Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (53 page)

He shook his head. Then you will marry no one,
he pointed out.

Perhaps not, I acceded. Perhaps we shall never
be married in name. But we shall have a life together.

And little bastards of your own.

I stood convulsively, my fists knotting of their
own accord.

Don't say that, I warned Chade. I turned away
from him to glare into his fire.

I wouldn't. But everyone else will. He sighed.
Fitz, Fitz, Fitz. He came up behind me and put his hands on my
shoulders. Very, very gently, he said, It might be best to let her
go.

The touch and the gentleness had disarmed me of
my anger. I lifted my hands to cover my face. I cannot, I said
through my fingers. I need her.

What does Molly need?

A little chandlery with beehives in the backyard
of it. Children. A legitimate husband. You are doing this for
Shrewd. To make me do as he wishes, I accused Chade.

He lifted his hands from my shoulders. I
listened to him walk away, to wine being poured into a single cup.
He brought his wine with him to his chair and sat down before his
fire.

I'm sorry.

He looked at me. Someday, FitzChivalry, he
warned me, those words will not be enough. Sometimes it is easier
to pull a knife out of a man than to ask him to forget words you
have uttered. Even words uttered in anger.

I am sorry, I repeated.

So am I, he said shortly.

After a time I asked humbly, Why did you wish to
see me tonight?

He sighed. Forged ones. Southwest of
Buckkeep.

I felt ill. I had thought I would not have to do
that anymore, I said quietly. When Verity put me on a ship to Skill
for him, he said that perhaps-

This does not come from Verity. It was reported
to Shrewd, and he wishes it taken care of. Verity is already ...
overtaxed. We do not wish to trouble him with anything else just
now.

I put my head back into my hands. Is there no
one else who can do this? I begged him.

Only you and I are trained for this.

I did not mean you, I said wearily. I do not
expect you to do that sort of work anymore.

Don't you? I looked up to find the anger back in
his eyes. You arrogant pup! Who do you think kept them from
Buckkeep all summer, Fitz, while you were out on the Rurisk? Did
you think that because you wished to avoid a task, the need for
such work ceased?

I was as shamed then as I have ever been. I
looked aside from his anger. Oh, Chade. I am sorry.

Sorry that you avoided it? Or sorry that you
thought me incapable of doing it anymore?

Both. Everything. I conceded it all suddenly.
Please, Chade, if one more person I care about becomes angry with
me, I don't think I shall be able to bear it. I lifted my head and
looked at him steadily until he was forced to meet my
eyes.

He lifted a hand to scratch at his beard. It has
been a long summer for both of us. Pray El for storms to drive the
Red-Ships away forever.

We sat a time in silence.

Sometimes, Chade observed, it would be much
easier to die for one's king than to give one's life to
him.

I bowed my head in assent. The rest of the night
we spent preparing the poisons I would need in order to begin
killing for my king again.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Elderlings

THE AUTUMN
O
F the third year of the Red-Ship War was a
bitter one for King-in-Waiting Verity. His warships had been his
dream. He had founded all his hopes on them. He had believed he
could rid his own coast of Raiders, and be so successful at it that
he could send forth raiders against the hostile Outisland coasts
even during the worst of the winter storms. Despite early
victories, the ships never achieved the command of the coast that
he had hoped they would. Early winter found him with a fleet of
five ships, two of which had recently sustained severe damage. One
intact was the captured Red-Ship vessel, which had been refitted
and sent out with a crew to assist in patrols and escorting of
merchant vessels. When the winds of autumn finally arrived, only
one of his ships' masters expressed enough confidence in his crew's
skills and his vessel to be willing to undertake a raid against the
Outislander coasts. The other masters argued for at least one
winter of practicing seamanship along our own rough coast, and
another summer of practicing tactics, before undertaking such an
ambitious goal.

Verity would not send unwilling men, but neither
did he hide his disappointment. He expressed it well when he
outfitted the one willing ship, for the Revenge, as the vessel had
been renamed, was provisioned handsomely. The master's hand picked
crew were outfitted as well, in whatever armor they chose for
themselves, and were given new weapons of the best craftsmanship
available. There was quite a ceremony at her send-off, with even
King Shrewd in attendance despite his failing health. The Queen
herself hung the gull's feathers from the ship's mast that are said
to bring a vessel swiftly and safely back to her home port. A great
cheer arose as the Revenge set out, and the health of the captain
and crew were drunk many times over that evening.

A month later, to
V
erity's chagrin, we would receive word
that a vessel matching the Revenge's description was pirating in
the calmer waters to the south of the Six Duchies and bringing much
misery to the merchants of Bingtown and the Chalced States. That
was as much news of the captain and crew and ship as ever came back
to Buckkeep. Some blamed it on the Outislanders among the crew, but
there were as many good Six Duchies hands aboard as Outislanders,
and the captain had been raised right in Buckkeep Town. This was a
crushing blow to Verity's pride and to his leadership of his
people. Some believe it was then that he decided to sacrifice
himself in the hopes of finding a final solution.

I think the Fool put her up to it. Certainly he
had spent a great many hours in the tower-top garden with
Kettricken, and his admiration for what she had accomplished there
was unfeigned. Much goodwill can be won with a sincere compliment.
By the end of the summer, not only was she laughing at his jests
when he came up to entertain her and her ladies, but he had
persuaded her to be a frequent caller in the King's chambers. As
queen-in-waiting, she was immune to Wallace's humors. Kettricken
herself undertook to mix King Shrewd strengthening tonics, and for
a time the King did seem to rally under her care and attention. I
think the Fool decided that he would accomplish through her what he
had been unable to nag Verity and me into doing.

