Royal Assassin

  “He would not!” she declared angrily.

  “He is often not himself,” I reminded her. “But he, not you, must be the one to rebuke Regal publicly, if it is to be public. If you speak out against him, and the King later supports him, the nobles will see the Farseers as a house divided. Already, there has been too much doubt and discord sown amongst them. This is not a time to set Inland Duchies against Coastal ones, with Verity not here. ”

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  She halted. I could see that she still quivered with anger, but at least she was hearing me. She took a breath. I sensed her calming herself.

  “This was why he left you here, Fitz. To see these things for me. ”

  “What?” It was my turn to be jolted.

  “I thought you had known. You must have wondered why he did not ask you to accompany him. It was because I asked him who I should trust, as an adviser. He said to rely on you. ”

  Had he forgotten Chade’s existence? I wondered, and then realized that Kettricken knew nothing of Chade. He must have known I would function as a go-between. Inside myself, I felt Verity’s agreement. Chade. In the shadows as always.

  “Think with me again,” she bade me. “What will happen next?”

  She was right. This was not an isolated instance.

  “We will have visitors. The Duke of Bearns and his lesser nobles. Duke Brawndy is not a man to send emissaries on a mission like that. He will come himself and he will demand answers. And all the Coastal Dukes will be listening to what is said to him. His coast is the most exposed of all, save that of Buck itself. ”

  “Then we must have answers worth hearing,” Kettricken declared. She closed her eyes. She set her hands to her forehead for a moment, then pressed her own cheeks. I realized how great a control she was keeping. Dignity, she was telling herself, calm and rationality. She took a breath and looked at me again. “I go to see King Shrewd,” she announced. “I shall ask him about everything. This whole situation. I shall ask him what he intends to do. He is the King. His position must be affirmed to him. ”

  “I think that is a wise decision,” I told her.

  “I must go alone. If you go with me, if you are always at my side, it will make me appear weak. It may give rise to rumors of a schism in the reign. You understand this?”

  “I do. ” Though I longed to hear for myself what Shrewd might say to her.

  She gestured at the maps and items I had sorted onto a table. “You have a safe place for those?”

  Chade’s chambers. “I do. ”

  “Good. ” She gestured with a hand, and I realized I was still blocking her from the door. I stepped aside. As she swept past me her mountainsweet scent engulfed me for a moment. My knees went weak, and I cursed the fate that sent emeralds to rebuild houses when they should have girdled that graceful throat. But I knew, too, with a fierce pride, that if I set them in her hands this moment, she would insist they be spent for Ferry. I slipped them into a pocket. Perhaps she would be able to rouse King Shrewd’s wrath, and he would rattle the coin loose from Regal’s pocket. Perhaps, when I returned, these emeralds could still clasp that warm skin.

  If Kettricken had looked back, she would have seen the Fitz blushing with her husband’s thoughts.

  I went down to the stables. It had always been a soothing place for me, and with Burrich gone I felt a certain obligation to look in on it from time to time. Not that Hands had shown any signs of needing my help. But this time as I approached the stable doors, there was a knot of men outside them, and voices raised in anger. A young stable boy hung on to the headstall of an immense draft horse. An older boy was tugging at a lead attached to the horse’s halter, attempting to take the horse from the boy, as a man in Tilth colors looked on. The usually placid animal was becoming distressed at the tugging. In a moment someone was going to get hurt.

  I stepped boldly into the midst of it, plucking the lead from the startled boy’s hand even as I quested soothingly toward the horse. He did not know me as well as he once had, but he calmed at the touch. “What goes on here?” I asked the stable boy.

  “They came and took Cliff out of his stall. Without even asking. He’s my horse to take care of each day. But they didn’t even tell me what they were doing. ”

  “I have orders—” began the man who had been standing by.

  “I am speaking to someone,” I informed him, and turned back to the boy. “Has Hands left orders with you about this horse?”

