Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (24 page)

My soldiers, I ask of you that no arrow be
loosed today, no blow struck save for a clean kill. I know you
skilled enough to do this. We have all suffered enough. Let each
death today be as brief and merciful as we can manage, for all our
sakes. Let us clench our jaws, and remove that which infects us,
with as much resolve and regret as if we severed a maimed limb from
a body. For such is what we do. Not vengeance, my people, but
surgery, to be followed by a healing. Do as I say, now.

For some few minutes she stood still and looked
down at us all. As in a dream, folk began to move. Hunters removed
feathers and ribbons, tokens and jewelry from their garments and
handed them to pages. The mood of merriment and boasting had
evaporated. She had stripped that protection away, forced all to
consider truly what they were about to do. No one relished it. All
were poised, waiting to hear what she would say next. Kettricken
kept her absolute silence and stillness, so that each eye was
perforce drawn back to her. When she saw she had the attention of
all, she spoke again.

Good, she praised us quietly. And now heed my
words well. I desire horse-drawn litters, or wagons ... whatever
you of the stable judge best. Pad them well with straw. No body of
our folk will be left to feed foxes or be pecked by crows. They
will be brought back here, names noted if known, and prepared for
the pyre that is the honor of those fallen in battle. If families
be known and be near, they shall be summoned to the mourning. To
those who live far, word will be sent, and the honors due those who
have lost their blood kin as soldiers. Tears ran unchecked,
untouched down her cheeks. They glinted in the early-winter
sunlight like diamonds. Her voice thickened as she turned to
command another group. My cooks and serving folk! Set all tables in
the Great Hall and prepare a funeral feast. Set the Lesser Hall
with water and herbs and clean garments that we may prepare the
bodies of our folk for burning. All others, leave your ordinary
duties. Fetch wood and build a pyre. We shall return, to burn our
dead and mourn them. She gazed about, meeting every eye. Something
in her face set. She drew the sword from her belt and pointed it
aloft in an oath. When we have done with our grieving, we shall
make ready to avenge them! Those who have taken our folk shall know
our wrath! Slowly she lowered her blade, sheathed it cleanly. Again
her eyes commanded us. And now we ride, my folk!

My flesh stood up in goose bumps. Around me, men
and women were mounting horses and a hunt was forming up. With
impeccable timing, Burrich was suddenly beside the wagon, with
Softstep saddled and awaiting her rider. I wondered where he had
gotten the black-and-red harness, the colors of grief and
vengeance. I wondered if she had ordered it, or if he had simply
known. She stepped down, onto her horse's back, then settled into
the saddle, and Softstep stood steady despite the novel mount. She
lifted her hand, and it held a sword. The hunt surged forth behind
her:

Stop her! hissed Regal behind me, and I spun to
find that both he and Verity stood at my back, completely unnoticed
by the crowd.

No! I dared to breathe aloud. Cannot you feel
it? Do not spoil it. She's given them all something back. I don't
know what it is, but they have been sore missing it for a long
time.

It is pride, Verity said, his deep voice a
rumble. What we have all been missing, and I most of all. There
rides a Queen, he continued in soft amazement. Was there a shade of
envy there as well? He turned slowly and went quietly back into the
Keep. Behind us a babble of voices arose, and folk hastened to do
as she had bidden them. I walked behind Verity, near stunned by
what I had witnessed. Regal pushed past me, to leap in front of
Verity and confront him. He was quivering with outrage. My prince
halted.

How can you have allowed this to happen? Have
you no control over that woman at all? She makes mockery of us! Who
is she, to thus issue commands and take out an armed guard from the
Keep! Who is she, to decree all this so highhandedly! Regal's voice
cracked in his fury.

My wife, Verity said mildly. And your
queen-in-waiting. The one you chose. Father assured me you would
choose a woman worthy to be a Queen. I think you picked better than
you knew.

Your wife? Your undoing, you ass! She undermines
you, she cuts your throat as you sleep! She steals their hearts,
she builds her own name! Cannot you see it, you dolt? You may be
content to let that Mountain vixen steal the crown, but I am
not!

