Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘A new pro­ject?’ I haz­arded, at­tempt­ing a bit of lev­ity.

  Lacey looked at me glumly. ‘They came this morn­ing to take my lady’s table away. And my bed. They claimed they were needed for guests. Well, I shouldn’t be sur­prised, with so much of the rest of the things gone up­river. But I greatly doubt that we’ll see either item again.’

  ‘Well, per­haps they’ll be wait­ing for you when you get to Trade­ford,’ I sug­ges­ted in­anely. I had not real­ized the whole ex­tent of the liber­ties Regal was tak­ing.

  There was a very long si­lence be­fore Lacey spoke. ‘Then they’ll wait a long time, FitzChiv­alry. We are not among those to be taken to Trade­ford.’

  ‘No. We’re among the odd folk to be left here, with the odd­ments of fur­niture.’ This from Pa­tience as she ab­ruptly re-entered the room. Her eyes were red and her cheeks pale, and I sud­denly knew she had hid­den her­self when I first knocked un­til she had her tears un­der con­trol.

  ‘Then surely you shall re­turn to Withy­woods,’ I sug­ges­ted. My mind was work­ing very swiftly. I had as­sumed that Regal was mov­ing the en­tire house­hold to Trade­ford. Now I wondered who else was to be aban­doned here. I put my­self at the head of the list. I ad­ded Burrich and Chade. The Fool? Per­haps that was why he seemed lately to be Regal’s creature. That he might be al­lowed to fol­low the King to Trade­ford.

  Odd, how I had not even con­sidered that the King and Kettricken were to be whisked not only out of Chade’s reach, but mine. Regal had re­newed his or­ders con­fin­ing me to Buck­keep it­self. I had not wanted to trouble Kettricken to over­ride them. I had, after all, prom­ised Chade not to make waves.

  ‘I can­not re­turn to Withy­woods. Au­gust rules there, the King’s nephew, he who was head of Ga­len’s co­terie, be­fore his ac­ci­dent. He has no fond­ness for me, and I have no right to de­mand to be there. No. We shall be stay­ing here, and mak­ing the best we can of it.’

  I floundered for whatever com­fort I could of­fer. ‘I have a bed still. I shall have it brought down here for Lacey. Burrich will help me bring it.’

  Lacey shook her head. ‘I’ve made up a pal­let, and I’ll be com­fort­able enough. Keep it where it is. Per­haps they daren’t take it from you. Were it down here, no doubt it would just be car­ried off to­mor­row.’

  ‘Has King Shrewd no care for what is hap­pen­ing?’ Lady Pa­tience asked of me sadly.

  ‘I do not know. All are turned away from his door these days. Regal has said he is too ill to see any­one.’

  ‘I thought per­haps it was just me he would not see. Ah, well. Poor man. To lose two sons, and see his king­dom come to this. Tell me, how is Queen Kettricken? I have not had a chance to go see her.’

  ‘Well enough, last I saw her. Grieved by her hus­band’s death, of course, but …’

  ‘Then she was not in­jured in her fall? I feared she would mis­carry.’ Pa­tience turned aside from me, to gaze at a wall bereft of a fa­mil­iar tapestry. ‘I was too cow­ardly to go and see her my­self, if you would know the truth. I know too well the pain of los­ing a child be­fore you have held it in your arms.’

  ‘Her fall?’ I said stu­pidly.

  ‘Had not you heard? On those aw­ful steps com­ing down from the Queen’s Garden. There was talk that some statu­ary had been re­moved from the gar­dens, and she had gone up to see what, and on her way back down she fell. Not a great tum­bling fall, but heav­ily. On her back on those stone steps.’

  I could not keep my mind on Pa­tience’s con­ver­sa­tion after that. Much of it centred on the de­ple­tion of the lib­rar­ies, a thing I did not wish to think of any­way. As soon as I gra­ciously could, I ex­cused my­self, on the flimsy prom­ise that I would bring them dir­ect word of the Queen.

  I was turned away from Kettricken’s door. Sev­eral ladies told me at once not to fret, not to worry, she was fine, but she needed to rest, oh, but it was ter­rible … I en­dured enough to be sure that she had not mis­car­ried, then fled.

