Chade smiled. “How were you rendered ineffective as an assassin in the Mountain Kingdom?”
I winced at the memory. “Regal revealed my purpose to Kettricken. “
“Exactly. We shall shine a bit of daylight on what goes on in the King’s chambers. Eat while I talk.”
And so I did, listening to him as he outlined my assignments for the next day, but also noting what he chose to feed me. The flavor of garlic predominated, and I knew his confidence in its purifying abilities. I wondered just what I had ingested, and also how much it colored my recollection of my conversation with the Fool. I flinched as I recalled my brusque dismissal of him. He would be another I would have to seek out tomorrow. Chade noticed my preoccupation. “Sometimes,” he observed obliquely, “you have to trust people to understand you are not perfect.”
I nodded, then suddenly yawned immensely. “Beg pardon,” I muttered. My eyelids were suddenly so heavy I could barely keep my head up. “You were saying?”
“No, no. Go to bed. Rest. It’s the real healer.”
“But I haven’t even asked you where you’ve been. Or what you’ve been doing. You move and act as if you’d lost ten years of age.”
Chade puckered his mouth. `Is that a compliment? Never mind. Such questions would be useless anyway, so you may save them for another time, and be frustrated then when I refuse to answer them. As to my condition … well, the more one forces one’s body to do, the more it can do. It was not an easy journey. Yet I believe it was worth the hardship.” He held up a halting hand as I opened my mouth. “And that is all I am going to say. To bed, now, Fitz. To bed.”