Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  He turned slowly to face me, and as my eyes ad­jus­ted to the light, my heart leaped with joy at the change I saw in the man. When I had left Buck­keep at har­vest time, he had been a withered shadow, worn thin by the weight of his du­ties and his con­stant watch­ful­ness. His dark hair was still salted with grey, but there was muscle once more on his stocky frame, and vi­tal­ity snapped in his dark eyes. He looked every bit a king.

  ‘Mar­riage seems to agree with you, my prince,’ I said in­anely.

  That flustered him. ‘In some ways,’ he con­ceded, as a boy­ish flush rose on his cheeks. He turned back quickly to his win­dow. ‘Come and see my ships,’ he com­manded.

  It was my turn to be baffled. I stepped to the win­dow be­side him and looked out over the har­bour, and then over the sea it­self. ‘Where?’ I asked in be­wil­der­ment. He took me by the shoulders and turned me to­ward the shipyard. A long barn of a build­ing of new yel­low pine had been erec­ted there. Men were com­ing and go­ing from it as smoke rose from chim­neys and forges there. Dark against the snow were sev­eral of the im­mense tim­bers that had been Kettricken’s bride-of­fer­ing to him.

  ‘Some­times, when I stand up here on a winter morn­ing, I look out to sea and I can al­most see the Red Ships. I know they must come. But some­times, too, I can see the ships we shall have to meet them. They will not find their prey so help­less this spring, my boy. And by next winter I in­tend to teach them what it is to be raided.’ He spoke with a sav­age sat­is­fac­tion that would have been fright­en­ing, had I not shared it. I felt my grin mir­ror his as our eyes met.

  And then his look changed. ‘You look ter­rible,’ he offered. ‘As bad as your clothes. Let’s go some­where warmer and find you some mulled wine and some­thing to eat.’

  ‘I’ve eaten,’ I told him. ‘And I’m much bet­ter than I was a few months ago, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t be prickly,’ he ad­mon­ished me. ‘And don’t tell me what I already know. Nor lie to me. The climb up the stair has ex­hausted you, and you’re shiv­er­ing as you stand there.’

  ‘You’re us­ing the Skill on me,’ I ac­cused him, and he nod­ded.

  ‘I’ve been aware of your ap­proach for some days now. I tried sev­eral times to Skill to you, but could not make you aware of me. I was con­cerned when you left the road, but I un­der­stand Burrich’s con­cern. I am pleased that he has looked after you so well; not just in bring­ing you home safe, but in all that went on at Jhaampe. I am at a loss as to how to re­ward him. It would have to be subtle. Given who was in­volved, a pub­lic re­cog­ni­tion would not do. Have you any sug­ges­tions?’

  ‘Your word of thanks would be all he would ac­cept. He would bridle that you thought he needed more. My own feel­ings are that no ob­ject you gave him would be a match for what he did for me. The way to handle him is to tell him to take his pick of the likely two-year-olds, for his horse is grow­ing old. He’d un­der­stand that.’ I con­sidered it care­fully. ‘Yes. You might do that.’

  ‘Might I?’ Ver­ity asked me dryly. There was an acid edge to the amuse­ment in his voice.

  I was sud­denly amazed at my own bold­ness. ‘I for­got my­self, my prince,’ I said humbly.

  A smile curved his lips and his hand fell on my shoulder in a heavy pat. ‘Well, I asked you, did I not? For a mo­ment I would have sworn it was old Chiv­alry in­struct­ing me in hand­ling my men, rather than my young nephew. Your trip to Jhaampe has quite changed you, boy. Come. I meant what I said about a warmer spot and a glass of some­thing. Kettricken will be want­ing to see you later in the day. And Pa­tience, too, I ima­gine.’

  My heart sank as he heaped the tasks be­fore me. Buck­keep Town pulled at me like a lode­stone. But this was my King-in-Wait­ing. I bowed my head to his will.

