Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  ‘How came you here? Seek­ing me?’ she asked at last.

  I shook my head. Snow was be­gin­ning to fall again. ‘I was out hunt­ing, and went farther than I had in­ten­ded. It was but good for­tune that brought me to you.’ I paused, then ven­tured, ‘Did you get lost? Will there be riders search­ing for you?’

  She sniffed, and took a breath. ‘Not ex­actly,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘I went out rid­ing with Regal. A few oth­ers rode with us, but when the storm began to threaten, we all turned back to Buck­keep. The oth­ers rode on be­fore us, but Regal and I came more slowly. He was telling me a folk tale from his home duchy, and we let the oth­ers ride ahead, that I should not have to hear it through their chat­ter.’ She took a breath and I heard her swal­low back the last of the night’s ter­ror. Her voice was calmer when she went on.

  ‘The oth­ers were far ahead of us, when a fox star­ted up sud­denly from the brush by the path. “Fol­low me, if you’d like to see real sport!” Regal chal­lenged me, and he turned his horse from the path and set off after the an­imal. Whether I would or no, Soft­step sprang after them. Regal rode like a mad thing, all stretched out on his horse, ur­ging it on with a quirt.’ There was con­sterna­tion, and won­der, but also a stain of ad­mir­a­tion in her voice as she de­scribed him.

  Soft­step had not answered the rein. At first she had been fear­ful of their pace, for she did not know the ter­rain, and feared that Soft­step would stumble. So she had tried to rein in her mount. But when she had real­ized that she could no longer see the road or the oth­ers, and that Regal was far ahead of her, she had given Soft­step her head in the hopes of catch­ing up, with the pre­dict­able res­ult that as the storm closed in, she had lost her way com­pletely. She had turned back to re­trace her trail to the road, but the fall­ing snow and blow­ing wind had quickly erased it. At last she had given Soft­step the bit, trust­ing her horse to find her way home. Prob­ably she would have, if those wild men had not set upon her. Her voice dwindled away into si­lence.

  ‘Forged ones,’ I told her quietly.

  ‘Forged ones,’ she re­peated in a won­der­ing voice. Then, more firmly, ‘They have no heart left. So it was ex­plained to me.’ I felt more than saw her glance. ‘Am I so poor a Sac­ri­fice that there are folk who would kill me?’

  In the dis­tance we heard the wind­ing of a horn. Search­ers.

  ‘They would have set upon any that crossed their paths,’ I told her. ‘For them, there was no thought that it was their Queen-in-Wait­ing they at­tacked. I doubt greatly that they knew who you were at all.’ I closed my jaws firmly be­fore I could add that such was not the case with Regal. If he had not in­ten­ded her harm, neither had he kept her from com­ing to it. I did not be­lieve he had ever in­ten­ded to show her ‘sport’ in chas­ing a fox across snowy hills in the twi­light. He had meant to lose her. And done so hand­ily.

  ‘I think my lord will be very wroth with me,’ she said woe­ful as a child. As if in an­swer to her pre­dic­tion, we roun­ded the shoulder of the hill and saw men on horse­back bear­ing torches com­ing to­ward us. We heard the horn again, more clearly, and in a few mo­ments we were among them. They were the fore­run­ners of the main search party, and a girl set out at once gal­lop­ing back to tell the King-in-Wait­ing that his queen had been found. In the light of the torches, Ver­ity’s guards ex­claimed and swore over the blood that glin­ted yet on Soft­step’s neck, but Kettricken kept her com­pos­ure as she as­sured them that none of it was hers. She spoke quietly of the Forged ones who had set upon her and what she had done to de­fend her­self. I saw ad­mir­a­tion of her grow­ing among the sol­diers. I heard then for the first time that the bold­est at­tacker had dropped out of a tree upon her. Him she had slain first.

  ‘Four she done, and not a scratch upon her!’ ex­ul­ted one grizzled vet­eran, and then, ‘Beg­ging your par­don, my lady queen. No dis­respect meant!’

  ‘It might have been a dif­fer­ent tale had not Fitz come to free my horse’s head,’ Kettricken said quietly. Their re­spect for her grew as she did not glory in her tri­umph, but made sure I re­ceived my due as well.

