My eyes darted from Starling to the Fool. He bowed, an embroidery of the elaborate bow that often marked the end of her performances. I wanted at once to laugh aloud and to sink into, the earth. I saw Starling redden and start forward, but Kettle caught at her sleeve and said something severely. Then they both glared at me. It was not the first time that one of the Fool's escapades had embarrassed me, but it was one of the most keenly edged ones. I made a helpless gesture back at them, then rounded on the Fool. He was capering down the path ahead of me. I hastened to catch up with him.

"Did you ever stop to think you might hurt her feelings?" I asked him angrily.

"I gave it as much thought as she gave to whether such an allegation might hurt mine." He rounded on me suddenly, wagging a long finger. "Admit it. You asked that question with never a thought as to whether it would hurt my vanity. How would you feel if I demanded proof that you were a man? Ah!" His shoulders slumped suddenly and he seemed to lose all energy. "Such a thing to waste words on, with all else we must confront. Let it go, Fitz, and I will as well. Let her refer to me as 'she' as much as she wishes. I will do my best to ignore it."

I should have left it alone. I did not. "It is only that she thinks that you love me," I tried to explain.

He gave me an odd look. "I do."

"I mean, as a man and a woman love."

He took a breath. "And how is that?"

"I mean…" It half-angered me that he pretended not to understand me. "For bedding. For…"

"And is that how a man loves a woman?" he interrupted me suddenly. "For bedding?"

"It's a part of it!" I felt suddenly defensive but could not say why.

He arched an eyebrow at me and said calmly, "You are confusing plumbing and love again."

"It's more than plumbing!" I shouted at him. A bird abruptly flew off, cawing. I glanced back at Kettle and Starling, who exchanged puzzled glances.

"I see," he said. He thought a bit as I strode ahead of him on the path. Then, from behind me he called out, "Tell me, Fitz, did you love Molly or that which was under her skirts?"

Now it was my turn to be affronted, But I was not going to let him baffle me into silence. "I love Molly and all that is a part of her," I declared. I hated the heat that rose in my cheeks.

"There, now you have said it," the Fool replied as if I had proven his point for him. "And I love you, and all that is a part of you." He cocked his head and the next words held a challenge. "And do you not return that to me?"

He waited. I desperately wished I had never started this discussion. "You know I love you," I said at last, grudgingly. "After all that has been between us, how can you even ask? But I love you as a man loves another man…" Here the Fool leered at me mockingly. Then a sudden glint lit his eyes, and I knew that he was about to do something awful to me.

He leaped to the top of a fallen log. From that height, he gave Starling a triumphant look and cried dramatically, "He loves me, he says! And I love him!" Then with a whoop of wild laughter he leapt down and raced ahead of me on the trail.

I ran my hand back through my hair and then slowly clambered over the log. I heard Kettle laughing and Starling's angry comments. I walked silently through the forest, wishing I'd had the sense to keep my mouth shut. I was certain that Starling was simmering with fury. It was bad enough that lately she had almost no words for me. I had accepted that she found my Wit something of an abomination. She was not the first to be dismayed by it at least she showed some tolerance for me. But now the anger she carried would have a more personal bite to it. One more small loss of what little I had left. A part of me greatly missed the closeness we had shared for a time. I missed the human comfort of having her sleep against my back, or suddenly take my arm when we were walking. I thought I had closed my heart against those needs, but I suddenly missed that simple warmth.

As if that thought had opened a breach in my walls, I suddenly thought of Molly. And Nettle, both in danger because of me. Without warning, my heart was in my throat. I must not think of them, I warned myself, and reminded myself that there was nothing I could do. There was no way I could warn them without betraying them. There was no possible way I could reach them before Regal's henchmen did. All I could do was trust to Burrich's strong right arm, and cling to the hope that Regal did not truly know where they were.

I jumped over a trickling creek and found the Fool waiting for me on the other side. He said nothing as he fell into pace beside me. His merriment seemed to have deserted him.

I reminded myself that I scarcely knew where Molly and Burrich were. Oh, I knew the name of a nearby village, but as long as I kept that to myself, they were safe.

"What you know, I can know."

"What did you say?" I asked the Fool uneasily. His words had replied so exactly to my thoughts that it sent a chill up my spine.

"I said, what you know, I can know," he repeated absently.

"Why?"

"Exactly my thought. Why would I wish to know what you know?"

"No. I mean, why did you say that?"

"In truth, Fitz, I've no idea. The words popped into my head and I said them. I often say things I have not well considered." The last he said almost as an apology.

"As do I," I agreed. I said no more to him, but it bothered me. He seemed, since the incident at the pillar, to be much more of the Fool I remembered from Buckkeep. I welcomed his sudden growth in confidence and spirits but I also worried that he might have too much faith in events flowing as they should. I also recalled that his sharp tongue was more prone to bare conflicts than resolve them. I myself had felt its edge more than once, but in the context of King Shrewd's court, I had expected it. Here, in such a small company, it seemed to cut more sharply. I wondered if there were any way I could soften his razor humor. I shook my head to myself, then resolutely dredged up Kettle's latest game problem and kept it before my mind even as I clambered over-forest debris and sidestepped hanging branches.

As late afternoon wore on, our path led us deeper and deeper into a valley. At one point the ancient trail afforded a view of what lay below us. I glimpsed the green-beaded, trailing branches of willows coming into leaf and the rose-tinged trunks of paper birches presiding over a deeply grassed meadow. Beyond I saw the brown standing husks of last year's cattails deeper in the vale. Toe lush rankness of the grasses and ferns foretold swampland as surely as the green smell of standing water did. When the ranging wolf came back wet to his flanks, I knew I was right.

Before long we came to where an energetic stream had long ago washed out a bridge and devoured the road to either side of it. Now it trickled shining and silver in a gravelly bed, but the fallen trees on either bank attested to its flood time fury. A chorus of frogs stilled suddenly at our approach. I went rock to rock to get past it with dry feet. We had not gone far before a second stream crossed our path. Given a choice of wet feet or wet boots, I chose the former. The water was icy. The only kindness was that it numbed my feet from the stones in its bed. On the far side I put my boots back on. Our small company had closed its ranks as the trail grew more difficult. Now we continued to march silently together. Blackbirds called and early insects hummed.

"So much life here," Kettricken said softly. Her words seemed to hang in the still sweet air. I found myself nodding in agreement. So much life around us, both green and animal. It filled my Wit-sense and seemed to hang in the air like a mist. After the barren stones of the mountains and the deserted Skill road, this abundance of life was heady.