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as he loaded a platter. He sliced the bread lengthwise and covered two bowls of the hot stew with a slab of it, and then loaded a wedge of cheese and a thick slice of yellow butter onto the side of it.
    “What do you think of Hands?”
    “He’s a good lad,” Burrich said grudgingly.
    “He’s more than that. You chose him to stay in the Mountain Kingdom and ride home with us, when you sent all the others back with the main caravan.”
    “I needed someone steady. At that time you were … very ill. And I wasn’t much better, truth to tell.” He lifted a hand to a streak of white in his dark hair, testimony to the blow that had nearly killed him.
    “How did you come to choose him?”
    “I didn’t, really. He came to me. Somehow he found where they’d housed us, and then talked his way past Jonqui. I was still bandaged up and scarce able to make my eyes focus. I felt him standing there more than saw him. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me that I needed to put someone in charge, because with me sick and Cob gone, the stable help were getting sloppy.”
    “And that impressed you.”
    “He got to the point. No idle questions about me, or you, or what was going on. He had found the thing he could do and come to do it. I like that in a man. Knowing what he can do, and doing it. So I put him in charge. He managed it well. I kept him when I sent the others home because I knew I might need a man who could do that. And also to see for myself what he was. Was he all ambition, or was there a genuine understandingof what a man owes a beast when he claims to own him? Did he want power over those under him, or the well-being of his animals?”
    “What do you think of him now?”
    “I am not so young as I once was. I think there still may be a good stablemaster in Buckkeep stables when I can no longer manage an ill-tempered stallion. Not that I expect to step down soon. There is still much he needs to be taught. But we are both still young enough, him to learn and me to teach. There is a satisfaction in that.”
    I nodded. Once, I supposed, he had planned that spot for me. Now we both knew it would never be.
    He turned to go. “Burrich,” I said quietly. He paused. “No one can replace you. Thank you. For all you’ve done these last few months. I owe you my life. Not just that you saved me from death. But you gave me my life, and who I am. Ever since I was six. Chivalry was my father, I know. But I never met him. You’ve fathered me day in and day out, over a lot of years. I didn’t always appreciate—”
    Burrich snorted and opened the door. “Save speeches like that for when one of us is dying. Go report, and then go to bed.”
    “Yes, sir,” I heard myself say, and knew that he smiled even as I did. He shouldered the door open and bore Hands’s dinner out to the stables for him. He was home there.
    And this, here, was my home. Time I dealt with that. I took a moment to straighten my damp clothing and run a hand through my hair. I cleared our dishes from the table and then folded my wet smock over my arm.
    As I made my way from the kitchen to the hall, and then to the Great Hall, I was mystified by what I saw. Did the tapestries glow more brightly than they once had? Had the strewing herbs always smelled so sweet, the carved woodwork by each doorway always gleamed so warmly? Briefly I put it down to my relief at finally being home. But when I paused at the foot of the great stair to take up a candle to light my way up to my chamber, I noticed that the table there was not bespattered with wax, and more, that an embroidered cloth graced it.
    Kettricken.
    There was a Queen at Buckkeep now. I found myself smiling foolishly. So. This great fortress castle had had a going-over in my absence. Had Verity bestirred himself and his folk before her arrival, or had Kettricken herself demanded this vast scrubbing out? It would be interesting to find out.
    As I climbed the great staircase I noticed other things. The