Royal Assassin (57 page)

The night before Verity was to leave, he summoned me to his study. “You don’t approve of this, do you? You think it’s a fool’s errand,” he greeted me.

I had to smile. Inadvertently, he had exactly stated what I thought. “I am afraid I have serious doubts,” I agreed cautiously.

“As do I. But what else is left to me? This, at least, is a chance for me to actually do something myself. Other than sit in that bedamned tower and Skill myself to death.”

He had painstakingly recopied Kettricken’s map over the last few days. As I watched he rolled it carefully and slid it into a leather case. The difference the last week had made in the man amazed me. He was still gray, his body still worn and sadly dwindled from too many months of sitting. But he moved with energy, and both he and Kettricken had graced the Great Hall every evening since the decision had been made. It had been a pleasure to watch him eat with an appetite, and once more linger over a glass of wine while Mellow or another of the minstrels entertained us all. The renewed warmth between Kettricken and him was another appetite he had recovered. Her eyes seldom left her lord’s countenance when they were at table. While the minstrels entertained, her fingers were always resting on the back of his forearm. She glowed in his presence like a burning candle. Shield myself as I might, I was all too aware of how much they enjoyed their nights. I had attempted
to hide from their passions by immersing myself in Molly. I ended up feeling guilty that Molly was so pleased with my renewed ardor. How would she feel if she knew my appetites were not entirely my own?

The Skill. I had been warned of its powers and pitfalls, of how it might call to a man and drain him of everything except a hunger for its use. This was one trap I had never been warned about. In some ways, I was looking forward to Verity leaving so I could call my soul my own again.

“What you do in that tower is not a lesser task. If folk could but understand how you burn yourself for them …”

“As you understand only too well. We’ve grown close this summer, boy. Closer than I’d ever have thought possible. Closer than any man has been to me since your father died.”

Closer even than you might suspect, my prince. But I did not utter those words. “We have.”

“I’ve a favor to ask you. Two, actually.”

“You know that I won’t refuse you.”

“Never say that so easily. The first is that you look after my lady. She has grown wiser in Buckkeep ways, but she is still far too trusting. Keep her safe until I return.”

“That is always yours without asking, my prince.”

“And the other.” He took a breath, sighed it out. “I wish to try to stay here as well. In your mind. For as long as I can.”

“My prince.” I hesitated. He was right. This was not a thing I wished to grant him. But I had already said I would. I knew that for the sake of the kingdom, it was a wise thing to do. But for myself? Already I had felt the boundaries of my self eroding before Verity’s strong presence. We were not talking about a contact of hours now, or days, but of weeks and likely months. I wondered if this was what happened to coterie members, if eventually they ceased having separate lives. “What of your coterie?” I asked quietly.

“What of them?” he retorted. “I leave them in place, in the watchtowers and on my ships for now. Whatever messages they must send, they can send to Serene. In my absence, she will take them to Shrewd. If there is anything they feel I must know, they can Skill me.” He paused. “There will be other
sorts of information that I would seek through you. Things I would prefer kept private.”

Tidings of his queen, I thought to myself. How Regal would employ his powers in his brother’s absence. Gossip and intrigues. In one sense, trifling things. In another, the detail that secured Verity’s position. I wished for the thousandth time that I could Skill reliably of my own accord. If I had had that ability, Verity would not have needed to ask this of me. I would have been able to reach out to him at any time. But as matters stood, the touch-imposed Skill bond we had used over the summer was our only resource. Through it, he could be aware of what went on at Buckkeep when he chose to, and I could receive instructions from him. I hesitated, but already knew that I would accede. From loyalty to him and to the Six Duchies, I told myself. Not from any Skill hunger in myself. I looked up at him. “I will do it.”

“Knowing well that this is how it begins,” he said. It was not a question. Already, this was how accurately we could read one another. He did not wait for my answer. “I will be as inconspicuous as I can,” he promised. I walked to him. He lifted a hand and touched my shoulder. Verity was with me again, as he had not consciously been since the day in his study when he had bid me to shield myself.

The day of the departure was fine, crisply cold, but the skies were clear blue. Verity, true to his word, had kept his expedition to a minimum. Riders had been dispatched the morning after the council to precede him on his route and arrange supplies and lodgings in the towns where he would pass. This would allow him to travel swiftly and lightly through much of the Six Duchies.

As his expedition set off that chill morning I alone of the crowd did not bid Verity farewell. He nestled inside my mind, small and silent as a seed waiting for spring. As unnoticed, almost, as Nighteyes. Kettricken had chosen to watch the departure from the frosty walls of the Queen’s Garden. She had said her farewells to him earlier, and chosen this spot so that if she wept, none would take it amiss. I stood at her side and endured the resonance of what she and Verity had come to share in the last week. I was both glad for her and heartsick that
what she had so recently found must so quickly be taken from her. Horses and men, pack animals and banners finally passed behind a shoulder of hills and out of our sight. Then I felt that which sent a chill up my spine. She Wit-quested after him. Very faintly, it was true, but enough that somewhere in my heart, Nighteyes sat up, eyes aflame, and asked,
What’s this?

Nothing. Nothing to do with us, anyway
. I added,
We hunt together soon, my brother, as we have not for too long
.

For a few days after the cavalcade’s departure, I almost had my own life again. I had dreaded Burrich’s leaving with Verity. I understood what drove him to follow his king-in-waiting, but felt uncomfortably exposed with them both gone. That told me much about myself that I really did not want to know. But the other side of that coin was that with Burrich gone and Verity’s presence inside me coiled tight, Nighteyes and I were finally free to use the Wit as openly as we wished. Almost every dawn I was with him, miles from the Keep. On the days when we sought Forged ones, I rode Sooty, but she did not ever feel completely comfortable around the wolf. After a time there seemed far fewer of them, and no more coming into the area. We began to be able to hunt game for ourselves. For that, I went afoot, for we hunted more companionably that way. Nighteyes approved of my physical improvement over the summer. That winter, for the first time since Regal had poisoned me, I felt I had the full use of my body and strength again. The vigorous mornings of hunting and the deep hours of the night with Molly would have been enough life for any man. There is something completely satisfying about simple things such as these.

