He coughed, and then said, 'This is the worst place I've ever been. And you brought me here.' He coughed again, and I could feel how weary he was of coughing.

'Are you warm enough?' I asked guiltily. 'Do you want one of my blankets?'

'I'm cold. I'm cold inside and outside, just like this place. The cold is eating me. Tbe cold will eat us all to bones.'

'I'm going to warm up the tea. Do you want some?'

'Maybe. If there was honey?'

'No.' Then, I gave way to temptation. 'There might be. Here's my blanket. I'll put the tea on to get warm again while I see if anyone has any honey.'

'I suppose,' he said dubiously.

I tucked the blanket around him. It was tbe closest we bad been to one another in days. 'I don't like it wben you're angry at me, Thick. I didn't want to come here, or to bring you here. It was just a thing we had to do. To help our prince.'

He made no reply and I sensed no lessening in his coldness toward me, but at least be didn't strike out at me. I knew who might have honey. I left the tent and headed up tbe hill to where the larger tents for the Narcheska and the Prince had been pitched. Between them, and slightly above them, the Fool's multicoloured dwelling billowed softly in the wind. Amid the deepening darkness, it seemed to gleam from within.

I hesitated outside it. The flap was tied securely shut. Once before, when I was a boy, I had entered the Fool's private chambers uninvited. I had lived to regret that intrusion, not only because it posed more mysteries than it solved, but also because it had made a small crack in the trust we had shared. Without ever uttering them, the Fool had .taught me well the rules that governed retaining his friendship. He answered only the questions he wished to answer about himself, and any prying by me was regarded as an infringement of his privacy. This included efforts by me to find out anything about him other than what he had chosen to tell me himself. And so, I paused there, in the wind sweeping past me from the island's ice

pack, and wondered if I wanted to take this chance. Were not there already too many cracks in our much-tested friendship? Then I stooped, untied the door-flap and slipped inside. The tent was made from a fabric I didn't know, some sort of silk perhaps, but so tightly woven that no breath of air stirred inside it. The glow had come from a tiny brazier, set in a small pit dug in the floor of the chamber. The silk walls caught the heat it generated and held it well, while the light seemed multiplied by the sheen of the fabric. Even so, it was not bright inside the tent; rather it was Ht warmly and intimately. A thin rug covered the rest of the floor, and a simple sleeping pallet of woollen blankets lay in one corner. To my wolf's nose, it smelled of the Fool's perfumes. In another corner was a small kit of clothing and a few significant items. I saw that he had brought the featherless Rooster Crown. Somehow it did not surprise me. The feathers from Others' Island, the ones I had thought would fit in the crown, were in my sea-chest. Some things are too significant to leave unattended-He had a meagre supply of foodstuffs and a single cooking pot: obviously he had relied on our arrival for his long-term survival. I saw no sort of weapon amongst his things; the only knives were ones suitable for cooking. I wondered what ship he had found that had dropped him off here, and why he had not supplied himself better. Among his victuals I found a small pot of honey. I took it.

There was no scrap of paper to leave him a note. All I had wanted to say to him was that I had not wanted him to come here to die, and that was why I had done what I could to thwart him. In the end, I moved the Rooster Crown into the middle of his bed. I turned the simple wooden circlet in my hands, the dim light catching for an instant in one rooster's sparkling gem eye. The Fool would know that I had set it there, and why. I did not want him to think, even for a moment, that I had tried to conceal this visit. As I left, 1 re-tied the tent flap with my knots.

Thick had almost dozed off, but when I poured tea and added sweetening to it, he sat up to take the mug from me. I had been generous with the honey. He drank off half of it, and sighed heavily. That's better.'

'Do you want more?' It would leave little for me, hut I wouldn't lose any opportunity to regain his favour.

'A little bit. Please.'

I sensed a lowering of the wall. 'Give me your mug, then.' As I poured and sweetened the brew, I said, 'You know, Thick, I've missed us being friends. I'm really tired of your being angry with me.'

'I am, too,' he admitted as he took the mug from me. 'And it's harder than I thought it would be.'

'Is it? Then why do it?'

'To help Nettle be angry with you.'

'Ah.' I did not let myself dwell on that, but only commented, 'She probably made it sound like a very good idea.'

lYa,' he drawled sadly.

I nodded slowly. 'But she's all right, isn't she? She's not hurt or in danger?'

'She's angry. Cause she had to leave her home. Because of the dragon. So that was scary for her, and I told her, she could come here, because we're going to cut a dragon's head off. But she said, don't worry; my Papa will kill the dragon for me. So, she's safe.'

My head swam. It was definite then. The message bird had reached Buckkeep, and the Queen had acted swiftly to take Nettle into shelter. And someone - Kettricken or Burrich - had told her that she was my daughter. Why they had done it now or how they had phrased the words suddenly did not matter. Nettle knew. And she was angry with me, hut had still found a way to send me a message through Thick that told me that she knew who I was, and that I had believed I had done what I did to protect her. All the things I felt seemed to conflict with one another. I wondered if she knew all of what I was, or only that there was another man who had fathered her, and by his bloodline exposed her to danger. Had anyone explained the Skill to her? Did she know I was Witted? I had wanted to tell her myself that I was her father, if I had ever decided that she must know. Would it have been easier for her, or harder? I did not know. There was so much I did not know, and so much that she did not know about me.

Then another aspect of it washed over me like a wave. If Nettle

was in Buckkeep, and if she would open her mind to our Skilling, we could communicate with the Queen and tell her all that was going on. A strange little thrill washed through me. Prince Dutiful had a working coterie now.

I came out of my reverie when Thick handed the mug back to me. It was empty. 'Are you a little warmer now?' I asked him.

'A little,' he admitted.

'So am I,' I told him, but it had nothing to do with how cold the night was. There are moments that leave a man's heart pumping so strong and free that no chill can touch him. I felt alive and completed, vindicated in all I had done. Thick huddled back into his bed, my blanket still clutched around his shoulders. I didn't mind. I spoke cautiously. 'If Nettle comes to your dreams tonight, will you tell her -' That I love her. No. It was far too soon to say such words, and when I spoke them, she should hear them first from me. Now they would be empty utterances from a shadow father she had never met. No. 'Will you tell her to let the Queen know we are all well, and safely arrived at the island?' Deliberately I kept the message a general one. I had no assurance that the dragon Tintaglia could not listen in on what passed between Thick and Nettle.

'Nettle doesn't like the Queen. She is too nice, with lots of pretty skirts for Nettle and pretty smells and shiny things. She isn't Nettle's mother! But she makes her stay close and only lets her out with a guard. Nettle hates that. And she's had enough of lessons, thank you very much!'