I turned aside hastily and bent to retie my shoe
so I could not witness that Prince Verity struck Prince Regal. I
did hear something very like the crack of an openhanded blow to a
man's face and a bitten off cry of fury. When I looked up, Verity
was standing as quietly as before, while Regal hunkered forward
with a hand over his nose and mouth. King-in-Waiting Verity will
brook no insults to Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. Or even to
himself. I said my lady had reawakened pride in our soldiers.
Perhaps she has stirred mine as well. Verity looked mildly
surprised as he considered this.

The King will hear of this! Regal took his hand
away from his face, looked aghast at the blood on it. He held it
up, shaking, to show Verity. My father will see this blood you have
shed! he quavered, and choked on the blood coursing from his nose.
He leaned forward slightly and held his bloody hand away from
himself so as not to spoil his clothing with a stain.

What? You intend to bleed all the way to this
afternoon, when our father arises? If you can manage that, come and
show me as well! To me: Fitz! Have you nothing better to do than
stand about gaping? Be off with you. See that my lady's commands
are well obeyed!

Verity turned and strode off down the corridor.
I made haste to obey and to take myself out of Regal's range.
Behind us, he stamped and cursed like a child in the midst of a
tantrum. Neither of us turned back to him, but I at least hoped
that no servants had marked what had transpired.

It was a long and peculiar day about the Keep.
Verity made a visit to King Shrewd's rooms, and then kept himself
to his map room. I know not what Regal did. All folk turned out to
do the Queen's bidding, working swiftly, but almost silently,
gossiping quietly among themselves as they prepared the one hall
for food and the other for bodies. One great change I marked. Those
women who had been most faithful to the Queen now found themselves
attended, as if they were shadows of Kettricken. And these nobly
born women suddenly did not scruple to come themselves to the
Lesser Hall, to supervise the preparing of the herb-scented water
and the laying out of towels and linens. I myself helped with the
fetching of wood for the required pyre.

By late afternoon, the hunt returned. They came
quietly, riding in solemn guard around the wagons they escorted.
Kettricken rode at their head. She looked tired, and frozen in a
way that had nothing to do with the cold. I wanted to go to her,
but did not steal the honor as Burrich came to take her horse's
head and assist her dismount. Fresh blood spattered her boots and
Softstep's shoulders. She had not ordered her soldiers to do that
which she would not do herself. With a quiet command, Kettricken
dismissed the guard to wash themselves, to comb hair and beards,
and to return freshly clothed to the hall. As Burrich led Softstep
away Kettricken stood briefly alone. A sadness grayer than anything
I had ever felt emanated from her. She was weary. So very
weary.

I approached her quietly. If you have need, my
lady queen, I said softly.

She did not turn. I must do this myself. But be
close, in case I need you. She spoke so quietly I am sure none
heard her but myself. Then she moved forward, and the waiting Keep
folk parted before her. Heads bobbed as she acknowledged them
gravely. She walked silently through the kitchens, nodding at the
food she saw prepared, and then paced through the Great Hall, once
more nodding approval of all she saw there. In the Lesser Hall, she
paused, then removed her gaily knit cap and her jacket, to reveal
underneath a simple soft shirt of purple linen. The cap and jacket
she gave over to a page, who looked stunned by the honor. She
stepped to the head of one of the tables and began to fold her
sleeves back. All movement in the hall ceased as heads turned to
watch her. She looked up to our amazed regard. Bring in our dead,
she said simply.

The pitiful bodies were carried in, a
heartbreaking stream of them. I did not count how many. More than I
had expected, more than Verity's reports had led us to believe. I
followed behind Kettricken, and carried the basin of warm scented
water as she moved from body to body, and gently bathed each
ravaged face and closed tormented eyes forever. Behind us came
others, a snaking procession as each body was undressed gently,
completely bathed, hair combed, and wound in clean cloth. At some
point I became aware that Verity was there, a young scribe beside
him, going from body to body, taking down the names of those few
who were recognized, writing briefly of every other.

