Royal Assassin (UK) Page 3

  ‘FitzChiv­alry, I don’t –’

  ‘Please.’ I don’t know what he heard in my voice. Only that he was sud­denly still. ‘I am so tired. So dam­nably tired. The only thing I know is that I can’t live up to what every one else thinks I should do. I just can’t do it.’ My voice quavered like an old man’s. ‘No mat­ter what I ought to do. No mat­ter what I am pledged to do. There isn’t enough of me left to keep my word. Maybe that’s not right, but that’s how it is. Every one else’s plans. Every one else’s goals. Never mine. I tried, but …’ The room rocked around me as if someone else were speak­ing, and I was shocked at what he was say­ing. But I couldn’t deny the truth of his words. ‘I need to be alone now. To rest,’ I said simply.

  Both of them just looked at me. Neither one of them spoke. They left the room, slowly, as if hop­ing I would re­lent and call them back. I did not.

  But after they had gone, and I was alone, I per­mit­ted my­self to breathe out. I felt dizzy with the de­cision I had made. I wasn’t go­ing back to Buck­keep. What I was go­ing to do, I had no idea. I had swept my broken bits of life from the game table. Now there was room to set out anew what pieces I still had, to plot a new strategy for liv­ing. Slowly, I real­ized I had no doubts. Re­grets warred with re­lief, but I had no doubts. Some­how it was much more bear­able to move for­ward into a life where no one would re­call who I had once been. A life not pledged to someone else’s will. Not even my king’s. It was done. I lay back in my bed, and for the first time in weeks, I re­laxed com­pletely. Farewell, I thought wear­ily. I would have liked to wish them all farewell, to stand one last time be­fore Ver­ity and see his brief nod that I had done well. Per­haps I could have made him un­der­stand why I did not wish to go back. It was not to be. It was done now, all done. ‘I am sorry, my king,’ I muttered. I stared into the dan­cing flames in the hearth un­til sleep claimed me.

  ONE

  Silt­bay

  To be the King-in-Wait­ing, or the Queen-in-Wait­ing, is to straddle firmly the fence between re­spons­ib­il­ity and au­thor­ity. It is said that the po­s­i­tion was cre­ated to sat­isfy the am­bi­tions of an heir for power, while school­ing him in the ex­er­cising of it. The eld­est child in the royal fam­ily as­sumes this po­s­i­tion upon its six­teenth birth­day. From that day on, the King- or Queen-in-Wait­ing as­sumes a full share of re­spons­ib­il­ity for the run­ning of the Six Duch­ies. Gen­er­ally, he im­me­di­ately as­sumes such du­ties as the rul­ing mon­arch cares for least, and these have var­ied greatly from reign to reign.

  Un­der King Shrewd, Prince Chiv­alry first be­came King-in-Wait­ing. To him, King Shrewd ceded over all that had to do with the bor­ders and fron­ti­ers: war­fare, ne­go­ti­ations and dip­lomacy, the dis­com­forts of ex­ten­ded travel and the miser­able con­di­tions of­ten en­countered on the cam­paigns. When Chiv­alry ab­dic­ated and Prince Ver­ity be­came King-in-Wait­ing, he in­her­ited all the un­cer­tain­ties of the war with the Outis­landers, and the civil un­rest this situ­ation cre­ated between the In­land and Coastal duch­ies. All of these tasks were rendered more dif­fi­cult in that, at any time, his de­cisions could be over­rid­den by the King. Of­ten he was left to cope with a situ­ation not of his cre­at­ing, armed only with op­tions not of his choos­ing.

  Even less ten­able, per­haps, was the po­s­i­tion of Queen-in-Wait­ing Kettricken. Her Moun­tain ways marked her as a for­eigner in the Six Duch­ies court. In peace­ful times, per­haps she would have been re­ceived with more tol­er­ance. But the court at Buck­keep seethed with the gen­eral un­rest of the Six Duch­ies. The Red Ships from the Outis­lands har­ried our shoreline as they had not for gen­er­a­tions, des­troy­ing far more than they stole. The first winter of Kettricken’s reign as Queen-in-Wait­ing saw also the first winter raid­ing we had ever ex­per­i­enced. The con­stant threat of raids, and the linger­ing tor­ment of Forged ones in our midst rocked the found­a­tions of the Six Duch­ies. Con­fid­ence in the mon­archy was low, and Kettricken had the un­en­vi­able po­s­i­tion of be­ing an un­ad­mired King-in-Wait­ing’s out­land­ish queen.

