by Robin Hobb
‘A Stablemaster with no horses and a Fool with no king,’ the Fool observed. ‘Burrich and I can continue to drink. I believe that is a normal life under these circumstances. As for you, Fitz, I have no idea what title you give yourself these days, let alone what you normally do all day. Hence …’
‘No one is going to sit about and drink,’ Lacey intoned ominously. ‘Put the bottle aside and keep your wits sharp. And disperse, as Fitz here said. Enough has been said and done in this room to put us all swinging from a tree for treason. Save you, of course, FitzChivalry. It would have to be poison for you. Those of the royal blood are not allowed to swing.’
Her words had a chilling effect. Burrich picked up the cork and restoppered the bottle. Lacey left first, a pot of Burrich’s ointment in her basket. The Fool followed her a short time later. When I left Burrich, he had finished cleaning the fowl and was plucking the last stubborn feathers from it. The man wasted nothing.
I went out and wandered about a bit. I watched behind me for shadows. Kettricken would be resting, and I did not think I could withstand Patience’s nattering, or her insights just then. If the Fool was in his chamber, it was because he did not want company. And if he was elsewhere, I had no idea where that might be. The whole of Buckkeep was as plagued with Inlanders as a sick dog with fleas. I strolled through the kitchen, purloining gingerbread. Then I wandered about disconsolately, trying not to think, trying to appear without purpose as I headed back to the hut where once I had hidden Nighteyes. The hut was empty now, as cold within as without. It had been some time since Nighteyes had laired here. He preferred the forested hills behind Buckkeep. But I did not wait long before his shadow crossed the threshold of the open door.
Perhaps the greatest comfort of the Wit bond is never having to explain. I did not need to recount the last day’s events to him, did not have to find words to describe how it felt to watch Molly walk away from me. Nor did he ask questions or make sympathetic talk. The human events would have made small sense to him. He acted on the strength of what I felt, not why. He simply came to me and sat beside me on the dirty floor. I could put an arm around him and lean my face against his ruff and sit.
Such packs men make, he observed to me after a while. How can you hunt together when you cannot all run in the same direction?
I made no reply to this. I knew no answer and he did not expect one.
He leaned down to nibble an itch on his foreleg. Then he sat up, shook himself all over, and asked, What will you do for a mate now?
Not all wolves take mates.
The leader always does. How else would the pack multiply?
My leader has a mate, and she is with child. Perhaps wolves have it aright, and men should pay attention. Perhaps only the leader should mate. That was the decision that Heart of the Pack made long ago. That he could not have both a mate, and a leader he followed with all of his heart.
That one is more wolf than he cares to admit. To anyone. A pause. Gingerbread?
I’ve missed your dreams at night.
They are not my dreams. They are my life. You are welcome to them, so long as Heart of the Pack does not get angry with us. Life shared is better. A pause. You would rather have shared the female’s life.
It is my weakness to want too much.
He blinked his deep eyes. You love too many. My life is much simpler.
He loved only me.
That is true. The only real difficulty I have is knowing that you will never trust that is so.
I sighed heavily. Nighteyes sneezed suddenly, then shook himself all over. I mislike this mouse dust. But before I go, use your so clever hands to scratch inside my ears. It is hard for me to do well without leaving welts.
And so I scratched his ears, and under his throat and the back of his neck until he fell over on his side like a puppy.
‘Hound,’ I told him affectionately.
For that insult, you pay! He flipped himself up onto his feet, bit me hard through my sleeve, and then darted out the door and was gone. I pulled back my sleeve to survey the deep white dents in my flesh that were not quite bleeding. Wolf humour.
The brief winter day had ended. I went back to the keep and forced myself to go through the kitchens, to allow Cook to tell me all the gossip. She stuffed me full of plum cake and mutton as she told me of the Queen’s possible miscarriage, and then how the men had chopped through the outer door of the King’s room after his guard suddenly perished of apoplexy. ‘And the second door too, all the time Prince Regal worriting and urging them on, for fear something had befallen the King himself. But when they got through, despite all that chopping, the King was sleeping like a babe, sir. And so deep a sleep they could not rouse him at all, to tell him why they’d chopped his doors away.’
‘Amazing,’ I agreed, and she went on to the lesser gossip of the keep. I found that centred these days mostly on who was and was not included in the flight to Tradeford. Cook was to go, for the sake of her gooseberry tarts and bundle cakes. She did not know who was to take over the cooking here, but no doubt it would be one of the guards. Regal had told her she might take all her best pots, for which she was grateful, but what she would really miss was the west hearth, for she had never cooked on a better, for the draught being just right and the meat-hooks at all the right heights. I listened to her, and tried to think only of her words, to be fully intrigued by the small details of what she considered important in her life. The Queen’s Guard, I found, was to stay at Buckkeep, as would those few who still wore the colours of King Shrewd’s personal guard. Since they had lost the privilege of his rooms, they had become a dispirited lot. But Regal insisted it was necessary those groups stay, to maintain a royal presence in Buckkeep. Rosemary would go, and her mother, but that was hardly surprising, considering whom they served. Fedwren would not, nor Mellow. Now there was a voice she would miss, but she’d probably get used to that Inland warbling after a while.
