Golden Fool

“My, Prokie sounds charming,” the Prince muttered sarcastically. Thick swung a suspicious glare to him.



I clarified it for him. “The Prince is saying that he thinks Prokie was mean to you.”



Thick sucked on his upper lip for a moment, then nodded as he warned us, “Don’t call Prokie ‘Papa.’ Not ever.”



“Not ever,” the Prince agreed wholeheartedly. And I think that moment was when Dutiful’s feelings toward Thick changed. He cocked his head as he regarded the grimy misshapen little man. “Thick. Can you Skill to me? So that only I can hear, not Tom?”



“Why?” Thick demanded.



“To be a student here, Thick,” I intervened. “To be a student and not a servant.”



For a time, Thick sat silent. The end of his tongue curled over his upper lip. Then the Prince laughed aloud. “Dogstink? Why do you call him ‘dogstink’?”



Thick made a face and then rolled one shoulder as if he didn’t know. And in the moment I sensed a secret. It wasn’t that he didn’t know why. He held something back. Did he fear something?



I feigned a laugh I didn’t feel. “It’s okay, Thick. Go ahead and tell him, if you want.”



For a moment, it seemed to confuse him. Had someone told him that I must not be told something? Chade? He had a small frown on his brow as he regarded the Prince. Then he spoke. I expected him to reveal to the Prince that he knew I had the Wit, and that somehow he had sensed that my Wit-beast had been a wolf. Instead, he said words that made me sick with fear. “S’what they call him when they ask me about him. The town ones that give me pennies for nuts and sweets. Stinking dog of a traitor.” He turned to me, smirking, and I forced my rictus grin to widen. I chuckled.



“They do, do they? Those rascals!” Smile, Dutiful. Laugh aloud, but do not Skill back to me. I kept the sending as small and tight as I could. Even so, I saw Thick’s gaze flicker from me to the Prince. Dutiful’s face was white, but he laughed aloud, a stark “ha-ha-ha” that sounded more like a man retching than laughter. I took a last chance. “That would be the one-armed man that says it most, isn’t it?”



Thick’s smile grew uncertain. I thought I had guessed wrong, but then he said, “No. Not him. He’s new. He hardly talks. But when I tell, and they give me pennies, then he says, sometimes, ‘Watch that bastard. Watch him well.’ And I say, ‘I do. I do.’ ”



“Well. And a fine job you do, Thick. A fine job and you earn your pennies well.”



He rocked back and forth in his chair, pleased with himself. “I watch the gold man, too. He’s got a pretty little horse. And a hat, with eye feathers in it.”



“Yes, he does,” I admitted, my mouth dry. “Like the eye feather you wanted.”



“I can have it, when he’s gone,” Thick told me complacently. “The town ones said so.”



I felt I could not find air to breathe. Thick sat there, nodding and pleased. Chade’s dim servant, too dim to know a secret if it bit him, had sold us for pennies. And all because I was too dim to see that he who walks unknowingly among one man’s secrets may still carry other secrets of his own. But what had he seen, and to whom had he told it? “Lessons are over for today,” I managed to say. I hoped he would just go, but he sat still, musing.



“I do a fine job. I do. Not my fault the rat died. I didn’t want him anyway. He said, ‘The rat will be your friend,’ and I said no, I got bit by a rat once, but they said, ‘Take him anyway, this rat is nice. Bring him food and bring him back to visit us each week.’ So I did. Then he died, under the bowl. I think the bowl fell on him.”



“Probably so, Thick. Probably so. But that’s not your fault. Not at all.” I wanted to race through the corridors of Buckkeep and find Chade. But the slow, cold truth was rising up around me. Chade hadn’t seen this. Chade hadn’t known about this. Chade could no longer protect his apprentice. It was time I learned to fend for myself. I lifted a finger as if I had suddenly recalled something. “Oh, Thick. Today isn’t the day you go to see them, is it?”



Thick looked at me as if I were stupid. “No. Not on the bread-making day. On the washing day. When the sheets hang to dry. Then I go, and I get my pennies.”



“On the washing day. Of course. That’s tomorrow. That’s good, then. Because I didn’t forget about the pink sugar cake. I wanted to give it to you today. Could you wait for me in Chade’s room for a while? I might not be fast, but I want to bring it to you.”