subdued.
'I am sorry, you know.'
'So you have told me. Thirty-five times.'
'But I am. I should have trusted you and told you about my daughter.' Nothing, not a fever, not an arrow in my back would keep me from smiling when I said that phrase. My daughter. I tried to speak the simple truth. It embarrassed me that it seemed a new experience. 'I've never seen her, you know. Only with the Skill, anyway. It's not the same. And I want her to be mine. Mine and Molly's. Not a child that belongs to a kingdom, with some vast responsibility to grow into. Just a little girl, picking flowers, making candles with her mother, doing …' I floundered and finished, 'Whatever it is that ordinary children are allowed to do. Chade would end that. The moment that anyone points to her and says, `There, she could be the Farseer heir,' she's at risk. She'd have to be guarded and taught to fear, to weigh every word and consider every action. Why should she? She isn't truly a royal heir. Only a bastard's bastard.' I said those harsh words with difficulty, and vowed never to let anyone say them to her face. 'Why should she be put in such danger? It would be one thing if she were born in a palace and had a hundred soldiers to guard her. But she has only Molly and Burrich.'
'Burrich is with them? If Chade chose Burrich, it is because he thinks him the equal of a hundred guards. But far more discreet,' the Fool observed. Did he know how that would wrench me? He brought the cups and the brandy and poured for me. I managed to pick up my own cup. 'To a daughter. Yours and Molly's,' he offered, and we drank. The brandy burned clean in my throat.
'So,' I managed. 'Chade knew all along and sent Burrich to guard her. Even before I knew, they knew.' Why did I feel they had stolen something from me?
'I suspect so, but I am not certain.' The Fool paused, as if wondering at the wisdom of telling me. Then I saw him discard the reserve. 'I've been putting pieces together, counting back the time. I think Patience suspected. I think that's why she started sending Molly to take care of Burrich when his leg was injured. He didn't need that much care, and he knew it as well as Patience did. But Burrich is a good ear; mostly because he talks so little himself. Molly would need someone to talk to, perhaps someone that had once kept a bastard himself. That day we were all up in his room … you had sent me there, to see what he could do for my shoulder? The day you locked Regal out of Shrewd's rooms to protect him …' For a moment he seemed caught in that memory. Then he recovered. 'When I came up the stairs to Burrich's loft I heard them arguing. Well, Molly arguing, and Burrich being silent, which is his strongest way to argue. So, I eavesdropped,' he admitted frankly. 'But I didn't hear much. She was insisting he could get some particular herb for her. He wouldn't. Finally, he promised her he would tell no one, and bade her to think well and do what she wished to do, not what she thought was wisest. Then they said no more, so I went in. She excused herself and departed. Later, you came and said she had left you.' He paused. 'Actually, looking back, I was as dull-wilted as you, not to have worked it out just from that.'
'Thank you,' I told him dryly.
'You're welcome. Though I will admit we all had much on our minds that day.'
'I'd give anything to be able to go back in time and tell her that our child would be the most important thing in the world for me. More important than king or country.'
'Ah. So you would have left Buckkeep that day, to follow her and protect her.' The Fool quirked an eyebrow at me.
After a time, I said, 'I couldn't.' The words choked me and I washed them down with brandy.
'I know you couldn't have. I understand. You see, no one can avoid fate. Not as long as we are trapped in time's harness, anyway. And,' he said more softly, 'no child can avoid the future that fate decrees. Not a fool, not a bastard. Not a bastard's daughter.'
A shiver walked up my spine. Despite all my disbelief, I feared. 'Are you saying that you know something of her future?'
He sighed and nodded. Then he smiled and shook his head. 'That is how it is, for me. I know something of a Farseer's heir. If that heir is she, then doubtless, years from now, I shall read some ancient prophecy and say, Ah,
