Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (36 page)

My heart will not change.

Nor will hers, I fear. Patience spoke bluntly.
She cared for you, Fitz. Not knowing who you really were, she gave
her heart to you. She has said as much. I do not wish to betray her
confidences to me, but if you do as she asks and leave her alone,
she can never tell you herself. So I will speak, and hope you hold
me harmless for the pain I must give you. She knows this can never
be. She does not want to be a servant marrying a noble. She does
not want her children to be the daughters and sons of a Keep
servant. So she saves the little I am able to pay her. She buys her
wax and her scents, and works still at her trade, as best as she is
able. She means to save enough, somehow, to begin again, with her
own chandlery. It will not be soon. But that is her goal. Patience
paused. She sees no place in that life for you.

I sat a long time, thinking. Neither Lacey nor
Patience spoke. Lacey moved slowly through our stillness, brewing
tea. She pushed a cup of it into my hand. I lifted my eyes and
tried to smile at her. I set the tea carefully aside. Did you know,
from the beginning, that it would come to this? I asked.

I feared it, Patience said simply. But I also
knew there was nothing I could do about it. Nor can you.

I sat still, not even thinking. Under the old
hut, in a scratched-out hollow, Nighteyes was dozing with his nose
over a bone. I touched him softly, not even waking him. His calm
breathing was an anchor. I steadied myself against him.

Fitz? What will you do?

Tears stung my eyes. I blinked, and it passed:
What I am told, I said heavily. When have I ever done
otherwise?

Patience was silent as I got slowly to my feet.
The wound on my neck was throbbing. I suddenly wanted only to
sleep. She nodded to me as I excused myself. At the door I paused.
Why I came this evening. Besides to see you. Queen Kettricken will
be restoring the Queen's Garden. The one on top of the tower. She
mentioned she would like to know how the garden was originally
arranged. In Queen Constance's time. I thought perhaps you could
recall it for her.

Patience hesitated. I do recall it. Very well.
She was quiet for a moment, then brightened. I will draw it out for
you, and explain it. Then you could go to the Queen.

I met her eyes. I think you should go to her. I
think it would please her very much.

Fitz, I have never been good with people. Her
voice faltered. I am sure she would find me odd. Boring. I could
not- Her voice stuttered to a halt.

Queen Kettricken is very alone, I said quietly.
There are ladies around her, but I do not think she has real
friends. Once, you were queen-in-waiting. Cannot you recall what it
was like?

Very different for her than it was for me, I
should think.

Probably, I agreed. I turned to go. For one
thing, you had an attentive and loving husband. Behind me Patience
made a small shocked sound. And I do not think Prince Regal was as
... clever then as he is now. And you had Lacey to support you.
Yes, Lady Patience. I am sure it is very different for her. Much
harder.

FitzChivalry!

I paused at the door. Yes, my lady?

Turn about when I speak to you!

I turned slowly and she actually stamped the
floor at me. This ill becomes you. You seek to shame me! Think you
that I do not do my duty? That I do not know my duty?

My lady?

I shall go to her, tomorrow. And she will think
me odd and awkward and flighty. She will be bored with me and wish
I had never come. And then you shall apologize to me for making me
do it.

I am sure you know best, my lady.

Take your courtier's manners and go.
Insufferable boy. She stamped her foot again, then whirled and fled
back into her bedchamber. Lacey held the door for me as I left. Her
lips were folded in a flat line, her demeanor subdued.

Well? I asked her as I left, knowing she had
words left to say to me.

I was thinking that you are very like your
father, Lacey observed tartly. Except not quite as stubborn. He did
not give up as easily as you have. She shut the door firmly behind
me.

I looked at the closed door for a while, then
headed back to my room. I knew I had to change the dressing on my
neck wound. I climbed the flight of stairs, my arm throbbing at
every step. I halted on the landing. For a time I watched the
candles burning in their holders. I climbed the next flight of
stairs.