  They con­grat­u­lated her loudly, and spoke an­grily of scour­ing the woods to­mor­row all about Buck­keep. ‘It shames us all as sol­diers, that our own queen can­not ride forth safely!’ de­clared one wo­man. She set her hand to the hilt of her blade, and swore on it to have it blooded with Forged blood by the mor­row. Sev­eral oth­ers fol­lowed her ex­ample. The talk grew loud, bravado and re­lief at the Queen’s safety fuel­ling it. It be­came a tri­umphal pro­ces­sion home, un­til Ver­ity ar­rived. He came at a dead gal­lop, on a horse lathered both by dis­tance and speed. I knew then that the search had not been a brief one, and could only guess at how many roads Ver­ity had trav­elled since he had re­ceived word that his lady was miss­ing.

  ‘How could you be so fool­ish as to go so far astray!’ were his first words to her. His voice was not tender. I saw her head lose its proud lift, and heard the muttered com­ments of the man closest to me. From there noth­ing went well. He did not scold her be­fore his men, but I saw him wince as she told him plainly what had be­come of her and how she had killed to de­fend her­self. He was not pleased to have her speak so plainly of a band of Forged ones, brave enough to at­tack the Queen, and scarce out of Buck­keep’s shadow. That which Ver­ity had sought to keep quiet would be on every­one’s lips to­mor­row, with the ad­ded fil­lip that it had been the Queen her­self they’d dared to at­tack. Ver­ity shot me a mur­der­ous glance, as if it were all my do­ing, and roughly com­mand­eered fresh horses from two of his guard to take him­self and his queen back to Buck­keep. He whisked her away from them, car­ry­ing her back to Buck­keep at a gal­lop as if ar­riv­ing there sooner would some­how make the breach of safety less real. He seemed not to real­ize he had denied his guard the hon­our of bring­ing her safely home.

  I my­self rode back slowly with them, try­ing not to hear the dis­gruntled words of the sol­diers. They did not quite cri­ti­cize the King-in-Wait­ing, but com­pli­men­ted the Queen more on her spirit and thought it sad she’d not been wel­comed back with an em­brace and a kind word or two. If any gave thought to Regal’s be­ha­viour, they did not speak it aloud.

  Later that night, in the stables, after I’d seen to Sooty, I helped Burrich and Hands put Soft­step and Truth, Ver­ity’s horse, to rights. Burrich grumbled at how hard both beasts had been used. Soft­step had taken a minor scratch dur­ing the at­tack, and her mouth was sore bruised from fight­ing for her head, but neither an­imal would take per­man­ent hurt. Burrich sent Hands off to fix a warm mash of grain for them both. Only then did he quietly tell how Regal had come in, given his horse over for stabling, and gone up to the keep without so much as men­tion­ing Kettricken. Burrich him­self had been aler­ted by a stable-boy, ask­ing where Soft­step was. When Burrich had set about to find out, and made so bold as to ask Regal him­self, Regal had replied that he had thought she had stayed on the road and come in with her at­tend­ants. So Burrich had been the one to sound the alarm, with Regal very vague as to where he had ac­tu­ally left the road, and what dir­ec­tion the fox had led him, and pre­sum­ably Kettricken. ‘He’s covered his tracks well,’ Burrich muttered to me as Hands came back with the grain. I knew he did not refer to the fox.

  My feet were leaden as I made my way up to the keep that night, and my heart as well. I did not want to ima­gine what Kettricken was feel­ing, nor did I care to con­sider what the talk was in the guard-room. I pulled off my clothes and fell into bed, and in­stantly into a sleep. Molly was wait­ing for me in my dreams, and the only peace I knew.

  I was awakened a short time later, by someone pound­ing on my latched door. I arose and opened it to a sleepy page, who’d been sent to fetch me to Ver­ity’s map-room. I told him I knew the way and sent him back to bed. I dragged my clothes on hast­ily and raced down the stairs, won­der­i
ng what dis­aster had be­fallen us now.

  Ver­ity was wait­ing for me there, the hearth fire al­most the only light in the room. His hair was rumpled and he had thrown a robe on over his night­shirt. Plainly he had just come from his bed him­self, and I braced my­self for whatever news he’d re­ceived. ‘Shut the door!’ he com­manded me tersely. I did and then came to stand be­fore him. I could not tell if the glint in his eyes were an­ger or amuse­ment as he de­man­ded, ‘Who is Lady Red Skirts, and why do I dream of her every night?’

  I could not find my tongue. Des­per­ately I wondered just how privy to my dreams he had been. Em­bar­rass­ment diz­zied me. Had I stood na­ked be­fore the whole court, I could not have felt more ex­posed.

