Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  She waited un­til I asked hope­lessly, ‘What must I do?’

  For a mo­ment she looked down at her hands. Then she met my eyes again. ‘For now, noth­ing. I mean ex­actly that. I have made Molly one of my serving-wo­men. I am teach­ing her, as best I can, the ways of the court. She is prov­ing an apt stu­dent, as well as a most pleas­ant teacher for me in the mat­ters of herbs and scent-mak­ing. I am hav­ing Fed­wren teach her let­ters, some­thing she is most eager to learn. But for now, that is all that must be hap­pen­ing. She must be ac­cep­ted by the wo­men of the court as one of my ladies – not the bas­tard’s wo­man. After a time, you may be­gin to call upon her. But for now it would be un­seemly for you to see her alone, or even seek to see her at all.’

  ‘But I need to speak to her alone. Just once, just briefly, then I prom­ise I’ll abide by your rules. She thinks I de­lib­er­ately de­ceived her, Pa­tience. She thinks I was drunk last night. I have to ex­plain …’

  But Pa­tience was shak­ing her head be­fore the first sen­tence was out of my mouth, and con­tin­ued un­til I faltered to a halt. ‘We have already had a sprink­ling of ru­mours, be­cause she came here seek­ing you. Or so the gos­sip was. I have crushed it, as­sur­ing every­one that Molly came to me be­cause she was fa­cing dif­fi­culties and her mother had been a tir­ing wo­man to Lady Heather dur­ing the time of Queen Con­stance’s court. Which is true, and hence she does have the right to seek me out, for was not Lady Heather a friend to me when I first came to Buck­keep?’

  ‘Did you know Molly’s mother?’ I asked curi­ously.

  ‘Not really. She had left, to marry a chand­ler, be­fore I came to Buck­keep. But I did know Lady Heather, and she was kind to me.’ She dis­missed my ques­tion.

  ‘But couldn’t I come to your cham­bers, and speak to her there, privately, and …’

  ‘I will not have a scan­dal!’ she de­clared firmly. ‘I will not tempt a scan­dal. Fitz, you have en­emies at court. I will not let Molly be­come their vic­tim for their aims of hurt­ing you. There. Have I spoken plainly enough at last?’

  She had spoken plainly, and of things of which I had be­lieved her ig­nor­ant. How much did she know of my en­emies? Did she think it merely so­cial? Though that would be enough at court. I thought of Regal, and his sly wit­ti­cisms, and how he could turn and speak softly to his hangers-on at a feast and all would smirk to one an­other and add soft-voiced com­ments to the Prince’s cri­ti­cism. I thought how I would have to kill him.

  ‘By the set of your jaw, I see you un­der­stand.’ Pa­tience arose, set­ting her tea­cup on the table. ‘Lacey. I be­lieve we should leave FitzChiv­alry to rest now.’

  ‘Please, at least tell her not to be angry with me,’ I begged. ‘Tell her I wasn’t drunk last night. Tell her I never meant to de­ceive her, or to cause her any harm.’

  ‘I will carry no such mes­sage! Nor shall you, Lacey! Don’t think I didn’t see that wink. Both of you, I in­sist that you will be dec­or­ous. Re­mem­ber this, FitzChiv­alry, I ex­pect you to get some rest to­night.’

  They left me. Al­though I tried to catch Lacey’s eyes and win her al­li­ance, she re­fused to glance at me. The door closed be­hind them and I leaned back on my pil­lows. I tried not to let my mind rattle against the re­stric­tions Pa­tience had set upon me. An­noy­ing as it was, she was right. I could only hope that Molly would see my be­ha­viour as thought­less rather than de­ceit­ful or con­niv­ing.

  I arose from my bed and went to poke at the fire. Then I sat on the hearth and looked about my cham­ber. After my months in the Moun­tain King­dom, it seemed a bleak place in­deed. The closest my cham­ber came to dec­or­a­tion was a rather dusty tapestry of King Wis­dom be­friend­ing the Eld­er­lings. It had come with the cham­ber, as had the ce­dar chest at the foot of my bed. I stared up at the tapestry crit­ic­ally. It was old and moth-eaten; I could see why it had been ban­ished to here. When I had been younger, it had given me night­mares. Woven in an old style, King Wis­dom ap­peared strangely elong­ated, while the Eld­er­lings bore no re­semb­lance to any creatures I had ever seen. There was a sug­ges­tion of wings on their bul­ging shoulders. Or per­haps that was meant to be a halo of light sur­round­ing them. I leaned back on the hearth to con­sider them.

