Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Help me!

  From Ver­ity, noth­ing. Our link was fad­ing like per­fume in the wind as my strength dwindled.

  WE ARE PACK!

  Justin slammed back against the door of my room so hard his head bounced. It was more than re­pelling. I had no word for what Nighteyes did from within Justin’s own mind. It was a hy­brid ma­gic, Nighteyes us­ing the Wit through a bridge the Skill had cre­ated. He at­tacked Justin’s body from within Justin’s mind. Justin’s hands flew to his throat, fight­ing jaws he could not seize. Claws shred­ded skin and raised red welts on the skin be­neath Justin’s fine tu­nic. Se­rene screamed, a sword of a sound slash­ing through me, and flung her­self on Justin, try­ing to help him.

  Don’t kill. Don’t kill! DON’T KILL!

  Nighteyes fi­nally heard me. He dropped Justin, fling­ing him aside like a wor­ried rat. He came and stood astraddle me, guard­ing me. Al­most I could hear his pant­ing breath, feel the warmth of his hide. I had no en­ergy to ques­tion what had happened. I curled my­self into a puppy, sheltered be­neath him. I knew no one could get through Nighteyes’ de­fence of me.

  ‘What was that? What was that? What was that?’ Se­rene was scream­ing hys­ter­ic­ally. She had Justin by the shirt front and had dragged him to his feet. There were livid marks on his throat and chest, but through barely-opened eyes, I could see them fad­ing rap­idly. Soon there was no sign of Nighteyes’ at­tack save the wet stain spread­ing down the front of Justin’s trousers. His eyes sagged closed. Se­rene shook him like a doll. ‘Justin! Open your eyes. Justin!’

  ‘What are you do­ing to that man?’ The Fool’s stage voice, ex­press­ing out­rage and sur­prise, filled my room. Be­hind him, my door stood open wide. A passing maid, arms full of shirts, peeped in, startled, then stopped to stare. The little page girl car­ry­ing a bas­ket be­hind her came hur­ry­ing to peek around the door’s edge. The Fool set the tray he was car­ry­ing down on the floor and came into my room. ‘What is the mean­ing of this?’

  ‘He at­tacked Justin,’ Se­rene sobbed.

  Dis­be­lief flooded the Fool’s face. ‘Him? He looks like he could not at­tack a pil­low. You were the one I saw wor­ry­ing that boy.’

  Se­rene let go of Justin’s col­lar, and he dropped like a rag at her feet. The Fool looked down at him pity­ingly.

  ‘Poor fel­low! Was she try­ing to force her­self on you?’

  ‘Don’t be ri­dicu­lous!’ Se­rene was out­raged. ‘It was him!’ She poin­ted at me.

  The Fool looked at me con­sid­er­ingly. ‘This is a grave ac­cus­a­tion. An­swer me truth­fully, Bas­tard. Was she really try­ing to force her­self on you?’

  ‘No.’ My voice came out like I felt. Sick, ex­hausted and groggy. ‘I was sleep­ing. They came quietly into my room. Then …’ I knit my brows, and let my voice trail off. ‘I think I have had too much Smoke this night.’

  ‘And I agree!’ There was a fine dis­dain in the Fool’s voice. ‘Such an un­seemly show of lust I have sel­dom seen!’ The Fool spun sud­denly on the peep­ing page and maid. ‘This shames all of Buck­keep! To find our own Skilled ones be­hav­ing so. I charge you to speak of this to no one. Let no gos­sip about this be­gin.’ He turned back sud­denly on Se­rene and Justin. Se­rene’s face was flooded scar­let, her mouth open in out­rage. Justin pulled him­self to a sit­ting po­s­i­tion at her feet and sat, sway­ing. He clutched at her skirts like a tod­dler try­ing to stand.

  ‘I do not lust after this man,’ she said coldly and clearly. ‘Nor did I at­tack him.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is you are do­ing, it were bet­ter done in your own cham­bers!’ The Fool cut across her words sternly. Without an­other glance at her, he turned, picked up his tray, and bore it off down the hall­way. At the sight of the elf­bark tea de­part­ing, I could not con­tain a groan of des­pair. Se­rene spun back to me, lips drawn back in a grim­ace.

  ‘I will get to the bot­tom of this!’ she snarled at me.

  I took a breath. ‘But in your own cham­bers, please.’ I man­aged to lift a hand and point at the open door. She stormed out, with Justin stag­ger­ing along in her wake. The maid and page drew back in dis­taste from them as they passed. My cham­ber door was left stand­ing ajar. It took a vast ef­fort to rise and close it. I felt as if my head were some­thing I bal­anced on my shoulders. Once the door was closed, I didn’t even try to re­turn to bed, but just slid down the wall to sit with my back to the door. I felt raw.

