There was nothing to say about that. I feared it was all true. “Eat something,” I suggested. “How’s your leg now?”
He lifted the blanket to inspect it casually. “Still there, anyway. I suppose I should be grateful for that. And better than it was this morning. The devil’s-club did draw out the infection. Chicken-brained as she is, the woman still knows her herbs.”
I did not need to ask to whom he referred. “Are you going to eat?” I prodded.
He set down his cup and took up a spoon. He tasted the soup Molly had set out, grudgingly nodded his approval. “So,” he observed between bites, “that was the girl. Molly.”
I nodded.
“Seemed a bit cool with you today.”
“A bit,” I said dryly.
Burrich grinned. “You’re as testy as she was. I imagine Patience did not speak well of me to her.”
“She doesn’t like drunks,” I told him bluntly. “Her father drank himself to death. But before he finished the job, he managed to make her life unpleasant for years. Beating her when she was smaller. Railing and berating her when she got too big to beat.”
“Oh.” Burrich carefully refilled his cup. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She was sorry to live it.”
He looked at me levelly. “I did not do it, Fitz. Nor was I rude to her when she was here. I’m not even drunk. Not yet. So stuff your disapproval, and tell me what’s been going on at Buckkeep while I was away.”
So I stood and reported to Burrich, just as if he had a right to demand it. In a way, I suppose he did. He ate as I spoke. When I was finished, he poured himself more brandy and leaned back in his chair, holding it. He swirled the brandy in the cup, looked down at it, then up at me. “And Kettricken is with child, but neither the King nor Regal know of it yet.”