  But I did not go back to Pa­tience. Not yet. In­stead, I slowly climbed the stairs to the Queen’s Garden. I car­ried a lamp with me, and went most care­fully. On the tower top, I found it was as I had feared. The smal­ler and more valu­able of the statu­ary had been re­moved. Only the sheer weight had saved the lar­ger pieces, I was sure. The miss­ing bits took away the care­ful bal­ance of Kettricken’s cre­ation, and ad­ded to the des­ol­a­tion of the garden in winter. I shut the door care­fully be­hind me and went down the steps. Ever so slowly. Ever so care­fully. On the ninth step down, I found it. I nearly dis­covered it as Kettricken had. But I caught my bal­ance and then crouched low to study the step. Lamp-black had been mixed with the grease, to take the sheen off it and blend it with the well-used steps. It was right where the foot would most nat­ur­ally fall, es­pe­cially if one were hasten­ing down the stairs in a tem­per. Close enough to the tower top that a slip could be blamed on slush or mud from the gar­dens still on a shoe. I rubbed at the black on the step that came off on my fin­gers, then sniffed at it.

  ‘A fine bit of pork fat,’ ob­served the Fool. I leapt to my feet and nearly fell down the steps. A wild pin­wheel­ing of my arms brought my bal­ance back.

  ‘In­ter­est­ing. Do you think you could teach me to do that?’

  ‘Not funny, Fool. I have been fol­lowed of late, and my nerves are a jangle.’ I peered down the stair­well into the dark­ness. If the Fool had crept up on me, could not Will? ‘How’s the King?’ I de­man­ded quietly. If this at­tempt had been made on Kettricken, I had no faith in Shrewd’s safety.

  ‘You tell me.’ The Fool stepped out of the shad­ows. Gone were his fine clothes, re­placed with an old mot­ley of blue and red. It went well with the new bruises that mottled one side of his face. On his right cheek, the flesh had been split. One arm car­ried the other close to his chest. I sus­pec­ted a dis­lo­cated shoulder.

  ‘Not again,’ I gasped.

  ‘Ex­actly what I said to them. They paid small at­ten­tion. Some folk just have not the knack of con­ver­sa­tion.’

  ‘What happened? I thought you and Regal …’

  ‘Yes, well, not even a Fool can seem stu­pid enough to please Regal. I did not wish to leave King Shrewd’s side today. They were ques­tion­ing him re­lent­lessly about what had happened the night of the feast. I be­came per­haps a trifle too witty in sug­gest­ing other ways they might amuse them­selves. They threw me out.’

  My heart sank in me. I was sure I knew ex­actly which guard had as­sisted him out the door. It was as Burrich had al­ways warned me. One could never know what Regal might dare. ‘What did the King tell them?’

  ‘Ah! Not, was the King all right? or was the King re­cov­er­ing? No. Only “what did the King tell them?” Do you fear your pre­cious hide is in danger, princeling?’

  ‘No.’ I could feel no re­sent­ment at his ques­tion, or even how he phrased it. I de­served it. I had not taken good care of our friend­ship lately. Des­pite that, when he needed help, he had come to me. ‘No. But as long as the King says noth­ing of Ver­ity be­ing alive, then Regal has no reason to …’

  ‘My king was be­ing … ta­cit­urn. It had star­ted out as a pleas­ant con­ver­sa­tion between father and son, with Regal telling him how pleased he should be to have him fi­nally as King-in-Wait­ing. King Shrewd was rather vague, as he of­ten is these days. Some­thing about it ir­rit­ated Regal, and he began to ac­cuse him of not be­ing pleased, or even be­ing op­posed. Fi­nally he began to in­sist there was a plot, a con­spir­acy to see that he never came to the throne. No man is so dan­ger­ous as the man who can­not de­cide what he fears. Regal is that man. Even Wal­lace was put ajar by his rant­ings. He had brought the King one of his brews, to deaden his mind along with his pain, but as he brought it near, Regal dashed it from his hands. He then spun on the poor trem­bling Wall’s Ass and ac­cused him of be­ing part of the con
­spir­acy. He claimed Wal­lace had in­ten­ded to drug our king to keep him from speak­ing what he knew. He ordered Wal­lace from the room, say­ing the King would have no need of him un­til he had seen fit to speak plainly to his son. He ordered me out as well, then. My re­luct­ance to leave was over­come by a couple of his hulk­ing In­land plough­men.’

  A creep­ing dread rose in me. I re­membered my mo­ment of shar­ing the King’s pain. Regal would re­morse­lessly watch while that pain crept past the numb­ing herbs to over­whelm his father. I could not ima­gine a man be­ing cap­able of this. Yet I knew Regal would do it. ‘When did this hap­pen?’

