Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (51 page)

I washed, shaved, smoothed my hair back into a
tail, and donned clean clothes. I steeled myself to betray nothing
of my smoldering resentment. When I was confident I was master of
myself, I left my chamber. I presented myself at the King's door. I
fully expected Wallace to sneer and turn me aside. But this morning
he opened the door promptly to my knock. His glance was still
disapproving, but he immediately ushered me into the King's
presence.

Shrewd sat before his hearth in a cushioned
chair. Despite myself, my heart sank at how wasted he had become.
His skin was papery and translucent as parchment, his fingers gone
to bone. His face sagged, skin drooping where flesh had once held
it firm. His dark eyes were sunken into his face. He clasped his
hands in his lap in a gesture I knew well. Thus did I hold my hands
to conceal the trembling that occasionally overtook me still. A
small table at his elbow supported a censer, and Smoke rose from
it. The fumes already made a bluish haze about the rafters. The
Fool sprawled disconsolately at his feet.

FitzChivalry is here, Your Majesty, Wallace
announced me.

The King started as if poked, then shifted his
gaze to me. I moved to stand before him.

FitzChivalry, the King acknowledged
me.

There was no force behind the words, no presence
at all.

My bitterness was still strong in me, but it
could not drown the pain I felt to see him so. He was still my
king.

My king, I have come as you ordered, I said
formally. I tried to cling to my coldness.

He looked at me wearily. He turned his head
aside, coughed once into his shoulder. So I see. Good. He stared at
me for a moment. He took a deep breath that whispered into his
lungs. A messenger arrived from Duke Brawndy of
Bea
rn
s last night. He
brought the harvest reports and such, mostly news for Regal. But
Brawndy's daughter Celerity also sent this scroll. For
you.

He held it out to me. A small scroll, bound with
a yellow ribbon and sealed with a blob of green wax. Reluctantly I
stepped forward to take it.

Brawndy's messenger will be returning to
Bea
rn
s this afternoon. I
am sure that by that time you will have created an appropriate
reply. His tone did not make this a request. He coughed again. The
roil of conflicting emotions I felt for him soured in my
stomach.

If I may, I requested, and when the King did not
object, I broke the seal on the scroll and untied the ribbon. I
unwound it to discover a second scroll coiled inside it. I glanced
over the first one. Celerity wrote with a clear, firm hand. I
unrolled the second one and considered it briefly. I looked up to
find Shrewd's eyes on me. I met them without emotion. She writes to
wish me well, and to send me a copy of a scroll she found in the
Ripplekeep libraries. Or, properly, a copy of what was still
legible. From the wrapping, she believed it pertained to
Elderlings. She had noted my interest in them during my visit to
Ripplekeep. It looks to me as if the writing was actually
philosophy, or perhaps poetry.

I offered the scrolls back to Shrewd. After a
moment he took them. He unfurled the first one and held it out at
arm's length. He furrowed his brow, glared at it briefly, then set
it down in his lap. My eyes are befogged, sometimes, of a morning,
he said. He rerolled the two scrolls together, carefully, as if it
were a difficult task. You will write her a proper note of
thanks.

Yes, my king. My voice was carefully formal. I
received once more the scrolls he proffered me. When I had stood
before him for some moments longer while he stared through me, I
ventured, Am I dismissed, my king?

No. He coughed again, more heavily. He took
another long sighing breath. You are not dismissed. Had I dismissed
you, it would have been years ago. I would have let you grow up in
some backwater village. Or seen that you did not grow up at all.
No, FitzChivalry, I have not dismissed you. Something of his old
presence came back into his voice. Some years ago I struck a
bargain with you. You have kept your end of it. And kept it well. I
know how I am served by you, even when you do not see fit to report
to me personally. I know how you serve me, even when you are
brimming with anger at me. I could ask little more than what you
have given me. He coughed again, suddenly, a dry racking cough.
When he could speak, it was not to me.

