At my harsh words, he shuddered and then swayed, like a sapling that feels the first blow of the axe. When he spoke, his words were faint. “We know what is real between us, Fitz. What others may wonder about should remain their issue, not ours.” Slowly he turned from me, ending the discussion.

I almost let him go. It was such a long habit with me, to accept the Fool’s decisions on such things. But suddenly it did matter to me what others in the keep gossiped about, what Hap might overhear as a crude jest in a Buckkeep Town inn. “I want to know!” I suddenly roared at him. “It does matter, and I want to know, once and for all. Who are you? What are you? I’ve seen the Fool, I’ve seen Lord Golden, and I heard you speak to that Jek in a woman’s voice. Amber. I confess that baffles me most of all. Why would you live as a woman in Bingtown? Why do you allow Jek to go on believing that you are a woman and in love with me?”

He did not look at me. I thought he would let my questions go unanswered, as he so often had before. Then, he took a breath and spoke quietly. “I became Amber because she most suited my purpose and needs in Bingtown. I walked amongst them as a foreigner and a woman, unthreatening and without power. In that guise, all felt free to speak to me, slave and Trader, man and woman. That role suited my needs, Fitz. Just as Lord Golden fulfills them now.”

His words cut right to my heart. I spoke coldly what injured me most. “Then the Fool too was only a role? Someone you became because it ‘suited your purpose’? And what was your purpose? To gain a doddering king’s trust? To befriend a royal bastard? Did you become what we most needed in order to get close to us?”

He was not looking at me, but as I gazed at his motionless profile, he closed his eyes. Then he spoke. “Of course I did. Make of that what you will.”

His words were like spurs to my fury. “I see. None of it was real. I’ve never known you at all then, have I?” I expected no answer as for an instant I strangled silently on my anger and insult.

Then, “Yes. You have. You more than anyone in my life.” He looked down now and stillness seemed to grow around him.

“If that is true, then I think you owe me the truth about yourself. What is the reality, Fool, not what you jest about or allow others to suspect? Who and what are you? What is it you feel for me?”

He looked at me at last. His eyes were stricken. But as I continued to gaze at him, demanding this knowledge, I saw his own anger come to life there. He suddenly stood straight and gave a small huff of disdain, as if unbelieving that I could ask. He shook his head then drew a deep breath. The words rushed out of him in a torrent. “You know who I am. I have even given you my true name. As for what I am, you know that, too. You seek a false comfort when you demand that I define myself for you with words. Words do not contain or define any person. A heart can, if it is willing. But I fear yours is not. You know more of the whole of me than any other person who breathes, yet you persist in insisting that all of that cannot be me. What would you have me cut off and leave behind? And why must I truncate myself in order to please you? I would never ask that of you. And by those words, admit another truth. You know what I feel for you. You have known it for years. Let us not, you and I, alone here, pretend that you don’t. You know I love you. I always have. I always will.” He spoke the words levelly. He said them as if they were inevitable. There was no trace of either shame or triumph in his voice. Then he waited. Words such as that always demand an answer.

I took a deep breath and managed the elfbark’s black mood. I spoke honestly and bluntly. “And you know that I love you, Fool. As a man loves his dearest friend. I feel no shame in that. But to let Jek or Starling or anyone think that we take it beyond friendship’s bound, that you would want to lie with me, is—” I paused. I waited for his agreement. It did not come. Instead, he met my eyes with his open amber gaze. There was no denial in them.

“I love you,” he said quietly. “I set no boundaries on my love. None at all. Do you understand me?”

“Only too well, I fear!” I replied, and my voice shook. I took a deep breath and my words grated out. “I would never . . . do you understand me? I could never desire you as a bed partner. Never.”

He glanced aside from me. A faint rose came to his cheeks, not of shame, but of some other deep passion. He spoke quietly in a controlled voice. “And that too is a thing that we both have known for years. A thing that never needed speaking, those words that I must now carry with me for the rest of my life.” He turned to look at me, but his eyes seemed blinded. “We could have gone all our lives and never had this conversation. Now you have doomed us both to recall it forever.”