  ‘Just an hour or so ago. You are not an easy per­son to find.’

  I looked more closely at the Fool. ‘Go down to the stables, to Burrich. See what he can do for you.’ The healer, I knew would not touch the Fool. Like many around the keep, he feared his strange ap­pear­ance.

  ‘What will you be do­ing?’ the Fool asked quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied hon­estly. This was ex­actly one of the situ­ations I had warned Chade about. I knew whether I ac­ted or not, the con­sequences would be grave. I needed to dis­tract Regal from what he was do­ing. Chade, I was sure, was aware of what was go­ing on. If Regal and all oth­ers could be lured away for a time … I could think of only one piece of news that might be im­port­ant enough to Regal to make him leave Shrewd.

  ‘You’ll be all right?’

  The Fool had sunk down to sit on the cold stone steps. He leaned his head against the wall. ‘I sup­pose so. Go.’

  I star­ted down the steps.

  ‘Wait!’ he called sud­denly.

  I hal­ted.

  ‘When you take my king away, I go with him.’

  I just stared up at him.

  ‘I mean it. I wore Regal’s col­lar for the sake of that prom­ise from him. It means noth­ing now to him.’

  ‘I can make no prom­ises,’ I said quietly.

  ‘I can. I prom­ise that if my king is taken, and I do not go with him, I will be­tray every one of your secrets. Every one.’ The Fool’s voice was shak­ing. He put his head back against the wall.

  I turned away hast­ily. The tears on his cheeks were tinged pink from the cuts on his face. I could not bear to see them. I ran down the stairs.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Con­spir­acy

  The Pocked Man at your win­dow

  The Pocked Man at your door

  The Pocked Man brings the plague days

  To stretch you on the floor.

  When blue flames at your candles suck

  You know a witch has got your luck.

  Don’t suf­fer a snake upon your hearth stone

  Or plague will whittle your chil­dren to bone.

  Your bread not to rise, your milk to stand sour,

  Your but­ter not to churn.

  Your ar­row-shafts to twist as they dry,

  Your own knife to turn and cut you,

  Your roost­ers to crow by moon­light –

  By these may a house­holder know him­self cursed.

  ‘We will need blood from some­where.’ Kettricken had heard me out, and now made this re­quest as calmly as if ask­ing for a cup of wine. She looked from Pa­tience to Lacey seek­ing for ideas.

  ‘I’ll go fetch a chicken,’ Lacey said un­will­ingly at last. ‘I’ll need a sack to put it in to keep it quiet …’

  ‘Go then,’ Pa­tience told her. ‘Go quickly. Bring it back to my room. I shall fetch a knife and a basin, and we shall do it there, and bring but a cup of the blood back here. The less we do here, the less we must con­ceal.’

  I had gone first to Pa­tience and Lacey, know­ing I would never get past the Queen’s at­tend­ants on my own. While I made a quick visit to my room, they had gone be­fore me to the Queen, os­tens­ibly tak­ing her a spe­cial herb tea but really quietly to beg a private audi­ence for me. She had dis­missed all her ladies, telling them she would be fine with just Pa­tience and Lacey, and then sent Rose­mary to fetch me. Rose­mary played by the hearth now, ab­sorbed in dress­ing a doll.

  As Lacey and Pa­tience left the room, Kettricken looked at me. ‘I will splat­ter my gown and my bed­ding with the blood, and I will send for Wal­lace, telling him I fear a mis­car­riage from my fall. But that is as far as I will go, Fitz. I will not al­low that man to lay a hand on me, nor be so fool­ish as to drink or eat any­thing of his con­coct­ing. I do this only for the sake of dis­tract­ing him from my king. Nor will I say I have lost the child. Only that I fear it.’ She spoke fiercely. It chilled me that she ac­cep­ted so eas­ily what Regal had done and was do­ing, and what I said she must do as a counter-move. I wished des­per­ately I was sure her trust in me was well-placed. She did not speak of treach­ery or evil. She only dis­cussed strategy as coldly as a gen­eral plan­ning a battle.

  ‘It will be enough,’ I prom­ised her. ‘I know Prince Regal. Wal­lace will run to him with the tale, and he will fol­low Wal­lace here, no mat­ter how in­ap­pro­pri­ate. He will not be able to res­ist, he will long to see ex­actly how well he has suc­ceeded.’