Fool, a goblet of the warmed wine, please. And
ask Wallace for the ... spicing herbs to season it. The Fool rose
immediately, but I saw no willingness on his face. Instead, as he
passed behind the King's chair, he gave me a look that should have
drawn blood. The King made a small gesture at me to wait. He rubbed
his eyes, and then stilled his hands once more in his lap. I but
seek to keep my end of the bargain, he resumed. I promised to see
to your needs. I would do more than that. I would see you wed to a
lady of quality. I would see you ... ah. Thank you.

The Fool was back with the wine. I marked how he
filled the goblet but halfway, and how the King picked it up with
both hands. I caught a waft of unfamiliar herbs mingled with the
rising scent of the wine. The rim of the goblet chattered twice
against Shrewd's teeth before he stilled it with his mouth. He took
a long deep draft of it. He swallowed, then sat still a moment
longer, eyes closed as if listening. When he opened his eyes to
look up at me once more, he seemed briefly puzzled. After a moment
he recollected himself. I would see you with a title, and land to
steward. He lifted the goblet and drank again. He sat holding it,
warming his thin hands around it while he considered me. I should
like to remind you it is no small thing that Brawndy deems you a
fit match for his daughter. He does not hesitate over your birth.
Celerity will come to you with a title and estates of her own. Your
match gives me the opportunity to see that you have the same. I
wish only the best for you. Is this so hard to
understand?

The question left me free to speak. I took a
breath and tried to reach him. My king, I know you wish me well. I
am well aware of the honor that Duke Brawndy does me. The Lady
Celerity is as fair a woman as any man could wish. But the lady is
not of my choosing.

His look darkened. Now there you sound like
Verity, he said crossly. Or your father. I think they suckled
stubbornness from their mother's breasts. He lifted the goblet and
drained it off. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head.
Fool. More wine, please.

I have heard the rumors, he resumed heavily
after the Fool had taken his cup. Regal brings them to me and
whispers them like a kitchen maid. As if they were important.
Chickens clucking. Dogs barking. Just as important. I watched the
Fool obediently refill the goblet, his reluctance plain in every
muscle of his slender body. Wallace appeared as if summoned by
magic. He heaped more Smoke onto the censer, blew on a tiny coal
with carefully pursed lips until the heap smoldered, and then
drifted away. Shrewd leaned carefully so that the fumes curled past
his face. He breathed in, gave a tiny cough, then drew in more of
the Smoke. He leaned back in his chair. A silent Fool stood holding
his wine.

Regal claims you are enamored of a chambermaid.
That you pursue her relentlessly. Well, all men are young once. As
are all maids. He accepted his goblet and drank again. I stood
before him, biting the inside of my cheek, willing my eyes to
stoniness. My traitorous hands began the shaking that physical
exertion no longer wrung from them. I longed to cross my arms on my
chest to still them, but I kept my hands at my side. I concentrated
on not crushing the small scroll I gripped.

King Shrewd lowered the goblet. He set it on the
table at his elbow and sighed heavily. He let his lax hands uncurl
quietly in his lap as he leaned his head back against the cushions
of his chair. FitzChivalry, he said.

I stood numbly before him and waited. I watched
as his eyelids drooped, then closed. Then opened again a crack. His
head wavered slightly as he spoke. You have Constance's angry
mouth, he said. His eyes drooped again. I would like to do well by
you, he muttered. After a moment a snore buzzed from his slack
mouth. And still I stood before him and gazed at him. My
king.

When finally I dropped my eyes from him, I saw
the only thing that could have wrenched me into greater turmoil.
The Fool huddled disconsolately at Shrewd's feet, his knees drawn
up to his chest. He stared at me furiously, his mouth a flat line.
Clear tears brimmed in his colorless eyes.

I fled.

Within my chamber, I paced a bit before my
hearth. The feelings inside me seared me. I forced myself to
calmness, sat down, and took out pen and paper. I penned a brief,
correct note of thanks to Duke Brawndy's daughter, carefully rolled
it up, and sealed it with wax. I stood up, tugged my shirt
straight, smoothed my hair back, and then threw the scroll onto my
hearth fire.

