The Fool (spoilers for all RotE books, including LST)

[Nuytsia]

..what is the significance of the baby etc in Fool's room at Buckkeep (mentioned in AA when Fitz went in there, against Fool's wishes)?
"A baby. I...knelt beside the basket that cradled it. But it was not a living child, but a doll, crafted with such incredible art that almost I expected to see the small chest move with breath. I reached a hand to the pale, delicate face, but dared not touch it. The curve of the brow, the closed eyelids, the faint rose that suffused the tiny cheeks, even the small hand that rested on top of the coverlets were more perfect than I supposed a made thing could be. Of what delicate clay it had been crafted, I could not guess, nor what hand had inked the tiny eyelashes that curled on the infant’s cheek.
I still haven't worked it out from my countless re-reads of all books and it makes me crazy not being able to find a Fool/Amber/Lord Golden/White Prophet link or a clue as to why it would be there !! The only reference to it after the event, that I can find, was when Fool finally answered this question from Fitz in RA, "Whence comes the Fool and why?"
Fool talked about how much he had been loved as a child and Fitz "...remembered the time I ventured into his room, and the exquisite little doll in its cradle that I found there. Cherished as the Fool had once been cherished."
It intrigues me because it sounds like an Elderling-wrought form of artwork. Before he saw the baby, Fitz even said, "I tried to imagine the pale cynical Fool in the midst of all this colour and art."
Not to mention the loom with all of its bright-hued threads in the corner (a reference to or even a physical manifestation of the tapestry threads of Fate he wields as the White Prophet and speaks of at times to Fitz?!), I wonder if the baby simply denotes the future Farseer heir, or could it be something more personal to Fool?

Having just re-read Assassin's Apprentice I am also wondering about this whole thing! To add one more thing to it, when Fitz sees the Fool next and blurts out his guilty apology and excuses (heheh that was funny), the Fool gives him some 'advice for the trip; (to the mountains):
"When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all."

On the face of it this is more advice (based on his visions) to keep Fitz alive in the mountains .... although it's not particularly helpful! (I guess the motives he refers to are probably Regal's in the matter of the poisoning of Rurisk). But I was also wondering if it was some oblique reference to the Fool's reasons for having his room as he does. Now what it could be referring to in that case I also don't know!

Also, what do you make of Fool's ability to just 'appear' and 'disappear' as he often did/does, particularly so in the Farseer trilogy when he would suddenly be in Fitz's room or left abruptly without Fitz knowing, seemingly without having opened the door? I know that Fitz couldn't sense him via the Wit but often it was written as though Fool had come and gone in an almost ghost-like fashion?

I know! This WAS happening a lot in AA. As if we are to make something of it! But I also am not sure what! I think the first time it is described is the 'fat suffices' bit, when he appears and then disappears on a hillside near the keep (I think?) At first I thought geees is this near the Skill pillar???? But I doubt there's another inside the Keep! More likely just a secret passage from the Keep out onto the hillside....
But as to his general ability to open and close the door to a room silently and without being seen I have no idea!!!!! I guess just very stealthy. As to his not being detectable to the Wit and having no smell.... that started to really creep me out reading AA and the bit where Fitz realises the Forged ones are undetectable to his Wit sense.

I have already forgotten whether it is explicitly stated in AA that the Fool is undetectable to Fitz's Wit sense, but it DOES say that the puppy Smithy realised the Fool had no smell and that's when Fitz first realised that too. What DOES it mean!!! (apart from my initial suspicion that the 6 duchies people just don't wash very often in comparison....)