I suppose I wanted my life to be always this simple and complete. I tried to ignore things I knew were dangerous. The continued fine weather, I told myself, would assure Verity a fine start to his journey. I put from my mind whether there would be any end-of-season raids from the Red-Ships while we were so unprotected. I avoided, too, Regal and the sudden round of social occasions that filled Buckkeep with his followers and kept the torches burning late every night in the Great Hall. Serene and Justin were also much more in evidence about Buckkeep. I never entered a room where they were but that I
felt the arrows of their dislike. I began to avoid the common rooms in the evenings, where I must either encounter them, or Regal’s guests who had come to swell our winter court.

Verity had not been gone more than two days before I heard rumors that the true purpose of his quest was to seek the Elderlings. I could not blame these on Regal. Those Verity had hand-chosen had known of their true mission. Burrich had ferreted it out for himself. If he could, so could another, and noise it about. But when I overheard two pantry boys laughing about “King Wisdom’s folly, and Prince Verity’s myth,” I suspected the ridicule was Regal’s doing. Verity’s Skilling had made him too much the recluse. Folk wondered what he did so long alone in his tower. That is, they knew he Skilled, but that was too tame a topic for gossip. His preoccupied stare, his odd hours for eating and rest, his silent ghosting through the castle while other folks were abed were all grist for this mill. Had he lost his mind, and set out on a madman’s errand? Speculation began to grow, and Regal gave it fertile ground. He found excuses and reasons for all sorts of banquets and gatherings of his nobles. King Shrewd was seldom well enough to be present and Kettricken did not enjoy the company of the witty knaves that Regal cultivated. I knew enough to stay away. I had only myself and Chade to grumble to about the cost of these parties when Regal had insisted that there were scarcely funds for Verity’s expedition. Chade only shook his head.

The old man had become more closemouthed of late, even with me. I had the uncomfortable feeling that Chade kept a secret from me. Secrets in themselves were nothing new. The old assassin was stuffed full of secrets. I simply could not be rid of the feeling that this secret somehow touched on me directly. I could not ask him outright, but I watched him. His worktable showed signs of heavy use when I was not about. Even stranger, all messes associated with that work had been cleaned meticulously away whenever he summoned me. This was bizarre. For years I had tidied after him and his “cooking.” Now for him to straighten up after himself seemed either a sharp rebuke to me or a concealment of whatever he had been doing.

Unable to resist, I watched him whenever I could. I
learned nothing of his secret, but saw much that I had previously missed. Chade was getting old. The stiffness cold weather brought to his joints no longer yielded to the cozy evenings before his hearth. He was Shrewd’s elder half brother, bastard as I was, and despite his stiffness, he still seemed the younger of the two. But he held scrolls farther from his nose when he read now and avoided reaching for anything over his head. To watch these changes in him was as painful as to know he kept a secret from me.

Twenty-three days after Verity left, I came back from a dawn hunt with Nighteyes to find the Keep abuzz. The feeling was that of a stirred ant nest, but with none of their purposeful-ness. I went straight to Cook Sara and asked her what had happened. The kitchen of any keep is the heart of the rumor mill, second only to the guardroom. At Buckkeep, the kitchen gossip was usually more accurate.

“A rider come in, his horse near to dead. Said there’s been a raid up at Ferry. The whole city near gone from the fires they set. Seventy folk Forged. How many dead, there’s not telling yet. And more will die, made homeless in this cold. Three shiploads of Raiders, the boy said. He went straight to Prince Regal, he did, and reported. Prince Regal sent him here to be fed; he’s in the guardroom now, asleep.” She lowered her voice. “That boy came all this way on his own. Got fresh horses in towns he went through, coming down the coast road, but wouldn’t let no one else carry his message for him. He told me that every leg of the way, he kept expecting to find help coming, to hear from someone that they already knew and that ships had been sent out. But there was nothing.”

“From Ferry? Then it’s been at least five days since it happened. Why weren’t the signal tower fires lit?” I demanded. “Or the message birds sent to Gull and Sealbay? King-in-Waiting Verity left a patrol ship in that area. The patrol ship should have been able to see the light from Gull or Ferry. And there’s a coterie member, Will, at Red Tower. He should have seen the signal fires. He should have sent word back here, to Serene. How could it be that no word was received here; how could we know nothing at all of this?”

Cook lowered her voice even more, gave the dough she
was kneading a meaningful thump. “Boy said the signal fires were lit, at Ferry and at Ice Town. He says the birds were sent to Gull. The ship never came.”

“Then why didn’t we know?” I took a deep shuddering breath, set aside my useless anger. Within me, I felt a faint stirring of concern from Verity. Too faint. The Skill bond was fading, just when I wished it strong. “Well, I suppose it’s no good asking that just now. What has Regal done? Sent out the
Rurisk
? I wish I’d been here to go with them.”

Cook snorted and paused to throttle the dough a bit. “Go now, then, for you won’t be late. Nothing’s been done, no one sent that I’ve heard. No one sent, no one is being sent. No one.

“You know I’ve no tongue for gossip, Fitz, but what was whispered was that Prince Regal did know of it. When the boy came in, oh, the Prince was so kind, so full of sympathy as to make the ladies’ hearts melt. A meal, a new coat, a small purse for his troubles. But he told the boy it was too late now. The Raiders would be long gone. No sense to send a ship out now, or soldiers.”