Then I sat down again with my writing tools. I
wrote a letter to Celerity, the shy girl who had flirted with me at
table, and stood with me on the cliffs in the wind and waited for a
challenge that never came. I thanked her for the scroll. And then I
wrote to her of my summer. Of pulling an oar on the Rurisk, day
after day. Of my clumsiness with a sword that made the ax my
weapon. I wrote of our first battle, in ruthless detail, and of how
sickened I had been afterward. I told her of sitting frozen with
terror at my oar while a Red-Ship attacked us. I neglected to
mention the white ship I had seen. I finished by confiding that I
was still troubled by tremors occasionally as the aftermath of my
long illness in the Mountains. I read it over carefully. Satisfied
that I had presented myself as a common oarsman, an oaf, a coward,
and an invalid, I rolled the letter into a scroll and tied it with
the same yellow ribbon she had used. I did not seal it. I did not
care who read it. Secretly, I hoped that Duke Brawndy might peruse
this letter to his daughter, and then forbid her ever to mention my
name again.

When I knocked again at King Shrewd's door,
Wallace answered if with his usual grim displeasure. He took the
scroll from me as if it were dirtied with something, and shut the
door firmly in my face. As I went back up to my room I thought of
what three poisons I would use on him, were I given the
opportunity. It was less complicated than thinking of my
king.

Back in my room, I flung myself down on my bed.
I wished it were night and safe to go to Molly. Then I thought of
my secrets, and even that pleasant anticipation vanished. I bounced
up from my bed to fling open the window shutters wide to the storm.
But even the weather cheated me.

Blue had cracked the overcast wide, to admit a
watery sunlight. A bank of black clouds boiling and mountaining
over the sea promised that this respite would not last long. But
for now the wind and the rain had ceased. There was even a hint of
warmth in the air.

Nighteyes came to my mind
immediately.

It's too wet to hunt. Water clings to every
blade of grass. Besides, it's full daylight. Only men are stupid
enough to hunt in full daylight.

Lazy hound, I rebuked him. I knew he was curled,
nose to tail, in his den. I sensed the warm satiation of his full
belly.

Perhaps tonight, he suggested, and drifted back
to sleep.

I pulled back from him, then snatched up my
cloak. My feelings were not conducive to a day within walls. I left
the Keep and headed down toward Buckkeep Town. Anger at Shrewd's
decision for me warred with dismay at how he had weakened. I walked
briskly, trying to escape the King's trembling hands, his drugged
sleep. Damn Wallace! He had stolen my king from me. My king had
stolen my life from me. I refused to think anymore.

Dripping water and yellow-edged leaves fell from
the trees as I passed. Birds sang clearly and joyously at the
unexpected respite from the downpour. The sun grew stronger, making
everything sparkle with the wet, and steaming rich scents up from
the earth. Despite my turmoil, the beauty of the day touched
me.

The recent downpours had washed Buckkeep Town
clean. I found myself in the market, in the midst of an eager
crowd. Everywhere folk hurried to make purchases and rush them home
before the storm could drench us again. The amiable busyness and
friendly clatter was at odds with my sour mood, and I glared about
the market until a bright scarlet cloak and hood caught my eye. My
heart turned over inside me. Molly might wear servant blue about
the Keep, but when she came to market, she still wore her old cloak
of red. No doubt Patience had sent her out on errands during this
respite from the rain. I watched her, unnoticed, as she haggled
stubbornly over packets of spiced tea from Chalced. I loved the jut
of her chin as she shook her head at the merchant. A sudden
inspiration lifted my heart.

I had coin in my pockets, my oarsman's pay. With
it I bought four sweet apples, two currant buns, a bottle of wine,
and some pepper meat. I bought, too, a string bag to carry it in
and a thick wool blanket. Red. It took every bit of every skill
Chade had ever taught me to make my purchases and still keep sight
of Molly without being seen. Even more taxing was to follow her
unobtrusively as she went to the milliner's to buy silk ribbon, and
then to trail behind her as she started up toward
Buckkeep.