Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Pa­tience took down a bas­ket and began load­ing the medi­cines into it. ‘Well, what are you stand­ing about for?’ she snapped at me as I waited. ‘Go back to your room and see what you can do for him. We’ll be up in a mo­ment with these.’

  I spoke bluntly. ‘I don’t think he’ll let you help.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Pa­tience said calmly. ‘Now go see that there is hot wa­ter.’

  The buck­ets of wa­ter I had asked for were out­side my door. By the time the wa­ter in my kettle was boil­ing, people had be­gun to con­verge on my room. Cook sent up two trays of food, and warmed milk as well as hot tea. Pa­tience ar­rived and began to set out her herbs on my cloth­ing chest. She quickly sent Lacey to fetch a table for her, and two more chairs. Burrich slept on in my chair, deeply asleep des­pite oc­ca­sional bouts of shiv­er­ing.

  With a fa­mili­ar­ity that astoun­ded me, Pa­tience felt his fore­head, then searched un­der the angle of his jaw for swell­ing. She crouched slightly to look into his sleep­ing face. ‘Burr?’ she quer­ied quietly. He did not even twitch. Very gently, she stroked his face. ‘You are so thin, so worn,’ she grieved softly. She damped a cloth in warm wa­ter and gently wiped his face and hands as if he were a child. Then she swept a blanket off my bed and tucked it care­fully about his shoulders. She caught me star­ing at her, and glared at me. ‘I need a basin of warmed wa­ter,’ she snapped. As I went to fill one, she crouched be­fore him and calmly took out her sil­ver shears and snipped up the side of the bandaging wrap­ping his leg. The stained wrap­pings did not look as if they had been changed since his dunk in the river. It went up past his knee. As Lacey took the basin of warmed wa­ter and knelt next to her, Pa­tience opened the soiled bandaging as if it were a shell.

  Burrich came awake with a groan, drop­ping his head for­ward onto his chest as his eyes opened. For a mo­ment he was dis­or­i­ented. He looked at me stand­ing over him, and then at the two wo­men crouched by his leg. ‘What?’ was all he man­aged.

  ‘This is a mess,’ Pa­tience told him. She rocked back on her heels and con­fron­ted him as if he’d tracked muck on a clean floor. ‘Why haven’t you at least kept it clean?’

  Burrich glanced down at his leg. Old blood and river silt were caked to­gether over the swollen fis­sure down his knee. He re­coiled vis­ibly from it. When he replied to Pa­tience, his voice was low and harsh. ‘When Ruddy took me into the river, we lost everything. I had no clean bandaging, no food, noth­ing. I could have bared it and washed it, and then frozen it. Do you think that would have im­proved it?’

  ‘Here is food,’ I said ab­ruptly. It seemed the only way to pre­vent their quar­rel­ling was to pre­vent them from talk­ing to each other. I moved the small table laden with one of Cook’s trays over be­side him. Pa­tience stood to be out of his way. I poured him a mug of the warmed milk and put it into his hands. They began to shake slightly as he raised it to his mouth. I had not real­ized how hungry he was.

  ‘Don’t gulp that!’ Pa­tience ob­jec­ted. Both Lacey and I shot her warn­ing looks. But the food seemed to take Burrich’s at­ten­tion com­pletely. He set down the mug and took a warm roll that I had slathered but­ter onto. He ate most of it in the space of time it took me to re­fill his mug. It was odd to see him be­gin to shake once he had the food in his hands. I wondered how he had man­aged to hold him­self to­gether be­fore that.

  ‘What happened to your leg?’ Lacey asked him gently. Then, ‘Brace your­self,’ she warned him, and placed a warm, drip­ping cloth onto his knee. He gave a shud­der and went paler, but re­frained from mak­ing a sound. He drank some more milk.

  ‘An ar­row,’ he said at last. ‘It was just dam­nably bad luck that it struck where it did. Right where that boar ripped me, so many years ago. And it lodged against the bone. Ver­ity cut it out for me.’ He leaned back sud­denly in the chair, as if the memory sickened him. ‘Right on top of the old scar,’ he said faintly. ‘And every time I bent my knee, it pulled open and bled some more.’

  ‘You should have kept the leg still,’ Pa­tience ob­served sagely. All three of us stared at her. ‘Oh, I sup­pose you couldn’t, really,’ she amended.

  ‘Let’s take a look at it now,’ Lacey sug­ges­ted and reached for the wet cloth.

  Burrich fended her off with a ges­ture. ‘Leave it. I’ll see to it my­self, after I’ve eaten.’

  ‘After you’ve eaten, you’ll rest,’ Pa­tience in­formed him. ‘Lacey, please move aside.’

