His inflection puzzled me. “My foster son, Hap. He is apprenticed to a woodworker in Buckkeep Town.”

“Oh.” The single word seemed to fade into silence. Then, “I did not know you had a son.”

The jealousy was courteously masked but it rang green against my sense of him. I did not know how to react to it. I gave him the truth. “I’ve had him since he was eight or so. His mother abandoned him and he had no other folk willing to take him in. He’s a good lad.”

“But he is not truly your son,” the Prince pointed out.

I took a breath and replied firmly, “In every way that matters, he is a son to me.”

Lord Golden sat his horse at the outskirts of our circle. I dared not glance to him for advice. After a time of silence, the Prince tightened his knees and his horse moved forward at a walk. I let Myblack pace him. I was aware of the Fool dawdling along behind us. Just when I thought I must break the silence before it became a wall between us, Dutiful blurted out, “Then what need have you of me, if you already have a son of your own?”

The hunger in his voice shocked me. I think he startled himself, for he suddenly kicked his horse into a trot and rode ahead of me again. I made no effort to catch up with him until the Fool at my side whispered, “Go after him. Don’t let him close himself off from you. You should know by now how easy it is to lose a person, just by letting someone walk away from you.” Even so, I think it was more the prompting of my own heart that made me set my heels to Myblack and catch up with the boy. For boy he very much looked now, chin held firm, eyes straight ahead as he trotted along. He did not look at me as I came alongside him, but I knew he listened when I spoke.

“What need do I have of you? What need do you have of me? Friendship is not always based on need, Dutiful. But I will tell you plainly that I need you in my life. Because of who your father was to me, and because you are your mother’s son. But mostly because you are you, and we have too much in common for me to walk away from you. I would not see you grow up as ignorant of your magics as I did. If I can save you that torment, then perhaps in some way I will have saved myself as well.”

I suddenly ran dry of words. Perhaps, like Prince Dutiful, I was surprised by my own thoughts. Truth can well out of a man like blood from a wound, and it can be just as disconcerting to look at.

“Tell me about my father.”

Perhaps for him the request logically followed what I had said. For me, it jolted. I walked a line here. I felt I owed him whatever I could give him of Verity. Yet how could I tell him stories of his father without revealing my own identity? I had firmly resolved that he would know nothing of my true bloodlines. Now was not the time to reveal to him that I was FitzChivalry Farseer, the Witted Bastard, nor that my body had fathered his. To explain that Verity’s spirit, by strength of his Skill magic, had occupied my flesh for those hours was far too complicated an explanation for the boy. In truth, I could barely accept it myself.