  Civil un­rest di­vided the court as the In­land duch­ies voiced their re­sent­ment at taxes to pro­tect a coast­line they did not share. The Coastal duch­ies cried out for war­ships and sol­diers and an ef­fect­ive way to battle the raid­ers that al­ways struck where we were least pre­pared. In­land-bred Prince Regal sought to gather power to him­self by court­ing the In­land dukes with gifts and so­cial at­ten­tions. King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity, con­vinced that his Skill was no longer suf­fi­cient to hold the raid­ers at bay, put his at­ten­tions to build­ing war­ships to guard the Coastal duch­ies, with little time for his new queen. Over all, King Shrewd crouched like a great spider, en­deav­our­ing to keep power spread amongst him­self and his sons, to keep all in bal­ance and the Six Duch­ies in­tact.

  I awakened to someone touch­ing my fore­head. With an an­noyed grunt, I turned my head aside from the touch. My blankets were weltered around me; I fought my way clear of their re­straint and then sat up to see who had dared dis­turb me. King Shrewd’s Fool perched anxiously on a chair be­side my bed. I stared at him wildly, and he drew back from my look. Un­eas­i­ness as­sailed me.

  The Fool should have been back in Buck­keep, with the King, many miles and days from here. I had never known him to leave the King’s side for more than a few hours or a night’s rest. That he was here boded no good. The Fool was my friend, as much as his strange­ness al­lowed him to be friends with any­one. But a visit from him al­ways had a pur­pose, and such pur­poses were sel­dom trivial or pleas­ant. He looked as weary as I had ever seen him. He wore an un­fa­mil­iar mot­ley of greens and reds and car­ried a fool’s sceptre with a rat’s head on it. The gay gar­ments con­tras­ted too strongly with his col­our­less skin, mak­ing him a trans­lu­cent candle wreathed in holly. His cloth­ing seemed more sub­stan­tial than he did. His fine, pale hair floated from the con­fines of his cap like a drowned man’s hair in sea wa­ter, while the dan­cing flames of the fire­place shone in his eyes. I rubbed my gritty eyes and pushed some of the hair back from my face. It was damp; I’d been sweat­ing in my sleep.

  ‘Hello,’ I man­aged. ‘I didn’t ex­pect to see you here.’ My mouth felt dry, my tongue thick and sour. I’d been sick, I re­called. The de­tails seemed hazy.

  ‘Where else?’ He looked at me woe­fully. ‘For every hour you’ve slept, the less res­ted you seem. Lie back, my lord. Let me make you com­fort­able.’ He plucked at my pil­lows fussily, but I waved him away. Some­thing was wrong here. Never had he spoken me so fair. Friends we were, but the Fool’s words to me were al­ways as pithy and sour as half-ripened fruit. If this sud­den kind­ness was a show of pity, I wanted none of it.

  I glanced down at my em­broidered night­shirt, at the rich bed­cov­ers. Some­thing seemed odd about them. I was too tired and weak to puzzle it out. ‘What are you do­ing here?’ I asked him.

  He took a breath and sighed. ‘I am tend­ing you. Watch­ing over you while you sleep. I know you think it fool­ish, but then, I am the Fool. You know then that I must be Fool­ish. Yet you ask me this same thing every time you awake. Let me then pro­pose some­thing wiser. I beg you, my lord, let me send for an­other healer.’

  I leaned back against my pil­lows. They were sweat-damp, and smelled sour to me. I knew I could ask the Fool to change them and he would, but I would just sweat anew if he did. It was use­less. I clutched at my cov­ers with gnarled fin­gers and asked him bluntly, ‘Why have you come here?’

  He took my hand in his and pat­ted it. ‘My lord, I mis­trust this sud­den weak­ness. You seem to take no good from this healer’s min­is­tra­tions. I fear that his know­ledge is much smal­ler than his opin­ion of it.’

  ‘Burrich?’ I asked in­cred­u­lously.

  ‘Burrich? Would that he were here, my lord! He may be the Sta­bl
e­mas­ter, but for all that, I war­rant he is more of a healer than this Wal­lace who doses and sweats you.’

  ‘Wal­lace? Burrich is not here?’

  The Fool’s face grew graver. ‘No, my king. He re­mained in the moun­tains, as well you know.’

  ‘Your king,’ I said, and at­temp­ted to laugh. ‘Such mock­ery.’

  ‘Never, my lord,’ he said gently. ‘Never.’

  His ten­der­ness con­fused me. This was not the Fool I knew, full of twist­ing words and riddles, of sly jabs and puns and cun­ning in­sults. I felt sud­denly stretched thin as old rope, and as frayed. Still, I tried to piece things to­gether. ‘Then I am in Buck­keep?’

  He nod­ded slowly. ‘Of course you are.’ Worry pinched his mouth.

  I was si­lent, plumb­ing the full depth of my be­trayal. Some­how I had been re­turned to Buck­keep. Against my will. Burrich had not even seen fit to ac­com­pany me.

  ‘Let me get you some food,’ the Fool begged me. ‘You al­ways feel bet­ter after you have eaten.’ He rose. ‘I brought it up hours ago. I’ve kept it warm by the hearth.’

