But then, as if to belie his own words, he steered me into the watch room off the kitchen and unceremoniously dumped me at one of the long benches beside the scarred wooden table. The watch room smelled incredibly good. Here was where any soldier, no matter how muddy or snowy or drunk, could come and find comfort. Cook always kept a kettle of stew simmering over the fire here, and bread and cheese waited on the table, as well as a slab of yellow summer butter from the deep larder. Burrich served us up bowls of hot stew thick with barley and mugs of cold ale to go with the bread and butter and cheese.

For a moment I just looked at it, too weary to lift a spoon. But the smell tempted me to one mouthful and that was all it took. Midway through, I paused to shoulder out of my quilted smock and break off another slab of bread. I looked up from my second bowl of stew to find Burrich watching me with amusement. “Better?” he asked.

I stopped to think about it. “Yes.” I was warm, fed, and though I was tired, it was a good weariness, one that might be cured by simple sleep. I lifted my hand and looked at it. I could still feel the tremors, but they were no longer obvious to the eye. “Much better.” I stood, and found my legs steady under me.

“Now you’re fit to report to the King.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Now? Tonight? King Shrewd’s long abed. I won’t get past his door guard.”

“Perhaps not, and you should be grateful for that. But you must at least announce yourself there tonight. It’s the King’s decision as to when he will see you. If you’re turned away, then you can go to bed. But I’ll wager that if King Shrewd turns you aside, King-in-Waiting Verity will still want a report. And probably right away.”

“Are you going back to the stables?”

“Of course.” He smiled in wolfish self-satisfaction. “Me, I’m just the stablemaster, Fitz. I have nothing to report. And I promised Hands I’d bring him something to eat.”

I watched silently as he loaded a platter. He sliced the bread lengthwise and covered two bowls of the hot stew with a slab of it, and then loaded a wedge of cheese and a thick slice of yellow butter onto the side of it.

“What do you think of Hands?”

“He’s a good lad,” Burrich said grudgingly.

“He’s more than that. You chose him to stay in the Mountain Kingdom and ride home with us, when you sent all the others back with the main caravan.”

“I needed someone steady. At that time you were … very ill. And I wasn’t much better, truth to tell.” He lifted a hand to a streak of white in his dark hair, testimony to the blow that had nearly killed him.

“How did you come to choose him?”

“I didn’t, really. He came to me. Somehow he found where they’d housed us, and then talked his way past Jonqui. I was still bandaged up and scarce able to make my eyes focus. I felt him standing there more than saw him. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me that I needed to put someone in charge, because with me sick and Cob gone, the stable help were getting sloppy.”

“And that impressed you.”

“He got to the point. No idle questions about me, or you, or what was going on. He had found the thing he could do and come to do it. I like that in a man. Knowing what he can do, and doing it. So I put him in charge. He managed it well. I kept him when I sent the others home because I knew I might need a man who could do that. And also to see for myself what he was. Was he all ambition, or was there a genuine understanding of what a man owes a beast when he claims to own him? Did he want power over those under him, or the well-being of his animals?”

“What do you think of him now?”

“I am not so young as I once was. I think there still may be a good stablemaster in Buckkeep stables when I can no longer manage an ill-tempered stallion. Not that I expect to step down soon. There is still much he needs to be taught. But we are both still young enough, him to learn and me to teach. There is a satisfaction in that.”

I nodded. Once, I supposed, he had planned that spot for me. Now we both knew it would never be.

He turned to go. “Burrich,” I said quietly. He paused. “No one can replace you. Thank you. For all you’ve done these last few months. I owe you my life. Not just that you saved me from death. But you gave me my life, and who I am. Ever since I was six. Chivalry was my father, I know. But I never met him. You’ve fathered me day in and day out, over a lot of years. I didn’t always appreciate—”

Burrich snorted and opened the door. “Save speeches like that for when one of us is dying. Go report, and then go to bed.”