She never thought to ask me if I were going.
As I climbed the stairs to my room, I tried to visualize Buckkeep as it would be. The high table would be empty at every meal, the food served would be the simple campaign food the military cooks were most familiar with. For as long as the food supplies lasted. I expected we would eat a lot of wild game and seaweed before spring. I worried more for Patience and Lacey than I did for myself. Rough quarters and coarse food did not bother me, but it was not what they were used to. At least there would be Mellow still to sing, if his melancholy nature did not overtake him at his abandonment. And Fedwren. With few children to teach, perhaps he and Patience could finally study out their paper-making. So putting a brave face on it all, I tried to find a future for us.
‘Where have you been, Bastard?’
Serene, stepping out suddenly from a doorway. She had expected me to startle. I had known by the Wit someone was there. I did not flinch. ‘Out.’
‘You smell like a dog.’
‘At least I have the excuse of having been with dogs. What few are left in the stable.’
It took her an instant to discover the insult in my polite reply.
‘You smell like a dog because you are more than half a dog yourself. Beast-magicker.’
I nearly responded with some remark about her mother. Instead, I suddenly and truly recalled her mother. ‘When we were first learning to scribe, remember how your mother always made you wear a dark smock, for you splattered your ink so?’
She stared at me sullenly, turning the remark every which way in her mind, trying to discover some insult or slight or trick in it.
/> ‘What of it?’ she asked at last, unable to leave it hanging.
‘Nothing. I but remembered it. Was a time when I helped you getting the tails right on your letters.’
‘That has nothing to do with now!’ she declared angrily.
‘No, it does not. This is my door. Were you expecting to come in with me?’
She spat, not quite at me, but it landed on the floor at my feet. For some reason, I decided she would not have done it, had not she been leaving Buckkeep with Regal. It was no longer her home, and she felt free to soil it before leaving it. It told me much. She never expected to come back here.
Inside my room, I reset every latch and bolt meticulously, then added the heavy bar to the door. I went and checked my window and found it well-shuttered still. I looked under my bed. Finally, I sat down in a chair by my hearth to doze until Chade summoned me.
I came out of a light doze to a tapping at my door. ‘Who is it?’ I called.
‘Rosemary. The Queen wishes to see you.’
By the time I had undone the latches and catches, the child was gone. She was only a girl, but it still unnerved me to have such a message vocalized through a door. I groomed myself hastily and then hurried down to the Queen’s chambers. I noted in passing the wreckage that had once been the oak door to Shrewd’s room. A bulky guard stood in the gap; an Inlander, not a man I knew.
Queen Kettricken was reclining on a couch near her hearth. Several knots of her ladies gossiped in different corners of the room, but the Queen herself was alone. Her eyes were closed. She looked so utterly worn that I wondered if Rosemary’s message had been an error. But Lady Hopeful ushered me to the Queen’s side and fetched me a low stool to perch upon. She offered me a cup of tea and I accepted. As soon as Lady Hopeful departed to brew it, Kettricken opened her eyes. ‘What next?’ she asked in so low a voice that I had to lean closer to hear it.
I looked askance at her.
‘Shrewd sleeps now. He cannot sleep forever. Whatever was given him will wear off, and when it does, we are back to where we were.’
‘The King-in-Waiting ceremony approaches. Perhaps the Prince will be busied with that. No doubt there are new clothes to be sewn and tried upon him, and all the other details he glories in. It may keep him from the King.’
‘After that?’
Lady Hopeful was back with my cup of tea. I took it with murmured thanks, and as she pulled up a chair beside us, Queen Kettricken smiled weakly and asked if she might have one also. I was almost shamed by how swiftly Lady Hopeful leapt to do her bidding.
‘I do not know,’ I murmured in reply to her earlier question.
‘I do. The King would be safe in my mountains. He would be honoured and protected, and perhaps Jonqui would know of … Oh, thank you, Hopeful.’ Queen Kettricken took the proffered cup and sipped at it as Lady Hopeful settled herself.
I smiled at Kettricken, and chose my words carefully, trusting her to read my meaning. ‘But it is so far to the mountains, my queen, and the weather so hard this time of year. By the time a courier got through to seek your mother’s remedy, it would be nigh on spring. There are other places that might offer the same cure for your troubles. Bearns or Rippon, perhaps, might offer if we asked. The worthy dukes of those provinces can deny you nothing, you know.’
‘I know.’ Kettricken smiled wearily. ‘But they have such problems of their own just now, I hesitate to ask anything more of them. Besides, the root we call livelong grows only in the mountains. A determined courier could travel there, I think.’ She sipped again at her tea.
‘Who to send with such a request; ah, that would be the hardest question,’ I pointed out. Surely she could see the difficulties of sending a sick old man off on a journey to the mountains in winter. He could not go alone. ‘The man that went would have to be very trustworthy and strong of will.’