It was a wintry fall evening when she first
broached the subject to me. I was up on the tower top with her,
helping her to tie bundles of straw about the more tender of the
plants there, that they might better withstand the winter snows.
This was something Patience had decreed must be done, and she and
Lacey were performing the same task on a bed of windbower plants
behind me. She had become a frequent adviser to Queen Kettricken in
matters of growing things, albeit a very timid one. Little Rosemary
was at my elbow, handing me twine as we needed it. Two or three of
Kettricken's other ladies, well bundled, had stayed, but they were
at the other end of the garden, talking quietly together. The
others she had dismissed back to their hearths when she had noted
them shivering and blowing on their fingers. My bare hands were
near numb, as were my ears, but Kettricken seemed perfectly
comfortable. As was Verity, tucked away somewhere inside my skull.
He had insisted that I start carrying him again after he had
discovered that once more I was going out after Forged ones alone.
I scarcely noticed his presence in the back of my mind anymore. Yet
I believe that I felt him startle when Kettricken asked me, as she
knotted a string about a bundled plant I was supporting, what I
knew of the Elderlings.

Little enough, my lady queen, I replied
honestly, and once more made a promise to myself to go through the
long-neglected manuscripts and scrolls.

Why not? she demanded.

Well, little was actually written about them. I
believe at one time a knowledge of them was so common as not to
need writing down. And the bits that are written about them are
scattered here and there, not gathered in one place. It would take
a scholar to track down all the remnants ....

A scholar like the Fool? she asked tartly. He
seems to know more of them than anyone else I have
asked.

Well. He is fond of reading, you know,
and-

Enough of the Fool. I wish to speak to you of
the Elderlings, she said abruptly.

I startled at her tone, but found her staring,
gray-eyed, out over the sea once more. She had not intended either
a rebuke or a rudeness. She was simply intent upon her objective. I
reflected that in my months away she had become more certain of
herself. More queenly.

I know a little bit, I offered
hesitantly.

As do I. Let us see if what each of us knows
agrees. I shall begin.

As you wish, my queen.

She cleared her throat. Long ago, King Wisdom
was bitterly besieged by raiders from the sea. When all else had
failed him, and he feared that the next summer of kind weather
would bring the end of the Six Duchies and House Farseer, he
resolved to spend the winter searching for a legendary folk. The
Elderlings. Do we agree so far?

Mostly. As I have heard it, the legends called
them not a folk, but near gods. And the folk of the Six Duchies had
always believed Wisdom something of a religious fanatic, almost a
madman where such things were concerned.

Men of passion and vision are often seen as mad,
she calmly informed me. I shall continue. He left his castle one
fall, with no more information than that the Elderlings resided in
the Rain Wilds beyond the tallest mountains of the Mountain
Kingdom. Somehow, he found them, and he won their alliance. He
returned to Buckkeep, and together they drove the raiders and
invaders away from the coasts of the Six Duchies. Peace and trade
were reestablished. And the Elderlings swore to him that if they
were ever needed again, they would return. Do we still
agree?

As before, mostly. I have heard many minstrels
say that the ending is a standard one in tales of heroes and
quests. Always, they promise that if ever they are needed again,
they will return. Some even pledge to return from beyond the grave
if they must.

Actually, Patience suddenly observed, rocking
back on her heels, Wisdom himself never returned to Buckkeep. The
Elderlings came to his daughter, Princess Mindful, and it was to
her they offered allegiance.

Whence do you have that knowledge? Kettricken
demanded.

Patience shrugged. An old minstrel my father
used to have always sang it that way. Unconcerned, she went back to
knotting twine about a straw-bundled plant.

Kettricken considered a moment. The wind teased
loose a long lock of her hair and blew it across her face like a
net. She looked at me through the pale web. It doesn't matter what
the tales say about their returning. If a King once sought them,
and they gave aid, do you not think they might do so again, if a
King again beseeched them? Or a Queen?

Perhaps, I said grudgingly. Privately I wondered
if the Queen longed for her homeland and would make any excuse for
a visit there. Folk were beginning to talk about her lack of
pregnancy. While many ladies attended her now, she really had no
favorites that were genuinely her friends. Lonely, I suspected. I
think ... I began gently, pausing to consider how to frame a
discouraging reply.

Tell her she should come to me and speak of it.
I wish to know more of what she has gleaned. Verity's thought
quivered with excitement. It unsettled me.

I think you should take your idea to the
King-in-Waiting and discuss it with him, I dutifully suggested to
her.

She was silent a long time. When she spoke, her
voice was pitched very low, for my ears alone. I think not. He will
consider it another one of my foolishnesses. He will listen for a
bit, and then begin to look at the maps on the wall, or move things
about on his table as he waits for me to finish so he can smile and
nod and send me on my way. Again. Her voice hoarsened on the last
word. She brushed the hair back from her face, then brushed at her
eyes again. She turned from me to look out over the sea again, as
distant as Verity when he Skilled.

She's crying?

I could not conceal from Verity my annoyance
that this surprised him.

Bring her to me. Now, at once!

My queen?

A moment. Kettricken looked aside from me. With
her face away from me, she pretended to be scratching her nose. I
knew she brushed at tears.

Kettricken? I ventured the familiarity as I had
not for months. Let us go to him now with this idea. At once. I
will go with you.

She spoke hesitantly, not turning to look at me.
You do not think it is foolish?

I would not lie, I reminded myself. I think that
as things stand, we must consider any possible sources of aid. As I
spoke the words I found I believed them. Had not both Chade and the
Fool hinted, no, pleaded for this very idea? Perhaps Verity and I
were the ones who were shortsighted.