Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (77 page)

Oh. That one. Cook Sara's dismissal quashed my
hopes of an easy victory. Well, not to offend, Fitz, but she can be
a bit daft on occasion. Lacey, though, Lacey is solid. But she
don't say much, and don't want to listen to what others have to say
either.

Well -I smiled and tipped her a wink- that was
where I heard it from. And I heard it well before we left for
Neatbay. I leaned in closer. Ask about. I bet you'll find Queen
Kettricken's been drinking raspberry-leaf tea for her morning
sickness. You check, and see if I'm right. I'll wager a silver bit
I am.

A silver bit? Ohe. As if I've such to spare. But
I'll ask, Fitz, that I will. And shame on you for not sharing such
a rich bit of gossip with me before. And all I tell you!

Well, here's something for you, then. Queen
Kettricken's not the only one with child!

Oh? Who else?

I smiled. Can't tell you just yet. But you'll be
among the first to know, from what I've heard. I had no idea who
might be pregnant, but it was safe to say that someone in the Keep
was, or would be, in time to substantiate my rumor. I needed to
keep Cook pleased with me if I were to count on her for court talk.
She nodded sagely at me, and I winked.

She finished her venison leg. Here, Dod, come
take this and put it on the meat hooks over the big fire. Highest
hooks, I want it cooked, not scorched. Go on with you, now. Kettle?
Where's that milk I asked you to fetch?

I snagged bread and apples before I left for my
room. Plain fare, but welcome to one as hungry as I. I went
straight to my room, washed up, ate, and lay down to rest. I might
have small chance at the King tonight, but I still wanted to be as
alert as possible during the feast. I thought of going to
Kettricken to ask her not to mourn Verity just yet. But I knew I
would never get past her ladies for a quiet word with her. And what
if I were wrong? No. When I could prove Verity was still alive
would be soon enough to tell her.

I awoke later to a tap on my door. I lay still
for a moment, not sure if I had heard anything, then rose to undo
my latches and open the door a crack. The Fool stood outside my
door. I do not know if I was more surprised that he had knocked
instead of slipping the latches, or at the way he was attired. I
stood gaping at him. He bowed genteelly, then pushed his way into
my room, closing the door behind him. He fastened a couple of
latches, then stepped to the center of the room and extended his
arms. He turned in a slow circle for me to admire him.
Well?

You don't look like you, I said
bluntly.

I am not intended to. He tugged his overjerkin
straight, then plucked at his sleeves to display better not only
the embroidery on them, but the slashes that showed off the rich
fabric of the sleeves beneath them. He fluffed his plumed hat, set
it once more atop his colorless hair. From deepest indigo to palest
azure went the colors, and the Fool's white face, like a peeled
egg, peeping out of them. Fools are no longer in
fashion.

I sat down slowly on my bed. Regal has dressed
you like this, I said faintly.

Hardly. He supplied the clothing, of course, but
I dressed myself. If Fools are no longer in fashion, consider how
lowly would be the valet of a Fool.

How about King Shrewd? Is he no longer in
fashion? I asked acidly.

It is no longer in fashion to be overly
concerned with King Shrewd, he replied. He cut a caper, then
stopped, drew himself up with dignity as befitted his new clothes,
and took a turn about the room. I am to sit at the Prince's table
tonight, and be full of merriment and wit. Do you think I shall do
well at it?

Better far than I, I said sourly. Care you not
at all that Verity is dead?

Care you not at all that the flowers are
blooming beneath the summer sun?

Fool, it is winter outside.

The one is as true as the other. Believe me. The
Fool stood suddenly still. I have come to ask a favor of you, if
you can believe that.

The second as easily as the first. What is
it?

Do not slay my king with your ambitions for your
own.

I looked at him in horror. I would never slay my
king! How dare you say it!

Oh, I dare much, these days. He put his hands
behind him and paced about the room. With his elegant clothes and
unaccustomed postures, he frightened me. It was as if another being
inhabited his body, one I knew not at all.

Not even if the King had killed your
mother?

A terrible sick feeling rose in me. What are you
trying to tell me? I whispered.