  “Only the usual ones. ” The boy had been close to tears when I first came on the struggle. Now that he had a potential ally, his voice was firming. He stood up straighter and met my eyes.

  “Then it’s simple. We take the horse back to his stall until we have other orders from Hands. No horse moves from the Buckkeep stable without the knowledge of the acting stablemaster. ” The boy had never let go his grip on Cliffs headstall. Now I placed the lead rope in his hands.

  “Exactly what I thought, sir,” he told me chippily. He turned on his heel. “Thank you, sir. Come on, Cliffie. ” The boy marched off with the big horse lumbering placidly after him.

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  “I have orders to take that animal. Duke Ram of Tilth wishes him sent up the river immediately. ” The man in Tilth colors was breathing through his nose at me.

  “He does, does he? And has he cleared that with our stablemaster?” I was sure he had not.

  “What goes on here?” This was Hands come running, very pink about the ears and cheeks. On another man it might have looked funny. I knew it meant he was angry.

  The Tilth man drew himself up straight. “This man, and one of your stable hands, interfered when we came to get our stock from the stables!” he declared haughtily.

  “Cliff isn’t Tilth stock. He was foaled right here at Buckkeep. Six years ago. I was present at the time,” I pointed out.

  The man gave me a condescending look. “I was not speaking to you. I was speaking to him. ” He jerked a thumb at Hands.

  “I have a name, sir,” Hands pointed out coldly. “Hands. I’m acting as stablemaster while Burrich is gone with king-in-waiting Verity. He has a name, too. FitzChivalry. He assists me from time to time. He belongs in my stable. As does my stable boy, and my horse. As to you, if you have a name, I haven’t been told it. I know of no reason why you should be in my stable. ”

  Burrich had taught Hands well. We exchanged a glance. In accord, we turned our backs and began to go back into the stables.

  “I am Lance, a stable man for Duke Ram. That horse was sold to my duke. And not just him. Two spotted mares, and a gelding as well. I have the papers here. ”

  As we turned back slowly the Tilth man proffered a scroll. My heart lurched at the sight of a blob of red wax with the buck sign mashed into it. It looked real. Hands took it slowly. He gave me a sideways glance, and I moved to stand beside him. He had some letters, but reading was usually a lengthy business for him. Burrich had been working on it with him, but letters did not come easily to him. I looked over his shoulder as he unrolled the scroll and began to study it.

  “It’s quite clear,” said the Tilth man. He reached for the scroll. “Shall I read it to you?”

  “Don’t bother,” I told him as Hands rerolled the scroll. “What’s written there is as plain as what’s not. Prince Regal has signed it. But Cliff is not his horse. He, and the mares and gelding, are Buckkeep horses. Only the King may sell them. ”

  “King-in-Waiting Verity is away. Prince Regal acts in his stead now. ”

  I put a restraining hand on Hands’s shoulder. “King-in-Waiting Verity is indeed away. But King Shrewd is not. Nor is Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. One of those must sign to sell a horse from Buckkeep stable. ”

  Lance snatched his scroll back, examined the signature for himself. “Well, Prince Regal’s mark should be good enough for you, with Verity away. After all, everyone knows the old King is not in his
right mind most of the time. And Kettricken is, well … not of the family. Really. So, with Verity gone, Regal is—”

  “Prince. ” I spoke the word crisply. “To say less of him would be treason. As it would be to say he were king. Or queen. When he is not. ”

  I let the implied threat settle into his mind. I would not directly accuse him of treason, for then he would have to die for it. Not even a pompous ass like Lance deserved to die just for parroting what his master had no doubt spoken aloud. I watched his eyes grow wide.

  “I meant nothing…. ”

  “And no harm is done,” I filled in. “As long as you remember one cannot buy a horse from a man who doesn’t own it. And these are Buckkeep horses, owned by the King. ”

  “Of course,” Lance dithered. “Perhaps this is the wrong paper. I am sure there is a mistake of some kind. I will go back to my master. ”

  “A wise choice. ” Hands spoke softly beside me, taking authority back.

