‘Thick.’ My voice stopped him. Chade was right. I should at least teach the man to obey me. ‘You know that is not what you are supposed to do. Stack the wood in the holder by the hearth’

He glared at me, flexing his shoulders and rubbing his stubby hands together. Then he seized one end of the sling and dragged the wood towards the hearth, spilling logs, bits of bark and dirt as he went. I said nothing. He crouched down beside it and, with a great deal more vehemence and noise than was required, began to stack the wood. He looked over his shoulder at me frequently as he worked, but I could not decipher if his squint was antagonism or fear. I poured myself a glass of wine and tried to ignore him. There had to be a way out of dealing with Thick each day. I did not want him around me, let alone to teach him. In truth, I found his malformed body and dim ways somewhat revolting.

As Galen had me. Just as Galen had not wanted to teach me.

That thought nudged me in a bruised place that had never quite healed. I felt a moment of shame as I watched him labor sullenly. He hadn’t asked to become a tool for the Farseer crown, any more than I had. Like me, the duty had fallen upon him. Nor had he chosen to be born malformed and dim-witted. It grew in my mind that there was a question that no one had asked yet, one that suddenly seemed important to me. One that might put the entire question of a coterie for Dutiful in a different light.

‘Thick,’ I said. He grunted. I said nothing more until he stopped in his wood tantrum and turned to glare at me. It was, perhaps, not the best time to ask him anything. But I doubted that there would ever be a favourable time for Thick and me to have this conversation. When I was sure he was paying attention, his small eyes beetling at me, I spoke again. ‘Thick. Would you like me to teach you to Skill?’

‘What?’ He looked suspicious, as if he expected me to make him the butt of a joke.

I took a breath. ‘You have an ability.’ His scowl deepened. I clarified. ‘A thing you can do that others can’t. Sometimes you use it to make people “not see” you. Sometimes you use it to call me names, names that Chade can’t hear. Like “dogstink”.’ That made him smirk. I ignored it. ‘Would you like me to teach you to use it in other ways? In good ways that could help you serve your prince?’

He didn’t even think about it. ‘No.’ He turned back and resumed thunking the wood chunks onto the pile.

The swiftness of his reply surprised me a bit. ‘Why not?’ He rocked back on his heels and looked over at me.

‘I got enough work’ He glared meaningfully from me to the firewood. Dogstink.

Don’t do that. ‘Well. We all have work we have to do. That’s life.’

He made no reply of either kind, just kept on deliberately clunking each log into place. I took a breath and resolved not to react to that. I wondered what it would take to make him even a little more agreeable. For I suddenly wanted to teach him. I could make a start with him, as a sign to the Queen of my commitment. Could Thick be bribed to try to learn to Skill, as Chade as suggested? Could I buy my daughter’s safety by enticing him? ‘Thick’ I asked him. ‘What do you want?’

That made him pause. He turned to look at me and his brow wrinkled. ‘What?’

‘What do you want? What would make you happy? What do you want out of life?’

‘What do I want?’ He squinted at me, as if by seeing better he could understand my words. ‘You mean, to have? My own?’

At each query, I nodded. He stood slowly, and scratched at the back of his neck. His lips pushed out as he thought, his tongue sticking out with them. ‘I want… I want that red scarf that Rowdy has.’ He stopped and stared at me sullenly. I think he expected me to tell him that he could not have it. I didn’t even know who Rowdy was.

‘A red scarf. I think I could get that for you. What else?’

For minutes he just stared at me. ‘And a pink sugar cake, to eat it all. Not a burnt one. And… and a whole lot of raisins.’ He stopped, and then looked at me challengingly.

And what else?’ I asked him. None of those things sounded too difficult.

He peered at me, coming closer. He thought I was mocking him. I made my voice gentle as I asked, ‘If you had all those things, right now, what else would you want?’

‘If I had …’

‘Raisins and a cake, and a red scarf. Then what else?’

His mouth worked, his small eyes squinting. I don’t think he’d ever considered the possibility of wanting more than those things. I’d have to teach him to be hungry if I were going to use bribery. At the same time, the simplicity of the things that this man longed for as unattainable cut to my heart. He wasn’t asking for better wages or more time to himself. Just the small things, the little pleasures that made a hard life tolerable.

‘I want… a knife like you got. And one of those feathers, those big feathers with the eyes in them. And a whistle. A red one. I used to have one — my mam gave me a red whistle, a red whistle on a green string.’ He scowled more deeply, pondering. ‘But they took it and broke it.’ For an instant he said no more, breathing hoarsely as he remembered. I wondered how long ago it had happened. His little eyes were squinted nearly shut with the effort of the recall. I had thought him too stupid to have memories that went back to his childhood. I was rapidly revising my image of just who Thick was. His mind certainly did not work as mine or Chade’s did, but work it did. Then he blinked his small eyes several times and took a long shuddering breath. The next words came out on a sob. His words, blunted at the best of times, were barely understandable now. They didn’t even want to blow it. I said, “You can blow it. But then give it back.” But they didn’t even blow it. They just broke it. And laughed at me. My red whistle that my mam gave me.’

Perhaps there was an element of humour in the tubby little man with the jutting tongue weeping for the loss of his whistle. I’ve known many men who would have laughed aloud. As for me, I caught my breath. Pain radiated off him like heat from a fire, and it ignited boyhood memories of my own, long buried. The way Regal would give me a casual push as he passed me in the hallway, or trample through my playthings as I sat in one of my private games on the floor in the corner of the Lesser Hall. It broke something in me, some wall I had held between Thick and myself because of all the differences I perceived between us. After all, he was slow-witted and fat, awkward-bodied and ill-made, rude. Ragged and smelly and ill-mannered. And as much an outcast in this castle of wealth and pleasure as I had been when I was Nameless the dog-boy. It did not matter than he had a man’s years to him. The boy was suddenly who I saw, the boy who could never be a man, could never say that such hurts were a part of his past when he was vulnerable. Thick would always be vulnerable.

I had intended to bribe him. I had intended to find out what he wanted, and then hold it over him to get him to do what I wanted. Not in a cruel way, but to barter with him for obedience to my will. It would not have been so different from how my grandfather once bought me. King Shrewd had given me a pin and a promise of an education. He had never offered me his love, though I believe he had eventually come to care for me as I had for him. Yet I had always wished that his compassion had been the first thing he had offered me, instead of the last. Towards the end, I had suspected that he shared that vain wish.

And so I found myself speaking words aloud before I knew I had thought them. ‘Oh, Thick. We haven’t done well by you, have we? But we will do better. That I promise you. We will do better by you before I ask you again to learn this thing for me.’