Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (88 page)

Aye.

Could you Skill again to Verity?

I fear to try. I do not know how to guard
against Justin and Serene. Or Will. I sighed. Still, I will try.
Surely Verity will know if they ride with my Skilling. Another
thought intruded. Chade, tomorrow night, when you lead Kettricken
to escape, you must find a moment or two, to tell her of what has
transpired, and assure her of my loyalty.

Oh, those will be reassuring tidings to give her
as she flees back to the Mountains. No. Not tomorrow night. I will
see that word reaches her, when she is safe. And you must continue
to try to reach Verity, but beware of having your Skilling spied
upon. Are you sure our plans are unknown to them?

I had to shake my head. But I believe they are
safe. I had told all to Verity when first I Skilled him. It was not
until the end that he said someone tried to spy upon us.

You probably should have killed Justin, Chade
grumbled to himself. Then he laughed at my outraged look. No, no,
calm yourself. I will not rebuke you that you refrained from it.
Would that you had been so circumspect with the scheme that Brawndy
brought you. Even a breath of this would be sufficient for Regal to
have your neck stretched. And were he ruthless and foolish, he
could try to hang his dukes as well. No. Let us not even think of
that! The halls of Buckkeep would run blood before that was done.
Would you had found a way to turn the conversation, before ever he
made you such an offer. Save, as you say, that they might have
found another. Ah, well. We cannot put old heads on young
shoulders. Unfortunately, Regal could remove your young head from
your young shoulders all too easily. He knelt and put another piece
of wood on the fire. He took a breath and sighed it out. Have you
got all other things in readiness? he asked abruptly.

I was only too glad to change the topic. As much
as I could. Burrich will be in place and waiting, in the alder
copse where the dog fox used to den.

Chade rolled his eyes. How do I find that? Ask a
passing dog fox?

I smiled inadvertently. Close. Where will you
emerge from Buck Castle?

He was stubbornly silent for a moment. Still,
that old fox hated to reveal his back door. Finally he said, We
will come out of the grain shed, the one third back from the
stables.

I nodded slowly. A gray wolf will meet you.
Follow him silently, and he will show you a way out of the walls of
Buck that does not take you through the gates.

For a long moment Chade just looked at me. I
waited. For condemnation, for a look of disgust, even for
curiosity. But the old assassin had studied too long how to mask
his feelings. He said at last, We are fools if we do not use every
weapon that comes to hand. Is he any ... danger to us?

No more than I am. You need not wear wolfsbane,
nor offer him mutton to be allowed to pass. I was as familiar with
the old folklore as Chade was. Simply show yourself, and he will
appear to guide you. He will take you through the walls, and out to
the copse where Burrich waits with the horses.

Is it a long walk?

I knew he was thinking of the King. It is not
overly long, but it is not short, and the snow is deep and
unpacked. It will not be easy to scrabble through the gap in the
wall, but it can be done. I could ask Burrich to meet you at the
wall instead, but I do not wish to draw attention to it. Perhaps
the Fool could help you manage?

He will have to, from the sound of things. I am
not willing to bring any others in on this plot. Our position seems
only to become more and more untenable.

I bowed my head to the truth of that. And you? I
ventured to ask.

My tasks are done as completely as they could
be, ahead of time. The Fool has assisted me. He has spirited away
both clothing and coin for his king's journey. Shrewd has
reluctantly agreed to our plan. He knows it is wise, but every part
of it chafes him. Despite all, Fitz, Regal is his son, his favored
youngest. Even having felt Regal's ruthlessness, it is still hard
for him to say the Prince threatens his life. You see how he is
bound: to admit that Regal would turn on him is to admit he was
wrong about his son. To flee Buckkeep is even worse, for that is
admitting not only that Regal would turn on him, but that flight is
his only option. Our king has never been a coward. It galls him now
to run from one who should be most loyal of all to him. Yet he
must. Of that I have convinced him; mostly, I'll admit, by saying
that without his acknowledgment, Kettricken's child will have a
poor claim on the throne. Chade sighed. All is as ready as I can
make it. I have prepared the medicines, and all is well
packed.

The Fool understands he cannot go with his
king?

Chade rubbed his forehead. He intends to follow,
a few days behind. He would not be dissuaded entirely. The best I
could do was to get him to travel separately.

Then it but depends on me to find a way to empty
the King's room of witnesses, and for you to spirit him
away.

Ah, yes, Chade observed mirthlessly. All is well
planned and ready to carry out, save for the actual
deed.