  My eyes fol­lowed him wear­ily. At the big hearth he crouched to coax a covered tur­een away from the edge of the fire. He lif­ted the lid and I smelled the rich beef stew. He began to ladle it into a bowl. It had been months since I’d had beef. In the moun­tains, it was all ven­ison and mut­ton and goat’s flesh. My eyes wandered wear­ily about the room. The heavy tapestries, the massive wooden chairs. The heavy stones of the fire­place, the richly worked bed-hangings. I knew this place. This was the King’s bed­cham­ber at Buck­keep. Why was I here, in the King’s own bed? I tried to ask the Fool, but an­other spoke with my lips. ‘I know too many things, Fool. I can no longer stop my­self from know­ing them. Some­times it is as if an­other con­trolled my will, and pushed my mind where I would rather it did not go. My walls are breached. It all pours in like a tide.’ I drew a deep breath, but I could not stave it off. First a chill tingling, then as if I were im­mersed in a swift flow­ing of cold wa­ter. ‘A rising tide,’ I gasped. ‘Bear­ing ships. Red-keeled ships …’

  The Fool’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘In this sea­son, your majesty? Surely not! Not in winter!’

  My breath was pressed tight in my chest. I struggled to speak. ‘The winter has crept in too softly. She has spared us both her storms and her pro­tec­tion. Look. Look out there, across the wa­ter. See? They come. They come from the fog.’

  I lif­ted my arm to point. The Fool came hast­ily, to stand be­side me. He crouched to peer where I poin­ted, but I knew he could not see. Still, he loy­ally placed a hes­it­ant hand on my thin shoulder, and stared as if he could will away the walls and the miles that stood between him and my vis­ion. I longed to be as blind as he. I clasped the long-fingered, pale hand that res­ted on my shoulder. For a mo­ment I looked down at my withered hand, at the royal signet ring that clung to a bony fin­ger be­hind a swollen knuckle. Then my re­luct­ant gaze was drawn up and my vis­ion taken afar.

  My point­ing hand in­dic­ated the quiet har­bour. I struggled to sit up taller, to see more. The darkened town spread out be­fore me like a patch­work of houses and roads. Fog lay in hol­lows and was thick upon the bay. Weather change com­ing, I thought to my­self. Some­thing stirred in the air that chilled me, cool­ing the old sweat on my skin so that I shivered. Des­pite the black­ness of the night and the fog, I had no dif­fi­culty in see­ing everything per­fectly. Skill-watch­ing I told my­self, and then wondered. I could not Skill, not pre­dict­ably, not use­fully.

  But as I watched, two ships broke out of the mists and emerged into the sleep­ing har­bour. I for­got what I could or could not do. They were sleek and trim, those ships, and though they were black un­der the moon­light, I knew their keels were red. Red Ship Raid­ers from the Outis­lands. The ships moved like knives through the wave­lets, cut­ting their way clear of the fog, sli­cing into the pro­tec­ted wa­ter of the har­bour like a thin blade sli­cing into a pig’s belly. The oars moved si­lently, in per­fect uni­son, oar­locks muffled with rags. They came along­side the docks as boldly as hon­est mer­chants come to trade. From the first boat, a sailor leaped lightly, car­ry­ing a line to make fast to a pil­ing. An oars­man fended her off the dock un­til the aft line was thrown and made fast as well. All so calmly, so blatantly. The second ship was fol­low­ing their ex­ample. The dreaded Red Ships had come into town, bold as gulls, and tied up at their vic­tims’ home dock.

  No sen­try cried out. No watch­man blew a horn, or threw a torch onto a wait­ing heap of pitch­pine to kindle a sig­nal fire. I looked for them, and in­stantly found them. Heads on chests, they were id­ling at their posts. Good wool­len homespun had gone from grey to red sop­ping up the blood of their slit throats. Their killers had come quietly, over­land, sure of each sen­try post, to si­lence every watcher. No one would warn the sleep­ing town.

  There had not been that many sentries. There was not much to this little town, scarce enough to de­serve a dot on the map. The town had coun­ted on the humble­ness of its pos­ses­sions to shel­ter it from raids such as this. Good wool they grew there, and they spun a fine yarn, it was true. They har­ves­ted and smoked the sal­mon that came right up their river, and the apples here were tiny but sweet, and they made a good wine. There was a fine clam beach to the west of town. These were the riches of Silt­bay, and if they were not great, they were enough to make life treas­ured by those who lived here. Surely, though, they were not worth com­ing after with a torch and a blade. What sane man would think a keg of apple wine or a rack of smoked sal­mon worth a raider’s time?