I knocked steadily for several minutes. A yellow
candlelight had been coming out the crack under her door, but as I
knocked, it suddenly winked out. I took out my knife and
experimented, loudly, with the latch on her door. She'd changed it.
There seemed to be a bar as well, a heavier one than the tip of my
blade would lift. I gave it up and left.

Down is always easier than up. In fact, it can
be too much easier, when one arm is already injured. I looked down
at the waves breaking like white lace on the rocks far away.
Nighteyes had been right. The moon had managed to come out for a
bit. The rope slipped a bit through my gloved hand and I grunted as
my injured arm had to take my weight. Only a little more, I
promised myself. I let myself down another two steps.

The ledge of Molly's window was narrower than I
had hoped it would be. I kept the rope in a wrap around my arm as I
perched there. My knife blade slipped easily into the crack between
the shutters; they were very poorly fitted. The upper catch had
yielded and I was working on the lower one when I heard her voice
from inside.

If you come in, I shall scream. The guards will
come.

Then you'd best put on tea for them, I replied
grimly, and went back to wriggling at the lower catch.

In a moment Molly snatched the shutters open.
She stood framed in the window, the dancing light of the fire on
the hearth illuminating her from behind. She was in her nightdress,
but she hadn't braided her hair back yet. It was loose and gleaming
from brushing. She had thrown a shawl over her
shoulders.

Go away, she told me fiercely. Get out of
here.

I can't, I panted. I haven't the strength to
climb back up, and the rope isn't long enough to reach to the base
of the wall.

You can't come in, she repeated
stubbornly.

Very well. I seated myself on the windowsill,
one leg inside the room, the other dangling out the window. Wind
gusted past me, stirring her night robe and fanning the flames of
the fire. I said nothing. After a moment she began to
shiver.

What do you want? she demanded
angrily.

You. I wanted to tell you that tomorrow I am
going to the King to ask permission to marry you. The words came
out of my mouth with no planning. I was suddenly giddily aware that
I could say and do anything. Anything at all.

Molly stared a moment. Her voice was low as she
said, I do not wish to marry you.

I wasn't going to tell him that part. I found
myself grinning at her.

You are intolerable!

Yes. And very cold. Please, at least let me come
in out of the cold.

She did not give me permission. But she did
stand back from the window. I jumped lightly in, ignoring the jolt
to my arm. I closed and fastened the shutters. I walked across the
room. I knelt by her hearth and built up the fire well with logs to
chase the chill from the room. Then I stood, thawing my hands at
it. Molly said not a word. She stood sword straight, her arms
crossed on her chest. I glanced over at her and smiled.

She didn't smile. You should go.

I felt my own smile fade. Molly, please, just
talk to me. I thought, the last time we spoke, that we understood
each other. Now you don't speak to me, you turn away .... I don't
know what changed, I don't understand what is happening between
us.

Nothing. She suddenly looked very fragile.
Nothing is happening between us. Nothing can happen between us.
FitzChivalry -and that name sounded so strange on her lips- I've
had time to think. If you had come to me, like this, a week ago, or
a month ago, impetuous and smiling, I know I would have been won
over. She permitted herself the ghost of a sad smile. As if she
were remembering the way a dead child had skipped on some long-ago
summer day. But you didn't. You were correct and practical, and did
all the right things. And foolish as it may sound, that hurt me. I
told myself that if you loved me as deeply as you had declared you
did, nothing
–
not
walls,
not manners or reputation or protocol
–
would
get in the way of your seeing me. That
night, when you came, when we ... but it changed nothing. You did
not come back.

But it was for your sake, for your reputation- I
began desperately.

Hush. I told you it was foolish. But feelings do
not have to be wise. Feelings just are. Your loving me was not
wise. Nor my caring for you. I've come to see that. And I've come
to see that wisdom must overrule feelings. She sighed. I was so
angry when your uncle first spoke to me. So outraged. He made me
defiant, he gave me a steel resolve to stay in spite of everything
that stood between us. But I am not a stone. Even if I were, even a
stone can be worn away by the constant cold drip of common
sense.

