Chade nodded gravely. “I suspect it was the ash residue. You weren’t thinking when you tidied King Shrewd’s room for him. Many times the burned residue of an herb concentrates the potency of the herb. You got it all over your hands and then sat there eating pastries. There was little I could do. I thought you would sleep it off. What possessed you to go downstairs?”

“I don’t know.” Then: “How do you always know so much?” I asked peevishly as he pushed me down into his old chair. He took my usual perch on the hearthstones. Even in my fuddled state, I noticed how fluidly he moved, as if he had somewhere abandoned the cramps and aches of an old man’s body. There was windburned color to his face and arms as well, the tan fading the pocks’ stigma. I had once noticed his resemblance to Shrewd. Now I saw Verity in his face as well.

“I have my little ways of finding things out.” He grinned at me wolfishly. “How much do you remember of Winterfest tonight?”

I winced as I considered it. “Enough to know that tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.” The little servant girl suddenly popped up in my memory. Leaning on my shoulder, her hand on my thigh. Molly. I had to get to Molly tonight and somehow explain things to her. If she came to my room tonight, and I wasn’t there to answer her knock … I started up in my chair, but then another shiver ran up over me. It felt almost like a skin being peeled off me.

“Here. Eat something. Puking your guts out wasn’t the best thing for you, but I’m sure Patience meant well. And under other circumstances, it could have been a lifesaver. No, you idiot, wash your hands first. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

I noticed then the vinegar water set out beside the food. I washed my hands carefully to remove every trace of whatever had clung to them, and then my face, amazed at how much more alert I suddenly felt. “It’s been like an extended dream, all day … is this what Shrewd has been feeling?”

“I’ve no idea. Perhaps not all those burning herbs down there are what I think they are. It was one of the things I wanted to discuss with you tonight. How has Shrewd been? Has this come on him suddenly? How long has Wallace been calling himself a healer?”

“I don’t know.” I hung my head in shame. I forced myself to report to Chade just how lax I had been in his absence. And how stupid. When I was finished, he did not disagree with me.

“Well,” he said heavily. “We can’t undo, we can only salvage. Too much is happening here to sort at one sitting.” He looked at me consideringly. “Much of what you tell me does not surprise me. Forged ones converging still on Buckkeep, the King’s illness lingering. But King Shrewd’s health has declined much more swiftly than I can account for, and the squalor in his rooms makes no sense to me. Unless …” He did not finish the thought. “Perhaps they believe that Lady Thyme was his only defender. Perhaps they think we no longer care; perhaps they believe him an isolated old man, an obstacle to be removed. Your carelessness has drawn them out, at least. And having drawn them out, perhaps we can cut them off.” He sighed. “I thought I could use Wallace as a tool, lead him subtly through the advice of others. He has little knowledge of herbs of his own; the man is a dabbler. But the tool I left carelessly lying about, perhaps another employs now. We shall have to see. Still. There are ways to stop this.”

I bit my tongue before I could utter Regal’s name. “How?” I asked instead.

Chade smiled. “How were you rendered ineffective as an assassin in the Mountain Kingdom?”

I winced at the memory. “Regal revealed my purpose to Kettricken.”

“Exactly. We shall shine a bit of daylight on what goes on in the King’s chambers. Eat while I talk.”

And so I did, listening to him as he outlined my assignments for the next day, but also noting what he chose to feed me. The flavor of garlic predominated, and I knew his confidence in its purifying abilities. I wondered just what I had ingested, and also how much it colored my recollection of my conversation with the Fool. I flinched as I recalled my brusque dismissal of him. He would be another I would have to seek out tomorrow. Chade noticed my preoccupation. “Sometimes,” he observed obliquely, “you have to trust people to understand you are not perfect.”

I nodded, then suddenly yawned immensely. “Beg pardon,” I muttered. My eyelids were suddenly so heavy I could barely keep my head up. “You were saying?”

“No, no. Go to bed. Rest. It’s the real healer.”

“But I haven’t even asked you where you’ve been. Or what you’ve been doing. You move and act as if you’d lost ten years of age.”