One name I supplied him myself. Kerry. The last
Molly and I had known of this street boy, he had gone off as a
puppeteer's apprentice. He'd ended his days as little more than a
puppet. His laughing mouth was stilled forever. As boys, we'd run
errands together, to earn a penny or two. He'd been beside me the
first time I got puking drunk, and laughed until his own stomach
betrayed him. He'd wedged the rotten fish in the trestles of the
tavern keeper's table, the one who had accused us of stealing. The
days we had shared I alone would remember now. I suddenly felt less
real. Part of my past, Forged away from me.

When we were done, and stood silently looking at
the tables of bodies, Verity stepped forward, to read his tally
aloud in the silence. The names were few, but he did not neglect
those unknown. A young man, newly bearded, dark hair, the scars of
fishing on his hands ... he said of one, and of another, A woman,
curly-haired and comely, tattooed with the puppeteers' guild sign.
We listened to the litany of those we had lost, and if any did not
weep, they had hearts of stone. As a people, we lifted our dead and
carried them to the funeral pyre, to set them carefully atop this
last bed. Verity himself brought the torch for the kindling, but he
handed it off to the Queen, who waited beside the pyre. As she set
flame to the pitch-laden boughs, she cried out to the dark skies,
You shall not be forgotten! All echoed her with a shout. Blade, the
old sergeant, stood beside the pyre with shears, to take from every
soldier a finger's-length lock of hair, a symbol of the mourning
for a fallen comrade. Verity joined the queue, and Kettricken stood
behind him, to offer up a pale lock of her own hair.

There followed a night such as I had never
known. Most of Buckkeep Town came to the Keep that night, and were
admitted without question. All followed the Queen's example and
kept a watching fast until the pyre had burned itself to ash and
bone. Then the Great Hall and the Lesser were filled, and planks
laid as tables outside in the courtyard for those who could not
crowd within. Kegs of drink were rolled out, and such a setting out
of bread and roasted meat and other viands as I had not even
imagined that Buckkeep possessed. Later I was to learn that much of
it had simply come up from the town, unsought but offered
freely.

The King descended, as he had not for some
weeks, to sit in his throne at the high table and preside over the
gathering. The Fool came, too, to stand beside and behind his chair
and accept from his plate whatever the King offered. But this night
he made not merry for the King; his fool's prattle was stilled, and
even the bells on his cap and sleeves had been tied in strips of
fabric to mute them. Only once did our eyes meet that night, but
for me, the glance carried no discernible message. To the King's
right was Verity, to his left Kettricken. Regal was there, too, of
course, in so sumptuous a costume of black that only the color
denoted any sort of mourning. He scowled and sulked and drank, and
I suppose for some his surly silence passed for grieving. For me, I
could sense the anger seething within him, and knew that someone,
somewhere would pay for what he saw as insult to himself. Even
Patience was there, her appearance as rare as the King's, and I
sensed the unity of purpose we displayed.

The King ate but little. He waited until those
at the High Table were filled before he arose to speak. As he
spoke, his words were repeated at the lower tables, and in the
Lesser Hall, and even outside in the courtyard by minstrels. He
spoke briefly of those we had lost to the Red-Ships. He said
nothing of Forging, or of the day's task of hunting down and
killing the Forged ones. He spoke instead as if they had but
recently died in a battle against the Red-Ships, and said only that
we must remember them. Then, pleading fatigue and grief, he left
the table to return to his own chambers.

Then it was that Verity arose. He did little
more than repeat Kettricken's words of earlier, that we grieved
now, but when the grieving was over, we must make ready our
vengeance. He lacked the fire and impassionment of Kettricken's
earlier speech, but I could see all at table responding to it. Folk
nodded and began to talk among themselves, while Regal sat and
glowered silently. Verity and Kettricken left the table late that
night, she on his arm, and they made sure that all marked how they
left together. Regal remained, drinking and muttering to himself. I
myself slipped away shortly after Verity and Kettricken left, to
seek my own bed.