Royal Assassin (81 page)

Horses and breeding stock were not all that was taken from the stables. Burrich told me one morning that Hands was gone. He had not had time to bid anyone good-bye. “They took the last of the good stock yesterday. The best is long gone, but these were good horses, and they were taking them overland to Tradeford. Hands was simply told he was to go along. He came to me, protesting, but I told him to go. At least the horses will have well-trained hands taking care of them in their new home. Besides, there is nothing for him here. There is no stable left for anyone to be stablemaster over.”

I followed him silently on what had once been our morning rounds. The mews held only ancient or injured birds. The clamor of dogs had been reduced to a sparse baying and a few yips. The horses that remained were the unsound, the almost promising, the past their prime, the injured that had been kept in the hopes of breeding something from them. When I came to Sooty’s empty stall, my heart stood still. I could not speak. I leaned on her manger, my face in my hands. Burrich put a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up at him, he smiled oddly. He shook his cropped head. “They came for her and Ruddy yesterday. I told them they were fools, they had taken them last week. And truly they were fools, for they believed me. They did get your saddle.”

“Where?” I managed to ask.

“Better you don’t know,” Burrich said darkly. “One of us
dangling as a horse thief would be quite enough.” No more would he say of it to me.

A late-afternoon visit to Patience and Lacey was not the quiet interlude I had hoped for. I knocked, and there was an uncharacteristic pause before the door was opened. I found the sitting room in a shambles, worse than I had ever seen it, and Lacey dispiritedly trying to put things to rights. A great many more things were on the floor than usual.

“A new project?” I hazarded, attempting a bit of levity.

Lacey looked at me glumly. “They came this morning to take my lady’s table away. And my bed. They claimed they were needed for guests. Well, I shouldn’t be surprised, with so much of the rest of the things gone upriver. But I greatly doubt that we’ll see either item again.”

“Well, perhaps they’ll be waiting for you when you get to Tradeford,” I suggested inanely. I had not realized the whole extent of the liberties Regal was taking.

There was a very long silence before Lacey spoke. “Then they’ll wait a long time, FitzChivalry. We are not among those to be taken to Tradeford.”

“No. We’re among the odd folk to be left here, with the oddments of furniture.” This from Patience as she abruptly reentered the room. Her eyes were red and her cheeks pale, and I suddenly knew she had hidden herself when I first knocked until she had her tears under control.

“Then surely you shall return to Withywoods,” I suggested. My mind was working very swiftly. I had assumed that Regal was moving the entire household to Tradeford. Now I wondered who else was to be abandoned here. I put myself at the head of the list. I added Burrich and Chade. The Fool? Perhaps that was why he seemed lately to be Regal’s creature. That he might be allowed to follow the King to Tradeford.

Odd, how I had not even considered that the King and Kettricken were to be whisked not only out of Chade’s reach, but mine. Regal had renewed his orders confining me to Buckkeep itself. I had not wanted to trouble Kettricken to override them. I had, after all, promised Chade not to make waves.

“I cannot return to Withywoods. August rules there, the
King’s nephew. He who was head of Galen’s coterie, before his accident. He has no fondness for me, and I have no right to demand to be there. No. We shall be staying here, and making the best we can of it.”

I floundered for whatever comfort I could offer. “I have a bed still. I shall have it brought down here for Lacey. Burrich will help me bring it.”

Lacey shook her head. “I’ve made up a pallet, and I’ll be comfortable enough. Keep it where it is. Perhaps they daren’t take it from you. Were it down here, no doubt it would just be carried off tomorrow.”

“Has King Shrewd no care for what is happening?” Lady Patience asked of me sadly.

“I do not know. All are turned away from his door these days. Regal has said he is too ill to see anyone.”

“I thought perhaps it was just me he would not see. Ah, well. Poor man. To lose two sons, and see his kingdom come to this. Tell me, how is Queen Kettricken? I have not had a chance to go see her.”

“Well enough, last I saw her. Grieved by her husband’s death, of course, but—”

“Then she was not injured in her fall? I feared she would miscarry.” Patience turned aside from me, to gaze at a wall bereft of a familiar tapestry. “I was too cowardly to go and see her myself, if you would know the truth. I know too well the pain of losing a child before you have held it in your arms.”

“Her fall?” I said stupidly.

“Had not you heard? On those awful steps coming down from the Queen’s Garden. There was talk that some statuary had been removed from the gardens, and she had gone up to see what, and on her way back down she fell. Not a great tumbling fall, but heavily. On her back on those stone steps.”

I could not keep my mind on Patience’s conversation after that. Much of it centered on the depletion of the libraries, a thing I did not wish to think of anyway. As soon as I graciously could, I excused myself, on the flimsy promise that I would bring them direct word of the Queen.

I was turned away from Kettricken’s door. Several ladies told me at once not to fret, not to worry, she was fine, she but
needed to rest, oh, but it was terrible…. I endured enough to be sure that she had not miscarried, then fled.

But I did not go back to Patience. Not yet. Instead, I slowly climbed the stairs to the Queen’s Garden. I carried a lamp with me, and went most carefully. On the tower top, I found it was as I had feared. The smaller and more valuable of the statuary had been removed. Only the sheer weight had saved the larger pieces, I was sure. The missing bits took away the careful balance of Kettricken’s creation and added to the desolation of the garden in winter. I shut the door carefully behind me and went down the steps. Ever so slowly. Ever so carefully. On the ninth step down, I found it. I nearly discovered it as Kettricken had. But I caught my balance and then crouched low to study the step. Lampblack had been mixed with the grease, to take the sheen off it and blend it with the well-used steps. It was right where the foot would most naturally fall, especially if one were hastening down the stairs in a temper. Close enough to the tower top that a slip could be blamed on slush or mud from the gardens still on a shoe. I rubbed at the black on the step that came off on my fingers, then sniffed at it.