  “Well, come along, then,” Lance snapped at his boy and gave the lad a shove. The boy glowered at us as he trailed off after his master. I scarcely blamed him. Lance was the sort who must vent his ill temper somewhere.

  “Will they be back, do you think?” Hands asked me quietly.

  “Either that, or Regal must give Ram his coin back. ”

  We silently considered the likelihood of that.

  “So. What must I do when they come back?”

  “If it’s only Regal’s mark, nothing. If the King or Queen-in-Waiting’s mark is upon it, then you must give him the horses. ”

  “One of those mares is pregnant!” Hands protested. “Burrich has big plans for the foal. What will he say to me if he comes back and those horses are gone?”

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  “We have always had to remember that these horses belong to the King. He will not fault you for obeying a proper command. ”

  “I don’t like this. ” He looked up at me with anxious eyes. “I don’t think this would be happening if Burrich were still here. ”

  “I think it would, Hands. Don’t take any blame to yourself. I doubt that this is the worst that we’ll see before the winter is over. But, send me word if they do come back. ”

  He nodded gravely and I left him, my visit to the stables soured. I did not want to walk down the rows of stalls and wonder how many horses would still remain by the end of winter.

  I walked slowly across the courtyard and then inside and up the stairs to my room. I paused on the landing. Verity? Nothing. I could sense his presence inside myself, he could convey his will to me and sometimes even his thoughts. But still, whenever I tried to reach out to him, there was nothing. It frustrated me. If only I had been able to Skill reliably, none of this would be happening. I paused to carefully curse Galen and all he had done to me. I had had the Skill, and he had burned it out of me, and left me with but this unpredictable form of it.

  But what about Serene? Or Justin, or any of the others of the coterie? Why was not Verity using them to keep in touch with what was happening, and to let his will be known?

  A creeping dread filled me. The messenger birds from Bearns. The signal lights, the Skilled ones in the towers. All the lines of communications within the kingdom and with the King seemed not to be working very well. They were what stitched the Six Duchies into one and made of us a kingdom rather than an alliance of Dukes. Now, in these troubled times, more than ever we needed them. Why were they failing?

  I saved the question to ask Chade, and prayed that he would summon me soon. He called me less often than he had once, and I felt I was not as privy to his councils as I once had been. Well, and had not I excluded him from much of my life as well? Perhaps what I felt was only a reflection of all the secrets I kept from him. Perhaps it was the natural distance that grew between assassins.

  I arrived at the door of my room just as Rosemary had given up knocking.

  “Did you need me?” I asked her.

  She dropped a grave curtsy. “Our lady, the Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken, wishes you to attend her at your earliest convenience. ”

  “That’s right now, isn’t it?” I tried to get a smile out of her.

  “No. ” She frowned up at me. “I said ‘at your earliest convenience, sir. ’ Isn’t that right?”

  “Absolutely. Who has you practicing your manners so assiduously?”

  She heaved a great sigh. “Fedwren. ”

  “Fedwren is back from his summer travels already?”

  “He’s been back for two weeks, sir!”

  “Well, see how little I know! I shall be sure to tell him of how well you spoke when next I see him. ”

  “Thank you, sir. ” Forgetting her careful decorum, she was skipping by the time she reached the top of the stairs, and I heard her light footsteps go cascading down them like a tumble of pebbles. A likely child. I doubted not that Fedwren was grooming her to be a messenger. It was one of his duties as scribe. I went into my room briefly to put on a fresh shirt, and then took myself down to Kettricken’s chambers. I knocked on the door and Rosemary opened it.

  “It is now my earliest convenience,” I told her, and this time was rewarded with a dimpled smile.

  “Enter, sir. I shall tell my mistress you are here,” she informed me. She gestured me to a chair and vanished into the inner chamber. From within, I could hear a quiet muttering of ladies’ voices. Through the open door I glimpsed them at their needlework and chatter. Queen Kettricken tilted her head to Rosemary, and then excused herself to come to me.

