Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (30 page)

I had not expected to find Verity in his study,
and was not disappointed. He was down at the boat sheds, as always.
I left word with Charim to ask that I be summoned whenever Verity
might have the time to see me. Then, with a resolve to keep myself
busy and to do as Chade had suggested, I returned to my room. I
took both dice and tally sticks with me, and headed for the Queen's
chambers.

I had resolved to teach her some of the games of
chance that the lords and ladies were fond of, in the hopes that
she might expand her circle of entertainments. I also hoped, with
less expectations, that such games might draw her to socialize more
widely and to depend less on my companionship. Her bleak mood was
beginning to burden me with its oppressiveness, so that I often
heartily wished to be away from her.

Teach her to cheat first. Only, just tell her
that's how the game is played. Tell her the rules permit deception.
A bit of sleight of hand, easily taught, and she could clean
Regal's pockets for him a time or two before he dared suspect her.
And then what could he do? Accuse Buckkeep's lady of cheating at
dice?

The Fool, of course. At my elbow, companionably
pacing alongside me, his rat scepter jouncing lightly on his
shoulder. I did not startle physically, but he knew that once more,
he had taken me by surprise. His amusement shone in his
eyes.

I think our queen-in-waiting might take it amiss
if I so misinformed her. Why do you not come with me instead, to
brighten her spirits a bit? I shall set aside the dice, and you can
juggle for her, I suggested.

Juggle for her? Why, Fitz, that is all I do, all
day long, and you see it as but my foolery. You see my work and
deem it play, while I see you work so earnestly at playing games
you have not yourself devised. Take a Fool's advice on this. Teach
the lady not dice, but riddles, and you will both be the
wiser.

Riddles? That's a Bingtown game, is it
not?

'Twere one played well at Buckkeep these days.
Answer me this one, if you can. How does one call a thing when one
does not know how to call it?

I have never been any good at this game,
Fool.

Nor any other of your bloodline, from what I
have heard. So answer this. What has wings in Shrewd's scroll, a
tongue of flame in Verity's book, silver eyes in the Relltown
Vellums, and gold-scaled skin in your room?

That's a riddle?

He looked at me pityingly. No. A riddle is what
I just asked you. That's an Elderling. And the first riddle was,
how do you summon one?

My stride slowed. I looked at him more directly,
but his eyes were always difficult to meet.

Is that a riddle? Or a serious
question?

Yes. The Fool was grave.

I stopped in midstride, completely bemuddled. I
glared at him. In answer, he went nose to nose with his rat
scepter. They simpered at one another. You see, Ratsy, he knows no
more than his uncle or his grandfather. None of them know how to
summon an Elderling.

By the Skill, I said impetuously.

The Fool looked at me strangely. You know
this?

I suspect it is so.

Why?

I don't know. Now that I consider it, I do not
think it likely. King Wisdom made a long journey to find the
Elderlings. If he could simply have Skilled to them, why didn't
he?

Indeed. But sometimes there is truth in
impetuosity. So riddle me this, boy. A King is alive. Likewise a
Prince. And both are Skilled. But where are those who trained
alongside the King, or those who trained before him? How come we to
this, this paucity of Skilled ones at a time when they are so
grievously needed?

Few are trained in times of peace. Galen didn't
see fit to train any, up until his last year. And the coterie he
created ... I paused suddenly, and though the corridor was empty, I
suddenly did not want to speak anymore about it. I had always kept
whatever Verity told me about the Skill in confidence.

The Fool pranced in a sudden circle about me. If
the shoe does not fit, one cannot wear it, no matter who made it
for you, he declared.

I nodded grudgingly. Exactly.

And he who made it is gone. Sad. So sad. Sadder
than hot meat on the table and red wine in your glass. But he who
is gone was made by someone in turn.

Solicity. But she is also gone.

Ah. But Shrewd is not. Nor Verity. It seems to
me that if there are two she created still breathing, there ought
to be others. Where are they?

