“Let’s go home,” I offered.

She gave me a weary nod, and we left the tavern. The cold streets were lit only by what lamplight leaked from the windows. As we left the houses behind and began the long walk up the dark road to the keep, I asked her unwillingly, “What will you do? Will you leave Buckkeep?”

“And go where? Take this home to my family? I think not.” She drew a breath and sighed it out, steaming, in the cold night. “Yet I think you are right. I cannot stay here. What will they do next? What is worse than killing my horse?”

We both knew several answers to that. The rest of the way, we walked in silence. Yet she was neither angry nor taciturn. I could sense her eyes straining through the uncertain moonlight, and her head turned to every small sound. My vigilance matched hers. I broke the silence once, to ask, “Is it true, that Witted go to the Stuck Pig?”

She gave a shrug. “So it is said of that tavern. Folk say it of many dives. ‘Fit for the Witted.’ Surely you’ve heard that phrase before.”

I hadn’t, but I filed the information away. Perhaps in that slander lurked a germ of truth. Was there a tavern in Buckkeep Town where the Witted congregated? Who would know? What might I learn there?

Just past the gates of Buckkeep Castle, I saw her “apprentice” hastening to meet us. He wore a worried expression. At the sight of me, it changed to a snarl. Laurel sighed and took her hand from my arm. She walked unsteadily toward him and he all but swooped her up. Despite whatever her soft words were, he glared at me suspiciously before escorting her toward her chambers. Before I sought my own room for the night, I made a quick and quiet tour of the stables. Myblack greeted me with her usual warm show of indifference. I could scarcely blame the horse; I had not had much time for her lately. In truth, she was to me “just a horse.” I rode her when Lord Golden rode Malta, but other than that, I trusted her care to the stable hands. It suddenly seemed a callous way to treat her, but I knew that I had no time to give her more. I wondered what the Piebalds had intended. If our horses had been left in the far paddock, would they have been stolen? Or worse?

Wit sense straining, I strolled past every stall and scrutinized every drowsy stable boy and hand there. I saw no one that I recognized, and Laudwine was not lurking beneath the stairs or outside the door. Nonetheless, I did not feel at ease until I was in Chade’s upper chambers that night. He was not there, but I left him a full written account.

We discussed it the next day, but came to no real conclusion. He would rebuke Laurel’s bodyguard for letting her slip away alone. He could not think of any way to keep Laurel safer without confining her even more tightly. “And she would not care for that. She does not like that I have a man beside her. Yet, what more can I do, Fitz? She is valuable to us, for it may be she will draw these Piebalds out of hiding.”

“At what cost?” I had asked him harshly.

“As little as we can make it,” he replied grimly.

“Why did they want my horse and Lord Golden’s?”

Chade lifted a brow at me. “You know more of Witted magic than I do. Could they ensorcel them to throw you, or somehow use them to listen in on your words?”

“The Wit doesn’t work that way,” I said wearily. “Why our horses? Why not Prince Dutiful’s? It is almost as if the Fool and I were their targets rather than the Prince.”

Chade looked uncomfortable. Almost reluctantly, he suggested quietly, “A cautious man might wish to follow that thought and see where it led.”

I stared at him, wondering what the old assassin was telling me in his obscure way. He folded his lips and shook his head at me, as if he regretted having spoken the words. Shortly after that, he made an excuse to leave. I sat pondering before the fire.

In the days that followed, I felt too uncomfortable to call on Jinna. I knew it was foolish, but there it was. I did not feel I owed her an explanation, but I was sure she would expect one. No convenient lie came to me to explain why I had been embracing Laurel in the Stuck Pig. I did not want to discuss Laurel with Jinna at all. It would lead her too close to dangerous topics. Hence, I did not visit Jinna at all.

On the occasions when I went down to Buckkeep Town, I sought Hap at his workplace. Our conversations there were brief and unsatisfactory. The boy seemed very aware of the other apprentices watching us talk, and spoke his words to me as if he were displaying to them his anger with his master. He was frustrated too with his stalled courtship of Svanja. Her father was putting up barriers to his seeing the girl, and refused to speak with Hap on the streets. I sensed that some of Hap’s anger was for me. He seemed to think I neglected him, yet when it came to finding time to meet with me in the evening, he preferred Svanja’s company. I kept resolving that I would do better with Hap and make amends with Jinna, but somehow the days dribbled past and I could not find the time to accomplish either task.