Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  A thick storm set in the next day. It was a mixed bless­ing. No one need fear Raid­ers any­where along the coast on a day like that, but it also kept a rest­less and dis­par­ate group of sol­diers penned up to­gether. Up in the keep it­self, Bearns was as vis­ible as Regal was not. Whenever I ven­tured into the Great Hall, Duke Brawndy was there, pa­cing rest­lessly or star­ing coldly into one of the blaz­ing hearths. His daugh­ters flanked him like guard­ian snow­cats. Celer­ity and Faith were young yet, and their im­pa­tience and an­ger showed more plainly on their faces. Brawndy had re­ques­ted an of­fi­cial audi­ence with the King. The longer he was kept wait­ing, the greater the im­plied in­sult. It denied the im­port­ance of what had brought him here. And the Duke’s con­tin­ued pres­ence in our Great Hall was a plain an­nounce­ment to his fol­low­ers that, as yet, the King had not con­sen­ted to see him. I watched that kettle com­ing to a slow boil and wondered who would be scal­ded worst when it spilled over.

  I was mak­ing my fourth cau­tious sur­vey of the room when Kettricken ap­peared. She was dressed simply, a long straight robe of purple with an over­wrap of soft white with vo­lu­min­ous sleeves that over­hung her hands. Her hair was long and loose on her shoulders. She came in with her usual lack of ce­re­mony, pre­ceded only by Rose­mary her little maid, and ac­com­pan­ied only by Lady Mod­esty and Lady Hope­ful. Even now that she had be­come a bit more pop­u­lar with the ladies, she did not for­get that these two had fol­lowed her first, when she was alone, and she of­ten hon­oured them by mak­ing them her com­pan­ions. I do not be­lieve Duke Brawndy re­cog­nized his Queen-in-Wait­ing as the simply-clad wo­man who ap­proached him dir­ectly.

  She smiled and took his hand in greet­ing. It was a simple Moun­tain way of re­cog­niz­ing one’s friends. I doubt she real­ized how she hon­oured him, or how much that simple ges­ture did to as­suage his hours of wait­ing. Only I saw the wear­i­ness in her face, I am sure, or the new circles un­der her eyes. Faith and Celer­ity were im­me­di­ately charmed by this at­ten­tion to their father. Kettricken’s clear voice car­ried through­out the Great Hall, so those at any hearth who wished to hear un­doubtedly did. As she had in­ten­ded.

  ‘I have called on our king twice this morn­ing. I re­gret that he has been … ill both times. I hope you have not found this wait­ing fret­ful. I know you will want to speak dir­ectly to the King about your tragedy and all that must be done to help our folk. But, for now, while he rests, I thought per­haps you might wish to join me for some re­fresh­ment.’

  ‘That would be wel­come, lady queen,’ Bearns replied cau­tiously. Already she had done much to soothe his rumpled feath­ers. But Brawndy was not one to be too eas­ily charmed.

  ‘I am pleased,’ Kettricken replied. She turned and stooped slightly to whis­per to Rose­mary. The little maid gave a quick nod and turned and fled like a rab­bit. All marked her exit. In but mo­ments she was back, this time at the head of a pro­ces­sion of serving folk. A table was claimed and moved down be­fore the Great Hearth. A snowy cloth was spread, and then one of Kettricken’s bowl gar­dens set to grace the centre of it. A parade of kit­chen folk trooped past, each to de­posit plat­ters, or cups of wine or sweet­meats or late au­tumn apples in a wooden bowl. So won­der­fully was it or­ches­trated that it seemed al­most ma­gical. In mo­ments the table was set, the guests were seated, and Mel­low ap­peared with his lute, already singing as he entered the Great Hall. Kettricken beckoned her ladies to join them, and then espy­ing me as well, summoned me with a nod. She chose oth­ers from the other hearths at ran­dom; not by their no­bil­ity or wealth, but folk I knew she con­sidered in­ter­est­ing. Fletch with his hunt­ing stor­ies, and Shells, a friendly girl of an age with Brawndy’s daugh­ters were among those summoned. Kettricken seated her­self at Brawndy’s right hand, and again I do not think she real­ized all the hon­our she did him to ar­range it so.

  When some bit of food and talk had been en­joyed, she sig­nalled Mel­low to soften his strum­ming. She turned to Brawndy and said simply, ‘We have heard only the bare bones of your news. Will you share with us what has be­fallen Ferry?’