  But these were Red Ships, and they did not come to raid for wealth or treas­ures. They were not after prize breed­ing cattle or even wo­men for wives or boys for gal­ley slaves. The wool-fat sheep would be mu­til­ated and slaughtered, the smoked sal­mon trampled un­der­foot, the ware­houses of fleeces and wines torched. They would take host­ages, yes, but only to Forge them. The Forge ma­gic would leave them less than hu­man, bereft of all emo­tions and any but the most ba­sic thoughts. The Raid­ers would not keep these host­ages, but would aban­don them here, to work their de­bil­it­at­ing an­guish upon those who had loved them and called them kin. Stripped of every hu­man sens­it­iv­ity, Forged ones would scour their home­land as piti­lessly as wol­ver­ines. This set­ting of our own kin to prey upon us as Forged ones was the Outis­landers’ cruellest weapon. This I already knew as I watched. I had seen the af­ter­math of other raids.

  I watched the tide of death rise to in­und­ate the little town. The Outis­lander pir­ates leaped from the ship to the docks and flowed up into the vil­lage. They trickled si­lently up the streets in bands of twos and threes, as deadly as poison un­furl­ing in wine. Some few paused to search the other ves­sels tied to the dock. Most of the boats were small open dor­ies, but there were two lar­ger fish­ing ves­sels and one trader. Their crews met swift death. Their frantic struggles were as pathetic as fowl flap­ping and squawk­ing when a weasel gets into the chicken house. They called out to me with voices full of blood. The thick fog gulped their cries greed­ily. It made the death of a sailor no more than the keen­ing of a sea bird. Af­ter­wards, the boats were torched, care­lessly, with no thought to their value as spoils. These raid­ers took no real booty. Per­haps a hand­ful of coins if eas­ily found, or a neck­lace from the body of one they had raped and killed, but little more than that.

  I could do noth­ing ex­cept watch. I coughed heav­ily, then found a breath to speak. ‘If only I could un­der­stand them,’ I said to the Fool. ‘If only I knew what they wanted. There is no sense to these Red Ships. How can we fight those who war for a reason they will not di­vulge? But if I could un­der­stand them …’

  The Fool pursed his pale lips and con­sidered. ‘They par­take of the mad­ness of he who drives them. They can only be un­der­stood if you share that mad­ness. I my­self have no wish to un­der�
�stand them. Un­der­stand­ing them will not stop them.’

  ‘No.’ I did not want to watch the vil­lage. I had seen this night­mare too of­ten. But only a heart­less man could have turned away as if it were a poorly-staged pup­pet show. The least I could do for my people was to watch them die. It also was the most I could do for them. I was sick and a cripple, an old man far away. No more could be ex­pec­ted from me. So I watched.

  I watched the little town awaken from soft sleep to the rough grip of a strange hand on the throat or breast, to a knife over a cradle, or the sud­den cry of a child dragged from sleep. Lights began to flicker and glow through­out the vil­lage; some were candles kindled on hear­ing a neigh­bour’s out­cry; oth­ers were torches or burn­ing houses. Al­though the Red Ships had ter­ror­ized the Six Duch­ies for over a year, for these folk it be­came com­pletely real to­night. They had thought they were pre­pared. They had heard the hor­ror stor­ies, and re­solved never to let it hap­pen to them. But still the houses burned and the screams rose to the night sky as if borne on the smoke.

  ‘Speak, Fool,’ I com­manded hoarsely. ‘Re­mem­ber for­ward for me. What do they say about Silt­bay? A raid on Silt­bay, in winter.’

  He took a shud­der­ing breath. ‘It is not easy, nor clear,’ he hes­it­ated. ‘All wavers, all is change still. Too much is in flux, your majesty. The fu­ture spills out in all dir­ec­tions there.’

  ‘Speak any you can see,’ I com­manded.

  ‘They made a song about this town,’ the Fool ob­served hol­lowly. He gripped my shoulder still; through my night­shirt, the clutch of his long, strong fin­gers was cold. A trem­bling passed between us and I felt how he la­boured to con­tinue stand­ing be­side me. ‘When it is sung in a tav­ern, with the re­frain hammered out to the beat of ale mugs upon a table, none of this seems so bad. One can ima­gine the brave stand these folks made, go­ing down fight­ing rather than sur­ren­der­ing. Not one, not one single per­son, was taken alive and Forged. Not one.’ The Fool paused. A hys­ter­ical note mingled with the lev­ity he forced into his voice. ‘Of course, when you’re drink­ing and singing, you don’t see the blood. Or smell the burn­ing flesh. Or hear the screams. But that’s un­der­stand­able. Have you ever tried to find a rhyme for “dis­membered child”? Someone once tried “re­membered wild” but the verse still didn’t quite scan.’ There was no mer­ri­ment in his banter. His bit­ter jests could shield neither him nor me. He fell si­lent once more, my pris­oner doomed to share his pain­ful know­ledge with me.