“Perhaps. But he is buried deep. Drugs, and pain even more so, will drive a sagacious man to foolish acts. A man dying of his wounds will leap to his horse to lead a last charge. Pain can make a man take risks, or assert himself in strange ways.”

What he was saying made all too much sense. “Cannot you counsel him against letting Regal know that he knows Verity is alive?”

“I could try, perhaps. Were not that damnable Wallace always in my way. It was not so bad at first; at first, he was tractable and useful, easy to manipulate from afar. He never knew I was behind the herbs the peddlers brought him; never even suspected I existed. But now he clings to the King like a limpet, and not even the Fool can drive him away for long. I seldom have more than a few minutes with Shrewd at a time anymore. And I am lucky if my brother is lucid for half of them.”

There was something in his voice. I lowered my head, shamed. “I am sorry,” I said quietly. “Sometimes I forget that he is more to you than just your king.”

“Well. We were never really that close, that way. But we are two old men, who have grown old together. Sometimes that is a greater closeness. We have come through time to your day and age. We can talk together, quietly, and share memories of a time that exists no more. I can tell you how it was, but it is not the same. It is like being two foreigners, trapped in a land we have come to, unable to return to our own, and having only each other to confirm the reality of the place we once lived. At least, once we could.”

I thought of two children running wild on the beaches of Buckkeep, plucking sheel off the rocks and eating them raw. Molly and I. It was possible to be homesick for a time, and to be lonely for the only other person who could recall it. I nodded.

“Ah. Well. Tonight we contemplate salvage. Now. Listen to me. On this I must have your word. You will not take actions of major consequence without conferring with me first.

Agreed?”

I looked down. “I want to say yes. I am willing to agree to it. But lately even small actions of mine seem to take on consequences like a pebble in a landslide. And events pile up to where I have to make a choice suddenly, with no chance to consult anyone else. So I cannot promise. But I will promise to try. Is that enough?”

“I suppose. Catalyst,” he muttered.

“So the Fool calls me, too,” I complained.

Chade stopped abruptly in the midst of starting to say something. “Does he really?” he asked intently.

“He clubs me with the word every chance he gets.” I walked down to Chade’s hearth and sat down before his fire. The heat felt good. “Burrich says that too strong a dose of elfbark can lead to bleak spirits afterward.”

“Do you find it so?”

“Yes. But it could be the circumstances. Yet Verity seemed often depressed, and he used it frequently. Again, it could be the circumstances.”

“It may be we shall never know.”

“You speak very freely tonight. Naming names, ascribing motives.”

“All is gaiety in the Great Hall tonight. Regal was certain he had bagged his game. All his watches were relaxed, all his spies given a night’s liberty.” He looked at me sourly. “I am sure it will not be the same again for a while.”

“So you think what we say here can be listened to.”

“Anywhere I can listen and peep, from there it is possible I could be overheard and spied upon. Only just possible. But one does not get to be as old as I am by taking chances.”

An old memory suddenly made sense. “You once told me that in the Queen’s Garden, you are blind.”

“Exactly.”

“So you did not know—”

“I did not know what Galen was putting you through, at the time he was doing it. I was privy to gossip, much of it unreliable and all of it far after the fact. But on the night he beat you and left you to die … No.” He looked at me strangely. “Had you believed I could know of such a thing and take no action?”

“You had promised not to interfere with my instruction,” I said stiffly.

Chade took his chair, leaned back with a sigh. “I don’t think you will ever completely trust anyone. Or believe that someone cares about you.”

Silence filled me. I didn’t know the answer. First Burrich and now Chade, forcing me to look at myself in uncomfortable ways.

“Ah, well,” Chade conceded to my silence. “As I began to say earlier. Salvage.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He breathed out through his nose. “Nothing.”