"Perhaps," I conceded grudgingly. The fatigue was winning. I just wanted to curl up around the pain and sleep but I fought it. "Perhaps, but it isn't enough. Not for going through this."

"And what more would you ask, Fitz? Why are you here?"

I knew he meant it to be a rhetorical question but the anxiety had been with me for too long. The answer was too close to my lips, and the pain made me speak without thought. I lifted a corner of the cloth to peer at him. "I do this because I want a future. Not for myself, but for my boy. For Hap. Chade, I've done it all wrong. I haven't taught him a thing, not how to fight, nor how to make a living. I need to find him an apprenticeship with a good master. Gindast. That's who he wishes to teach him. He wants to be a joiner, and I should have seen that this would come and saved my money, but I didn't. And here he is, of an age to learn and I haven't a thing to give him. The coins I've saved aren't enough to»

"I can arrange that." Chade spoke quietly. Then, almost angrily, he demanded, "Did you think I wouldn't?" Something in my face betrayed me, for he leaned closer, brows furrowed, as he exclaimed, "You thought you'd have to do this in order to ask my help, didn't you?" The damp cloth was still in his hand. It slapped the stone flags when he flung it in a temper. "Fitz, you " he began, then words failed him. He stood up and walked away from me. I thought he would leave entirely. Instead he went down to the workbench and the unused hearth at the other end of the chamber. He walked around the table slowly, looking at it and at the scroll racks and utensils as if seeking for something he had misplaced. I refolded the second cloth and held it to my forehead, but surreptitiously I watched him from under my hand. Neither of us said anything for a time.

When he came back to me, he looked calmer but somehow older. He took a fresh cloth from a pottery dish, wrung it out, folded it, and offered it to me. As we exchanged the compresses, he said softly, "I'll see that Hap gets his apprenticeship. You could simply have asked me to do that when I visited you. Or years ago, you could have brought the lad to Buckkeep and we'd have seen him decently educated."

"He can read and write and figure," I said defensively. "I saw to that."

"Good." His reply was chill. "I'm glad to hear you retained that much common sense."

There seemed no rejoinder to that. Both pain and weariness were overcoming me. I knew I had hurt him but I didn't feel it was my fault. How could I have known he'd be so willing to help me? Nevertheless, I apologized. "Chade, I'm sorry. I should have known that you would help me."

"Yes," he agreed mercilessly. "You should have. And you're sorry. I don't doubt you're sincere. Yet I Seem to recall warning you, years ago, that those words will only work so often, and then they ring hollow. Fitz, it hurts me to see you this way."

"It's starting to ease," I lied.

"Not your head, you stupid ass. It hurts me to see that you are still… as you've always been since… damn. Since you were taken from your mother. Wary and isolated and mistrustful. Despite all I've… After all these years, have you given your trust to no one?"

I was silent for a time, pondering his words. I had loved Molly, but I had never trusted her with my secrets. My bond with Chade was as essential as my bones, but no, I had not believed that he would do all he could for Hap, simply for the sake of what we shared. Burrich. Verity. Kettricken. Lady Patience. Starling. In every instance, I had held back. "I trust the Fool," I said, and then wondered if I truly did. I did, I assured myself. There was almost nothing about me that he didn't know. That was trust, wasn't it?

After a moment, Chade said heavily, "Well, that's good. That you trust someone." He turned away from me and spoke to the fire. "You should force yourself to eat something. Your body may rebel, but you know that you need the food. Recall how we had to press food on Verity when he Skilled."

The neutrality in his voice was almost painful. I realized then that he had hoped I would insist that I did trust him. It would not have been true, and I would not lie to him. I rummaged about in my mind for something else to give him. I spoke the words without thinking. "Chade, I do love you. It's just that»

He turned to me almost abruptly. "Stop, boy. Say no more." His voice was almost pleading as he said, "That's enough for me." He set his hand to my shoulder and squeezed nearly painfully. "I won't ask of you that which you can't give. You are what life has made you. And what I made you, Eda be merciful. Now pay attention to me. Eat something. Force yourself if you must.", It would have been useless to tell him that the sight and smell of the food was enough to make me gag. I took a breath, and quaffed down the beef broth, not breathing until it was gone. The fruit in cream felt slimy in my mouth, the fish reeked, and the bread near choked me, but I forced myself to swallow it half-chewed. I took a deep breath, and drank the wine. When I set the cup down, my stomach churned and my head reeled. The wine was a more potent vintage than I had thought. I lifted my eyes to Chade's. His mouth hung ajar in dismay. "I didn't mean like that," he muttered.

I lifted a hand at him in a gesture of futility. I feared to open my mouth to reply.

"You'd best go to bed," he suggested humbly.

I nodded in reply and levered myself to my feet. He opened the door for me, gave me a candle, and then stood at the top of the passage holding a light until my path carried me out of his view. My room seemed impossibly distant, but eventually I arrived at the entry. Queasy as I was, I extinguished my light before I approached and carefully peered through the peephole before I triggered the access to my dark room. No candle burned there tonight. It didn't matter. I stumbled into the stuffy darkness and thrust the door shut behind me. A few steps carried me to my bed and I dropped onto it. I was too hot and my clothes bound me uncomfortably, but I was too tired to do anything about it. The black was so absolute I could not tell if my eyes were open or shut. At least the lights under my eyelids had been quenched. I stared up into the darkness and longed for the cool peace of the forest.

The thick walls of the room muffled all sound, and sealed me off from the night. It was like being sealed in a tomb. I closed my eyes to the blackness and listened to my headache thump with the beat of my heart. My stomach gurgled unhappily. I drew a deep breath, and "Forest," I said quietly to myself. "Night. Trees. Meadow." I reached for the comforting familiarity of the natural world. I painted in the Jtr

details for myself. A light wind stirring in the treetops. Stars flickering through rags of moving clouds. Coolness, and the rich scents of the earth. Tension eased away from me, taking my pain with it. I drifted with my imagination. The packed earth of a game trail beneath my feet, and I was moving softly through darkness, following my companion.

She went more quietly than night itself, each step sure and swift. Try as I might, I could not keep up with her. I could not even catch a glimpse of her. I knew of her passage by her scent hanging in the night air, or by the still-rustling bushes just ahead of me. My cat followed her, but I was not swift enough. "Wait!" I called to them.

Wait? she mocked me. Wait for you to ruin the night's hunting? No. I shall not wait. You shall make haste, and do so silently. Have you learned nothing of me? Lightfoot am I and Nignt riend and Shadowstalker. Be you so, and come, come, come to share the night with me.

I hurried after her, drunk with the night and her presence, drawn as irresistibly as a moth is drawn to a candle. Her eyes were green, I knew, for she had told me, and her long tresses were black. I longed to touch her, but she was elusive and taunting, always ahead of me, never revealing herself to my eyes let alone my touch. I could only run after her through the night, the breath rasping in my chest as she flew before me. I did not complain. I would prove myself worthy of her and win her.