  My brother. Are you dy­ing?

  No. But it hurts.

  Rest. I will stand watch.

  I can­not ex­plain what happened next. I let go of some­thing, some­thing I had clutched all my life without be­ing aware of grip­ping it. I sank down into soft warm dark­ness, into a safe place while a wolf kept watch through my eyes.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Burrich

  Lady Pa­tience, she who was Queen-in-Wait­ing to Chiv­alry’s King-in-Wait­ing, came ori­gin­ally of In­land stock. Her par­ents, Lord Oak­dell and Lady Averia, were of very minor no­bil­ity. For their daugh­ter to rise in rank to marry a prince of the realm had to have been a shock to them, es­pe­cially given their daugh­ter’s way­ward, and, some might say, ob­tuse nature. Chiv­alry’s avowed am­bi­tion to wed Lady Pa­tience was the cause of his first dif­fer­ence with his father King Shrewd. By this mar­riage, he gained no valu­able al­li­ances or polit­ical ad­vant­ages; only a highly ec­cent­ric wo­man whose great love for her hus­band did not pre­clude her forth­right de­clar­ing of un­pop­u­lar opin­ions. Nor did it dis­suade her from the single-minded pur­suit of any avoca­tion which caught her fleet­ing fancy. Her par­ents pre­ceded her in death, dy­ing in the year of the Blood Plague, and she was child­less and pre­sumed bar­ren when her hus­band Chiv­alry fell to his death from a horse.

  I awoke. Or, at least, I came back to my­self. I was in bed, sur­roun­ded by warmth and gen­tle­ness. I didn’t move, but cau­tiously searched my­self for pain. My head no longer poun­ded, but I felt tired and achey, stiff as one some­times is after pain passes. A shiver went up my back. Molly was na­ked be­side me, breath­ing gently against my shoulder. The fire had burned low, nearly out. I listened. It was either very very late, or very early. The keep was near si­lent.

  I didn’t re­mem­ber get­ting here.

  I shivered again. Be­side me, Molly stirred. She pulled closer to me, smiled sleepily. ‘You are so strange some­times,’ she breathed. ‘But I love you.’ She closed her eyes again.

  Nighteyes!

  I am here. He was al­ways there.

  Sud­denly I couldn’t ask, I didn’t want to know. I just lay still, feel­ing sick and sad and sorry for my­self.

  I tried to rouse you, but you were not ready to come back. That other one had drained you.

  That ‘other one’ is our king.

  Your king. Wolves have no kings.

  What did … I let the thought trail off. Thank you for guard­ing me.

  He sensed my re­ser­va­tions. What should I have done? Turned her away? She was griev­ing.

  I don’t know. Let us not talk of it. Molly was sad, and he had com­for­ted her? I didn’t even know why she was sad. Had been sad, I amended, look­ing at the soft smile on her sleep­ing face. I sighed. Bet­ter face it sooner than later. Be­sides, I had to send her back to her own room. It would not do for her to be here when the keep awoke.

  ‘Molly?’ I said gently.

  She stirred and opened her eyes. ‘Fitz,’ she agreed sleepily.

  ‘For safety’s sake, you have to go back to your own room.’

  ‘I know. I shouldn’t have come in the first place.’ She stopped. ‘All those things I said to you a few days ago. I didn’t …’

  I put a fin­ger across her lips. She smiled past it. ‘You make these new si­lences … very in­ter­est­ing.’ She pushed my hand aside, kissed me warmly. Then she slid from my bed and began to dress briskly
. I arose, mov­ing more slowly. She glanced over at me, her face full of love. ‘I’ll go alone. It’s safer. We should not be seen to­gether.’

  ‘Some day, that will …’ I began. This time she si­lenced me, small hand on my lips.

  ‘We will talk of noth­ing like that now. Let us leave to­night as it is. Per­fect.’ She kissed me again, quickly, and slipped from my arms and then out the door. She shut it si­lently be­hind her. Per­fect?

  I fin­ished dress­ing and built up my fire. I sat down in my chair by the hearth and waited. It was not long be­fore I was re­war­ded. The en­trance to Chade’s do­main opened. I went up the stairs as quickly as I could man­age. Chade was sit­ting be­fore his hearth. ‘You have to listen to me,’ I greeted him. His eye­brows rose in alarm at the in­tens­ity in my voice. He ges­tured at the chair op­pos­ite him, and I took it. I opened my mouth to speak. What Chade did then put every hair on my body on end. He glanced all around him­self, as if we stood in the midst of a great crowd. Then he touched his own lips, and made a ges­ture for soft­ness. He leaned to­ward me un­til our heads were nearly touch­ing. ‘Softly, softly. Sit down. What is it?’

