“Do you know what it means when she names you Sacrifice like that? Do you know how my mother thinks of you?” He pushed the bread toward me. “You should eat. You look awful.” He took a breath. “When she names you Sacrifice, it means that she thinks of you as the rightful King of the Six Duchies. She probably has since my father died. Or went into his dragon.”
That jerked my eyes to him. Truly, she had told him all, and it shocked me to my spine. I glanced over at Thick dozing before the fire. The Prince’s eyes followed mine. He said nothing, but Thick suddenly opened his eyes and turned to face him. “This is terrible food,” the Prince observed to him. “Do you think you could get us better in the kitchens? Something sweet, perhaps?”
A wide grin spread over Thick’s face. “I can get that. I know what they got down there. Dried berry and apple pie.” He licked his lips. When he stood, I saw with surprise the Farseer Buck sigil on the breast of his tunic.
“Go the way we came, and come back the same way, please. It’s important to remember that.”
Thick nodded ponderously. “Important. I remember. I know that a long time now. Go through the pretty door; come back through the pretty door. And only when no one else can see.”
“Good man, Thick. I don’t know how I ever got along without you.” There was satisfaction in the Prince’s voice, and something else. Not condescension, but . . . ah. I grasped it. Pride in possession. He spoke to Thick as a man might speak to a prized wolfhound.
As the half-wit left, I asked him, “You’ve made Thick your man? Openly?”
“If my grandfather could have a skinny albino boy as a jester and companion, why should I not have a half-wit as mine?”
I winced. “You do not let folk mock him, do you?”
“Of course not. Did you know he could sing? His voice gives the music an odd tone, but the notes are true. I do not keep him by me always, but often enough that no one remarks him any longer. And it helps that he and I can speak privately, so that he knows when I wish him by me and when I wish him to go.” He nodded, well pleased with himself. “I think he is happier now. He has discovered the pleasures of a hot bath and clean clothes. And I give him simple toys that please him. Only one thing worries me. The woman who helps him take care of himself told me that she has known two others like him in her life. She says they do not live as long as an ordinary man does, that Thick might already be close to the end of his days. Do you know if that is true?”
“I’ve no idea, my prince.”
I offered the honorific without thinking. It made him grin. “And what shall I call you, if you call me that? Honored cousin? Lord FitzChivalry?”
“Tom Badgerlock,” I reminded him flatly.
“Of course. And Lord Golden. I confess, it is much easier for me to accept you as Lord FitzChivalry than for me to imagine Lord Golden as a jester in motley.”
“He has traveled a far journey from those days,” I said, and tried to keep regret from my voice. “When did the Queen decide to tell you all the family secrets?”
“The night after we healed you. She brought me back later through the secret corridors to your chamber, and we spent all night sitting by your bed. After a time, she just started talking. She told me that, with your scars erased, you looked very like my father. That sometimes, when she looked at you, she saw him in your eyes. And then she told me all of it. Not in one evening. I think it was three nights before the tale was told out. And all the while she sat by your bed on a cushion and held your hand. She made me sit on the floor. She allowed no one else in the room.”
“I did not even know you had been there. Nor she.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Your body was healed, but the rest of you was as close to dead as makes no difference. I could not reach you with the Skill, and to my Wit you were like the spark at the end of a candlewick. At any moment, you could have winked out. But while she held your hand and spoke, you seemed to burn brighter. I think she sensed that as well. It was as if she tried to anchor you to life.”
I lifted my hands and let them fall helplessly back to the table. “I don’t know how to deal with this,” I confessed abruptly. “I don’t know how to react to your knowing all these things.”
“I should think you’d feel relieved. Even if we must still maintain the charade of Tom Badgerlock about the keep for some time yet. At least here, in private, you can be who you are and not worry so much about guarding your tongue. Which you don’t do very well in any case. Eat your soup. I don’t want to have to warm it again.”
