We fled through the trooping servants, just one more small boy and his dog racing about in the courtyard, and Nosy took me to what he obviously regarded as the safest place in the world. Far from the kitchen and the inner keep was a hollow Vixen had scraped out under a corner of a rickety outbuilding where sacks of peas and beans were stored. Here Nosy had been whelped, in total defiance of Burrich, and here she had managed to keep her pups hidden for almost three days. Burrich himself had found her there. His smell was the first human smell Nosy could recall. It was a tight squeeze to get under the building, but once within, the den was warm and dry and semidark. Nosy huddled close to me and I put my arm around him. Hidden there, our hearts soon eased down from their wild thumpings, and from calmness we passed into the deep dreamless sleep reserved for warm spring afternoons and puppies.

I came awake shivering, hours later. It was full dark and the tenuous warmth of the early-spring day had fled. Nosy was awake as soon as I was, and together we scraped and slithered out of the den.

There was a high night sky over Buckkeep, with stars shining bright and cold. The smell of the bay was stronger as if the day smells of men and horses and cooking were temporary things that had to surrender each night to the ocean's power. We walked down deserted pathways, through exercise yards and past granaries and the winepress. All was still and silent. As we drew closer to the inner keep I saw torches still burning and heard voices still raised in talk. But it all seemed tired somehow, the last vestiges of revelry winding down before dawn came to lighten the skies. Still, we skirted the inner keep by a wide margin, having had enough of people.