  I dozed. I awakened to a draught on my shoulder. The secret door be­side the hearth that led up to Chade’s do­main was wide open and beck­on­ing. I arose stiffly, stretched, and went up the stone stairs. Thus had I first gone, so long ago, clad then as I was now in just my night­shirt. I had fol­lowed a fright­en­ing old man with a pocked vis­age and eyes sharp and bright as a raven’s. He had offered to teach me to kill people. He had also offered, word­lessly, to be my friend. I had ac­cep­ted both of­fers.

  The stone steps were cold. Here there were still cob­webs and dust and soot above the sconces on the walls. So the house­keep­ing hadn’t ex­ten­ded to this stair­case. Nor to Chade’s quar­ters. They were as chaotic, dis­rep­ut­able and com­fort­able as ever. At one end of his cham­ber was his work­ing hearth, bare stone floors and an im­mense table. The usual clut­ter over­flowed it: mor­tars and pestles, sticky dishes of meat scraps for Slink the weasel, pots of dried herbs, tab­lets and scrolls, spoons and tongs, and a blackened kettle, still send­ing a reek­ing smoke curl­ing into the cham­ber.

  But Chade was not there. No, he was at the other end of the cham­ber, where a fatly cush­ioned chair faced a hearth with a dan­cing fire. Car­pets over­lay one an­other over the floor there, and an el­eg­antly carved table held a glass bowl of au­tumn apples and a de­canter of sum­mer wine. Chade was en­sconced in the chair, a par­tially un­rolled scroll held to the light as he read it. Did he hold it farther from his nose than once he had, and were his spare arms more de­sic­cated? I wondered if he had aged in the months I had been away, or if I had simply not no­ticed be­fore. His grey wool­len robe looked as well worn as ever, and his long grey hair over­lay its shoulders and seemed the same col­our. As al­ways, I stood si­lent un­til he deigned to look up and re­cog­nize my pres­ence. Some things changed, but some things did not.

  He fi­nally lowered the scroll and looked my way. He had green eyes, and their light­ness was al­ways sur­pris­ing in his Farseer face. Des­pite the pox-like scars that stippled his face and arms, his bas­tard blood­lines were al­most as plain marked as mine. I sup­pose I could have claimed him as a great-uncle, but our ap­pren­tice to mas­ter re­la­tion­ship was closer than a blood-tie. He looked me over and I self-con­sciously stood straighter un­der his scru­tiny. His voice was grave as he com­manded, ‘Boy, come into the light.’

  I ad­vanced a dozen steps and stood ap­pre­hens­ively. He stud­ied me as in­tently as he had stud­ied the scroll. ‘Were we am­bi­tious trait­ors, you and I, we would make sure folk marked your re­semb­lance to Chiv­alry. I could teach you to stand as he stood; you already walk as he did. I could show you how to add lines to your face to make you ap­pear older. You have most of his height. You could learn his catch phrases, and the way he laughed. Slowly, we could gather power, in quiet ways, with none even re­cog­niz­ing what they were con­ced­ing. And one day, we could step up and take power.’

  He paused.

  Slowly I shook my head. Then we both smiled, and I came to sit on the hearth stones by his feet. The warmth of the fire on my back felt good.

  ‘It’s my trade, I sup­pose.’ He sighed and took a sip of his wine. ‘I have to think of these things, for I know that oth­ers will. One day, sooner or later, some petty noble will be­lieve it an ori­ginal idea and ap­proach you with it. Wait and see if I am not right.’

  ‘I pray you are wrong. I have had enough of in­trigues, Chade, and not fared as well at that game as I had ex­pec­ted to.’

  ‘You did not do badly, with the hand you were dealt. You sur­vived.’ He looked past me into the fire. A ques­tion hung between us, al­most palp­ably. Why ha
d King Shrewd re­vealed to Prince Regal that I was his trained as­sas­sin? Why had he put me in the po­s­i­tion of re­port­ing to and tak­ing or­ders from a man who wished me dead? Had he traded me away to Regal, to dis­tract him from his other dis­con­tents? And if I had been a sac­ri­fi­cial pawn, was I still be­ing dangled as bait and a dis­trac­tion to the younger prince? I think not even Chade could have answered all my ques­tions, and to ask any of them would have been black­est be­trayal of what we were both sworn to be: King’s Men. Both of us long ago had given our lives into Shrewd’s keep­ing, for the pro­tec­tion of the royal fam­ily. It was not for us to ques­tion how he chose to spend us. That way lay treason.

