Royal Assassin (80 page)

You are followed
. Nighteyes’ new caution of Burrich made his voice but the tiniest whisper in my head.

I did not halt. That would have let my follower know I was suspicious. Instead I scratched my shoulder, making it an excuse to swivel my head about and glance behind me. I saw no one.

Snuff
.

I did, a short breath followed by a deeper intake. A bare scent on the air. Sweat and garlic. I quested gently and my blood went cold. There, at the far end of the hall, concealed in a doorway. Will. Dark, slender Will, with his eyes always half-lidded. The coterie member who had been recalled from Bearns. Very cautiously I touched the Skill shield that hid him from me, a subtle bidding that I not notice him, a quiet scent of self-confidence sent my way to bolster me in doing whatever I wished to do. Very guileful. Very artful, much more delicate a touch than either Serene or Justin had ever shown me.

A much more dangerous man.

I went to the landing of the stairs and took candles from the extra ones stored there, then returned to my room as if that had been my sole errand.

When I closed my door behind me, my mouth was dry. I sighed out a shuddering breath. I forced myself to examine the guards that warded my mind. He had not been in me, that I could tell. He was not sniffing out my thoughts, then, but only imposing his on me to make it easier for him to shadow me. Had it not been for Nighteyes, he would have followed me right to Molly’s door tonight. I forced myself to lie down on my bed again, to try to recall all of my actions since Will had returned to Buckkeep. I had been dismissing him as an enemy simply because he did not radiate the hatred for me that Serene and
Justin did. He had always been a quiet and unimposing youth. He had grown to be an unremarkable man, scarce worth anyone’s attention.

I had been a fool.

I do not think he has followed you before. But I cannot be sure either
.

Nighteyes, my brother. How do I thank you?

Stay alive
. A pause.
And bring me ginger cake
.

You shall have it
, I promised fervently.

Burrich’s fire had burned low and I still had not slept when I felt Chade’s draft sweep through my room. It was almost a relief to rise and go to him.

I found him awaiting me impatiently, pacing about his small room. He pounced on me as I came out of the stairwell.

“An assassin is a tool,” he informed me in a hiss. “Somehow, I never got that across to you. We are tools. We do not do anything of our own volition.”

I stopped still, shocked at the anger in his voice. “I haven’t killed anyone!” I said indignantly.

“Shush! Speak softly. I would not be too sure of that, were I you,” he replied. “How many times have I done my job, not by putting the knife in myself, but simply by giving someone else sufficient reason and opportunity to do it for me?”

I said nothing.

He looked at me and sighed, the anger and strength going out of him. Softly he said, “Sometimes, the best you can do is just salvage work. Sometimes we have to resign ourselves to that. We are not the ones to set the wheels in motion, boy. What you did tonight was ill-considered.”

“So the Fool and Burrich have both told me. I don’t think Kettricken would agree.”

“Kettricken and her child could both have lived with her grief. As could King Shrewd. Look at what they were. A foreign woman, widow of a dead King-in-Waiting, mother of a child that isn’t visible yet, and who will be unable to wield power for years to come. Regal judged Shrewd to be but a doddering helpless old man, useful as a puppet perhaps, but harmless enough. Regal had no immediate reason to put them aside. Oh, I agree Kettricken’s position was not as secure as it
could be, but she was not in direct opposition to Regal. That is where she is now.”

“She did not tell him what we had discovered,” I said unwillingly.

“She did not have to. It will show, in her bearing and in her will to resist him. He had reduced her to a widow. You have restored her to a Queen-in-Waiting. But it is for Shrewd that I worry. Shrewd is the one who holds the key, who can stand up and say, even in a whisper, ‘Verity still lives, Regal has no right to be king-in-waiting.’ He is the one Regal must fear.”

“I have seen Shrewd, Chade. Really seen him. I do not think he will betray what he knows. Beneath that faltering body, beneath the numbing drugs and the savage pain, there is a shrewd man still.”

“Perhaps. But he is buried deep. Drugs, and pain even more so, will drive a sagacious man to foolish acts. A man dying of his wounds will leap to his horse to lead a last charge. Pain can make a man take risks, or assert himself in strange ways.”

What he was saying made all too much sense. “Cannot you counsel him against letting Regal know that he knows Verity is alive?”