‘Such a man sounds like a woman to me,’ Kettricken quipped, and Hopeful laughed merrily, more to see the Queen’s mood lightened than at the witticism. Kettricken paused with her cup at her lips. ‘Perhaps I should have to go myself, to see the thing done right,’ she added, and smiled when my eyes widened. But the look she gave me was serious.
There followed some light talk, and a recipe of mostly fictitious herbs from Kettricken that I promised to do my best to find for her. I believed I took her meaning. When I excused myself and went back to my room, I wondered how I would keep her from acting before Chade could. It was a pretty puzzle.
I had scarcely refastened all my door catches and bars before I felt a draught up my back. I turned to find the entry to Chade’s realm standing ajar. I climbed the stairs wearily. I longed to sleep, but knew that once I lay down, I would be unable to close my eyes.
The smell of food enticed me as I entered Chade’s chamber, and I was suddenly aware I was hungry. Chade was already at the small table he had set out. ‘Sit down and eat,’ he told me tersely. ‘We must plot together.’
I was two bites into a meat pie when he asked me softly, ‘How long do you think we might keep King Shrewd here, in these chambers, undetected?’
I chewed and swallowed. ‘I’ve never been able to find a way into this chamber,’ I pointed out quietly.
‘Oh, but they do exist. And as food and other necessities must go in and out of them, there are some few who are aware of them, without knowing exactly what they know. My warren connects to rooms in the keep which are regularly stocked with supplies for me. But my life was much simpler when food and linens were supplied for Lady Thyme.’
‘How will you fare after Regal is gone to Tradeford?’ I asked.
‘Likely not as well as I have. Some tasks will be done out of habit, if those with the habits remain, no doubt. But as food becomes scarcer, some will wonder why they store supplies of it in a disused part of the keep. But we were speaking of Shrewd’s comfort, not mine.’
‘It depends on how Shrewd disappeared. If Regal thought he had left the keep by ordinary means, you might keep him hidden here for some time. But if Regal knows he is within Buckkeep still, he will stop at nothing. I suspect his first order would be to put men with hammers to work on the walls of the King’s bedchamber.’
‘Direct, but effective,’ Chade concurred.
‘Have you found a safe place for him, at Bearns or Rippon?’
‘As swift as that? Of course not. We would have to hide him here, for days or perhaps weeks before a place was made ready. And then he must be smuggled out of the Keep. It would mean finding men who can be bribed, and knowing when they are on the gate. Unfortunately, men that can be bribed to do a thing can be bribed to speak of it later. Unless they had accidents.’ He looked at me.
‘Let that not be a concern. There is another way out of Buckkeep,’ I told him, thinking of my wolf’s way. ‘We have another problem also, and that is Kettricken. She will act on her own if she does not soon know we have a plan. Her own thoughts have taken her in the same direction as yours. Tonight she proposed herself taking Shrewd to the mountains for safety.’
‘A pregnant woman and a sick old man in mid-winter? Ridiculous.’ Chade paused. ‘But. It would never be expected. They would never look for them on that road. And with all the flow of folk that Regal has created going up the Buck River, one more woman and her ailing father would scarcely be marked.’
‘It’s still ridiculous,’ I protested. I did not like the sparks of interest I had seen kindle in Chade’s eyes. ‘Who could go with them?’
‘Burrich. It would save him drinking himself to death from boredom, and he could manage their animals for them. And likely m
uch else they would need. Would he go?’
‘You know he would,’ I said unwillingly. ‘But Shrewd would never survive such a trip.’
‘He is more likely to survive such a trip than to survive going with Regal. That which eats at him will continue to devour his life, wherever he is.’ He frowned more darkly. ‘But why it eats at him so much more swiftly these days is beyond me to say.’
‘The cold. The privation. It will not help him.’
‘There are inns for part of the way. I can find some coin for them yet. Shrewd looks so little like he used to, we almost need not fear him being recognized. The Queen would be trickier. There are few women with her colouring and height. Still, clothed heavily, we could increase her girth. Hood her hair, and …’
‘You cannot be serious.’
‘Tomorrow night,’ he replied. ‘We must do something by tomorrow night. For that is when the sleeping potion I gave Shrewd will wear off. Another attempt will probably not be made on the Queen until she is on her way to Tradeford. But once Regal has her in his power, well, so many accidents happen on a journey. A slip from a barge into a freezing river, a runaway horse, a meal of bad meat. If his assassin is half as good as we are, he’ll succeed.’
‘Regal’s assassin?’
Chade gave me a pitying look. ‘You don’t suppose our prince is up to spreading grease and lampblack on steps himself, do you? Who do you think it is?’
‘Serene.’ The name popped to my lips.
‘Then most obviously it is not her. No, we will find it to be some mouse of a man with a pleasant demeanour and a settled life. If we ever find him out at all. Ah, well, set it aside for now. Though there’s nothing quite as challenging as stalking another assassin.’
‘Will,’ I said quietly.
‘Will what?’ he asked.
I told him of Will, quickly and quietly. As he listened, his eyes widened.