  In a moment Kettricken stood before me. For an instant I just looked at her. The blue of the robe picked up the blue of her eyes. The late-fall light finding its way through the whorled glass of the windows glinted off the gold of her hair. I stared, I realized, and lowered my eyes. I rose immediately and bowed. She didn’t wait for me to straighten up. “Have you been recently to visit the King?” she asked me without preamble.

  “Not in the last few days, my lady queen. ”

  “Then I suggest you do so this evening. I am concerned for him. ”

  “As you wish, my queen. ” I waited. Surely that was not what she had called me here to say.

  After a moment she sighed. “Fitz. I am alone here as I have never been before. Cannot you call me Kettricken and treat me as a person for a bit?”

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  The sudden change in tone took me off balance. “Certainly,” I replied, but my voice was too formal. Danger, Nighteyes whispered.

  Danger? How?

  This is not your mate. This is the leader’s mate.

  It was like finding an aching tooth with your tongue. The knowledge jarred through me. There was a danger here, one to guard against. This was my queen, but I was not Verity and she was not my love, no matter how my heart set to beating at the sight of her.

  But she was my friend. She had proven that in the Mountain Kingdom. I owed her the comfort that friends owe one another.

  “I went to see the King,” she told me. She gestured me to sit and took a chair of her own across the hearth from me. Rosemary fetched her little stool to sit at Kettricken’s feet. Despite our being alone in the room, the Queen lowered her voice and leaned toward me as she spoke. “I asked him directly why I had not been summoned when the rider came in. He seemed puzzled by my question. But before he could even begin an answer, Regal came in. He had come in haste, I could tell. As if someone had run to tell him I was there, and he had immediately dropped everything to come. ”

  I nodded gravely.

  “He made it impossible for me to speak to the King. Instead, he insisted on explaining it all to me. He claimed that the rider had been brought directly to the King’s chamber, and that he had encountered the messenger as he came to visit his father. He had sent the boy to rest while he talked with the King. And that together they had decided that nothing could be done now. Then Shrewd had sent him to announce th
at to the boy and the gathered nobles, and to explain to them the state of the treasury. According to Regal, we are very near on the brink of ruin, and every penny must be watched. Bearn must look out for Bearn’s own, he told me. And when I asked if Bearn’s own were not Six Duchies folk, he told me that Bearn had always stood more or less on its own. It was not rational, he said, to expect that Buck could guard a coast so far to the north of us, and so long. Fitz, did you know that the Near Islands had already been ceded to the Raiders?”

  I shot to my feet. “I know that no such thing is true!” I blurted in outrage.

  “Regal claims it is so,” Kettricken continued implacably. “He says that Verity had decided before he left that there was no real hope of keeping them safe from the Raiders. And that is why he called back our ship Constance. He says Verity Skilled to Carrod, the coterie member on the ship, to order the ship back home for repairs. ”

  “That ship was refitted just after harvest. Then she was sent out, to keep the coast between Sealbay and Gulls, and to be ready should the Near Islands call for her. It is what her master asked for; more time to practice seamanship in winter waters. Verity would not leave that stretch of coast unwatched. If the Raiders establish a stronghold on the Near Islands, we shall never be free of them. They can raid winter and summer alike from there. ”

  “Regal claims that is what they have done already. He says our only hope now is to treat with them. ” Her blue eyes searched my face.

  I sank down slowly, near stunned. Could any of this be true? How could it have been kept from me? My sense of Verity within me mirrored my confusion. He knew nothing of this either. “I do not think the King-in-Waiting would ever treat with the Raiders. Save with the sharp of his sword. ”

  “This is not, then, a secret kept from me lest it distress me? Regal implied as much, that Verity would keep these things secret from me, as beyond my understanding. ” There was a trembling in her voice. It went beyond her anger that the Near Islands might have been abandoned to the Raiders, to a more personal pain that her lord might have found her unworthy of his confidences. I longed so badly to take her in my arms and comfort her that I ached inside.