He looked haunted. He gave his head a tiny shake. "I didn't think you could live through that, let alone the poison. So we offered no hope to anyone. And then, when we had you out …" He shook his head, more violently. "At first, you were so battered. What they'd done to you there was just so much damage … I don't know what possessed Patience to clean and bind a dead man's wounds, but if she hadn't … Then later … it was not you. After those first few weeks, I was sickened at what we had done. Put a wolf's soul in a man's body, it seemed to me."

He looked at me again, his face going incredulous at the memory. "You went for my throat. The first day you could stand on your own, you wanted to run away. I wouldn't let you and you went for my throat. I could not show Patience that snarling, snapping creature, let alone …"

"Do you think Molly … ?" I began.

Burrich looked away from me. "Probably she heard you died." After a time, he added, uncomfortably, "Someone had burned a candle on your grave., The snow had been pushed away, and the wax stump was there still when I came to dig you up."

"Like a dog after a bone."

"I was fearful you would not understand it."

"I did not. I just took Nighteyes' word for it."

It was as much as I could handle, just then. I tried to let the conversation die. But Burrich was relentless. "If you went back to Buckkeep, or Buckkeep Town, they would kill you. They'd hang you over water and burn your body. Or dismember it. But folk would be sure you stayed dead this time."

"Did they hate me so?"

"Hate you? No. They liked you well enough, those that knew you. But if you came back, a man who had died and been buried, again walking among them, they'd fear you. It's not a thing you could explain away as a trick.. The Wit is not a magic that is well thought of.