My uncle? Prince Regal? I was incredulous at the
betrayal.

She nodded slowly. He wished me to keep his
visit to myself. Nothing, he said, could be gained by your knowing
of it. He needed to act in his family's best interests. He said I
should understand that. I did, but it made me angry. It was only
over time that he made me see that it was in my own best interests
as well. She paused and brushed a hand over her cheek. She was
crying. Silently, just the tears running as she spoke.

I walked across the room to her. Tentatively, I
took her into my arms. She didn't resist, and that surprised me. I
held her carefully, as if she were a butterfly that might be
crushed too easily. She leaned her head forward, so that her
forehead barely rested on my shoulder, and spoke into my chest. In
a few more months, I will have saved enough that I can start out on
my own again. Not open a business, but rent a room somewhere, and
find work to sustain me. And begin to start saving for a shop.
That's what I intend to do. Lady Patience is kind, and Lacey has
become a real friend to me. But I do not like being a servant. And
I will do it no longer than I have to. She stopped speaking and
stood still in my arms. She was trembling lightly, as if from
exhaustion: She seemed to have run out of words.

What did my uncle say to you? I asked
carefully.

Oh. She swallowed, and moved her face lightly
against me. I think she wiped tears on my shirt. Only what I should
have expected him to say. When first he came to me, he was cold and
aloof. He thought me a ... street whore, I suppose. He warned me
sternly that the King would tolerate no more scandals. He demanded
to know if I was with child. Of course, I was angry. I told him it
was impossible that I should be. That we had never ... Molly paused
and I could feel how shamed she had been that anyone could even ask
such a question. So then he told me that if that was so, it was
good. He asked what I thought I deserved, as reparation for your
deceptions.

The word was like a little knife twisted in my
guts. The fury I felt was building, but I forced myself to keep
silent that she might speak it all out.

I told him I expected nothing. That I had
deceived myself as much as you had deceived me. So then he offered
me money. To go away. And never speak of you. Or what had happened
between us.

She was having trouble speaking. Her voice kept
getting higher and tighter on each phrase. She fought for a
semblance of calm I knew she didn't feel. He offered me enough to
open a chandlery. I was angry. I told him I could not be paid to
stop loving someone. That if the offer of money could make me love,
or not love, then I was truly a whore. He grew very angry, but he
left. She gave a sudden shuddering sob, then held herself still. I
moved my hands lightly over her shoulders, feeling the tension
there. I stroked her hair; softer than any horse's mane, and
sleeker. She had fallen silent.

Regal makes mischief, I heard myself say. He
seeks to injure me by driving you away. To shame me by hurting you.
I shook my head to myself, wondering at my stupidity. I should have
foreseen this. All I thought was that he might whisper against you.
Or arrange for physical harm to befall you. But Burrich is right.
The man has no morals, he is bound by no rules.

He was cold, at first. But never coarsely rude.
He came only as the King's messenger, he said, and came himself to
save scandal, that no more should know of it than needed to. He
sought to avoid talk, not make it. Later, after we had talked a few
times, he said he regretted to see me cornered so, and that he
would tell the King it was not of my devising. He even bought
candles of me, and arranged for others to know what I had to sell.
I believe he is trying to help, FitzChivalry. Or so he sees
it.

To hear her defend Regal cut me deeper than any
insult or rebuke she could level at me. My fingers tangled in her
soft hair and I unwound them carefully. Regal. All the weeks I had
gone alone, avoiding her, not speaking to her lest it cause
scandal. Leaving her alone, so that Regal could come in my stead.
Not courting her, no, but winning her with his practiced charm and
studied words. Chopping away at her image of me while I was not
there to contradict anything he said. Making himself out to be her
ally while I was left voiceless to become the unthinking callow
youth, the thoughtless villain. I bit my tongue before I spoke any
more ill of him to her. It would only sound like a shallow angry
boy striking back at one who sought to deny his will.