  So Chade lif­ted the sum­mer wine and filled a wait­ing glass for me. For a brief time we con­versed of things that were of no im­port to any save us, and all the more pre­cious for that. I asked after Slink the weasel, and he halt­ingly offered sym­pathy over Nosy’s death. He asked a ques­tion or two that let me know he was privy to everything I had re­por­ted to Ver­ity, and a lot of stable gos­sip as well. I was filled in on the minor gos­sip of the keep, and all the do­ings I had missed among the lesser folk while I was gone. But when I asked him what he thought of Kettricken our Queen-in-Wait­ing, his face grew grave.

  ‘She faces a dif­fi­cult path. She comes to a queen­less court, where she her­self is and yet is not the Queen. She comes in a time of hard­ship, to a king­dom fa­cing both Raid­ers and civil un­rest. But most dif­fi­cult for her is that she comes to a court that does not un­der­stand her concept of roy­alty. She had been be­sieged with feasts and gath­er­ings in her hon­our. She is used to walk­ing out among her own people, to tend­ing her own gar­dens and looms and forge, to solv­ing dis­putes and sac­ri­fi­cing her­self to spare her people hard­ship. Here, she finds, her so­ci­ety is solely the no­bil­ity, the priv­ileged, the wealthy. She does not un­der­stand the con­sump­tion of wine and exotic foods, the dis­play of costly fab­rics in dress, the flaunt­ing of jew­els that are the pur­pose of these gath­er­ings. And so she does not “show well”. She is a hand­some wo­man, in her way. But she is too big, too heart­ily muscled, too fair amongst the Buck­keep wo­men. She is like a char­ger stabled among hunters. Her heart is good, but I do not know if she will be suf­fi­cient to the task, boy. In truth, I pity her. She came here alone, you know. Those few who ac­com­pan­ied her here have long since re­turned to the moun­tains. So she is very alone here, des­pite those who court her fa­vour.’

  ‘And Ver­ity,’ I asked, troubled. ‘He does noth­ing to al­lay that loneli­ness, noth­ing to teach her of our ways?’

  ‘Ver­ity has little time for her,’ Chade said bluntly. ‘He tried to ex­plain this to King Shrewd be­fore the mar­riage was ar­ranged, but we did not listen to him. King Shrewd and I were be­guiled with the polit­ical ad­vant­ages she offered. I for­got there would be a wo­man here, in this court, day after day. Ver­ity has his hands full. Were they just a man and a wo­man, and given time, I think they could genu­inely care for one an­other. But here and now, they must de­vote all their ef­forts to ap­pear­ance. Soon an heir will be de­man­ded. They have no time to get to know one an­other, let alone care for one an­other.’ He must have seen the pain in my face, for he ad­ded, ‘That’s how it has al­ways been for roy­alty, boy. Chiv­alry and Pa­tience were the ex­cep­tion. And they bought their hap­pi­ness at the cost of polit­ical ad­vant­ages. It was un­heard of, for the King-in-Wait­ing to marry for love. I’m sure you’ve heard over and over how fool­ish a thing it was.’

  ‘And I’d al­ways wondered if he’d cared.’

  ‘It cost him,’ Chade said quietly. ‘I don’t think he re­gret­ted his de­cision. But he was King-in-Wait­ing. You don’t have that lat­it­ude.’

  Here it came. I’d sus­pec­ted he’d know everything. And use­less to hope he’d say noth­ing. I felt a slow flush steal up my face. ‘Molly.’

  He nod­ded slowly. ‘It was one thing when it was down in town, and you were more or less a boy. That could be ig­nored. But now you’re be­ing seen as a man. When she came here ask­ing after you, it star­ted tongues wag­ging and folk spec­u­lat­ing. Pa­tience was re­mark­ably agile at hush­ing the ru­mours and tak­ing charge of the situ­ation. Not that I’d have kept the wo­man here, had it been left to me. But Pa­tience handled it well enough.’

  ‘The wo­man …’ I re­peated, stung. If he’d said ‘the whore’ I couldn’t have felt it more sharply. ‘Chade, you mis­judge her. And me. It began as a friend­ship, a long time ago, and if any­one was at fault in … how things went, it was me, not Molly. I’d al­ways thought that the friends I made in town, that the time I spent there as “New­boy” be­longed to me.’ I faltered to a halt, hear­ing only the fool­ish­ness of my words.

  ‘Did you think you could lead two lives?’ Chade’s voice was soft but not gentle. ‘We be­long to the King, boy. King’s Men. Our lives be­long to him. Every mo­ment, of every day, asleep or awake. You have no time for your own con­cerns. Only his.’

