To escape his aging court and advisors, King Shield would sometimes by stealth leave Buckkeep, to travel the roads in disguise. Dressed as a roving tinker, it pleased him to mix with his common folk in inns and taverns of the ruder sort, where it was his pleasure to tell bawdy stories and sing comical songs for the entertainment of the folk who frequented such places. It was on one such evening when he was well in his cups that he began to tell his stories and ribald riddles. Now there was a youth working in the tavern, a lad of no more than eleven and unschooled in everything save how to draw a mug of ale and wipe a table. Yet as the King posed each riddle, this boy spoke the answers, not only correctly but also in the King’s own well-rehearsed words. At first the King was not pleased to have his acclaim thus stolen. But soon he perceived that his irritation with the lad’s too-swift answers was affording his audiences as much pleasure as the jests themselves. Before he left the inn that evening, he called the boy to his side and asked him, quietly, how it was that he knew the answers to so many riddles. The lad professed surprise. “Were not you yourself whispering them to me, even as you told the riddle?” he asked.

Now the King was as perceptive as he was merry. That very night he took the boy back with him to Buckkeep and delivered him over to the Skillmistress, saying, “This merry lad comes to you well started on the Skill path. Find others like him, and train for me a coterie that can laugh as well as Skill.” And so the boy became known as Merry and the coterie that formed around him was Merry’s Coterie.

— SLEK’S “HISTORIES”

It was a crisp, cold day. Packed snow squeaked under my boots as I strode down to Buckkeep Town. When I heard hoofbeats on the road behind me, I stepped aside to let horse and rider pass. I settled my hand on my sword hilt as I did so. Instead, Starling reined in and paced me with her mount. I glanced up at her and said nothing. She was almost the last person I wished to see today. She spoke to me anyway. “Did Chade give you my message?”

I nodded and kept walking.

“And?”

“And I don’t think I have anything to say to it.”

She reined in her horse so sharply that he snorted in protest. Then she jumped off him and ran around to stand in front of me. I stopped walking. “What is the matter with you? What do you want from me?” she demanded. “What can you possibly expect from me that I haven’t already given you?” Her voice shook, and to my astonishment, tears stood in her eyes.

“I . . . nothing. I don’t . . . What do you want from me?”

“What we had before. Friendship. Talking to each other. Being someone the other person can count on.”

“But . . . Starling, you’re married.”

“So you can’t even talk to me anymore? Can’t even smile when you see me in the Great Hall? You act like I don’t even exist anymore. Fifteen years, Fitz. We’ve known each other damn near fifteen years, and you discover I’m married and suddenly you can’t even say hello to me?”

I gaped at her. Starling has often had that effect on me, but I’ve never become accustomed to it. My astonishment lasted too long. She attacked again.

“Last time I saw you . . . I needed a friend. And you thrust me aside. I was a friend to you when you needed one, for many years. Damn you, Fitz, I shared your bed for seven years! But you couldn’t even be bothered to ask how I had been. And you refused to ride with me, as if I carried some disease you feared to catch!”

“Starling!” I shouted at her to break into her tirade. I didn’t mean it as harshness, but she gasped suddenly and then burst into tears. And the reflexes of seven years put my arms around her and pulled her close to my chest. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said by her ear. Her silky hair tangled against my chest, and the old familiar scent of her filled my nostrils. And I suddenly felt I had to explain what she already knew. “You hurt me, when I discovered that I wasn’t the only man in your life. Perhaps I was foolish ever to imagine that I was. You never told me I was. I know I deceived myself. But it did hurt me.”

She only sobbed harder, clinging to me. Her horse shifted restlessly and stepped on his reins. One arm still around Starling, I managed to step sideways and catch hold of his reins. Calmness. Wait, I told him, and he lowered his head a trifle.

I held her, thinking she would stop crying soon, but still she wept. I had thought her heartless. Careless was a better word for her, like a child who takes what she wants with no thoughts for the consequences. I knew better than she about consequences, and I should have behaved better. I spoke quietly, and as I had hoped, her sobbing softened so she could hear my words. “I want you to know the truth about something. What I said last time, about thinking of Molly when you were in my arms. That wasn’t true. Never. It was an unworthy thing for me to say, belittling to both of you. When you were in my arms, you filled my senses. I’m sorry that I tried to hurt you with a lie.” Her tears still did not calm. “Starling. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”