Royal Assassin (28 page)

The going was miserable. The wind was in a fickle mood, changing directions as often as I found a way to block it with my cloak. The snow not only fell, the wind caught up the frozen crystals from the ground and swirled it up under my cloak at every opportunity. Sidekick was not happy, but he plodded along through the thickening snow. Beneath the snow, the uneven trail to town was glazed with treacherous ice. The mule became resigned to my stubbornness and trudged disconsolately along. I blinked the clinging flakes from my eyelashes and tried to urge him to greater speed. Images of the Queen, crumpled in the snow, the blowing flakes covering her over, kept trying to push into my mind. Nonsense! I told myself firmly. Nonsense.

I was on the outskirts of Buckkeep Town before I overtook her. I knew her from behind, even if she had not been wearing her purple and white. She strode through the drifting snow with a fine indifference to it, her Mountain-bred flesh as immune to
the cold as I was to salt breeze and damp. “Queen Kettricken! Lady! Please, wait for me!”

She turned and, as she caught sight of me, smiled and waited. I slid from Sidekick’s back as I came abreast of her. I had not realized how worried I was until the relief flooded through me at seeing her unharmed. “What are you doing out here, alone, in this storm?” I demanded of her, and belatedly added, “My lady.”

She looked about her as if just noticing the falling snow and gusting wind, then turned back to me with a rueful grin. She was not the least bit chilled or uncomfortable. To the contrary, her cheeks were rosy with her walk, and the white fur around her face set off her yellow hair and blue eyes. Here, in this whiteness, she was not pale and colorless, but tawny and pink, blue eyes sparkling. She looked more vital than I had seen her in days. Yesterday she had been Death astride a horse, and Grief washing the bodies of her slain. But today, here, in the snow, she was a merry girl, escaped from Keep and station to go hiking through the snow. “I go to find my husband.”

“Alone? Does he know you are coming, and like this, afoot?”

She looked startled. Then she tucked her chin and bridled just like my mule. “Is he not my husband? Do I need an appointment to see him? Why should not I go afoot and alone? Do I seem so incompetent to you that I might become lost on the road to Buckkeep Town?”

She set off walking again, and I was forced to keep pace with her. I dragged the mule along with me. Sidekick was not enthused. “Queen Kettricken,” I began, but she cut me off.

“I grow so weary of this.” She halted abruptly and turned to face me. “Yesterday, for the first time in many days, I felt as if I were alive and had a will of my own. I do not intend to let that slip away from me. If I wish to visit my husband at his work, I shall. Well do I know that not one of my ladies would care for this outing, in this weather and afoot, or otherwise. So I am alone. And my horse was injured yesterday, and the footing here is not kind to a beast anyway. So I do not ride. All of this makes sense. Why have you followed me and why do you question me?”

She had chosen bluntness as the weapon, so I took it up as well. But I took a breath and tuned my voice to courtesy before I began. “My lady queen, I followed to be sure you had not come to any harm. Here, with only a mule’s ears to hear us, I will speak plainly. Have you so swiftly forgotten who tried to topple Verity from the throne in your own Mountain Kingdom? Would he hesitate to plot here as well? I think not. Do you believe it an accident you were lost and astray in the woods two nights ago? I do not. And do you think that your actions yesterday were pleasing to him? Quite the contrary. What you do for the sake of your people, he sees as your ploy to take power to yourself. So he sulks and mutters and decides you are a greater threat than before. You must know all this. So why do you set yourself out as a target, here where an arrow or a knife could find you with such ease and no witnesses?”

“I am not so easy a target as that,” she defied me. “’T would take an excellent archer indeed to make an arrow fly true in these shifting winds. As for a knife, well, I’ve a knife, too. To strike me, one must come where I can strike back.” She turned and strode off again.

I followed relentlessly. “And where would that lead? To your killing a man. And all the Keep in an uproar, and Verity chastising his guard, that you could be so endangered? And what if the killer were better with a knife than you? What consequence for the Six Duchies if I were now pulling your body out of a drift?” I swallowed and added, “My queen.”