“I could try, perhaps. Were not that damnable Wallace always in my way. It was not so bad at first; at first, he was tractable and useful, easy to manipulate from afar. He never knew I was behind the herbs the peddlers brought him; never even suspected I existed. But now he clings to the King like a limpet, and not even the Fool can drive him away for long. I seldom have more than a few minutes with Shrewd at a time anymore. And I am lucky if my brother is lucid for half of them.”

There was something in his voice. I lowered my head, shamed. “I am sorry,” I said quietly. “Sometimes I forget that he is more to you than just your king.”

“Well. We were never really that close, that way. But we are two old men, who have grown old together. Sometimes that is a greater closeness. We have come through time to your day and age. We can talk together, quietly, and share memories of a time that exists no more. I can tell you how it was, but it is not
the same. It is like being two foreigners, trapped in a land we have come to, unable to return to our own, and having only each other to confirm the reality of the place we once lived. At least, once we could.”

I thought of two children running wild on the beaches of Buckkeep, plucking sheel off the rocks and eating them raw. Molly and I. It was possible to be homesick for a time, and to be lonely for the only other person who could recall it. I nodded.

“Ah. Well. Tonight we contemplate salvage. Now. Listen to me. On this I must have your word. You will not take actions of major consequence without conferring with me first.

Agreed?”

I looked down. “I want to say yes. I am willing to agree to it. But lately even small actions of mine seem to take on consequences like a pebble in a landslide. And events pile up to where I have to make a choice suddenly, with no chance to consult anyone else. So I cannot promise. But I will promise to try. Is that enough?”

“I suppose. Catalyst,” he muttered.

“So the Fool calls me, too,” I complained.

Chade stopped abruptly in the midst of starting to say something. “Does he really?” he asked intently.

“He clubs me with the word every chance he gets.” I walked down to Chade’s hearth and sat down before his fire. The heat felt good. “Burrich says that too strong a dose of elfbark can lead to bleak spirits afterward.”

“Do you find it so?”

“Yes. But it could be the circumstances. Yet Verity seemed often depressed, and he used it frequently. Again, it could be the circumstances.”

“It may be we shall never know.”

“You speak very freely tonight. Naming names, ascribing motives.”

“All is gaiety in the Great Hall tonight. Regal was certain he had bagged his game. All his watches were relaxed, all his spies given a night’s liberty.” He looked at me sourly. “I am sure it will not be the same again for a while.”

“So you think what we say here can be listened to.”

“Anywhere I can listen and peep, from there it is possible I could be overheard and spied upon. Only just possible. But one does not get to be as old as I am by taking chances.”

An old memory suddenly made sense. “You once told me that in the Queen’s Garden, you are blind.”

“Exactly.”

“So you did not know—”

“I did not know what Galen was putting you through, at the time he was doing it. I was privy to gossip, much of it unreliable and all of it far after the fact. But on the night he beat you and left you to die … No.” He looked at me strangely. “Had you believed I could know of such a thing and take no action?”

“You had promised not to interfere with my instruction,” I said stiffly.

Chade took his chair, leaned back with a sigh. “I don’t think you will ever completely trust anyone. Or believe that someone cares about you.”

Silence filled me. I didn’t know the answer. First Burrich and now Chade, forcing me to look at myself in uncomfortable ways.

“Ah, well,” Chade conceded to my silence. “As I began to say earlier. Salvage.”

“What do you want me to do?”

He breathed out through his nose. “Nothing.”

“But …”

“Absolutely nothing. Remember this at all times. King-in-Waiting Verity is dead. Live that belief. Believe that Regal has the right to claim his spot, believe he has the right to do all the things he does. Placate him for now, give him nothing to fear. We must make him believe he has won.”

I thought for a moment. Then I stood and drew my belt knife.

“What are you doing?” Chade demanded.

“What Regal would expect me to do, did I truly believe Verity was dead.” I reached in back of my head, to where a leather thong bound my hair back in a warrior’s tail.

“I have shears,” Chade pointed out in annoyance. He went and got them and stood behind me. “How much?”

I considered. “As extreme as I can be, short of mourning him as a crowned King.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s what Regal would expect of me.”