We stared together into the fire.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Escapes and
Captures

THE OUTBREAK OF strife between the coastal and
Inland Duchies at the end of King Shrewd's reign was not a new
sundering, but rather a resumption of old differences. The four
Coastal Duchies, Bearns, Buck, Rippon, and Shoaks, were a kingdom
long before the Six Duchies came to be. When the unified battle
tactics of the Chalced States convinced King Wielder that their
conquest would be unprofitable, he turned his ambitions inland. The
Farrow region, with its scattered nomadic tribal populations, fell
easily to the organized armies he led. The more populous and
settled Tilth grudgingly surrendered to him when the erstwhile King
of that region found his territory surrounded and his trade routes
severed.

Both the old kingdom of Tilth and the region
that would come to be known as Farrow were held as conquered
territory for over a generation. The wealth of their granaries,
orchards, and herds were exploited lavishly for the benefit of the
Coastal Duchies. Queen Munificence, granddaughter of Wielder, was
wise enough to see that this was breeding discontent in the inland
areas. She showed great tolerance and wisdom in elevating the
tribal elders of the Farrow folk and the former ruling families of
Tilth to nobles. She used marriages and grants of land to forge
alliances between coastal and inland folk. She first referred to
her kingdom as the Six Duchies. But all of her political maneuvers
could not change the geographic and economic interests of the
different areas. Climate, folk, and livelihoods of the Inland
Duchies remained vastly different from that of the coastal
peoples.

During Shrewd's reign, the differing interests
of the two regions were exacerbated by the offspring of his two
queens. His elder sons, Verity and Chivalry, were the sons of Queen
Constance, a noblewoman of Shoaks with relatives among the nobility
of Bearns as well. She was very much of the coastal folk. Shrewd's
second queen, Desire, was from Farrow, but traced her family
lineage back to the long foundered royalty of Tilth as well as to
distant Farseer connections. Hence came her oft-repeated claim that
her son Regal was more royal than either of his half brothers, and
hence had more right to the throne.

With the disappearance of King-in-Waiting Verity
and rumors of his death, and the obvious failing of King Shrewd, it
appeared to the Coastal Dukes that power and title would be passed
on to Prince Regal, born of inland lineage. They preferred to align
with the unborn child of Verity, a coastal Prince, and predictably
did all they could to retain and consolidate power in the coastal
bloodlines. Threatened as the Coastal Duchies were by Raiders and
Forgings, it was really the only rational choice they could
make.

The King-in-Waiting ceremony was too long. Folk
were assembled well ahead of time, to allow Regal to make a stately
entrance through our ranks and ascend to the high seat, where a
drowsing King Shrewd awaited him. Queen Kettricken, pale as a wax
taper, stood behind Shrewd at his left shoulder. Shrewd was
bedecked in robes and fur collars and the full regalia of the royal
jewels, but Kettricken had resisted Regal's suggestions and
enticements. She stood very tall and straight in a plain robe of
purple, belted above her rounding belly. A simple circlet of gold
confined the cropped remnants of her hair. Other than that band of
metal at her temples, she might have been a servant standing ready
to attend Shrewd. I knew she saw herself still as Sacrifice rather
than queen. She could not see that the starkness of her attire made
her look dramatically foreign to the court.

The Fool was there as well, in a well-worn
motley of black and white, and with Ratsy once more atop his
scepter. He had striped his face in black and white as well, and I
wondered if this was to camouflage his bruises, or simply to
complement his motley. He had appeared sometime before Regal had,
and had very obviously enjoyed the spectacle he created by
sauntering up the aisle, waving Ratsy about in airy benediction,
before he curtsied to the assemblage and then plopped gracefully at
the King's feet. Guards had begun to move to intercept him, but
were blocked by grinning, craning people. When he arrived at the
dais and seated himself, the King had reached down to absently
tousle the Fool's sparse locks, and so he had been suffered to
remain where he was. Scowls or grins were exchanged over the Fool's
performance, depending largely on how deeply one had pledged his
allegiance to Regal. I myself feared that it would be the Fool's
last prank.

The atmosphere in the Keep all day had been like
to that of a seething pot. My trust that Bea
rn
s was a tight-lipped man had been
misplaced. Entirely too many minor nobles were suddenly nodding to
me, or catching my eye for an exchanged look. I feared it could not
be missed by any of Regal's minions, and so had kept myself to my
room or, for a good part of the early afternoon, in Verity's tower,
where I had vainly attempted to Skill forth to him. I had chosen
that spot in the hopes of invoking his memory cleanly to my mind,
but I failed. Instead I found myself straining for a hint of Will's
footstep on the tower stairs, or a brush of Justin's or Serene's
presence against my Skill sense.