Her pace slowed, but her chin was still up as she asked softly, “What consequence for me if I sit day after day in the Keep, growing soft and blind as a grub? FitzChivalry, I am not a game piece, to sit my space on the board until some player sets me in motion. I am … there’s a wolf watching us!”

“Where?”

She pointed, but he had vanished like a swirl of snow, leaving only a ghostly laughter in my mind. A moment later a trick of the wind brought his scent to Sidestep. The mule snorted and tugged at his lead rope. “I did not know we had wolves so near!” Kettricken marveled.

“Just a town dog, my lady. Probably some mangy, homeless
beast out to sniff and paw through the village trash heap. He is nothing to fear.”

You think not? I’m hungry enough to eat that mule
.

Go back and wait. I shall come soon
.

The trash heap is nowhere near here. Besides, it’s full of seagulls and stinks of their droppings. And other things. The mule would be fresh and sweet
.

Go back, I tell you. I’ll bring you meat later
.

“FitzChivalry?” This from Kettricken, warily.

I snapped my eyes back to her face. “I beg pardon, my lady. My mind wandered.”

“Then that anger in your face is not for me?”

“No. Another has … crossed my will this day. For you, I have concern, not anger. Will not you mount Sidekick and let me take you back to the Keep?”

“I wish to see Verity.”

“My queen, it will not please him, to see you come so.”

She sighed and grew a bit smaller inside her cloak. She looked aside from me as she asked more quietly, “Have you never wished to pass your time in someone’s presence, Fitz, whether they welcomed you or not? Cannot you understand my loneliness …?”

I do
.

“To be his queen-in-waiting, to be sacrifice for Buckkeep, this I know I must do well. But there is another part of me … I am woman to his man and wife to his husbanding. To that I am sworn as well, and am more willing than dutiful to it. But he comes seldom to me, and when he does, he speaks little and leaves soon.” She turned back to me. Tears sparkled suddenly on her eyelashes. She dashed them away and a note of anger crept into her voice. “You spoke once of my duty, of doing what only a Queen can do for Buckkeep. Well, I shall not get with child lying alone in my bed night after night!”

“My queen, my lady, please,” I begged her. Heat rose in my face.

She was merciless. “Last night, I did not wait. I went to his door. But the guard claimed he was not there. That he had gone to his tower.” She looked aside from me. “Even that
work is preferable to how he must labor in my bed.” Not even that bitterness could cover the hurt under her words.

I reeled with the things I did not want to know. The cold of Kettricken alone in her bed. Verity, drawn to Skill at night. I did not know what was worse. My voice shook as I said, “You must not tell me these things, my queen. To speak of this to me is not right—”

“Then let me go and speak to him. He is the one who needs to hear this, I know. And I am going to speak it! If he will not come to me for his heart’s sake, then he must come for his duty.”

This makes sense. She is the one who must bear if the pack is to increase
.

Stay out of this. Go home
.

Home!
A derisive bark of laughter in my mind.
Home is a pack, not a cold empty place. Listen to the female. She speaks well. We should all go, to be with him who leads. You fear foolishly for this bitch. She hunts well, with a keen tooth, and her kills are clean. I watched her yesterday. She is worthy of he who leads
.

We are not pack. Be silent
.

I am
. At the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement. I turned quickly, but there was nothing there. I turned back to find Kettricken standing silent before me still. But I sensed the spark of anger that had spirited her was now damped in pain. It bled her resolve from her.

I spoke quietly through the wind. “Please, lady, let me take you back to Buckkeep.”

She did not reply, but pulled her hood up around her face and tightened it to hide most of her face. Then she walked to the mule and mounted and suffered me to lead the beast back to Buckkeep. It seemed a longer, colder walk in her subdued silence. I was not proud of the change I had wrought in her. To take my mind from it, I quested out about me carefully. It did not take me long to find Cub. He stalked and shadowed us, drifting like smoke through the tree cover, using the windblown drifts and falling snow to hide himself. I could never once actually swear that I saw him. I caught motion from the
corner of my eye, of a tiny bit of his scent on the wind. His instincts served him well.

Think you I am ready to hunt?

Not until you are ready to obey
. I made my reply severe.

What then shall I do when I hunt alone, packless one?
He was stung, and angry.