  I sat, in my old place on the hearth. My heart was ham­mer­ing in my chest. Of all places in Buck­keep, I had never ex­pec­ted to have to use cau­tion in what I said here.

  ‘All right,’ he breathed out to me. ‘Re­port.’

  I took a breath, and began. I left out noth­ing, re­veal­ing my link with Ver­ity so that the en­tire story would make sense. I put in every de­tail: the Fool’s beat­ing, and Kettricken’s of­fer­ing to Bearns, as well as my ser­vice to the King that even­ing. Se­rene and Justin in my room. When I whispered of Regal’s spies, he pursed his mouth, but did not seem overly sur­prised. When I had fin­ished, he re­garded me calmly.

  A whis­per again. ‘And what do you con­clude from all this?’ he asked me, as if it were a puzzle he had set me as a les­son.

  ‘May I speak frankly of my sus­pi­cions?’ I asked quietly.

  A nod.

  I sighed in re­lief. As I spoke of the pic­ture that had emerged for me over the past weeks, I felt a great bur­den lift­ing. Chade would know what to do. And so I spoke, quickly, tersely. Regal knew that the King was dy­ing of dis­ease. Wal­lace was his tool, to keep the King sed­ated and open to Regal’s whis­per­ings. He would dis­credit Ver­ity, he would strip Buck­keep of every bit of wealth that he could. He would aban­don Bearns to the Red Ships, to keep them busy while Regal ac­ted on his own am­bi­tions. Paint Kettricken as a for­eigner with am­bi­tions to the throne. A de­vi­ous, dis­loyal wife. Gather power to him­self. His even­tual aim, as ever, was the throne. Or at least as much of the Six Duch­ies as he could gather to him­self. Hence his lav­ish en­ter­tain­ments for the In­land dukes and their nobles.

  Chade nod­ded un­will­ingly as I spoke. When I paused, he in­jec­ted softly, ‘There are many holes in this web you say Regal is weav­ing.’

  ‘I can fill a few,’ I whispered. ‘Sup­pose the co­terie that Ga­len cre­ated is loyal to Regal? Sup­pose all mes­sages go to him first, and only those he ap­proves con­tinue to their in­ten­ded des­tin­a­tion?’

  Chade’s face grew still and grave.

  My whis­per grew more des­per­ate. ‘What if mes­sages are delayed just enough to make our ef­forts to de­fend ourselves pathetic? He makes Ver­ity look a fool, he un­der­mines con­fid­ence in him.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Ver­ity be able to tell?’

  I shook my head slowly. ‘He is power­fully Skilled. But he can­not be listen­ing every­where at once. The strength of his tal­ent is his abil­ity to fo­cus it so tightly. To spy on his own co­terie, he would have had to give off watch­ing the coast wa­ters for Red Ships.’

  ‘Does he … is Ver­ity aware of this dis­cus­sion right now?’

  I shrugged ashamedly. ‘I don’t know. That is the curse of my flaws. My link with him is er­ratic. Some­times I know his mind as clearly as if he stood be­side me and spoke it aloud. At other times, I am scarcely aware of him at all. Last night, when they spoke through me, I heard every word. Right now …’ I felt about in­side my­self, a pocket-pat­ting sort of think­ing. ‘I feel noth­ing more than that we are still linked.’ I leaned for­ward and put my head in my hands. I felt drained.

  ‘Tea?’ Chade asked me gently.

  ‘Please. And if I could just sit for a bit longer, quietly. I don’t know when my head has throbbed this badly.’

  Chade set the kettle over the fire. I watched with dis­taste as he mixed brew­ing herbs for it. Some elf­bark, but not near as much as I would have re­quired earlier. Pep­per­mint and cat­mint leaves. A bit of pre­cious ginger root. I re­cog­nized much of what he used to give Ver­ity for his Skill ex­haus­tion. Then he came back to sit close be­side me again. ‘It could not be. What you sug­gest would re­quire blind loy­alty from the co­terie to Regal.’

  ‘It can be cre­ated by one strongly Skilled. My flaw is a res­ult of what Ga­len did to me. Do you re­mem­ber Ga­len’s fan­at­ical ad­mir­a­tion of Chiv­alry? That was a cre­ated loy­alty. Ga­len could have done it to them, be­fore he died, when he was fin­ish­ing their train­ing.’

  Chade shook his head slowly. ‘Do you think Regal could be so stu­pid as to think the Red Ships would stop at Bearns? Even­tu­ally they will want Buck, they will want Rip­pon and Shoaks. Where does that leave him?’

