They were at table when I entered. If I had run off like this a few weeks ago, Burrich would have leaped up, to shake me and cuff me when I returned. I knew we were past that sort of thing now but the memory gave me a wariness I could not completely disguise. However, his face showed only relief, while Chade looked at me with shame and concern.

"I did not mean to press you that hard," he said earnestly, before I could speak.

"You didn't," I said quietly. "You but put your finger on the spot where I had been pressing myself the most. Sometimes a man doesn't know how badly he's hurt until someone else probes the wound."

I drew up my chair. After weeks of simple food to see cheese and honey and elderberry wine all set out on the table at once was almost shocking. There was a loaf of bread as well to supplement the trout Burrich had caught. For a time we just ate, without talk other than table requests. It seemed to ease the strangeness. But the moment the meal was finished and cleared away, the tension came back.

"I understand your question now," Burrich said abruptly. Chade and I both looked at him in surprise. "A few days ago, when you asked what we would do next. Understand that I had given Verity up as lost. Kettricken carried his heir, but she was safe now in the Mountains. There was no more I could do for her. If I intervened in any way, I might betray her to others. Best to let her stay hidden, safe with her father's people. By the time her child came to an age to reach for his throne… well, if I was not in my grave by then, I supposed I would do what I could. For now, I saw my service to my king as a thing of the past. So when you asked me I saw only the need to take care of ourselves."

"And now?" I asked quietly.

"If Verity lives still, then a pretender has claimed his throne. I am sworn to come to my king's aid. As is Chade. As are you." They were both looking at me very hard.

Run away again.

I can't.

Burrich flinched as if I had poked him with a pin. I wondered, if I moved for the door, would he fling himself upon me to stop me? But he did not speak or move, just waited.

"Not I. That Fitz died," I said bluntly.

Burrich looked as if I had struck him. But Chade asked quietly, "Then why does he still wear King Shrewd's pin?"

I reached up and drew it out of my collar. Here, I had intended to say, here, you take it and all that goes with it. I'm done with it. I haven't the spine for it. Instead I sat and looked at it.

"Elderberry wine?" Chade offered, but not to me.

"It's cool tonight. I'll make tea," Burrich countered.

Chade nodded. Still I sat, holding the red-and-silver pin in my hand. I remembered my king's hands as he'd pushed the pin through the folds of a boy's shirt. "There," he had said. "Now you are mine." But he was dead now. Did that free me from my promise? And the last thing he had said to me? "What have I made of you?" I pushed that question aside once more. More important, what was I now? Was I now what Regal had made of me? Or could I escape that?

"Regal told me," I said consideringly. "That I had but to scratch myself to find Nameless the dog-boy." I looked up and forced myself to meet Burrich's eyes. "It might be nice to be him."

"Would it?" Burrich asked. "There was a time when you did not think so. Who are you, Fitz, if you are not the King's Man? What are you? Where would you go?"

Where would I go, were I free? To Molly, cried my heart. I shook my head, thrusting aside the idea before it could sear me. No. Even before I had lost my life, I had lost her. I considered my empty, bitter freedom. There was only one place I could go, really. I set my will, looked up, and met Burrich's eyes with a firm gaze. "I'm going away. Anywhere. To the Chalced States, to Bingtown. I'm good with animals, I'm a decent scribe, too. I could make a living."

"No doubt of it. But a living is not a life," Burrich pointed out.

"Well, what is?" I demanded, suddenly and truly angry. Why did they have to make this so hard? Words and thoughts suddenly gouted from me like poison from a festering wound. "You'd have me devote myself to my king and sacrifice all else to it, as you did. Give up the woman I love to follow a king like a dog at his heels, as you did. And when that king abandoned you? You swallowed it, you raised his bastard for him. Then they took it all away from you, stable, horses, dogs, men to command. They left you nothing, not even a roof over your head, those kings you were sworn to. So what did you do? With nothing else left to you, you hung on to me, dragged the bastard out of a coffin and forced him back to life. A life I hate, a life I don't want!" I glared at him accusingly.

He stared at me, bereft of words. I wanted to stop, but something drove me on. The anger felt good, like a cleansing fire. I clenched my hands into fists as I demanded, "Why are you always there? Why do you always stand me up again, for them to knock down? For what? To make me owe you something? To give you a claim on my life because you don't have the spine to have a life of your own? All you want to do is make me just like you, a man with no life of my own, a man who gives it all up for my king. Can't you see there's more to being alive than giving it all up for someone else?"

I met his eyes and then looked away from the pained astonishment I saw there. "No," I said dully after a breath. "You don't see, you can't know. You can't even imagine what you've taken away from me. I should be dead, but you wouldn't let me die. All with the best of intentions, always believing you were doing what was right, no matter how it hurt me. But who gave you that right over me? Who decreed you could do this to me?"

There was no sound but my own voice in the room. Chade was frozen, and the look on Burrich's face only made me angrier. I saw him gather himself up. He reached for his pride and dignity as he said quietly, "Your father gave me that task, Fitz. I did my best by you, boy. The last thing my prince told me, Chivalry said to me, "Raise him well. And I…"

"Gave up the next decade of your life to raising someone else's bastard," I cut in with savage sarcasm. "Took care of me, because it was the only thing you really knew how to do. All your life, Burrich, you've been looking after someone else, putting someone else first, sacrificing any kind of a normal life for someone else's benefit. Loyal as a hound. Is that a life? Haven't you ever thought of being your own man, and making your own decisions? Or is a fear of that what pushes you down the neck of a bottle?" My voice had risen to a shout. When I ran out of words, I stared at him, my chest rising and falling as I panted out my fury.

As an angry boy, I'd often promised myself that someday he would pay for every cuff he had given me, for every stall I'd had to muck out when I thought I was too tired to stand. With those words, I kept that sulky little promise tenfold. His eyes were wide and he was speechless with pain. I saw his chest heave once, as if to catch a breath knocked out of him. The shock in his eyes was the same as if I had suddenly plunged a knife into him.

I stared at him. I wasn't sure where those words had come from, but it was too late to call them back. Saying "I'm sorry" would not un-utter them, would not change them in the least. I suddenly hoped he would hit me, that he would give both of us at least that much.

He stood unevenly, the chair legs scraping back on the wooden floor. The chair itself teetered over and fell with a crash as he walked away from it. Burrich, who walked so steady when full of brandy, wove like a drunk as he made it to the door and went out into the night. I just sat, feeling something inside me go very still. I hoped it was my heart.

For a moment all was silence. A long moment. Then Chade sighed. "Why?" he asked quietly after a time.