Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (54 page)

She took a shuddering breath. We shall do it,
then. But ... you must wait for me outside my chamber. I wish to
fetch several scrolls to show him. I will be but a short time. She
turned to Patience, spoke more loudly. Lady Patience, might I ask
you to finish these plants for me as well? I have something else I
wish to attend to.

Of course, my queen. I should be pleased
to.

We left the garden, and I followed her to her
chambers. I waited for more than a short time. When she emerged,
her little maid Rosemary was behind her, insisting on carrying the
scrolls for her. Kettricken had washed the soil from her hands. And
changed her gown, and added scent and dressed her hair and was
wearing the jewelry Verity had sent to her when she was pledged to
him. She smiled at me cautiously as I looked at her. My lady queen,
I am dazzled, I ventured.

You flatter me as wildly as Regal does, she
proclaimed, and hastened away down the hall, but a blush warmed her
cheeks.

She dresses so just to come to speak to
me?

She dresses so to ... attract you. How could a
man so astute at reading men be so ignorant of women?

Perhaps he has had little time ever to learn
much of their ways.

I clamped my mind shut on my thoughts and
hastened after my queen. We arrived at Verity's study just in time
to see Charim leaving. He was carrying an armful of laundry. It
seemed odd until we were admitted. Verity was wearing a soft shirt
of pale blue linen, and the mingled scents of lavender and cedar
were lively in the air. It reminded me of a clothes chest. His hair
and beard were freshly smoothed; well I knew that his hair never
stayed that way for more than a few minutes. As Kettricken advanced
shyly to curtsy to her lord, I saw Verity as I had not for months.
The summer of Skilling had wasted him again. The fine shirt belled
about his shoulders, and the smoothed hair was as much gray as
black now. There were lines, too, about his eyes and mouth that I
had never noticed before.

Do I look so poorly, then?

Not to her, I reminded him.

As Verity took her hand and drew her to sit down
beside him on a bench near the fire, she looked at him with a
hunger as deep as his Skill drive. Her fingers clung to his hand,
and I looked aside as he lifted her hand to kiss it. Perhaps Verity
was right about a Skill sensitivity. What Kettricken felt battered
at me as roughly as the fury of my crew mates during
battle.

I felt a flutter of astonishment from Verity.
Then: Shield yourself, he commanded me brusquely, and I was
suddenly alone inside my skull. I stood still a moment, dizzied by
the abruptness of his departure. He really had no idea, I found
myself thinking, and felt glad the thought remained
private.

My lord, I have come to ask a moment or two of
your time for ... an idea I have. Kettricken's eyes searched his
face as she spoke quietly.

Certainly, Verity agreed. He glanced up at me.
FitzChivalry, will you join us?

If you will, my lord. I took a seat on a stool
on the opposite side of the hearth. Rosemary came and stood at my
elbow with her armload of scrolls. Probably filched from my room by
the Fool, I suspected. But as Kettricken began to talk to Verity
she took up the scrolls one by one, in each case to illustrate her
argument. Without exception, they were scrolls that dealt, not with
the Elderlings, but with the Mountain Kingdom. King Wisdom, you may
recall, was the first of Six Duchies nobility to come to our land
... to the land of the Mountain Kingdom, for anything other than
the making of war upon us. So he is well remembered in our
histories. These scrolls, copied from ones made in his time, deal
with his doings and travels in the Mountain Kingdom. And thus,
indirectly, with the Elderlings. She unrolled the last scroll.
Verity and I both leaned forward in amazement. A map. Faded with
time, poorly copied probably, but a map. Of the Mountain Kingdom,
with passes and trails marked on it. And a few straggling lines
leading into the lands beyond.

One of these paths, marked here, must lead to
the Elderlings. For I know the trails of the Mountains, and these
are not trade routes, nor do they go to any village I know. Nor do
they lie in conjunction with the trails as I know them now to be.
These are older roads and paths. And why else would they be marked
here, save that they go where King Wisdom went?