  ‘With the In­land duch­ies. The only ones he cares about, the only ones with which he has a mu­tual loy­alty. It would give him a vast peri­meter of land as an in­su­la­tion against any­thing the Red Ships might do. And like you, per­haps, he may be­lieve they are not after ter­rit­ory, but only a raid­ing ground. They are sea folk. They will not come that far in­land to trouble him. And the Coastal duch­ies will be too busy fight­ing the Red Ships to turn on Regal.’

  ‘If the Six Duch­ies loses her sea-coast, she loses her trade, her ship­ping. How pleased will his In­land dukes be with that?’

  I shrugged. ‘I do not know. I have not all the an­swers, Chade. But this is the only the­ory I’ve been able to put to­gether in which al­most all the pieces fit.’

  He rose, to pour steam­ing wa­ter from the kettle into a fat brown pot. He rinsed it well with the boil­ing wa­ter, then dumped in the pa­per of herbs he had com­poun­ded. I watched him pour the boil­ing wa­ter over the herbs. The scent of a garden filled his cham­bers. I took the im­age of the old man put­ting the lid on the pot, wrapped up the homely, simple mo­ment of him set­ting the pot on the tray with some cups, and stowed it care­fully some­where in my heart. Age was creep­ing up on Chade, just as surely as dis­ease de­voured Shrewd. His deft move­ments were no longer quite so sure, his bird alert­ness not as quick as it once had been. My heart ached sud­denly with my glimpse of the in­ev­it­able. As he set a warm cup of steam­ing tea in my hand, he frowned at my ex­pres­sion.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered. ‘Do you want some honey in that?’

  I shook my head to his ques­tions, took a sip of tea and near scal­ded my tongue. A pleas­ant taste over­lay the bite of the elf­bark. After a few mo­ments, I felt my mind clear and a pain I had scarcely been aware of went back to sleep. ‘That’s much bet­ter,’ I sighed, and Chade sketched a bow at me, pleased with him­self.

  He leaned close again. ‘It is still a weak the­ory. Per­haps we simply have a self-in­dul­gent prince, who pleases him­self with en­ter­tain­ments for his flat­ter­ers while the heir is away. He neg­lects pro­tect­ing his coast­line be­cause he is short sighted, and be­cause he ex­pects his brother will come home and tidy up his mess. He raids the treas­ury and sells off horses and cattle to amass wealth to him­self while there is no one to stop him.’

  ‘Then why paint Bearns as a traitor? And set up Kettricken as an out­sider? Why spread ru­mours of ri­dicule about Ver­ity and his quest?’

  ‘Jeal­ousy. Regal has al�
�ways been his father’s spoiled pet. I do not think he would turn on Shrewd.’ Some­thing in Chade’s voice made me real­ize this was what he des­per­ately wished to be­lieve. ‘I sup­ply the herbs that Wal­lace ad­min­is­ters to Shrewd for his pain.’

  ‘I do not doubt your herbs. But I think oth­ers are ad­ded to them.’

  ‘What would be the point? Even if Shrewd dies, Ver­ity is still the heir.’

  ‘Un­less Ver­ity dies first.’ I held up my hand as Chade opened his mouth to protest. ‘It need not really hap­pen. If Regal con­trols the co­terie, he can sup­ply word of Ver­ity’s death at any time. Regal be­comes King-in-Wait­ing. Then …’ I let my words trail off.

  Chade let out a long sigh. ‘Enough. You have given me enough to pon­der. I will look into these ideas, with my own re­sources. For now, you must watch over your­self. And Kettricken. And the Fool. If there is even a drop of truth in your the­or­ies, you all be­come obstacles to Regal’s goal.’

  ‘And what of you?’ I asked quietly. ‘What is this cau­tion we now must suf­fer?’

  ‘There is a cham­ber, whose wall ad­joins this one. Al­ways be­fore, it was left empty. But one of Regal’s guests is now en­sconced in it. Bright, Regal’s cousin, and heir to Far­row Duchy. The man is a very light sleeper. He has com­plained to the ser­vants of rats squeak­ing in the walls. Then, last night, Slink over­set a kettle, with quite a clat­ter. It awoke him. The man is overly curi­ous as well. He asks ser­vants now if spir­its have ever been known to walk in Buck­keep. And I have heard him tap­ping at the walls. I think he sus­pects this cham­ber. It need not con­cern us all that much; soon he will be leav­ing, I’m sure. But a bit more cau­tion is called for.’

  I felt there was more, but whatever he did not wish to say would not be gained by ques­tions. I asked one more, how­ever. ‘Chade. Are you still able to see the King once a day?’

  He glanced down at his hands and shook his head slowly. ‘Regal seems to sus­pect my ex­ist­ence. I will ad­mit that to you. At least, he sus­pects some­thing, and seems al­ways to have some of his folk lurk­ing about. It makes life dif­fi­cult. But enough of our wor­ries. Let us try to think of how things may go right.’