“Teach him?” At Chade’s tentative smile, I groaned. “Chade, no. We don’t know enough between the two of us to be certain that we can teach Dutiful safely, and he is a tractable boy with a bright mind. This Thick of yours is already hostile to me. His insults make me fear that somehow he has detected that I am Witted. And what he has learned on his own is potent enough to be dangerous to me if I try to teach him more.”

“Then you think we should kill him? Or cripple his talent?”

I didn’t want that decision to be mine. I didn’t even want to know that such a decision was being made, yet here I was again, neck deep in Farseer plotting. “I don’t think either of those things,” I muttered. “Cannot we just send him very far away?”

“The weapon we throw away today is the one at our throats tomorrow,” Chade returned implacably. “That is why King Shrewd chose, long ago, to have his bastard grandson close to hand. We must make the same sort of decision with Thick. Use him, or render him useless. There is no middle path.” He held one hand out toward me, palm up, and added, “As we have seen with the Piebalds.”

I do not know if he intended it as a rebuke to me, but his words stung nonetheless. I leaned back in my chair and let the wet cloth fall over my eyes.

“What would you have had me do? Kill them all, not just the Piebalds who lured the Prince away but also the Old Blood elders who came to our aid? And then the Queen’s own Huntswoman? And then the Bresinga family? And Sydel, young Civil Bresinga’s intended, and—”

“I know, I know,” he cut me off as I pointed out the widening circle of assassinations that still would not have completely protected our secret. “And yet, there we are. They have shown us they are swift and competent. You have scarcely been back at Buckkeep for two days, and yet they were watching and ready for you. Am I correct in saying that last night was the first time you had ventured into town?” At my nod he continued. “And they immediately located you. And made very sure that you knew they were aware of you. A deliberate gambit.” He took a deep breath and I saw him turning it over in his mind, trying to see what message they had intended to convey. “They know the Prince is Witted. They know you are Witted. They can destroy either of you whenever they please.”

“We already knew that. I think this was intended in a different way.” I took a breath, put my thoughts in order, and gave him a skeletal account of my encounter. “I see this in a new light now. They wanted me to be frightened, and to think what I could do to be safe from them. I can either be a threat to them, one they would eliminate, or I can be useful to them.” That wasn’t exactly how I had seen it earlier, but the implications now seemed obvious. They had frightened me, and then let me go, to give me time to realize I could not possibly kill them all. Impossible to know how many now shared my secret. The only way I could survive was to become useful to them. What would they ask of me? “Perhaps as a spy within Buckkeep Castle. Or as a weapon within the keep, someone they could turn against the Farseers from within.”