  We left the tower and I fol­lowed him down the stairs, speak­ing of in­con­sequen­tial things. He told me to tell Mis­tress Hasty I needed new clothes; I asked after Leon, his wolf­hound. He stopped a lad in the cor­ridor and asked him to bring wine and meat pies to his study. I fol­lowed him, not up to his cham­bers, but to a lower room at once fa­mil­iar and strange. The last time I had been in it, Fed­wren the scribe had been us­ing it to sort and dry herbs and shells and roots for the mak­ing of his inks. All signs of that had been cleared from it. A fire burned low in the small hearth. Ver­ity poked this up and ad­ded wood as I looked around. There was a large carved oak table and two smal­ler ones, a vari­ety of chairs, a scroll rack, and a battered shelf littered with mis­cel­laneous ob­jects. Spread out on the table was the be­gin­nings of a map of the Chalced States. The corners of it were weighted with a dag­ger and three stones. Vari­ous scraps of parch­ment that littered the table top were covered with Ver­ity’s hand and pre­lim­in­ary sketches with notes scratched across them. The friendly lit­ter that covered the two smal­ler tables and sev­eral of the chairs seemed fa­mil­iar. After a mo­ment I re­cog­nized it as the layer of Ver­ity’s pos­ses­sions that had pre­vi­ously been scattered about his bed­cham­ber. Ver­ity rose from awaken­ing the fire and smiled rue­fully at my raised eye­brows. ‘My Queen-in-Wait­ing has small pa­tience with clut­ter. “How,” she asked me, “Can you hope to cre­ate pre­cise lines in the midst of such dis­order?” Her own cham­ber has the pre­ci­sion of a mil­it­ary en­camp­ment. So, I hide my­self away down here, for I quickly found that in a clean and sparse cham­ber I could get no work done at all. Be­sides, it gives me a place for quiet talk, where not all know to seek me.’

  He had scarcely fin­ished speak­ing be­fore the door opened to ad­mit Charim with a tray. I nod­ded to Ver­ity’s serving-man who not only seemed un­sur­prised to see me, but had ad­ded to Ver­ity’s re­quest a cer­tain type of spice bread that I had al­ways en­joyed. He moved about the room briefly, mak­ing per­func­tory tidy­ing mo­tions as he shif­ted a few books and scrolls to free a chair for me, and then van­ished again. Ver­ity was so ac­cus­tomed to him he scarce seemed to no­tice him, save for the brief smile they ex­changed as Charim left.

  ‘So,’ he said, as soon as the door was fairly shut. ‘Let’s have a full re­port. From the time you left Buck­keep.’

  This was not a simple re­count­ing of my jour­ney and the events of it. I had been trained by Chade to be a spy as well as an as­sas­sin. And since my earli­est days, Burrich had al­ways de­man­ded that I be able to give a de­tailed ac­count of any­thing that went on in the stables in his ab­sence. So as we ate and drank, I gave Ver­ity an ac­count­ing of all I had seen and done since I had left the keep. This was fol­lowed by my sum­ma­tion of what I had con­cluded from my ex­per­i­ences, and then by what I sus­pec­ted from what I had learned. By then, Charim had re­turned with an­other meal. While we con­sumed this, Ver­ity lim­ited our talk to his war­ships. He could not con­ceal his en­thu­si­asm for them. ‘Mast­fish has come down to su­per­vise the build­ing. I went up to High-downs my­self to fetch him. He claimed to be an old man now. “The cold would stiffen my bones; I can’t build a boat in winter any more,” that was the word he sent me. So I set the ap­pren­tices work, and I my­self went to fetch him. He could not re­fuse me to my face. When he got here, I took him down to the shipyards. And I showed him the heated shed, big enough to house a war­ship, built so he might work and not be cold. But that was not what con­vinced him. It was the white oak that Kettricken brought me. When he saw the tim­ber, he could not wait to put a drawknife to it. The grain is straight and true through­out. The plank­ing is well be­gun already. They will be lovely ships, swan-necked, sinu­ous as snakes upon the wa­ter.’ En­thu­si­asm spilled from him. I could already ima­gine the rising and fall­ing of the oars, the bel­ly­ing of the square masts when they were un­der­way.

  Then the dishes and odd­ments were pushed to one side, and he began to quiz me upon events in Jhaampe. He forced me to re­con­sider each sep­ar­ate in­cid­ent from every pos­sible per­spect­ive. By t
he time he was fin­ished with me, I had re­lived the en­tire epis­ode and my an­ger at my be­trayal was fresh and vivid once more.

  Ver­ity was not blind to it. He leaned back in his chair to reach for an­other log. He flipped it onto the fire, send­ing a shower of sparks up the chim­ney. ‘You have ques­tions,’ he ob­served. ‘This time, you may ask them.’ He fol­ded his hands quietly into his lap and waited.

  I tried to mas­ter my emo­tions. ‘Prince Regal, your brother,’ I began care­fully, ‘is guilty of the highest treason. He ar­ranged the killing of your bride’s elder brother, Prince Rurisk. He at­temp­ted a plot that would have res­ul­ted in your death. His aim was to usurp both your crown and your bride. As little more than a spice, he twice tried to kill me. And Burrich.’ I paused to breathe, for­cing my heart and voice back to calmness.

  ‘You and I both ac­cept those things as true. They would be dif­fi­cult for us to prove,’ Ver­ity ob­served mildly.