Can it be that simple? Verity rose quickly, to
return with a branch of candles to light the map better. He
smoothed the vellum lovingly with his hands and leaned close over
it.

There are several paths marked that go off into
the Rain Wilds. If that is what all this green represents. None
seem to have anything marked at the end. How would we know which
one? I objected.

Perhaps they all go to the Elderlings,
Kettricken ventured. Why should they reside in but one
place?

No! Verity straightened up. Two at least have
something marked at the end. Or had something. The damned ink has
faded. But there was something there. I intend to find out
what.

Even Kettricken looked astonished at the
enthusiasm in his voice. I was shocked. I had expected him to
heather out politely, not to endorse her plan
wholeheartedly.

He rose suddenly, paced a quick turn around the
room. The Skill energy radiated off him like heat from a hearth.
The full storms of winter are upon the coast now. Or will be, any
day now. If I leave quickly, in the next few days, I can be to the
Mountain Kingdom while the passes can still be used. I can force my
way through to ... whatever is there. And return by spring. Perhaps
with the help we need.

I was speechless. Kettricken made it
worse.

My lord, I had not intended that you should go.
You should remain here. I must go. I know the Mountains; I was born
to their ways. You might not survive there. In this, I should be
Sacrifice.

It was a relief to see Verity as dumbfounded as
I was. Perhaps, having heard it from her lips, he would now realize
how impossible it was. He shook his head slowly. He took both her
hands in his and looked solemnly at her. My queen-in-waiting. He
sighed. I must do this. I. In so many other ways I have failed the
Six Duchies. And you. When first you came here to be queen, I had
no patience with your talk of Sacrifice. I thought it a girl's
idealistic notion. But it is not. We do not speak it here, but it
is what is felt. It is what I learned from my parents. To put the
Six Duchies always ahead of myself. I have tried to do that. But
now I see that always I have sent others in my place. I sat and
Skilled, it is true, and you have an inkling what it has cost me.
But it has been sailors and soldiers who I have sent out to put
down their lives for the Six Duchies. My own nephew, even, doing
the crude and bloody work for me. And despite those I have sent to
be sacrificed, our coast is still not safe. Now it comes to this
last chance, to this hard thing. Shall I send my queen to do it for
me?

Perhaps ... Kettricken's voice had gone husky
with uncertainty. She looked down at the fire as she suggested,
Perhaps we might go together?

Verity considered. He actually earnestly
considered it, and I saw Kettricken realize he had taken her
request seriously. She began to smile, but it faded as he slowly
shook his head. I dare not, he said quietly. Someone must remain
here. Someone I trust. King Shrewd is ... my father is not well. I
fear for him. For his health. With myself away, and my father ill,
there must be someone to stand in my stead.

She looked aside. I would rather go with you,
she said fiercely.

I averted my eyes as he reached and took her
chin in his fingers and lifted her face so he might see her eyes. I
know, he said evenly. That is the sacrifice I must ask you to make.
To stay here, when you would rather go. To be alone, yet again. For
the sake of the Six Duchies.

Something went out of her. Her shoulders sagged
as she bowed her head to his will. As Verity gathered her to him I
rose silently. I took Rosemary with me and we left them
alone.

I was in my room, poring belatedly over the
scrolls and tablets there, when the page came to my door that
afternoon. You are summoned to the King's chambers, in the hour
after dinner, was the only message he gave me. Dismay rolled over
me. It had been two weeks since my last visit to his chamber. I did
not wish to confront the King again. If he were summoning me to say
that he expected me to begin courting Celerity, I did not know what
I would do or say. I feared I would lose control of myself.
Resolutely I unrolled one of the Elderling scrolls and tried to
study it. It was hopeless. I saw only Molly.