“That’s true, I suppose.” With a single clip, Chade took off my hair at the knot. It felt strange to have it suddenly fall forward, short, not even to my jaw. As if I were a page again. I reached up and felt its shortness as I asked him, “What will you be doing?”

“Trying to find a safe place for Kettricken and the King. I must make all things ready for their flight. When they go, they must vanish like shadows when the light comes.”

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

“What else is left for us? They are no more than hostages now. Powerless. The Inland Dukes have turned to Regal, the Coastal Dukes have lost faith in King Shrewd. Kettricken has made herself allies amongst them, however. I must tug at the strings she has spun and see what I can arrange. At least we can see them placed where their safety cannot be used against Verity when he comes back to reclaim his crown.”

“If he returns,” I said gloomily.

“When. The Elderlings will be with him.” Chade looked at me sourly. “Try to believe in something, boy. For my sake.”

Without a doubt, the time that I spent under Galen’s tutelage was the worst period of my life at Buckkeep. But the week that followed that night with Chade runs a close second. We were an anthill, kicked apart. No matter where I went in the Keep, there were constant reminders that the foundations of my life had been shattered. Nothing would ever be as it was before.

There was a great influx of folk from the Inland Duchies, come to witness Regal becoming king-in-waiting. Had not our stables been so depleted already, it would have taxed Burrich and Hands to keep up with them. As it was, it seemed like Inlanders were everywhere, tall, towheaded Farrow men, and brawny Tilth farmers and cattlemen. They were a bright contrast to the glum Buckkeep soldiers with their mourning-cropped hair. Not a few clashes occurred. The grumble from Buckkeep Town took the form of jests comparing the invasion
of the Inlanders with the raids of the Outislanders. The humor had always a bitter edge.

For the counterpoint to this influx of folk and business in Buckkeep Town was the outflow of goods from Buckkeep. Rooms were stripped shamelessly. Tapestries and rugs, furniture and tools, supplies of all kinds were drained out of the Keep, to be loaded on barges and taken upriver to Tradeford, always to be “kept safe” or “for the comfort of the King.” Mistress Hasty was at her wit’s end to house so many guests when half the furniture was being hauled off to barges. Some days it seemed that Regal was attempting to see that all he could not carry off with him was devoured before he left.

At the same time he was sparing no expense to be sure that his crowning as king-in-waiting would be as full of pomp and ceremony as possible. I truly did not know why he bothered with it at all. To me, at least, it seemed plain he planned on abandoning four of the Six Duchies to their own devices. But as the Fool had once warned me, there was no point to trying to measure Regal’s wheat with my bushels. We had no common standard. Perhaps to insist the Dukes and nobles of Bearns and Rippon and Shoaks come to witness him assume Verity’s crown was some subtle form of revenge I could not understand. Little enough did he care what hardship it worked upon them to come to Buckkeep at a time when their shores were so beleaguered. I was not surprised that they were slow to arrive, and that when they did, they were shocked at the sacking of Buckkeep. Word of Regal’s plan to remove himself and the King and Kettricken had not been spread to the Coastal Duchies by any means other than rumor.

But long before the Coastal Dukes arrived, while I still endured the greater general chaos, the rest of my life began to rattle into pieces. Serene and Justin began to haunt me. I was aware of them, often physically following me, but just as often Skilling at the edges of my consciousness. They were like pecking birds come after any loose thoughts I might have, snatching at casual daydreams or any unguarded moment of my life. That was bad enough. But I saw them now as only the distraction, the diversion created to keep me from being aware of Will’s more subtle haunting. So I set my guards most
strongly about my mind, knowing I probably shielded out Verity as well. I feared this was their actual intent, but dared reveal that fear to no one. I watched constantly behind myself, using every sense Nighteyes and I possessed. I vowed I would be more wary, and set myself the task of discovering what the other coterie members worked at. Burl was at Tradeford, ostensibly helping prepare the place for King Shrewd’s comfort. I had no idea where Carrod was, and there was no one I could discreetly ask. The only thing I could discover for certain was that he was no longer on the
Constance
. So I worried. And became almost mad with worry that I did not detect Will shadowing after me anymore. Did he know I had become aware of him? Or was he so good I could not detect him? I began to live my life as if every move I made were watched.