I shrugged. Gone. Old. Dead. I don't know. I
forced my impatience down, tried to consider his question.- King
Shrewd's sister, Merry. August's mother. She would have been
trained, perhaps, but she is long dead. Shrewd's father, King
Bounty, was the last to have a coterie, I believe. But very few
folk of that generation are still alive. I halted my tongue. Verity
had once told me that Solicity had trained as many in the Skill as
she could find the talent in. Surely there must be some of them
left alive; they would be no more than a decade or so older than
Verity ....

Dead, too many of them, if you ask me. I do
know. The Fool interjected an answer to my unspoken question. I
looked at him blankly. He stuck his tongue out at me, waltzed away
from me a bit. He considered his scepter, chucked the rat lovingly
under the chin. You see, Ratsy. It is as I told you. None of them
know. None of them are smart enough to ask.

Fool, cannot you ever speak plain? I cried out
in frustration.

He halted as suddenly as if struck. In
mid-pirouette, he lowered his heels to the floor and stood like a
statue. Would it help any? he asked soberly. Would you listen to me
if I came to you and did not speak in riddles? Would that make you
pause and think and hang upon every word, and ponder those words
later, in your chamber? Very well then. I shall try. Do you know
the rhyme `Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe town'?

I nodded, as confused as ever.

Recite it for me.

`Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe-town, climbed a
hill and never came down, turned to stone and flew away ....' The
old nursery rhyme eluded me suddenly. I don't recall it all. It's
nonsense anyway, one of those rhyming things that sticks in your
head but means nothing.

That, of course, is why it is enscrolled with
the knowledge verses, the Fool concluded.

I don't know! I retorted. I suddenly felt
irritated beyond endurance. Fool, you are doing it again. All you
speak is riddles, ever! You claim to speak plain, but your truth
eludes me.

Riddles, dear Fitzy-fitz, are supposed to make
folk think. To find new truth in old saws. But, be that as it may
.... Your brain eludes me. How shall I reach it? Perhaps if I came
to you, by dark of night, and sang under your window:

`Bastard Princeling, Fitz my
sweet,
You waste your hours to your own defeat.
You work to stop, you strive to refrain,
When all your effort should go to a gain.

He had flung himself to one knee, and plucked
nonexistent strings on his scepter. He sang quite lustily, and even
well. The tune belonged to a popular love ballad. He looked at me,
sighed theatrically, wet his lips, and continued
mournfully:

`Why does a Farseer look never
afar,
Why dwells he completely in things as they are?
Your coasts are besieged, your people beset.
I warn and I urge, but they all say, not yet!
O Bastard Princeling, gentle Fitz,
Will you delay until chopped to bits?'

A passing servant girl paused to stand bemused
and listen. A page came to the door of one chamber and peeped out
at us, grinning widely. A slow flush began to heat my cheeks, for
the Fool's expression was both tender and ardent as he looked up at
me. I tried to walk casually away from him, but he followed me on
his knees, clutching at my sleeve. I was forced to stand, or engage
in a ridiculous struggle to free myself. I stood, feeling foolish.
He simpered a smile up at me. The page giggled, and down the hall I
heard two voices conferring in amusement. I refused to lift my eyes
to see who was so enjoying my discomfort. The Fool mouthed a kiss
up at me. He let his voice sink to a confidential whisper as he
sang on:

'Will fate seduce you to her
will?
Not if you struggle with all your Skill.
Summon your allies, locate the trained,
Consummate all from which you've refrained.
There's a future not yet fashioned,
Founded by your fiery passions.
If you use your Wits to win,
You'll save the Duchies for your kin.
Thus begs a Fool, on bended knee,
Let not a darkness come to be.

Let not our peoples go to
dust
When Life in you has placed this trust.'

He paused, then sang loudly and
jovially:

And if you choose to let this
pass
Like so much farting from your ass,
Behold my reverence for thee,
Feast eyes on what men seldom see!'