  ‘And he re­lies upon that!’ I spat out, and then turned my face aside from Ver­ity un­til I could mas­ter my an­ger. The very in­tens­ity of it frightened me, for I had not al­lowed my­self to feel it un­til now. Months ago, when I was us­ing all my wits to stay alive, I had pushed it aside to keep my mind clear. There had fol­lowed the wast­ing months of con­vales­cence as I re­covered from Regal’s botched pois­on­ing at­tempt. Not even to Burrich had I been able to tell all, for Ver­ity had made it clear that he wished no one to know any more about the situ­ation than could be helped. Now I stood be­fore my prince, and trembled with the force of my own an­ger. My face spasmed sud­denly in a vi­ol­ent series of twitches. That dis­mayed me enough that I was able to force calm upon my­self once more.

  ‘Regal re­lies upon it,’ I said more quietly. All this while Ver­ity had not budged nor changed ex­pres­sion des­pite my out­burst. He sat gravely at his end of the table, his work-scarred hands com­posed be­fore him, watch­ing me with dark eyes. I looked down at the tab­letop and traced with a fin­ger­tip the carved scroll­work on the corner. ‘He does not ad­mire you, that you keep the laws of the king­dom. He sees it as a weak­ness, as a way to cir­cum­vent justice. He may try to kill you again. Al­most cer­tainly, he will make an at­tempt upon me.’

  ‘Then we must be care­ful, we two, mustn’t we?’ Ver­ity ob­served mildly.

  I lif­ted my eyes to look him in the face. ‘That is all you say to me?’ I asked tightly, chok­ing down my out­rage.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry. I am your prince. I am your King-in-Wait­ing. You are sworn to me, as much as to my father. And, if it comes to it, you are sworn to my brother as well.’ Ver­ity rose sud­denly, to take a pace around the room. ‘Justice. There’s a thing we shall ever thirst after, and ever be parched. No. We con­tent ourselves with law. And this is only more true, the higher a man’s rank rises. Justice would put you next in line for the throne, Fitz. Chiv­alry was my elder brother. But law says you were born out­side of wed­lock, and hence can never make any claim to the crown. Some might say I had snatched the throne from my brother’s son. Should I be shocked that my younger brother should want to grab it from me?’

  I had never heard Ver­ity speak like this, his voice so even but so fraught with emo­tion. I kept si­lent.

  ‘You think I should pun­ish him. I could. I need not prove his wrong­do­ing to make life un­pleas­ant for him. I could send him as emis­sary to Cold Bay, on some con­trived er­rand, and keep him there, in un­com­fort­able con­di­tions, far from court. I could all but ban­ish him. Or I could keep him here at court, but so load him with un­pleas­ant du­ties that he has no time for that which amuses him. He would un­der­stand he was be­ing pun­ished. So would every noble with half a wit. Those who sym­path­ize with him would rally to his de­fence. The In­land Duch­ies could con­trive some emer­gency in his mother’s land that de­man­ded the pres­ence of her son. Once there, he could build fur­ther sup­port for him­self. He might very well be able to fo­ment the civil un­rest he sought be­fore, and found an in­land king­dom loyal only to him. Even if he did not achieve that end, he could cause enough un­rest to steal the unity I must have if I am to de­fend our king­dom.’

  He stopped speak­ing. He lif­ted his eyes and glanced around the room. I fol­lowed his gaze. The walls were hung with his maps. There was Bearns, there was Shoaks and here was Rip­pon. On the op­pos­ite wall, Buck, Far­row and Tilth. All done in Ver­ity’s pre­cise hand, every river blue inked, every town named. Here were his Six Duch­ies. He knew them as Regal never would. He had rid­den those roads, helped set the mark­ers of those bound­ar­ies. Fol­low­ing Chiv­alry, he had treated with the folk who bordered our lands. He had swung a sword in de­fence of it, and known when to set down that sword and ne­go­ti­ate a peace. Who was I to be telling him how to rule at home?

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Keep him. He is my brother. And my father’s son.’ He poured him­self more wine. ‘My father’s most cher­ished, young­est son. I have gone to my father the King, and sug­ges­ted that Regal might be more con­tent with his lot if he had more to do with the run­ning of the king­dom. King Shrewd has con­sen­ted to this. I ex­pect to be much oc­cu­pied with de­fend­ing our land from the Red Ships. So to Regal will fall the task of rais­ing the rev­en­ues we shall need, and he will also be deal­ing with any other in­ternal crises that may arise. With a circle of nobles to as­sist him, of course. He is full wel­come to deal with their bick­er­ing and dis­sen­sions.’