  He hes­it­ated briefly. He had brought his com­plaint for the King to hear and act on. But how could he re­fuse a Queen-in-Wait­ing who had treated him so gra­ciously? He lowered his eyes a mo­ment, and when he spoke, his voice was husky with un­feigned emo­tion. ‘My lady queen, we have taken griev­ous hurt,’ he began. Every voice at the table was quickly stilled. All eyes turned to him. I per­ceived that all of those chosen by the Queen were at­tent­ive listen­ers as well. From the time he launched into his tale, there was not a sound at the table, save soft ex­clam­a­tions of sym­pathy or mut­ters of an­ger at what the Raid­ers had done. He paused once in his tale, then vis­ibly made a de­cision, and went on to tell how they had sent forth their sum­mons for aid, and waited in vain for any re­sponse. The Queen heard him out, with no ob­jec­tions or deni­als. When his tale of woe was done, his bur­den had vis­ibly lif­ted simply in the telling of it. For a few long mo­ments, all were si­lent.

  ‘Much of what you tell me is new to my ears,’ Kettricken said quietly at last. ‘And none of it is good. I do not know what our king will say of all this. You will have to wait for him to hear his words. But for my­self, for now, I will say that my heart is full of grief for my people. And an­ger. I prom­ise you that, for my­self, these wrongs shall not go un­re­dressed. Nor shall my folk be left shel­ter­less in winter’s bite.’

  Duke Brawndy of Bearns looked down at his plate and toyed with the edge of the table­cloth. He looked up, and there was fire in his eyes, but also re­gret. When he spoke his voice was firm. ‘Words. These are but words, my lady queen. The folk of Ferry can­not eat words, nor shel­ter be­neath them at night­fall.’

  Kettricken met his eyes squarely. Some­thing seemed to tighten in­side her. ‘Well do I know the truth of what you say. But words are all I have to of­fer you just now. When the King is well enough to see you, we shall see what can be done for Ferry.’

  Brawndy leaned to­ward her. ‘I have ques­tions, my queen. My need for an­swers is al­most as great as my need for money and men. Why did our sum­mons for help go un­heeded? Why did the ship that should have come to our aid in­stead set sail for home port?’

  Kettricken’s voice trembled very slightly. ‘To these ques­tions, I have no an­swers, sir. And that is a shame­ful thing for me to ad­mit. No word of your situ­ation reached my ears un­til your young mes­sen­ger ar­rived on horse­back.’

  Strong mis­giv­ings arose in me as she spoke. Should the Queen have ad­mit­ted these things to Brawndy? Per­haps not, for the sake of polit­ical wis­dom. But Kettricken, I knew, served truth be­fore polit­ics. Brawndy looked long into her face, and the lines around his mouth deepened. Boldly, he asked, but softly, ‘Are not you Queen-in-Wait­ing?’

  Kettricken’s eyes went sword-grey as she met his gaze. ‘I am. Do you ask me if I lie to you?’

  It was Brawndy’s turn to look aside. ‘No. No, my queen, that thought was never in my mind.’

  The si­lence stretched over long. I do not know if there was some subtle sig­nal from Kettricken, or if it was simply Mel­low’s in­stincts that swept his fin­gers more vig­or­ously across the strings. In a mo­ment, his voice took up a winter song, full of blow­ing notes and skirl­ing chor­uses.

  More than three days passed be­fore Brawndy was fi­nally summoned to the King’s cham­bers. Kettricken tried to provide amuse­ments, but it is hard to en­ter­tain a man whose mind is on his duke­dom’s vul­ner­ab­il­ity. He was cour­teous, but dis­trac­ted. Faith, his second daugh­ter, quickly formed a friend­ship with Shells, and seemed to for­get some of her sor­rows in her com­pany. Celer­ity, how­ever, clung to her father’s side, and when her dark blue eyes did meet mine, they were like wounds. I ex­per­i­enced a strange vari­ety of emo­tions from that gaze. I was re­lieved that she
did not seek me out as an in­di­vidual to pay at­ten­tion to. At the same time, I knew her cool­ness to me was a re­flec­tion of her father’s present feel­ings to­ward all of Buck­keep. I wel­comed her slight­ing of me; at the same time it rankled as I did not feel I de­served it. When the sum­mons came at last, and Brawndy hastened to the King, I hoped that the awk­ward­ness would be over.

  I am sure I was not the only one who no­ticed that Queen Kettricken was not in­vited to the coun­cil. Neither was I present, be­ing also un­in­vited. But it is not of­ten that a queen is re­leg­ated to the same so­cial stand­ing as a bas­tard nephew. Kettricken kept her equan­im­ity, and went on show­ing Brawndy’s daugh­ters and Shells a moun­tain tech­nique for weav­ing beads into em­broid­ery work. I hovered near the table, but doubted that their minds were on their craft any more than mine was.