He suddenly released my cuff, to tumble away
from me in a somersault that somehow reached a finish with his
presentation of his bare buttocks to me. They were shockingly pale,
and I could conceal neither my amazement nor affront. The Fool
vaulted to his feet, suitably clothed again, and Ratsy on his
scepter bowed most humbly to all who had paused to watch my
humiliation. There was general laughter and a scattering of
applause. His performance had left me speechless. I looked aside
and tried to walk past him, but with a bound the Fool blocked my
passage once again. The Fool abruptly assumed a stern stance and
addressed all who still grinned.

Fie and shame upon you all, to be so merry! To
giggle and point at a boy's broken heart! Do not you know the Fitz
has lost one most dear to him? Ah, he hides his grief beneath his
blushes, but she has gone to her grave and left his passion
unslaked. That most stubbornly chaste and virulently flatulent of
maidens, dear Lady Thyme, has perished. Of her own stench, I doubt
it not, though some say it came of eating spoiled meat. But spoiled
meat, you say, has a most foul odor, to warn off any from consuming
it. Such we can say of Lady Thyme also, and so perhaps she smelled
it not, or deemed it but the perfume of her fingers. Mourn not,
poor Fitz, another shall be found for you. To this I shall devote
myself, this very day! I swear it, by Sir Ratsy's skull. And now I
bid you hasten on your tasks, for in truth I have delayed mine much
too long. Farewell, poor Fitz. Brave, sad heart! To put so bold a
face on your desolation! Poor disconsolate youth! Ah, Fitz, poor
poor Fitz ...

And he wandered off down the hall from me,
shaking his head woefully, and conferring with Ratsy as to which
elderly dowager he should court on my behalf. I stared in disbelief
after him. I felt betrayed, that he could make so public a
spectacle of me. Sharp-tongued and flighty as the Fool could be, I
had never expected to be the public butt of one of his jokes. I
kept waiting for him to turn around and say some last thing that
would make me understand what had just happened. He did not. When
he turned a corner, I perceived that my ordeal was finally at an
end. I proceeded down the hallway, fuming with embarrassment and
dazed with puzzlement at the same time. The doggerel of his rhymes
had stored his words in my head, and I knew that I would ponder his
love song much in days to come, to try to worry out the meanings
hidden there. But Lady Thyme? Surely he would not say such a thing,
were it not true. But why would Chade allow his public persona to
die in such a way? What poor woman's body would be carried out as
Lady Thyme, no doubt to be carted off to distant relatives for
burial? Was this his method of beginning his journey, a way to
leave the Keep unseen? But again, why let her be dead? So that
Regal might believe he had succeeded in his poisoning? To what
end?

Thus bemused, I finally came to the doors of
Kettricken's chamber. I stood in the hall a moment, to recover my
aplomb and compose my face. Suddenly the door across the hall flung
open and Regal strode into me. His momentum jostled me aside, and
before I could recover myself, he grandly offered, It's all right,
Fitz. I scarcely expect an apology from one so bereaved as
yourself. He stood in the hallway, straightening his jerkin as the
young men following him emerged from his chamber, tittering in
amusement. He smiled 'round at them, and then leaned close to me to
ask, in a quietly venomous voice, Where will you suckle up now that
the old whore Thyme is dead? Ah, well. I am sure you will find some
other old woman to coddle you. Or are you come to wheedle up to a
younger one now? He dared to smile at me, before he wheeled on his
heel and strode off in a fine flutter of sleeves, trailed by his
three sycophants.

The insult to the Queen poisoned me into rage.
It came with a suddenness such as I had never experienced. I felt
my chest and throat swell with it. A terrible strength rushed
through me; I know my upper lip lifted in a snarl. From afar I
sensed, What? What is it? Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! I took a step,
the next would have been a spring, and I know my teeth would have
sunk into the place where throat meets shoulder.

But: FitzChivalry, said a voice, full of
surprise.

Molly's voice! I turned to her, my emotions
wrenching from rage to delight at seeing her. But as swiftly she
was turning aside, saying, Beg pardon, my lord, and brushing past
me. Her eyes were down, her manner that of a servant.