“A fine bit of pork fat,” observed the Fool. I leaped to my feet and nearly fell down the steps. A wild pinwheeling of my arms brought my balance back.

“Interesting. Do you think you could teach me to do that?”

“Not funny, Fool. I have been followed of late, and my nerves are a-jangle.” I peered down the stairwell into the darkness. If the Fool had crept up on me, could not Will? “How’s the King?” I demanded quietly. If this attempt had been made on Kettricken, I had no faith in Shrewd’s safety.

“You tell me.” The Fool stepped out of the shadows. Gone were his fine clothes, replaced with an old motley of blue and red. It went well with the new bruises that mottled one side of his face. On his right cheek, the flesh had been split. One arm carried the other close to his chest. I suspected a dislocated shoulder.

“Not again,” I gasped.

“Exactly what I said to them. They paid small attention. Some folk just have not the knack of conversation.”

“What happened? I thought you and Regal—”

“Yes, well, not even a Fool can seem stupid enough to please Regal. I did not wish to leave King Shrewd’s side today. They were questioning him relentlessly about what had happened the night of the feast. I became perhaps a trifle too witty in suggesting other ways they might amuse themselves. They threw me out.”

My heart sank in me. I was sure I knew exactly which guard had assisted him out the door. It was as Burrich had always warned me. One could never know what Regal might dare. “What did the King tell them?”

“Ah! Not, was the King all right, or was the King recovering? No. Only what did the King tell them? Do you fear your precious hide is in danger, Princeling?”

“No.” I could feel no resentment at his question, or even how he phrased it. I deserved it. I had not taken good care of our friendship lately. Despite that, when he needed help, he had come to me. “No. But as long as the King says nothing of Verity being alive, then Regal has no reason to—”

“My king was being … taciturn. It had started out as a pleasant conversation between father and son, with Regal telling him how pleased he should be to have him finally as king-in-waiting. King Shrewd was rather vague, as he often is these days. Something about it irritated Regal, and he began to accuse him of not being pleased, of even being opposed. Finally he began to insist there was a plot, a conspiracy to see that he never came to the throne. No man is so dangerous as the man who cannot decide what he fears. Regal is that man. Even Wallace was put ajar by his rantings. He had brought the King one of his brews, to deaden his mind along with his pain, but as he brought it near, Regal dashed it from his hands. He then spun on the poor trembling Wall’s Ass and accused him of being part of the conspiracy. He claimed Wallace had intended to drug our king to keep him from speaking what he knew. He ordered Wallace from the room, saying the King would have no need of him until he had seen fit to speak plainly to his son. He ordered me out as well, then. My reluctance to leave was overcome by a couple of his hulking inland plowmen.”

A creeping dread rose in me. I remembered my moment of
sharing the King’s pain. Regal would remorselessly watch while that pain crept past the numbing herbs to overwhelm his father. I could not imagine a man being capable of this. Yet I knew Regal would do it. “When did this happen?”

“Just an hour or so ago. You are not an easy person to find.”

I looked more closely at the Fool. “Go down to the stables, to Burrich. See what he can do for you.” The healer, I knew, would not touch the Fool. Like many around the Keep, he feared his strange appearance.

“What will you be doing?” the Fool asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. This was exactly one of the situations I had warned Chade about. I knew whether I acted or not, the consequences would be grave. I needed to distract Regal from what he was doing. Chade, I was sure, was aware of what was going on. If Regal and all others could be lured away for a time … I could think of only one piece of news that might be important enough to Regal to make him leave Shrewd.

“You’ll be all right?”

The Fool had sunk down to sit on the cold stone steps. He leaned his head against the wall. “I suppose so. Go.”

I started down the steps.

“Wait!” he called suddenly. I halted.

“When you take my king away, I go with him.”

I just stared up at him.

“I mean it. I wore Regal’s collar for the sake of that promise from him. It means nothing now to him.”

“I can make no promises,” I said quietly.

“I can. I promise that if my king is taken, and I do not go with him, I will betray every one of your secrets. Every one.” The Fool’s voice was shaking. He put his head back against the wall.

I turned away hastily. The tears on his cheeks were tinged pink from the cuts on his face. I could not bear to see them. I ran down the stairs.

“We will need blood from somewhere.” Kettricken had heard me out, and now made this request as calmly as if asking for a cup of wine. She looked from Patience to Lacey seeking for ideas.

“I’ll go fetch a chicken,” Lacey said unwillingly at last. “I’ll need a sack to put it in to keep it quiet—”

“Go then,” Patience told her. “Go quickly. Bring it back to my room. I shall fetch a knife and a basin, and we shall do it there, and bring but a cup of the blood back here. The less we do here, the less we must conceal.”

I had gone first to Patience and Lacey, knowing I would never get past the Queen’s attendants on my own. While I made a quick visit to my room, they had gone before me to the Queen, ostensibly taking her a special herbal tea but really to quietly beg a private audience for me. She had dismissed all her ladies, telling them she would be fine with just Patience and Lacey, and then sent Rosemary to fetch me. Rosemary played by the hearth now, absorbed in dressing a doll.