We were drawing near to the outer wall of Buckkeep. I wondered how he had gotten outside the Keep without passing through a gate.

Shall I show you?
A peace offering.

Perhaps later. When I come with meat
. I felt his assent. He was no longer pacing us, but had raced off ahead, and would be at the cottage when I got there. The guards at the gate abashedly challenged me. I identified myself formally, and the sergeant had the wit not to insist that I identify the lady with me. In the courtyard I halted Sidekick that she might dismount and offered her my hand. As she climbed down I all but felt eyes on me. I turned, and saw Molly. She carried two buckets of water fresh drawn from the well. She stood still, looking at me, poised like a deer before flight. Her eyes were deep, her face very still. When she turned aside, there was a stiffness to her carriage. She did not glance at us again as she crossed the courtyard and went toward the kitchen entrance. I felt a cold foreboding inside me. Then Kettricken let go of my hand and gathered her cloak more closely about herself. She did not look at me either, but only said softly, “Thank you, FitzChivalry.” She walked slowly toward the door.

I returned Sidekick to the stable and saw to him. Hands came by and raised an eyebrow at me. I nodded, and he went on about his work. Sometimes, I think that was what I liked best about Hands, his ability to leave alone that which was not his concern.

I made bold my heart for that which I did next. I went out behind the exercise pens. There was a thin trail of smoke rising and a nasty scent of scorching meat and hair. I walked toward it. Burrich stood next to the fire, watching it burn. The wind and snow kept trying to put it out, but Burrich was determined it would burn well. He glanced at me as I came up but would not look at me or speak to me. His eyes were black hollows full
of dumb pain. It would turn to anger if I dared speak to him. But I had not come for him. I took my knife from my belt and cut from my head a finger’s-length lock of hair. I added it to the pyre, and watched as it burned. Vixen. A most excellent bitch. A memory came to me and I spoke it aloud. “She was there the first time Regal ever looked at me. She lay beside me and snarled up at him.”

After a moment Burrich nodded to my words. He, too, had been there. I turned and slowly walked away.

My next stop was the kitchen, to filch a number of meaty bones left over from yesterday’s wake. They were not fresh meat, but they’d have to do. Cub was right. He’d have to be put out on his own soon, to hunt for himself. Seeing Burrich’s pain had renewed my resolve. Vixen had lived a long life, for a hound, but still too short for Burrich’s heart. To bond to any animal was to promise oneself that future pain. My heart had been broken sufficient times already.

I was still pondering the best way to do this as I approached the cottage. I lifted my head suddenly, getting only the briefest precognition, and then his full weight hit me. He had come, swift as an arrow, speeding over the snow, to fling his weight against the backs of my knees, shouldering me down as he passed. The force of his momentum threw me onto my face in the snow. I lifted my head and got my arms under me as he wheeled tightly and raced up to me again. I flung up an arm but he plowed over me again, sharp claws digging into my flesh for purchase as he ran.
Got you, got you, got you!
Glorious exuberance.

Halfway to my feet, and he hit me again, full in my chest. I flung up a forearm to shield my throat and face and he seized it in his jaws. He growled deeply as he mock-worried it. I lost my balance under his attack and went down in the snow. This time I kept a grip on him, hugging him to me, and we rolled over and over and over. He nipped me in a dozen places, some painful, and all the time
Fun, fun, fun, got you, got you, and got you again! Here, you’re dead, here, I broke your forepaw, here, your blood runs out! Got you, got you, got you!

Enough! Enough!
And finally: “Enough!” I roared, and he let go of me and leaped away. He fled over the snow,
bounding ridiculously, to fling himself in a circle and come racing back at me. I flung my arms up to shelter my face, but he only seized my bag of bones and raced off with it, daring me to follow. I could not let him win so easily. So I leaped after him, tackling him, seizing the bag of bones, and it degenerated into a tugging match, at which he cheated by letting go suddenly, nipping me on the forearm hard enough to numb my hand, and then grabbing the bag again. I gave chase again.

Got you
. A tug on the tail.
Got you!
I kneed his shoulder, pushing him off balance.
Got the bones!
and for an instant I had them and was running. He hit me full square in the back, all four paws, and drove me facedown in the snow, seized the trove, and was off again.