  To my amazement, Burrich said noth­ing more. Lacey stepped back, out of the way, and Lady Pa­tience knelt be­fore the Sta­ble­mas­ter. He watched her, a strange ex­pres­sion on his face, as she lif­ted the cloth away. She damped the corner of the cloth in clean wa­ter, wrung it out, and deftly sponged the wound. The warm wet cloth had loosened the crus­ted blood. Cleaned, it did not look as evil as it had at first. It was still a nasty in­jury, and the hard­ships that Burrich had en­dured would com­plic­ate its heal­ing. The par­ted flesh gaped and proud flesh had formed where it should have closed. But every­one vis­ibly re­laxed as Pa­tience cleaned it. There was red­ness, and swell­ing, and in­fec­tion at one end. But there was no pu­tre­fac­tion, no dark­en­ing of the flesh around it. Pa­tience stud­ied it a mo­ment. ‘What do you think?’ she asked aloud, of no one in par­tic­u­lar. ‘Devil’s club root? Hot, mashed in a poult­ice? Do we have any, Lacey?’

  ‘Some, my lady,’ and Lacey turned to the bas­ket they had brought and began to sort through it.

  Burrich turned to me. ‘Are those pots from my room?’

  At my nod, he nod­ded in re­turn. ‘I thought so. That fat little brown one. Bring it here.’

  He took it from my hands and lif­ted the stop­per from its mouth. ‘This. I had some of this, when I set out from Buck­keep, but it was lost with the pack-an­im­als, dur­ing the first am­bush.’

  ‘What is it?’ Pa­tience asked. She came, devil’s club root in hand, to gaze curi­ously.

  ‘Chick­weed and plantain leaves. Simmered in oil, then worked with beeswax into a salve.’

  ‘That should work well,’ she con­ceded. ‘After the root poult­ice.’

  I braced my­self for his ar­gu­ment, but he only nod­ded. He sud­denly looked very tired. He leaned back and pulled the blanket more closely about him­self. His eyes sagged shut.

  There was a knock at my door. I went to an­swer it, and found Kettricken stand­ing there, with Rose­mary at her el­bow. ‘One of my ladies told me there was a ru­mour that Burrich had re­turned,’ she began. Then she looked past me into the room. ‘It’s true, then. And he’s hurt? What of my lord, oh, what of Ver­ity?’ She went sud­denly paler than I thought she could be.

  ‘He’s fine,’ I re­as­sured her. ‘Come in.’ I cursed my­self for my thought­less­ness. I should have sent word to her im­me­di­ately of Burrich’s re­turn and of the tid­ings he car­ried. I should have known that oth­er­wise she would not be told. As she entered, Pa­tience and Lacey looked up from the devil’s club root they were steam­ing, to wel­come her with quick curt­sies and mur­murs of greet­ing.

  ‘What’s happened to him?’ Kettricken de­man­ded. And so I told her, re­port­ing to her all that Burrich had told King Shrewd, for I thought she had as much right to word of her hus­band as Shrewd had to word of his son. She blanched again at men­tion of the at­tack on Ver­ity, but kept si­lent un­til my telling was done. ‘Thank all our gods that he draws closer to my moun­tains. There he will be safe, from men at least.’ That said, she drew closer to where Pa­tience and Lacey were pre­par­ing the root. It had been steamed soft enough to crush into a pli­able mass, and they were let­ting it cool be­fore ap­ply­ing it to the in­fec­tion.

  ‘Moun­tain ash berry makes an ex­cel­lent wash for such an in­jury,’ she sug­ges­ted aloud.

  Pa­tience looked up at her shyly. ‘I have heard of that. But this warmed root will do much to draw the in­fec­tion from th
e wound. An­other good wash for proud flesh such as this is rasp­berry leaf and slip­pery elm. Or as a poult­ice.’

  ‘We have no rasp­berry leaf,’ Lacey re­minded Pa­tience. ‘The damp got into it some­how and it mouldered.’

  ‘I have rasp­berry leaf if you are in need of it,’ Kettricken said softly. ‘I had pre­pared it for a morn­ing tea. It was a rem­edy my aunt taught me.’ She looked down and smiled oddly.

  ‘Oh?’ Lacey asked in sud­den in­terest.

  ‘Oh my dear,’ Pa­tience sud­denly ex­claimed. She reached to take Kettricken’s hand with a sud­den, strange fa­mili­ar­ity. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I am. At first I thought it was just … But then I began to have the other signs. Some morn­ings, even the smell of the sea can make me so miser­able. And all I want to do is sleep.’

  ‘But you should,’ Lacey ex­claimed with a laugh. ‘As for the queas­i­ness, it passes, after the first few months.’

  I stood very still, for­eign, ex­cluded, for­got­ten. All three wo­men sud­denly laughed to­gether. ‘No won­der you were so anxious to have word of him. Did he know, be­fore he left?’

  ‘I did not even sus­pect it then. I so long to tell him, to watch his face.’