  ‘It is te­di­ous enough to have all my wo­men al­ways com­mis­er­at­ing with me over Ver­ity’s death. It will be all I can bear to have them speak as if my child were gone as well. But I can bear it, if I must. What if they leave a guard with the King?’ Kettricken asked.

  ‘As soon as they leave to visit you, I in­tend to knock on the door and cre­ate a di­ver­sion. I will deal with any guard they have left.’

  ‘But if you are draw­ing off the guard, how can you hope to ac­com­plish any­thing?’

  ‘I have a … an­other who will be as­sist­ing me.’ I hoped. I cursed again that Chade had never let me es­tab­lish some way of reach­ing him in situ­ations such as this. ‘Trust me,’ he had al­ways told me. ‘I watch, I listen where I should. I sum­mon you when it is safe to do so. A secret is only a secret as long as only one man knows it.’ I would not con­fide to any­one that I had already di­vulged my plans to my fire­place, in the hopes Chade was some­how listen­ing. I hoped that in the brief time I would be able to buy, Chade would find a way to the King, to bring him res­pite from his pain, that he might with­stand Regal’s badger­ing.

  ‘It amounts to tor­ture,’ Kettricken said quietly, as if able to read my thoughts. ‘To aban­don an old man like that to his pain.’ She looked at me dir­ectly. ‘You do not trust your queen enough to tell me who your as­sist­ant is?’

  ‘It is not my secret to share, but my king’s,’ I told her gently. ‘Soon, I be­lieve, it will have to be re­vealed to you. Un­til then …’

  ‘Go,’ she dis­missed me. She shif­ted un­com­fort­ably on her couch. ‘As bruised as I am, at least I shall not have to feign misery. Only tol­er­ance of a man who would seek to kill his un­born kin and tor­ment his aged father.’

  ‘I go,’ I said quickly, sens­ing her rage build­ing and not de­sir­ing to feed it. All must be con­vin­cing for this mas­quer­ade. She must not re­veal that she now knew her fall had not been any clum­si­ness of her own. I went out, brush­ing past Lacey who was car­ry­ing a tray with a teapot. Pa­tience was on her heels. There would not be tea in that pot. As I went past the Queen’s ladies in her ante­cham­ber, I took care to look con­cerned. Their re­ac­tions to the Queen’s re­quest that King Shrewd’s per­sonal healer be sent for would be genu­ine enough. I hoped it would be enough to draw Regal out of his lair.

  I slipped into Pa­tience’s rooms and left the door just barely ajar. I waited. As I waited, I thought of an old man, the herbs fad­ing from his body and his pain reawaken­ing in him. I had vis­ited that pain. Given that, and a man re­lent­lessly ques­tion­ing me, how long could I re­main si­lent and vague? Days seemed to pass. Fi­nally there was a flurry of skirts and pat­ter­ing foot­steps down the hall, and a fren­zied knock­ing at King Shrewd’s door. I did not need to hear words, it was all in the tone, the frightened p
lead­ing of the wo­men with someone at the door, then Regal’s angry ques­tions, turn­ing sud­denly to feigned con­cern. I heard him call Wal­lace from whatever corner he had been ban­ished to, heard the ex­cite­ment in his voice as he ordered the man to at­tend the Queen im­me­di­ately, she was suf­fer­ing a mis­car­riage.

  The ladies clattered past my door again. I stood still, hold­ing my breath. That trot, that mut­ter, that would be Wal­lace, laden no doubt with all sorts of rem­ed­ies. I waited, tak­ing slow, quiet breaths, try­ing to be pa­tient, waited un­til I was sure my ploy had failed. Then I heard the more de­lib­er­ate strides of Regal, and then the run­ning strides of a man over­tak­ing him. ‘That’s good wine, you idiot, don’t jostle it,’ Regal re­buked him, and then they were out of my hear­ing. I waited again. Long after I was sure he had been ad­mit­ted to the Queen’s apart­ments, I forced my­self to wait for an­other hun­dred count. And then I eased out of the door and went to the King’s.

  I tapped. I did not knock loudly, but my tap­ping was in­sist­ent and un­end­ing. After a mo­ment or two, a voice de­man­ded to know who was there.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry,’ I said boldly, ‘I de­mand to see the King.’

  A si­lence. Then, ‘No one is to be ad­mit­ted.’

  ‘By whose or­der?’

  ‘Prince Regal.’

  ‘I bear a token from the King, one on which he gave me his word that I would al­ways be ad­mit­ted to see him whenever I so wished.’