  ‘And Regal is con­tent with this?’

  Ver­ity smiled a thin smile. ‘He can­not say he is not. Not if he wishes to keep the im­age of a young man ad­ept at rul­ing and but wait­ing for op­por­tun­ity to prove him­self.’ He lif­ted his wine glass and turned to stare into the fire. The only sound in the room was the snap­ping of the flames as they con­sumed the wood. ‘When you come to me to­mor­row,’ he began.

  ‘To­mor­row I must have for my­self,’ I told him.

  He set down his wine glass and turned to look at me. ‘Must you?’ he asked in an odd tone.

  I looked up and met his eyes. I swal­lowed. I brought my­self to my feet. ‘My prince,’ I began form­ally. ‘I would ask your kind per­mis­sion to be ex­cused from du­ties to­mor­row, that I may … pur­sue er­rands of my own.’

  He let me stand for a mo­ment. Then, ‘Oh, sit down, Fitz. Petty. I sup­pose that was petty of me. Think­ing of Regal puts me in such a frame of mind. Cer­tainly you can have the day, boy. If any­one asks, you are on my busi­ness. Might I ask what this ur­gent er­rand is?’

  I looked into the fire at the leap­ing flames. ‘My friend was liv­ing in Silt­bay. I need to find out …’

  ‘Oh, Fitz.’ There was more sym­pathy in Ver­ity’s voice than I could stand.

  A sud­den wave of wear­i­ness washed over me. I was glad to sit again. My hands began to tremble. I put them be­low the table and clasped them to still them. I still felt the tremors, but at least no one could see my weak­ness now.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Go to your room and rest,’ he said kindly. ‘Do you want a man to ride with you to Silt­bay to­mor­row?’

  I shook my head dumbly, sud­denly and miser­ably cer­tain of what I would dis­cover. The thought made me sick. An­other shud­der went through me. I tried to breathe slowly, to calm my­self and edge back from the fit that threatened. I could not abide the thought of sham­ing my­self that way be­fore Ver­ity.

  ‘Shame to me, not you, to have ig­nored how ill you have been.’ He had risen si­lently. He set his glass of wine be­fore me. ‘The dam­age you took was taken for me. I am ap­palled by what I al­lowed to be­fall you.’

  I forced my­self to meet Ver­ity’s eyes. He knew all that I tried to con­ceal. Knew it, and was miser­able with guilt.

  ‘It is not of­ten this bad,’ I offered.

  He smiled at me, but his eyes did not change. ‘You are an ex­
cel­lent liar, Fitz. Do not think your train­ing has gone awry. But you can­not lie to a man who has been with you as much as I have, not just these last few days, but of­ten dur­ing your ill­ness. If any other man says to you, “I know just how you feel,” you may re­gard it as a po­lite­ness. But from me ac­cept it as truth. And I know that with you it is as it is with Burrich. I shall not of­fer you the pick of the colts a few months hence. I do of­fer you my arm, if you wish it, to get back to your room.’

  ‘I can man­age,’ I said stiffly. I was aware of how he hon­oured me, but also of how plainly he saw my weak­ness. I wanted to be alone, to hide my­self.

  He nod­ded, un­der­stand­ing. ‘Would that you had mastered the Skill. I could of­fer you strength, just as I have too of­ten taken it from you.’

  ‘I could not,’ I muttered, un­able to mask how dis­taste­ful I would find the draw­ing off of an­other man’s strength to re­place my own. I in­stantly re­gret­ted the mo­ment of shame I saw in my prince’s eyes.

  ‘I, too, could once speak with such pride,’ he said quietly. ‘Go get some rest, boy.’ He turned slowly aside from me. He busied him­self set­ting out his inks and his vel­lum once more. I left quietly.

  We had been closeted for the whole day. Out­side, it was full dark. The castle had the settled air of a winter’s even­ing. The tables cleared, the folk would be gathered about the hearths in the Great Hall. Min­strels might be singing, or a pup­pet­eer mov­ing his gangly charges through a story. Some folk would watch while fletch­ing ar­rows, some would be ply­ing needles, chil­dren would be spin­ning tops or match­ing mark­ers or drows­ing against their par­ents’ knees or shoulders. All was se­cure. Bey­ond the walls the winter storms blew and kept us safe.

  I walked with a drunk­ard’s cau­tion, avoid­ing the com­mon areas where folk had gathered for the even­ing. I fol­ded my arms and hunched my shoulders as if chilled, and so stilled the trem­bling in my arms. I climbed the first flight of stairs slowly, as if lost in thought. On the land­ing I per­mit­ted my­self to pause for a count of ten, then forced my­self to be­gin the next flight.