  ‘You’re with child,’ I said stu­pidly. They all turned to look at me, and then burst out laugh­ing anew.

  ‘It’s a secret, still,’ Kettricken cau­tioned me. ‘I want no ru­mours be­fore the King has been told. I want to be the one to tell him.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I as­sured her. I did not tell her that the Fool already knew, and had known for days. Ver­ity’s child, I thought to my­self. A sud­den strange shiv­er­ing raced over me. The branch­ing of the path that the Fool had seen, the sud­den mul­tiply­ing of pos­sib­il­it­ies. One factor emerged above all oth­ers: the sud­den re­moval of Regal, pushed one more step away from the throne. One more small life stand­ing between him and the power he craved. How little he would care for that.

  ‘Of course not,’ I re­peated more heart­ily. ‘This news is best kept an ab­so­lute secret.’ For once it was out, I had no doubt that Kettricken would be in as much danger as her hus­band.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Threats

  That winter saw Bearns de­voured slowly, as a cliff is eaten by storm tides. At first, Duke Brawndy sent tid­ings to Kettricken on a reg­u­lar basis. Word came to her by liv­er­ied mes­sen­gers com­ing on horse­back dir­ectly from the Duke. At first the tid­ings they brought were op­tim­istic. Her opals re­built Ferry. The folk there sent her not only their thanks, but a small chest of the very tiny pearls so prized by them. Odd. What had been too treas­ured to be sac­ri­ficed even to re­build their own vil­lage was freely offered in thanks to a queen who had sur­rendered her jew­els that they might have shel­ter. I doubt that the sig­ni­fic­ance of their sac­ri­fice would have meant as much to any other. Kettricken wept over the tiny chest.

  Later mes­sen­gers brought grim­mer tid­ings. Between storms, the Red Ships struck again and again. The mes­sen­gers re­por­ted to Kettricken that Duke Brawndy wondered why the co­terie mem­ber had left the Red Tower. When Kettricken boldly ques­tioned Se­rene as to whether this was so, she said it had be­come too dan­ger­ous to keep Will there, for his Skill was too pre­cious to be risked to the Red Ships. The irony was lost on few folk. With each ar­riv­ing mes­sen­ger, the news worsened. The Outis­landers had es­tab­lished footholds on Hook and Be­sham Is­lands. Duke Brawndy as­sembled fish­ing ves­sels and war­ri­ors and boldly at­tacked on his own, but found the Red Ships too well-en­trenched there. Ships and war­ri­ors per­ished, and Bearns re­por­ted gravely that there were no funds for an­other ex­ped­i­tion. At that junc­ture, Ver­ity’s em­er­alds were turned over to Kettricken. She sent them off without a qualm. If they did any good, we did not hear of it. We were not even cer­tain they were ever re­ceived. Mes­sages from Bearns be­came more er­ratic, and it was soon ob­vi­ous that there had been tid­ings sent that we had not re­ceived. Com­mu­nic­a­tion with Brawndy broke down en­tirely. After two of her own mes­sen­gers had been sent forth from Buck­keep, never to re­turn, Kettricken vowed she would risk no more lives. By then, the Raid­ers from Hook and Be­sham had be­gun to harry fur­ther down the coast, avoid­ing the im­me­di­ate vi­cin­ity of Buck­keep, but mak­ing feints and chal­lenges to both the north and south of us. To all these raids, Regal re­mained staunchly in­dif­fer­ent. He claimed he was con­serving re­sources un­til Ver­ity could re­turn with the Eld­er­lings to drive the Raid­ers away once and for all. But the mer­ri­ment and en­ter­tain­ments at Buck­keep be­came ever more lav­ish and fre­quent, and his gifts to his In­land dukes and nobles ever more gen­er­ous.

  By mid-af­ter­noon, Burrich was back in his own cham­bers. I had wanted to keep him where I could watch over him, but he had scoffed at the idea. Lacey her­self had seen to get­ting his cham­ber ready, and Burrich had grumbled enough about that. All she had done was to build up the fire, see wa­ter brought fresh, the bed­ding aired and shaken, and the floors swept and fresh rushes strewn. One of Molly’s candles burned in the centre of his table, put­ting a fresh, piney scent into the musty room. But Burrich had growled that it scarcely felt like his own room. I had left him there, well propped up in bed and with a bottle of brandy close to hand.

  I had un­der­stood the bottle only too well. As I had helped him through the stables and up to his loft, we had passed one empty stall after an­other. Not only horses were miss­ing; prime hunt­ing dogs were gone. I had no heart to go look in the mews; I was sure I would find them like­wise plundered. Hands had walked be­side us, si­lent but stricken. His ef­forts were plain. The stables them­selves were im­macu­late, the re­main­ing horses groomed un­til they shone. Even the empty stalls were scrubbed and white­washed. But an empty cup­board, no mat­ter how clean, is no com­fort to a starving man. I un­der­stood that the stables were Burrich’s treas­ure and home. He had come back to find both looted.