The Fool whirled at the pain in my voice. No.
No! You mistake me entirely! There was sincerity in his voice, and
for an instant I could see my friend again. But, he continued in a
softer, almost sly tone, if you believed the King had killed your
mother, your much-cherished, loving, indulgent mother, had killed
her and snatched her forever away from you. Do you think you might
then kill him?

I had been blind for so long that it took me a
moment to understand him. I knew Regal believed his mother had been
poisoned. I knew it was one source of his hatred for me, and for
Lady Thyme. He believed we had carried out the killing. At the
behest of the King. I knew it all to be false. Queen Desire had
poisoned herself. Regal's mother had been overly fond of both drink
and those herbs that bring surcease from worry. When she had not
been able to rise to the power she believed was her right, she had
taken refuge in those pleasures. Shrewd had tried several times to
stop her, had even applied to Chade for herbs and potions that
would end her cravings. Nothing had worked. Queen Desire had been
poisoned, it was true, but it was her own self-indulgent hand that
had administered it. I had always known that. And knowing it, I had
discounted the hate that would breed in the heart of a coddled son,
suddenly bereft of his mother.

Could Regal kill over such a thing? Of course he
could. Would he be willing to bring the Six Duchies to the
teetering edge of ruin as an act of vengeance? Why not? He had
never cared for the Coastal Duchies. The Inland Duchies, always
more loyal to his inland mother, were where his heart was. If Queen
Desire had not wed King Shrewd, she would have remained Duchess of
Farrow. Sometimes, when in her cups and heady with herbal
intoxicants, she would ruthlessly suggest that if she had remained
as Duchess, she would have been able to wield more power, enough to
persuade Farrow and Tilth to unite under her as queen and shrug off
their allegiance to the Six Duchies. Galen, the Skill Master, Queen
Desire's own bastard son, had nurtured Regal's hatred along with
his own. Had he hated enough to subvert his coterie to Regal's
revenge?

To me it seemed a staggering treason, but I
found myself accepting it. He would. Hundreds of folk slain, scores
Forged, women raped, children orphaned, entire villages destroyed
for the sake of a Princeling's vengeance over an imagined wrong. It
staggered me. But it fit. It fit as snug as a coffin
lid.

I think perhaps the present Duke of Farrow
should have a care for his health, I mused.

He shares his older sister's fondness for fine
wine and intoxicants. Well supplied with these, and careless of all
else, I suspect he will live a long life.

As perhaps King Shrewd might? I ventured
carefully.

A spasm of pain twitched across the Fool's face.
I doubt that a long life is left to him, he said quietly. But what
is left might be an easy one, rather than one of bloodshed and
violence.

You think it will come to that?

Who knows what will swirl up front the bottom of
a stirred kettle? He went suddenly to my door, and set his hand to
the latch. That is what I ask you, he said quietly. To forgo your
twirling, Sir Spoon. To let things settle.

I cannot.

He pressed his forehead to the door, a most
un-Fool-like gesture. Then you shall be the death of kings. Grieved
words in a low voice. You know ... what I am. I have told you. I
have told you why I am here. This is one thing of which I am sure.
The end of the Farseer line was one of the turning points.
Kettricken carries an heir. The line will continue. That is what
was needed. Cannot an old man be left to die in peace?

Regal will not let that heir be born, I said
bluntly. Even the Fool widened his eyes to hear me speak so plain.
That child will not come to power without a King's hand to shelter
under. Shrewd, or Verity. You do not believe Verity is dead. You
have as much as said so. Can you let Kettricken endure the torment
of believing it is so? Can you let the Six Duchies go down in blood
and ruin? What good is an heir to the Farseer throne, if the throne
is but a broken chair in a burned-out hall?

The Fool's shoulders slumped. There are a
thousand crossroads, he said quietly. Some clear and bold, some
shadows within shadows. Some are nigh onto certainties; it would
take a great army or a vast plague to change those paths. Others
are shrouded in fog, and I do not know what roads lead out of them,
or to where. You fog me, bastard. You multiply the fixtures a
thousandfold, just by your existing. Catalyst. From some of those
fogs go the blackest, twisted threads of damnation, and from others
shining twines of gold. To the depths or the heights, it seems, are
your paths. I long for a middle path. I long for a simple death for
a master who was kind to a freakish, jeering servant.

