‘For now, yes. I’m going up to Chade’s old chamber. If you could let him know that I’d like to see him there, I’d be appreciative.’ I spoke to him as if he were the Fool. I didn’t expect a reply and I didn’t get one.

I simply had no strength. I stopped to rest so many times on the stairs that I thought my candle would burn out and leave me in darkness. When I did reach the chamber, I had lost all ambition. At the door, the ferret leaped out to challenge me. Gilly did a wild dance, inviting me to battle for the territory. ‘You can have it,’ I told him. ‘You’d probably win anyway.’ Ignoring his rushes at my feet, I went and sat on the edge of the bed, then lay down and almost immediately fell asleep. I think I slept for a long time.

When I awoke, the ferret was sleeping under my chin. The moment I stirred, Gilly fled. It was plain someone had come and gone. It disturbed me that I could sleep through that; when I had been bonded to my wolf, his mind had always kept watch through my senses. He would have wakened me as soon as he perceived I was hearing an intruder. I had grown too dependent on those wild senses, I decided as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I had grown too dependent on everything and everyone.

There were dishes and a bottle of wine on the cleared end of the table. A pot of soup had been left warming at the edge of the hearth, and the wood had been replenished for the fire. I got up and went directly to the food. I ate and drank and waited. And while I waited, I perused the scrolls that had been left out for me. There was a report from someone about Icefyre and Outislander dragons. Another spy report on doings in Bingtown and their war with Chalced. An old scroll that showed a sketch of the muscles in a man’s back had been updated. The details and notes were in Chade’s hand. Well, at least my journey through death’s jaws had provided new knowledge. Beside that scroll were three more, bundled together. Tattered and faded they were, and all in the same hand. It was a set of Skill-exercises, designed specifically for the Solo. I scowled at that, wondering what they meant. A few minutes of reading enlightened me. These were exercises for the Skill-practitioner who had no coterie. It had never occurred to me before that there would be such, but when I thought about it, I saw it must be so. I had become one, hadn’t I? There had always been people who had been socially inept, or simply preferred solitude. When coteries were formed, it would be likely there would be some excluded. These exercises were for ones such as those.

In reading it, I found it likely that they had most often been used as spies or healers. The exercises in the first scroll seemed to focus especially on subtle uses of the Skill either to listen in or implant suggestions in someone’s thoughts. The second scroll dealt with repairing another’s body. This fascinated me, not just because I had recently undergone it, but because it confirmed a thing I had suspected. What a man started with the Skill and his will, the body often took over. The body understood healing. Yet it also understood that sometimes hasty repairs were more important than perfect ones, that closing the wound might be more important than smooth skin afterwards. So the scroll put it. The body understood conserving one’s strength and reserves against tomorrow’s needs. The scroll cautioned Skill-users to be wary of ignoring the body’s own tendencies, and to be circumspect with how ardently they pursued a repair. I wondered if Chade had read that part.

The third scroll dealt with maintaining one’s own body. On this last scroll, the clear notes in Chade’s hand contrasted strongly with the faded old inking. It chronicled his early failed efforts as well as his recent successes. This was what he had wanted me to see; these notes were why he had left it out. He wished me to know that ever since the Skill-scrolls had come into his possession, he had been trying and failing to repair his own body. He had been successful only since he had witnessed the healing of mine, and discovered that he could tap Thick’s Skill-talent to supplement his faltering and groping efforts.

I read the diary of his frustration, and knew the fear that had accompanied it. I knew only too well what it was to live within a damaged body. And in witnessing Nighteyes’ decline, I had tasted what it must be to grow old. Chade had resumed a normal life only in the last decade. He had spent his prime sequestered here, in this room, working from the shadows and in disguise. How bitter would it be to emerge into a world of people and music, dancing and conversation and, yes, power and the wealth to enjoy it, only to have one’s declining body threaten to take it all away again? I could not blame him for what he had done, despite the risks he had taken. I understood it only too well. I dreaded the day when I would have to face such a decision, for I feared I would decide the same.

I read carefully, several times, the scroll that had to do with repairs to the body using the Skill. It told me much that was useful, but not all I needed to know. I knew with sad certainty why Chade had held these scrolls back from me. If I had seen them, I would have known that he was pursuing a lone quest to master the Skill. And he had obviously begun it years before I had been enticed to return to Buckkeep.

I leaned back in my chair and tried to put myself in the old man’s place. What had he imagined, what had he dreamed? I pushed myself back through the years. The war with the Red Ships has finally ended. The raiders have been driven back by the Six Duchies dragons. Peace has returned to the land, the Queen is gravid with the Farseer heir, Regal has not only returned the missing library of Skill scrolls, but has conveniently died after renewing his loyalty to the crown. And Chade, after so many years spent in the shadows, can emerge as the Queen’s trusted councillor. He can move freely about Buckkeep, enjoying food and drink and the companionship of the nobility. What is there left for him to desire? Only that which had been denied to him so many years ago.

The Skill was not taught to royal bastards, even if they had the aptitude for it. Some kings ruthlessly administered elfbark to illegitimate youngsters, to kill the Skill-ability in them. I did not doubt that other Farseer monarchs had saved time and simply killed the bastards. I had only been taught the Skill because both Lady Patience and Chade had pleaded on my behalf. Even then, if the need for a coterie had not been so desperate, I am sure King Shrewd would have refused me.

Chade had never been taught. And in the ways that boys do, I had always simply accepted that piece of knowledge about my master. I had never asked him, ‘Were you ever tested for Skill-ability? Did you ask to be taught and were refused, or did you never even ask?’ I had never asked for the details. Yet I knew that he had longed for that forbidden knowledge. I knew it in how ardently he had pursued it for me, and how badly he had hoped that I would succeed at it. My failure to master the magic had smarted as keenly for him as it had for me.

Yet I had never, until now, considered what these factors might mean when those scrolls came into his hands. Ever since he had come to my cottage, I had known that he had been reading the scrolls. Knowing Chade, I should have known that with or without a teacher, he would try to master what he read there. I should have offered to teach him what I knew. Every time he had brought up the question of Skill-candidates, had he secretly hoped I would look at him? And why hadn’t I ever seriously considered the idea? Oh, yes, once I had thrown it out, as a man throws a bone to a hungry dog to appease it. But I had not truly considered him capable of learning it. Why not?

I had more questions about myself than I did about Chade. While I was pondering them, I heated water and found his looking-glass. In Chade’s assassin’s armoury were any number of knives sharp enough to shave with. I made a credible job of it, taking my time and watching my unscathed face emerge. I was sitting at the table, looking at myself in the mirror when Chade entered. I didn’t wait for him to speak.