  After I left Burrich, I took a walk down to the barns and pens. Here the best of the breed­ing stock were wintered over. I found them as de­pleted as the stables. Prize bulls were gone. Of the curly-backed black sheep that used to fill one pen, there were only six ewes and one runty ram left. I was not as aware of what other stock had once been there, but too many pens and stalls were empty at a time of year when all were usu­ally full.

  From the barns, I wandered through the stor­age houses and out­build­ings. Out­side one, some men were load­ing sacks of grain into a wagon. Two other wag­ons, already loaded, stood nearby. I stood a bit, watch­ing them, and then offered to help as the wagon’s load grew higher and the sacks harder to load. They ac­cep­ted my help read­ily, and we talked as we worked. I waved them a cheery good­bye when the work was done, and walked slowly back to the keep, won­der­ing why a full ware­house of grain was be­ing loaded into a barge and sent up­river to Tur­lake.

  I de­cided I would check on Burrich be­fore go­ing back to my own cham­bers. I climbed the steps to his cham­bers and was un­settled to find the door ajar. Fear­ing some sort of treach­ery, I pushed in, start­ling Molly who was set­ting out dishes on a small table be­side Burrich’s chair. The sight of her there rattled me, and I stared at her. When I turned to Burrich, I found him watch­ing me.

  ‘I thought you were alone,’ I said lamely.

  Burrich re­garded me owl­ishly. He had made in­roads on his bottle of brandy. ‘I thought I would be,’ he said gravely. As ever, he held his spir­its well, but Molly was not de­ceived. Her lips were set in a thin line. She con­tin­ued with her du­ties, ig­nor­ing me. In­stead she spoke to Burrich.

  ‘I shall not dis­turb you long. Lady Pa­tience sent me to see that you had hot food, for you ate little this morn­ing. I shall be leav­ing as soon as I have set out this meal.’

  ‘And tak­ing my thanks with you,’ Burrich ad­ded. His eyes went from me to Mol
ly, sens­ing awk­ward­ness, and also her dis­pleas­ure with him. He at­temp­ted an apo­logy. ‘I have had a harsh jour­ney, mis­tress, and my in­jury gives me some pain. I hope I have not given of­fence.’

  ‘It is not my place to take of­fence at any­thing you wish to do, sir,’ she replied. She fin­ished set­ting out the food she had brought. ‘Is there any­thing else I can do for you, to make you com­fort­able?’ she asked. There was cour­tesy in her voice, no more than that. She did not look at me at all.

  ‘You could ac­cept my thanks. Not just for the food, but also for the candles that freshened my cham­ber. I un­der­stand they are your handi­work.’

  I saw her thaw slightly. ‘Lady Pa­tience asked me to bring them here. I was happy to ob­lige her.’

  ‘I see.’ The next words he spoke cost him more. ‘Then please ex­tend my thanks to her. And to Lacey as well, I am sure.’

  ‘I shall. There is noth­ing more that you need, then? I have er­rands in Buck­keep Town for Lady Pa­tience. She told me that if there was any­thing you re­quired from town, I should fetch it for you.’

  ‘Noth­ing. But it was kind of her to think of it. Thank you.’

  ‘You are wel­come, sir.’ And Molly, empty bas­ket on her arm, marched out past me as if I were not even there.

  Burrich and I were left re­gard­ing one an­other. I glanced after Molly, then tried to put her out of my mind. ‘It’s not just the stables,’ I told him, and briefly re­por­ted what I had seen in the barns and ware­houses.

  ‘I could have told you a bit of that,’ he said gruffly. He looked at the food Molly had brought, then poured him­self more brandy. ‘As we came down the Buck River road, there were ru­mours and tid­ings. Some said Regal sold the beasts and grain off to fund the de­fence of the coasts. Oth­ers that he sent the breed­ing stock in­land to safer pas­tures in Tilth.’ He drank his brandy down. ‘The best of the horses are gone. I saw that at a glance when I came back. In ten years, I might breed stock up again to the qual­ity of what we had. But I doubt it.’ He poured again. ‘There’s my life’s work gone, Fitz. A man likes to think he’ll leave his touch on the world some­where. The horses I had brought to­gether here, the blood-lines I was es­tab­lish­ing — gone now, scattered through­out the Six Duch­ies. Oh, not that they won’t im­prove any­thing they’re bred to. But I’ll never see what would have come if I’d been al­lowed to con­tinue. Steady will be stud­ding rangy Tilth mares, no doubt. And when Em­ber drops her new foal, who­ever rubs it off will think it just an­other horse. For six gen­er­a­tions, I’ve been wait­ing for just that foal. They’ll take the finest cours­ing horse that’s ever been foaled and hook it to a plough.’