Royal Assassin

"Complete disorder. The Buckkeep guards broke up the riot in the Great Hall, but then, outside, there was a brawl between some of the Inlanders that Regal brought in and the Buckkeep guard. Queen Kettricken's guard drove a wedge between them, and their officers beat their troops back into line. Still, it's tense. The fighters weren't all soldiers. Many a guest has a black eye or walks with a limp still. Luckily, no one amongst the guests took serious harm. Blade took about the worst injuries, they say. He went down keeping the Farrow men off you. Cracked his ribs and blacked his eyes, did something to one of his arms. But Burrich says he will be all right. The lines have been drawn, however, and the Dukes walk about bristling at one another like dogs."

"Burrich?" I asked hoarsely.

"Did not get involved at all," she said reassuringly. "He's fine. If being ill-tempered and surly to all is fine. Which, for him, I suppose is normal."

My heart thundered inside me. Burrich. Why wasn't he gone? I dared ask no more about him. One question too many, and Patience would get curious. So. "And Regal?" I asked.

She snorted. "One gets the feeling that what really irritates Regal is that he no longer has an excuse to abandon Buckkeep. Before, you know, he was taking King Shrewd and Kettricken inland so they would be safe, and gutting the castle so they might have familiar things about them. He has no such excuse now, and the Coastal Dukes have demanded he stay and defend the Keep, or at least put in that place a man of their choosing. He has offered his cousin Lord Bright of Farrow, but the Coastal Dukes do not like him. Now that Regal finds himself suddenly a King, I do not think he is enjoying it as much as he expected to."

"Has he crowned himself, then?" A roaring threatened my ears. I stood by gripping the bars. Must not faint, I told myself. The guard would be back soon. I had only this time to hear what was going on.

"We have all been much too busy burying the King, and then searching for the Queen. When the King was found dead, we were sent to wake her, but found her doors locked and no answer to our knocking. Finally Regal resorted to his men and axes again. The inner-chamber door was closed and locked as well. But the Queen was gone. It is a great mystery to all of us."

"What does Regal say of it?" My head was clearing of cobwebs. Oh, how I hurt.

"Little, save that she and her child are surely dead, and you have brought it about somehow. He speaks wild charges of Beast magic, saying you have slain the King with your Wit. All demand proof for his claims, and he keeps saying, soon, soon."

No mention of searching the roads and byways for Kettricken, then. I had gambled that his Skill spies had not found out the whole of our plot. But, I cautioned myself, if he had sent out searchers, I doubted they were ordered to bring her back alive and safe.

"What does Will do?" I asked.

"Will?"

"Will, Hostler's son. A member of the coterie."

"Oh. Him. I have not seen him about, that I recall."

"Ah." Another wave of dizziness threatened me. Suddenly logic eluded me. I knew I should ask more questions, but I could not think of what they should be. Burrich was still here, but the Queen and the Fool were gone. What had gone wrong? There was no safe way to ask Patience. "Does anyone else know you are here?" I managed to ask. Surely, if Burrich had known she were coming, he would have sent a message.

"Of course not! This was not an easy thing to plan, Fitz. Lacey had to get an emetic into the one guard's food so he would leave only one on watch. Then we had to watch for him to leave-oh. Lacey said to bring you these. She is wise, that one." Her hand went away, and then came back, to fumble one, and then two small apples through the bars. They hit the floor before I could catch them. I resisted the urge to pounce on them immediately:

"What do they say of me?" I asked quietly.

She was silent a moment. "Mostly, folk say that you are crazy. Some, that you were witched by the Pocked Man to bring death amongst us that night. There is some gossip that you had planned to lead a rebellion, and killed Serene and Justin because they found out about it. Others, not many, agree with Regal, saying you have the Beast magic. Wallace, mostly, says such things. He declares the candles did not burn blue in the King's chamber until you entered it. And he says the Fool was shouting that you had killed the King. But the Fool is gone, too. There have been so many omens of evil, and so many fear now ...." Her voice dwindled away.

"I did not kill the King," I said quietly. "Justin and Serene did. That was why I killed them, with the King's own knife."

"The guards are coming back!" A hiss from Lacey. Patience ignored it.

"But Justin and Serene weren't even-"

"I don't have time to explain. It was done with Skill. But they did, Patience. I swear it." I paused. "What do they plan to do with me?"

"It isn't decided, really."

"We've no time for polite lies."