I glanced down at my embroidered nightshirt, at the rich bedcovers. Something seemed odd about them. I was too tired and weak to puzzle it out. "What are you doing here?" I asked him.

He took a breath and sighed. "I am tending you. Watching over you while you sleep. I know you think it foolish, but then, I am the Fool. You know then that I must be foolish. Yet you ask me this same thing every time you awake. Let me then propose something wiser. I beg you, my lord, let me send for another healer."

I leaned back against my pillows. They were sweat damp, and smelled sour to me. I knew I could ask the Fool to change them and he would. But I would just sweat anew if he did. It was useless. I clutched at my covers with gnarled fingers. I asked him bluntly, "Why have you come here?"

He took my hand in his and patted it. "My lord, I mistrust this sudden weakness. You seem to take no good from this healer's ministrations. I fear that his knowledge is much smaller than his opinion of it."

"Burrich?" I asked incredulously.

"Burrich? Would that he were here, my lord! He may be the stablemaster, but for all that, I warrant he is more of a healer than this Wallace who doses and sweats you."

"Wallace? Burrich is not here?"

The Fool's face grew graver. "No, my king. He remained in the Mountains, as well you know."

"Your king," I said, and attempted to laugh. "Such mockery."

"Never, my lord," he said gently. "Never."

His tenderness confused me. This was not the Fool I knew, full of twisting words and riddles, of sly jabs and puns and cunning insults. I felt suddenly stretched thin as old rope, and as frayed. Still, I tried to piece things together. "Then I am in Buckkeep?"

He nodded slowly. "Of course you are." Worry pinched his mouth.

I was silent, plumbing the full depth of my betrayal. Somehow I had been returned to Buckkeep. Against my will. Burrich had not even seen fit to accompany me.