  I shif­ted slightly, to look into the fire. I con­sidered what I knew of Chade in that light. I met him here, by dark­ness, in these isol­ated cham­bers. I had never seen him out and about around Buck­keep. No one spoke his name to me. Oc­ca­sion­ally, dis­guised as Lady Thyme, he ven­tured forth. Once we had rid­den to­gether through the night, to that first aw­ful For­ging at Forge. But even that had been at the King’s com­mand. What did Chade have for a life? A cham­ber, good food and wine, and a weasel for a com­pan­ion. He was Shrewd’s older brother. But for his bas­tardy, he would be upon the throne. Was his life a fore­shad­ow­ing of what mine was to be?

  ‘No.’

  I hadn’t spoken, but as I looked up into Chade’s face, he guessed my thoughts. ‘I chose this life, boy. After a mis­handled po­tion ex­ploded and scarred me. I was hand­some, once. And vain. Al­most as vain as Regal. When I ruined my face, I wished my­self dead. For months, I did not stir out of my cham­bers. When I fi­nally went forth, it was in dis­guises, not Lady Thyme, not then, no. But dis­guises that covered my face and my hands. I left Buck­keep. For a long time. And when I came back, that hand­some young man I had been was dead. I found my­self more use­ful to the fam­ily, now that I was dead. There is much more to that story, boy. But know that I chose the way I live. It was not some­thing Shrewd forced me into. I did it my­self. Your fu­ture may be dif­fer­ent. But do not ima­gine it is yours to com­mand.’

  Curi­os­ity prod­ded me. ‘Is that why Chiv­alry and Ver­ity knew of you, but not Regal?’

  Chade smiled in an odd way. ‘I was a sort of a kindly step-uncle to the two older boys, if you can be­lieve it. I watched over them, in some ways. But once I was scarred, I kept my­self even from them. Regal never knew me. His mother had a hor­ror of the pox. I think she be­lieved all the le­gends of the pocked-man, har­binger of dis­aster and mis­for­tune. For that mat­ter, she had an al­most su­per­sti­tious dread of any­one who was not whole. You see it in Regal’s re­ac­tion to the Fool. She would never keep a club-footed maid or even a serving-man with a miss­ing fin­ger or two. So. When I re­turned, I was never in­tro­duced to the lady, or the child she bore. When Chiv­alry be­came King-in-Wait­ing to Shrewd, I was one of the things re­vealed to him. I was shocked to find he re­called me, and had missed me. He brought Ver­ity to see me that even­ing. I had to scold him over that. It was dif­fi­cult to make them un­der­stand they could not come call­ing on me any­time they chose. Those boys.’ He shook his head and smiled at his memor­ies. I can not ex­plain the twinge of jeal­ousy I felt. I called the con­ver­sa­tion back to my­self.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  Chade pursed his lips, sipped his wine, and thought. ‘For now, Pa­tience has given you good ad­vice. Ig­nore or avoid Molly, but not ob­vi­ously. Treat her as if she were a new scull­ery maid: cour­teously, if you en­counter her, b
ut not fa­mil­iarly. Do not seek her out. De­vote your­self to the Queen-in-Wait­ing. Ver­ity will be glad of your dis­tract­ing her. Kettricken will be glad of a friendly face. And if your in­tent is to win per­mis­sion to marry Molly, the Queen-in-Wait­ing could be a power­ful ally. As you di­vert Kettricken, watch over her as well. Bear in mind there are those whose in­terests do not sup­port Ver­ity hav­ing an heir. Those same ones who would not be en­thused about your hav­ing chil­dren. So be wary and alert. Keep your guard up.’

  ‘Is that all?’ I asked, daun­ted.

  ‘No. Get some rest. Dead­root was what was used on you, by Regal?’ I nod­ded and he shook his head, nar­row­ing his eyes. Then he looked me squarely in the face. ‘You are young. You may be able to re­cover, mostly. I’ve seen one other man sur­vive it. But he trembled the rest of his life. I see the small signs of it on you yet. It will not show much, ex­cept to those who know you well. But do not over­tire your­self. Wear­i­ness will bring on trem­blings and blurred vis­ion. Push your­self, and you will have fits. You do not want any­one to know you have a weak­ness. The best course is to con­duct your life in such a way the weak­ness never shows.’

  ‘Was that why there was elf­bark in the tea?’ I asked need­lessly.

  He raised an eye­brow at me. ‘Tea?’