He made no more rebuke than that. He lifted the
latches and undid the bolts and left quietly. The rich clothing and
careful walk made him appear deformed to me, as his motley and
capers never had. I closed the door softly behind him and then
stood leaning against it as if I could hold the fixture
out.

I prepared myself most carefully for dinner that
evening. When I was finally dressed in Mistress Hasty's latest set
of clothes for me, I looked almost as fine as the Fool. I had
decided that as yet I would not mourn Verity, nor even give the
appearance of mourning. As I descended the stairs it seemed to me
that most of the Keep was converging on the Great Hall this
evening. Evidently all had been summoned to attend, grand folk and
humble.

I found myself seated at a table with Burrich
and Hands and other of the stable folk. It was as humble a spot as
I had ever been given since King Shrewd had taken me under his
wing, and yet the company was more to my liking than that of the
higher tables. For the honored tables of the Great Hall were packed
with folk little known to me, the Dukes and visiting nobility of
Tilth and Farrow for the most part. There were a scattering of
faces I knew, of course. Patience was seated as almost befit her
rank, and Lacey was actually seated at a table above me. I saw no
sign of Molly anywhere. There were a scattering of folk from
Buckkeep Town, most of them the well-to-do, and most of them seated
more favorably than I would have expected. The King was ushered in,
leaning on the newly elegant Fool, followed by
Kettricken.

Her appearance shocked me. She wore a simple
robe of drab brown, and she had cut her hair for mourning. She had
left herself less than a hand's width of hair, and bereft of its
rich weight, it stuck out about her head like a dandelion gone to
seed. Its color seemed to have been cut away with its length,
leaving it as pale as the Fool's. So accustomed had I been to
seeing the heavy gold braids of her hair that her head now appeared
oddly small atop her wide shoulders. Her pale blue eyes were made
strange by eyelids reddened by weeping. She did not look like a
mourning Queen. Rather she appeared bizarre, a new kind of fool for
the court. I could see nothing of my queen, nothing of Kettricken
in her garden, nothing of the barefoot warrior dancing with her
blade; only a foreign woman, newly alone here. Regal, in contrast,
was as lavishly clothed as if to go a-courting, and moved as surely
as a hunting cat.

What I witnessed that evening was as cleverly
paced and carefully led as a puppet play. There was old King
Shrewd, doddering and thin, nodding off over his dinner, or making
vague and smiling conversation to no one in particular. There was
the Queen-in-Waiting, unsmiling, barely eating, silent and
mourning. Presiding over it all was Regal, the dutiful son seated
next to the failing father, and beside him the Fool, magnificently
clad and punctuating Regal's conversation with witticisms to make
the Prince's conversation more sparkling than it truly was. The
rest of the High Table was the Duke and Duchess of Farrow, and the
Duke and Duchess of Tilth, and their current favorites among the
lesser nobility of those duchies. Bea
rn
s, Rippon, and Shoaks Duchies were not
represented at all.

Following the meat, two toasts were offered to
Regal. The first came from Duke Holder of Farrow. He toasted the
Prince lavishly, declaring him the defender of the realm, praising
his swift action on behalf of Neatbay, and lauding also his courage
in taking the measures necessary for the best interests of the Six
Duchies. That made me prick up my ears. But it was all a bit vague,
congratulating and praising, but never quite laying out exactly
what Regal had decided to do. Had it gone on any longer, it would
have been suitable as a eulogy.

Early into the speech, Kettricken had sat up
straighter and looked incredulously at Regal, obviously unable to
believe that he would quietly nod and smile to praises not his due.
If anyone besides myself noticed the Queen's expression, none
commented on it. The second toast, predictably, came from Duke Ram
of Tilth. He offered a toast to the memory of King-in-Waiting
Verity. This was a eulogy, but a condescending one, speaking of all
that Verity had attempted and intended and dreamed of and wished
for. His achievements already having been heaped on Regal's plate,
there was little left to add. Kettricken grew, if anything, whiter
and more pinched about the mouth.