  Ver­ity turned his face aside and gave a cough that might have star­ted as a chuckle. ‘Come, boy, it is not as if I can­not un­der­stand. I did not wish to be privy to your secret; rather you have thrust it upon me, es­pe­cially so these last few nights. And I need my sleep, not to start up in bed fevered with your … ad­mir­a­tion for this wo­man.’ He stopped speak­ing ab­ruptly. My flam­ing blush was warmer than any hearth fire.

  ‘So,’ he said un­com­fort­ably. Then, ‘Sit down. I am go­ing to teach you to guard your thoughts as well as you guard your tongue.’ He shook his head. ‘Strange, Fitz, that you can block my Skilling so com­pletely from your mind at times, but spill your most private de­sires out like a wolf howl­ing into the night. I sup­pose it springs from what Ga­len did to you. Would we could undo that. But as we can’t, I shall teach you what I can whenever I can.’

  I had not moved. Sud­denly neither of us could look at the other. ‘Come here,’ he re­peated gruffly. ‘Sit down here with me. Look into the flames.’

  And in the space of an hour, he gave me an ex­er­cise to prac­tise, one that would keep my dreams to my­self, or more likely, en­sure that I had no dreams at all. With a sink­ing heart I real­ized I would lose even the Molly of my ima­gin­a­tion as surely as I’d lost the real one. He sensed my glum­ness.

  ‘Come, Fitz, it will pass. Keep a rein on your­self and en­dure. It can be done. May come a day when you will wish your life to be as empty of wo­men as it is now. As I do.’

  ‘She didn’t mean to get lost, sir.’

  Ver­ity shot me a bale­ful glance. ‘In­ten­tions can­not be ex­changed for res­ults. She is Queen-in-Wait­ing, boy. She must al­ways think, not once, but thrice, be­fore she takes ac­tion.’

  ‘She told me that Soft­step fol­lowed Regal’s horse, and would not re­spond to the rein. You can fault Burrich and I for that; we’re sup­posed to have trained that horse.’

  He sighed sud­denly. ‘I sup­pose so. Con­sider your­self re­buked, and tell Burrich to find my lady a less spir­ited horse to ride un­til she is a bet­ter horse­woman.’ He sighed again, deeply. ‘I sup­pose she will con­sider that a pun­ish­ment from me. She will look at me sadly with those great blue eyes, but speak not a word against it. Ah, well. It can­not be helped. But did she have to kill, and then to speak of it so blithely? What will my people think of her?’

  ‘She scarcely had a choice, sir. Would it have been bet­ter for her to die? As to what folk will think … well. The sol­diers who first found us thought her plucky. And cap­able. Not bad qual­it­ies for a queen, sir. The wo­men, es­pe­cially, in your guard spoke warmly of her as we re­turned. They see her as their queen now, much more than if she were a weep­ing, quail­ing thing. They will fol­low her without ques­tion. In times like these, per­haps a queen with a knife will give us more heart than a wo­man who drapes her­self in jew­els and hides be­hind walls.’

  ‘Per­haps,’ Ver­ity said quietly. I sensed he did not agree. ‘But now all shall know, most vividly, of the Forged ones who are gath­er­ing about Buck­keep.’

  ‘They shall know, too, that a de­term­ined per­son can de­fend her­self from them. And from the talk of your guard as we came back, I think there shall be far fewer Forged ones a week hence.’

  ‘I know that. Some will be slay­ing their own kin. Forged or not, it is Six Duch­ies blood we are shed­ding. I had sought to avoid hav­ing my guard kill my own people.’

  A small si­lence fell between us, as we both re­flec­ted he had not scrupled to set me to that same task. As­sas­sin. That was the word for what I was. I had no hon­our to pre­serve, I real­ized.

  ‘Not true, Fitz.’ He answered my thought. ‘You pre­serve my hon­our. And I hon­our you for that, for do­ing what must be done. The ugly work, the hid­den work. Do not be shamed that you work to pre­serve the Six Duch­ies. Do not think I do not ap­pre­ci­ate such work simply be­cause it must re­main secret. To­night, you saved my queen. I do not for­get that either.’

  ‘She needed little sav­ing, sir. I be­lieve that even alone, she would have sur­vived.’

  ‘Well. We won’t won­der about that.’ He paused, then said awk­wardly, ‘I must re­ward you, you know.’