In the brief nights we had shared since our day
on the beach, Molly had refused to discuss Celerity with me any
further. In some ways it was a relief. But she had also stopped
teasing me about all she would demand from me when I was truly her
husband and all the future children we would have. She had quietly
given up hope that we would ever be wed. If I stopped to think of
it, it grieved me to the edge of madness. She did not rebuke me
with it, as she knew it was not of my choosing. She did not even
ask what was to become of us. Like Nighteyes, she seemed to live
only in the present now. Each night of closeness we shared, she
accepted as a thing complete, and did not question if there would
be another. What I sensed from her was not despair, but
containment: a fierce resolve that we would not lose what we had
now to what we could not have tomorrow. I did not deserve the
devotion of such a faithful heart.

When I dozed beside her in her bed, safe and
warm amid the perfume of her body and her herbs, it was her
strength that protected us. She did not Skill, she had no Wit. Her
magic was a stronger kind, and she worked it by her will alone.
When she closed and bolted her door behind me late at night, she
created within her chamber a world and a time that belonged to us.
If she had blindly placed her life and happiness in my hands, it
would have been intolerable. But this was even worse. She believed
there would eventually be a terrible price to pay for her devotion
to me. Still she refused to forsake me. And I was not man enough to
turn away from her and bid her seek a happier life. In my most
lonely hours, when I rode the trails around Buckkeep with my
saddlebags full of poisoned bread, I knew myself for a coward, and
worse than a thief. I had once told Verity I could not draw off
another man's strength to feed my own, that I would not. Yet every
day, that was what I did to Molly. The Elderling scroll fell from
my lax fingers. My room was suddenly suffocating. I pushed aside
the tablets and scrolls

I had been attempting to study. In the hour
before dinner, I sought out Patience's chamber.

It had been some time since I had last called
upon her. But her sitting chamber never seemed to change, save in
the uppermost layer of litter that reflected her current passion.
This day was no exception. Fall gathered herbs, bundled for drying,
were suspended everywhere, filling the room with their scents. I
felt I was strolling through an inverted meadow as I ducked to
avoid the dangling foliage.

You've hung these a bit low, I complained as
Patience entered.

No. You've managed to grow a bit too tall. Stand
up straight and let me look at you now.

I obeyed, even though it left me with a bundle
of catmint resting on my head.

Well. At least rowing about killing people all
summer has left you in good health. Much better than the sickly boy
who came home to me last winter. I told you those tonics would
work. As long as you've gotten that tall, you may as well help me
hang up these lot.

Without more ado, I was put to work stringing
lines from sconces to bedposts to anything else that a string could
be tied to, and then to fastening bundles of herbs to them. She had
me treed, up on a chair and tying bundles of balsam, when she
demanded, Why do you no longer whine to me about how much you miss
Molly?

Would it do me any good? I asked her quietly
after a moment. I did my best to sound resigned.

No. She paused a moment as if thinking. She
handed me yet another bouquet of leaves. Those, she informed me as
I fastened them up, are stipple-leaf. Very bitter. Some say they
will prevent a woman conceiving. They don't. At least, not
dependably. But if a woman eats them for too long, she can become
ill from them. She paused as if considering. Perhaps, if a woman is
sick, she does not conceive as easily. But I would not recommend
them to anyone, least of all anyone I cared about.

I found my tongue, sought a casual air. Why do
you dry them, then?

An infusion of them, gargled, will help a sore
throat. So Molly Chandler told me, when I found her gathering them
in the women's garden.

I see. I fastened the leaves to the line,
dangling them like a body from a noose. Even their odor was bitter.
Had I wondered, earlier, how Verity could be so unaware of what was
right before him? Why had I never thought of this? How must it be
for her, to dread what a rightfully married woman would long for?
What Patience had longed for in vain?

...seaweed, FitzChivalry?

I started. Beg pardon?

I said, when you have an afternoon free, would
you gather seaweed for me? The black, crinkly sort? It has the most
flavor this time of year.