When a man is accused of it and then dies and is buried, well, in order for them to remember you fondly, you'd have to stay dead. If they saw you walking about, they'd take it as proof that Regal was right; that you were practicing Beast magic, and used it to kill the King. They'd have to kill you again. More thoroughly the second time." Burrich stood suddenly, and paced the room twice. "Damn me, but I could use a drink," he said.

"Me, too," I said quietly.

Ten days later, Chade came up the path. The old assassin walked slowly, with a staff, and he carried his pack up high on his shoulders. The day was warm, and he had thrown back the hood of his cloak. His long gray hair blew in the wind and he had let his beard grow to cover more of his face. At first glance, he looked to be an itinerant tinker. A scarred old man, perhaps, but no longer the Pocked Man. Wind and sun had weathered his face. Burrich had gone fishing; a thing he preferred to do alone. Nighteyes had come to sun himself on our doorstep in Burrich's absence, but had melted back into the woods behind the hut at the first waft of Chade's scent on the air. I stood alone.

For a time I watched him come. The winter had aged him, in the lines of his face and the gray of his hair. But he walked more strongly than I remembered, as if privation had toughened him. At last I went to meet him, feeling strangely shy and embarrassed. When he looked up and saw me, he halted and stood in the trail. I continued toward him. "Boy?" he asked cautiously when I was near. I managed a nod and a smile. The answering smile that broke forth on his face humbled me. He dropped his staff to hug me, and then pressed his cheek to mine as if I were a child. "Oh, Fitz, Fitz, my boy," he said in a voice full of relief. "I thought we had lost you. I thought we'd done something worse than let you die." His old arms were tight and strong about me.

I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him that they had.