  When I opened my mouth to protest, he held up a for­bid­ding hand. ‘I know you re­quire noth­ing. I know, too, that there is already so much between us that noth­ing I could give you would be suf­fi­cient for my grat­it­ude. But most folk know noth­ing of that. Will you have it said in Buck­keep Town that you saved the Queen’s life, and the King-in-Wait­ing ac­know­ledged you not at all? But I am at a loss to know what to gift you with … it should be some­thing vis­ible, and you must carry it about with you for a while. That much I know of state­craft, at least. A sword? Some­thing bet­ter than the piece of iron you were car­ry­ing to­night?’

  ‘It’s an old blade Hod told me to take to prac­tise with,’ I de­fen­ded my­self. ‘It works.’

  ‘Ob­vi­ously. I shall have her se­lect a bet­ter one for you, and do a bit of fancy­work on the hilt and scab­bard. Would that do it?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said awk­wardly.

  ‘Well. Let’s back to bed, shall we? And I shall be able to sleep now, won’t I?’ There was no mis­tak­ing the amuse­ment in his voice now. My cheeks burned anew.

  ‘Sir. I have to ask …’ I fumbled the hard words out. ‘Do you know who I was dream­ing about?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘Do not fear you have com­prom­ised her hon­our. I know only that she wears blue skirts, but you see them as red. And that you love her with an ar­dency that is ap­pro­pri­ate to youth. Do not struggle to stop lov­ing her. Only to stop Skilling it about at night. I am not the only one open to such Skilling, though I be­lieve I am the only one who would re­cog­nize your sig­na­ture on the dream so plain. Still, be cau­tious. Ga­len’s co­terie is not without Skill, even if they use it clum­sily and with little strength. A man can be un­done when his en­emies learn what is dearest to him from his Skill dreams. Keep your guard up.’ He gave an in­ad­vert­ent chuckle. ‘And hope your Lady Red Skirts has no Skill in her blood, for if she does at all, she must have heard you all these many nights.’

  And hav­ing put that un­set­tling thought into my head, he dis­missed me back to my cham­bers and bed. I did not sleep again that night.

  EIGHT

  The Queen Awakes

  Oh, some folk ride to the wild boar hunt

  Or for elk they nock their ar­rows.

  But my love rode with the Vixen Queen

  To lay to rest our sor­rows.

  She did not dream of fame that day

  Nor fear what pain might find her.

  She rode to heal her people’s hearts

  And my love rode be­hind her.

  The Vixen Queen’s Hunt

  The whole keep was astir early the next day. There was a fevered, al­most fest­ival air in the court­yard as Ver­ity’s per­sonal guard and every war­rior who had no sched­uled du­ties that day massed for a hunt. Track­ing hounds bayed rest­ively, while the pull-down dogs with their massive jaws and bar­rel chests huffed ex­citedly and tested their re­straints. Bets were already be­ing set on who would hunt most suc­ces
s­fully. Horses pawed the earth, bow-strings were checked, while pages ran hel­ter-skel­ter every­where. In­side the kit­chen, half the cook­ing staff was busy put­ting up pack­ages of food for the hunters to take with them. Sol­diers young and old, male and fe­male strut­ted and laughed aloud, brag­ging of past con­front­a­tions, com­par­ing weapons, build­ing spirit for the hunt. I had seen this a hun­dred times, be­fore a winter hunt for elk, or bear. But now there was an edge to it, a rank smell of blood­lust on the air. I heard snatches of con­ver­sa­tions, words that made me queasy: ‘… no mercy for that dung …’, ‘… cow­ards and trait­ors, to dare to at­tack the Queen …’, ‘… shall pay dearly. They don’t de­serve a swift death …’ I ducked hast­ily back into the kit­chen, threaded my way through an area busy as a stirred ant-hill. Here, too, I heard the same sorts of sen­ti­ments voiced, the same crav­ing for re­venge.

  I found Ver­ity in his map-room. I could tell he had washed and dressed him­self afresh this day, but he wore last night as plainly as a dirty robe. He was at­tired for a day in­side, amongst his pa­pers. I tapped lightly at the door, al­though it stood ajar. He sat in a chair be­fore the fire, his back to me. He nod­ded, but did not look up at me as I entered. For all his still­ness, there was a charged air to the room, the gath­er­ing of a storm. A tray of break­fast res­ted on a table be­side his chair, un­touched. I came and stood quietly be­side him, al­most cer­tain I had been Skilled here. As the si­lence grew longer, I wondered if Ver­ity him­self knew why. At length I de­cided to speak.

  ‘My prince. You do not ride with your guard today?’ I ven­tured.