  We had not long to wait. In less than an hour, Duke Brawndy re­appeared in the Great Hall with all the bluster and chill of a storm wind. To Faith, he said, ‘Pack our things.’ To Celer­ity, ‘Tell our guard to be ready to de­part within the hour.’ He gave Queen Kettricken a very stiff bow. ‘My queen, I ex­cuse my­self to de­part. As House Farseer will of­fer no aid, Bearns must now tend to its own.’

  ‘In­deed. I see your need for haste,’ Kettricken replied gravely. ‘But I shall re­quire that you at­tend me for but one more meal. It is not good to de­part on a jour­ney on an empty stom­ach. Tell me. Do you en­joy gar­dens?’ Her ques­tion was ad­dressed to his daugh­ters as much as to Bearns. They looked to their father. After a mo­ment, he gave a curt nod.

  Both the daugh­ters ad­mit­ted cau­tiously to Kettricken that they en­joyed gar­dens. But their puz­zle­ment was plain. A garden? In winter, dur­ing a howl­ing storm? I shared their mis­giv­ings, es­pe­cially as at that mo­ment Kettricken ges­tured to me.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry. At­tend to my wish. Rose­mary, go with Lord FitzChiv­alry to the kit­chens. Pre­pare food as he dir­ects you, and bring it to the Queen’s Garden. I shall es­cort our guests there.’

  I widened my eyes at Kettricken des­per­ately. No. Not there. The climb to the tower alone was tax­ing to many, let alone tak­ing a cup of tea on a storm-lashed tower top. I could not fathom what she thought she was about. The smile she re­turned my anxious look was as open and se­rene as any I had seen. Tak­ing Duke Brawndy’s arm, she steered him out of the Great Hall, while the daugh­ters trailed be­hind with the Queen’s ladies. I turned to Rose­mary and changed her or­ders.

  ‘Go find warm wraps for them, and catch up with them. I’ll take care of the food.’

  The child scampered mer­rily off while I hastened to the kit­chen. I tersely in­formed Sara of our sud­den need, and she quickly cre­ated a plat­ter of warmed pas­ties and hot mulled wine for me. ‘Take these your­self, and I’ll send more with a boy in a bit.’ I smiled to my­self as I took the tray and hur­ried off to­ward the Queen’s Gar­dens. The Queen her­self might refer to me as Lord FitzChiv­alry, but Sara the cook would never think twice of or­der­ing me off with a tray of food. It was oddly com­fort­ing.

  I took the stairs as quickly as I could, then paused to breathe my­self at the top land­ing. I braced my­self for the two ad­join­ing walls and a stretch of can­vas wind and rain, and pushed the door open. The tower top was as miser­able as I had ex­pec­ted it to be. The Queen’s ladies and Brawndy’s daugh­ters and Shells were huddled in a bit of shel­ter offered by two ad­join­ing walls and a stretch of can­vas that had been set up as a shady spot, last sum­mer. It broke most of the wind, and di­ver­ted a great deal of the freez­ing rain as well. There was a small table within its pathetic shel­ter and here I set the tray of warm food. Rose­mary, warmly bundled, smiled smugly as she snitched a pastry from the edge of the tray. Lady Mod­esty presided over serving out the food.

  As quickly as I could, I se­cured mugs of warmed wine for the Queen and Duke Brawndy and, on pre­text of serving them, joined them. They were at the very edge of the para­pet, look­ing out over the crenel­lated wall at the open sea be­low. The wind had lashed it to white froth, and was fling­ing seagulls about with a fine dis­reg­ard for the birds’ at­tempts to fly. As I ap­proached, I could see they were speak­ing softly, but the roar of the wind frus­trated my at­tempt to eaves­drop. I wished I had thought to get a cloak for my­self. I was soaked through al­most in­stantly and the wind blew off what heat my body gen­er­ated by shiv­er­ing. I tried to smile past my chat­ter­ing teeth as I presen­ted them with the wine.

  ‘Lord FitzChiv­alry is known to you?’ she asked Brawndy as they took the wine from me.

  ‘In­deed, I have had the pleas­ure of hav­ing him at my own table,’ Brawndy as­sured her. Rain dripped off his bushy eye­brows, while the wind had set his war­rior’s tail to flap­ping.

  ‘You would not mind, then, if I asked him to join us in our con­ver­sa­tion?’ Des­pite the rain that soaked her, the Queen spoke calmly, as if we basked in spring sun­shine.

