‘Thick. Do you remember the first time you met them? The ones who call me “stinking dog”? Please, show me. I let the Skill request float with my quiet words and the rhythmic motion of my needle. I listened to the quiet rip of the thread as it moved through the fabric, and the soft crackling of the fire, making those small sounds.

For a time Thick was silent save for the Skill-music that flowed from him. Then, I heard the sounds of my needle and the fire creep into his music.

‘He said, “Put down that bucket and come with me”.’

‘Who said?’ I asked too avidly.

Thick’s music stopped. He spoke aloud. ‘I’m not to talk about him. Or he’ll kill me. Kill me dead with a big knife. Cut open my belly and my guts fall in the dust.’ In his mind he stood and watched his own entrails unwind into the grit of a Buckkeep Town street. ‘Like pig guts.’

‘I won’t let that happen to you,’ I promised.

He shook his head stubbornly. He began to take short breaths through his nose. ‘He said, “No one could stop me. I’d kill you.” If I tell about him, he’ll kill me. If I don’t watch the gold man and the old man and you, he’ll kill me. If I don’t peep at the door and listen and tell him, he’ll kill me. All my guts in the dust.’

And in our joining, I knew that Thick believed this down to his bones. I’d have to leave it alone for now. ‘Very well,’ I said mildly. I leaned back in my chair and once more focused my mind on my work. ‘Don’t think about him,’ I suggested. ‘Only the others. The ones you went to meet.’

He nodded his heavy head ponderously as he stared into the flames. After a time, his music seeped back. I set my breathing to its rhythm, and then my work as well. Gradually, I eased my mind closer and then let it brush Thick’s.

I scarcely dared to breathe. I pushed my needle in and out of the fabric, and drew the long thread rippling after it. Thick was breathing slowly through his nose as he stared into the fire. I asked no questions but let his Skill flow through me. He hadn’t liked that first meeting, not at all, nor the long trot from the castle down to the town, nor the way his companion kept a grip on his sleeve all that long and weary distance. He was taller than Thick, the one who clutched him as they walked and it made Thick walk crooked and too fast. His legs ached and his mouth was dry. In his memory, the man who gripped his sleeve shook him until Thick answered each question that the people in the room asked him.

Thick’s memories were not vague. If anything, they were too detailed. He recalled as much of the blister on his heel as he did of the man’s words. The sounds of a goat bleating somewhere and the creaking of wagons lumbering down the street were weighted as heavily as voice of his interrogator. Thick was repeatedly shaken to rattle loose an answer, and he well recalled both his fear and his confusion at why he was treated so.

Thick’s answers to the questions were vague as much due to his lack of knowledge as to his odd sense of priorities. He told them about his work in the kitchen. They asked him which nobles he served. Thick wasn’t sure of their names. They were impatient and muttering at first, and one cursed the man who had brought him for wasting their time. Then Thick complained of his extra work, up all the stairs, for the tall old man with the spotted face. ‘Chade, Lord Chade, the Queen’s councillor’ someone hissed. And they all drew closer to him.

Thus they had learned that Chade wanted the firewood stacked with little logs to one side and bigger pieces on the other side, and that Thick had to wipe up any water he spilled on the stairs. Never touch Chade’s scrolls. Don’t spill the ashes on the floor. Don’t open the little door if anyone else can see you. Only the last fact seemed to interest them, but when their other questions yielded them little, Thick recognized the displeasure in their voices. He had cringed from it, but the man who had brought him insisted that this was only the first time, that the dummy could be taught what to watch for. Then someone had given him other targets to watch; ‘A fancy Jamaillian noble, with yellow hair and tanned skin. He rides a white horse. And he keeps a stinking dog of a servant, with a crooked nose and a scar down his face.’

Thick had not known Lord Golden nor me. But the man who gripped Thick’s sleeve had recognized us from that description, and promised to point me out to Thick. That was when they had put gold into the man’s outstretched hand, thick gold that clinked. And a man had given coins to Thick, also, three little silver coins that tinkled as he dropped them on Thick’s flat palm. And he had warned both Thick and the faceless servant who gripped him that they should be wary of ‘that stinking, traitorous dog. He’ll kill you as soon as look at you if he thinks you’re watching him.’

I felt the man’s black eyes boring into mine. Floating in the Skill amongst Thick’s memories, I tried to see his face, but all Thick recalled were those piercing eyes. ‘That stinking dog cut the arm right off a man, last time I saw him. Chop! Like a sausage on the table. And he’ll do worse to you if he finds out you’re watching him. So you be careful, dummy. Don’t let him see you.’ Those words and the bleating goat and the rumbling of the wagons mixed in Thick’s mind with the blustery winter wind from the street outside. Blacksmith hammers rang somewhere, setting a clanging cadence.

And as they walked back up to Buckkeep, the other servant had warned Thick again to be careful not to get caught by ‘that stinking dog he warned you about. You’re to watch him, but not let him see you. You hear me, boy? Give us away, and you won’t only be dead, I’ll be out of a job. So you be careful. Don’t let him see you. Hear me? Hear me?’

And as Thick had cowered from him, muttering that he heard, the servant had demanded the coins that he had been given. ‘You don’t even know what to do with them, dummy. Give them to me.’

‘They’re mine. To buy a sweet, he said. A sugar cake.’

But the other servant had struck Thick and taken his coins.

I floated in the flow of Thick’s Skill, experiencing it again with him. As the servant slapped him, an open-handed blow that left his ear ringing, the Skill-wave leapt and nearly overwhelmed me. Useless to try to see the servant. Thick avoided looking at him, cowering away, squinting his eyes shut before the descending fist.

Look at him, Thick. Please, let me see him, I begged. But Thick’s recalled agitation as much as my surge of hatred for the man blasted us both out of the Skill-reverie we had been sharing. Thick gave a wordless cry and recoiled from the remembered blow, falling from the chair to roll perilously close the fire. I leapt to my feet, head spinning from the sudden break in our contact. When I seized his blanket-wrapped body to pull him away from the hearth, he must have thought I was attacking him, for he abruptly struck back.

No, Dog-stink man, no! Don’t see me, don’t hurt me, don’t see me, don’t see me!

I went down as if axed. I had been so open to him that for a time I saw absolutely nothing, and I swear that I thought I smelled the clinging scent of a mangy hound.

In a little while, my vision came back to me. Getting my Skill-walls up took every bit of my concentration. A bit more time, and I got to my hands and knees. I ran my hands through my hair, expecting blood, for the pain was so great. Then I shakily sat up and looked around the room. Thick was fighting with his wet pants, making frantic grunts of fear and frustration as he struggled to put them on. I took a deep breath and croaked, ‘Thick. It’s all right. No one is going to hurt you.’

He paid me no mind but kept struggling. I dragged myself up by the chair. I picked up the robe I had been working on. ‘Wait a moment, Thick. I’ll have this finished for you. It’s dry and warm.’ I sat down carefully. Well. Now I knew. I knew why I was the dog-stink man, to be hated and feared, and I knew why he had commanded me not to see him. Even the story of someone hitting him and taking his coins made more sense now. Thick had never tried to hide his secrets from us. We had simply been too foolish to notice them in front of us. Focusing my eyes on the needle was difficult, but I did it. Another dozen looping stitches and I was finished. I knotted the thread, bit it off and held up the robe. ‘Put this on for now. Until your own clothes dry.’