for some time. She's long past her bearing years now. Nettle will be our only daughter.' His face softened. 'I'm sorry, Fitz. I've been told that nothing completes a man's life in quite the way that children do. I know that you wanted--' I interrupted. 'I had the raising of Hap. I flatter myself that I did well enough for a man handed an eight-year-old orphan at short notice. He keeps in touch with me still, when his travels and minstrel duties allow it. And Nettle turned out well, and Molly has shared all her younger children with me. I watched Hearth and Just grow to manhood, and we watched them ride off together. Those were good years, Chade. There's no good to be had from pining after lost chances. I have Molly. And truly, she's enough for me. She's my home.' And there, I'd successfully cut him off before he could importune me to stay a while, or move back to Buckkeep Castle just for a season or a year or two. His litany was as familiar as Kettricken's, but flavoured more with guilt than duty. He was an old man, and still had so much to teach me. I had always been his most promising student. Dutiful still had need of an accomplished assassin, and I was a unique weapon in that the young king could converse silently with me via the Skill. And there was the Skill itself. There were still so many mysteries to unravel. So much translating left to do, so many secrets and techniques to be mined from the trove of scrolls we had retrieved from Aslevjal. I knew all his arguments and persuasions. Over the years, I had heard them all. And resisted them all. Repeatedly. Yet