“Yet with you or without you, it is something I must do. I have no choice. And so I make my own plans.”

“We always have choices, even when all of them seem bad.”

“I have only one path,” he insisted. He shook his head, then reached to smooth down the cloud of pale hair that stood up around his face. His voice changed. “Fitz, I have begun to have dreams again. As I did when I was a child.”

“We all have dreams.”

“No. Not everyone has these sorts of dreams. These dreams are to ordinary dreams as drinking wine is to smelling it! They are unmistakably significant.”

“Are they from the dragon blood? I remember that you told me you had dragon-dreams. Of hunting and flying.”

He dismissed my question with a wave of his long-fingered hand. “No. Those were different. These are … Fitz, I know what lies ahead of us. In glimpses. We must be on our way. I dream of the Wolf from the West.”

He watched me carefully as he spoke. The words rang familiarly in my ears but I could not place where I had heard them before. It was my turn to shake my head. “I must go, Fool. There are things there that must be settled.”

He folded his lips. “With you or without you, old friend. With you or without you.”

And so I left him. It seemed a poor way to part and I was silent as we rode away from Buckkeep Castle. I rode a sturdy mare from the stables that did not mind the panniers. Perseverance rode at my stirrup, likewise silent. I think he more dreaded than welcomed the thought of a visit home.

Our journey was uneventful. The weather held fair; my guard was well behaved at the inns and Foxglove seemed pleased with them. As we drew closer to Withywoods my heart grew heavy and Perseverance morose. As we left the road and entered the long driveway, the drooping birches with their burden of snow arched over us and dimmed the day. At one point Perseverance turned his head and stared, and I knew that was where he had fallen to a Chalcedean arrow. Neither of us spoke of it.

We saw the burnt stables before we glimpsed the house. I’d given orders that the remainder of the barn and the bones of those who had perished there be burned on the site. Now the debris had been cleared away, leaving an ashy black area of trampled snow around the stone foundation. New timbers were rising; one end was already closed in. A bulldog came barking and snarling to meet us. A girl ran out to seize his collar and drag him back.

“It’s the master!” shouted someone in the stables, and I saw someone hurry toward the house. Several hands came to take my horse and Foxglove’s mount and direct the guard where they could stable their beasts. I released Perseverance to help them.

Steward Dixon greeted us in a coat festooned with bone buttons dyed yellow and green, obviously enjoying his elevated status. I could think only that he was not Revel. He told me that all had rejoiced at news of Lady Shun’s rescue. He hoped she was doing well, for he recalled her fondly. He hoped she would soon return. I told him quietly she was settled now in Buckkeep. He asked after FitzVigilant and said he was missed. I replied that he, too, was settled in Buckkeep. Then, in an altered tone, he lowered his eyes and said all were saddened to hear of the loss of Lady Bee. “Such a little thing she was, and still so sweet, even if she was odd. Some might say she was not meant for this harsh world.” I stared at him and he turned red. Abruptly he asked if I would rest or take refreshment, but instead I asked him to show me what had been done in my absence. I had already noted that the entry doors had been skillfully repaired.

So he walked me past mended hangings, empty places where tapestries had been removed for repair, reinforced doorjambs, and walls that no longer bore the scars of blades.

My bedchamber had been put to rights. The locked chest where I kept my personal items had withstood the raiders. Next was Bee’s room. Dixon spoke as softly as if he were in the presence of a dying man. “I allowed her maid to tidy it, sir, and put all back as it was kept before …” His voice trailed away. He opened the door and waited for me to enter. I looked at the smoothly spread bedding, at the little cloak on its hook and the paired slippers by the hearth. All tidy and neat. Everything there but the child. I reached past Dixon and closed the door. “The key, if you please,” I said to him, and he produced his large ring of keys and indicated it to me. I held out my hand and he stared for a moment before he fumbled it free of the others. I locked the door and pocketed the key.

“Proceed,” I told him and we moved on to Shine’s room. It was meticulously tidied as it never had been when she was in residence. “Pack it all up,” I told the luckless steward. “And send it on to her at Buckkeep.”