After I gave up on Skilling, I sat long,
pondering the unsolvable riddle of how I would empty the King's
room of guards. Outside, I could hear the pounding of the sea and
the wind, and when I opened the windows briefly the gusting storm
fair blew me across the room. Most saw this as a fair day for the
ceremony; the rising storm might keep Raiders berthed wherever they
were at present and assure us no new raids. I watched the freezing
rain putting a crust on the banked snow while making the roads
treacherously slick, and imagined Burrich traveling through it by
night with the Queen and King Shrewd in his litter. It was not a
task I would enjoy.

The tone for something of great portent to
happen had been well set. Now, in addition to stories of the Pocked
Man and snakes on the hearth, there was despair in the kitchens.
The day's bake of bread had failed to rise, and the milk had
curdled in the casks before even the cream could be skimmed from
it. Poor Cook Sara had been shaken to her core and declared that
never before had such a thing dared to happen in her kitchens. The
pig men would not even let the soured milk be given to the swine,
so sure were all that it was cursed. The failure of the bread had
meant twice the catch-up work for the kitchen servants, who were
already overburdened with feeding all the guests who had come for
the ceremony. I could now vouch that the tempers of an entire Keep
could be disturbed by an unhappy kitchen crew.

There had been short rations for the watch room,
and the stew had been overly salted, while somehow the beer had
gone flat. The Duke of Tilth complained of vinegar instead of wine
in his rooms, which led the Duke of Bea
rn
s to comment to those of Shoaks and
Rippon that even a bit of vinegar would have been welcome as a sign
of hospitality in their rooms. The unfortunate remark was conveyed
somehow to Mistress Hasty, who soundly scolded all the chamberlains
and serving folk who had not somehow managed to spread the thin
cheer left at Buckkeep to include the lesser guest rooms. There was
a complaint among the lesser servants that an order had come down
to keep expenses for those guests to a minimum, but no one could be
found who would admit to giving such an order, or even to passing
it down. And so the day had gone, so that I had been altogether
relieved to isolate myself in Verity's tower.

But I dared not miss the King-in-Waiting
ceremony, for too much would have been inferred from that. And so I
stood, an uncomfortable victim of a shirt with overfull sleeves and
some very itchy leggings, patiently awaiting Regal's entrance. My
mind was not on his pomp and ceremony; rather it whirled with
questions and worries of my own. I fretted over whether Burrich had
been able to smuggle out the horses and litter. It was dark now. He
was probably sitting outside in this storm, in the pathetic shelter
of the alder copse. He would have blanketed the horses, no doubt,
but that would do little against the sleet that now fell steadily.
He had given me the name of the smithy where Sooty and Ruddy had
been taken. Somehow I must find a way to keep up the man's weekly
bribes, and to check on them often to be sure they were well cared
for. This he had made me promise to entrust to no one else. Would
the Queen be able to retire alone to her room? And again and again,
how was I to empty King Shrewd's room that Chade might spirit him
away?

A mutter of wonder broke me from my reverie. I
glanced toward the dais where everyone seemed to be staring. There
was a brief flickering, and for an instant one of the white tapers
burning there flickered blue. Then another spat a spark, and burned
blue for an instant. There was another mutter, but the wayward
candles settled after that to burning evenly and well. Neither
Kettricken nor King Shrewd appeared to notice anything amiss, but
the Fool sat up and shook Ratsy at the errant candles in
rebuke.

At length Regal did appear, resplendent in red
velvet and white silk. A little maid walked before him, swinging a
censer of sandalwood incense. Regal smiled upon all as he advanced
leisurely toward the throne, meeting many an eye and nodding many
an acknowledgment on his way to that high seat. I am sure it did
not go off so finely as Regal had planned. King Shrewd faltered and
then looked puzzled over the scroll that had been given him to
read. At length Kettricken took it from his shaky hands, and he
smiled up at her as she read aloud the words that must have cut her
to the heart. It was a careful listing of the children that King
Shrewd had sired, including a daughter who had died in infancy, by
the order of their births, and then by order of their deaths, all
leading up to Regal as sole survivor and legitimate heir. She did
not hesitate at Verity's name, but read aloud the brief statement
Lost to misfortune while on a quest to the Mountain Kingdom
–
as
if it were an ingredient list.
Of the child she carried, no mention was made. A child as yet
unborn was an heir, but not a King-in-Waiting.

The child could not step forward to claim that
title until he or she was at least sixteen.

Kettricken had taken from Verity's chest the
simple silver circlet with the blue gem that was crown for a
King-in-Waiting, and the pendant of gold and emerald in the shape
of a leaping buck. These she passed first to King Shrewd, who
looked down at them as if bewildered. He made no move to bestow
them upon Regal. At length Regal reached for them, and Shrewd
allowed him to take them out of his hands. And so Regal set the
crown upon his own head, and slipped the pendant about his own
neck, and stood before us all, the new King-in-Waiting of the Six
Duchies.