  I wondered if Kettricken knew that Brawndy would see her re­quest as a veiled com­mand.

  ‘I would wel­come his coun­sels, if you con­sider he has wis­dom to of­fer, my queen,’ Brawndy ac­qui­esced.

  ‘I had hoped you would. FitzChiv­alry. Fetch your­self some wine, and re­join us here, please.’

  ‘As my queen wishes.’ I bowed low, and hur­ried off to obey. My con­tact with Ver­ity had grown more tenu­ous with each passing day that he jour­neyed farther away, but at that mo­ment I could sense his nudging, eager curi­os­ity. I hastened back to my queen’s side.

  ‘There is no un­do­ing what has been done,’ the Queen was say­ing as I re­turned to them. ‘I grieved that we were not able to pro­tect our folk. Yet if I can­not undo what the Raid­ers from the sea have done already, at least, per­haps, I can help to shel­ter them from the storms to come. This, I bid you take them, from their queen’s hand and heart.’

  I no­ticed in passing that she made no men­tion of King Shrewd’s evid­ent re­fusal to act. I watched her. She moved leis­urely and pur­pose­fully at once. The loose white sleeve that she drew back from her arm was already drip­ping with cold rain. She ig­nored it as she bared her pale arm, to re­veal a snak­ing of gold wire up her arm, with the dark opals of her moun­tains caught here and there in its web. I had seen the dark flash of moun­tain opals be­fore, but never ones of this size. Yet she held out her arm for me to un­fasten the catch, and with no hes­it­a­tion at all, she un­wound the treas­ure from her arm. From her other sleeve, she drew a small vel­vet bag. I held its mouth open as she slid the brace­lets into it. She smiled warmly at Duke Brawndy as she pressed it into his hand. ‘From your King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity and me,’ she said quietly. I barely res­isted Ver­ity’s im­pulse in me to fling him­self on his knees at the feet of this wo­man and de­clare her far too royal for his in­sig­ni­fic­ant love. Brawndy was left stut­ter­ing his amazed thanks and vow­ing to her that not a penny of its worth would go to waste. Stout houses would rise once more in Ferry, and the folk there would bless the Queen for the warmth of them.

  I sud­denly saw the reason for the Queen’s Garden as a site. This was a queen’s gift, not con­tin­gent on any­thing Shrewd or Regal might have to say. Kettricken’s choice of place, and her man­ner of present­ing it to Brawndy made that clear to him. She did not tell him to keep it secret; she did not need to.

  I thought of the em­er­alds hid­den in a corner of my clothes chest, but within me Ver­ity was quiet. I made no move to get them. I hoped to see Ver­ity him­self fasten them about his queen’s neck one day. Nor did I wish to lessen the sig­ni­fic­ance of her gift to Brawndy by adding an­other from a bas­tard. For that was how I would have had to present it. No, I de­cided. Let the Queen’s gift and her present­a­tion of it stand alone in his memory.

  Brawndy turned from Kettricken to con­sider me. ‘My queen, you seem to hold this young man in con­sid­er­able es­teem, t
o make him privy to your coun­sels.’

  ‘I do,’ Kettricken replied gravely. ‘He has never be­trayed my trust in him.’

  Brawndy nod­ded, as if con­firm­ing some­thing to him­self. He per­mit­ted him­self a small smile. ‘My young­est daugh­ter, Celer­ity, was some­what troubled by a missive from Lord FitzChiv­alry. Es­pe­cially as her older sis­ters had opened it for her, and found much there to tease her with. But when she brought her mis­giv­ings to me, I told her that it is a rare man who so can­didly ad­mits to what might be seen as short­com­ings. Only a brag­gart would claim to go fear­less into battle. Nor would I wish to give my trust to a man who could kill and not feel heart-lost af­ter­ward. As to your phys­ical health,’ he clapped me sud­denly on the shoulder, ‘I would say a sum­mer of pulling oars and wield­ing an axe had done you good.’ His hawk’s eyes pierced mine. ‘I have not changed my as­sess­ment of you, FitzChiv­alry. Nor has Celer­ity. I wish you to be sure of that.’

  I said the words I knew I must. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He turned to look over his shoulder. I fol­lowed his gaze through the blow­ing rain, to where Celer­ity gazed at us. Her father gave her a tiny nod, and her smile broke like the sun from be­hind a cloud. Faith, watch­ing her, said some­thing, and Celer­ity turned blush­ing to give her sis­ter a push. My guts turned to ice when Brawndy told me, ‘You may bid my daugh­ter farewell, if you wish.’