Royal Assassin

"Report to me in full," Verity directed me without looking at me. I hesitated briefly, then launched into a complete retelling. Toward the end of the struggle, my account became a bit incoherent. I let the words die on my lips. "But I did manage to break his grip on me. And all three of them died there."

He did not take his eyes from the sea. "You should avoid physical struggles, FitzChivalry. You always seem to get hurt in them."

"I know, my prince," I admitted humbly. "Hod did her best with me-"

"But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other talents. And those are the ones you should be putting to use to preserve yourself. Oh, you're a competent swordsman; but you've not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you always seem to revert to in a fight."

"I was not offered the selection of weapons," I said, a bit testily, and then added, "my prince."

"No. You won't be." He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. "Yet I'm afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?"

"As you have been told, sir," I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen's guard.

He turned to regard me levelly. "The rumor I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumor reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly."

"My prince," I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

"Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more encounters with Forged ones. Would I could think of something to busy her," he added wearily.

"The Queen's Garden," I suggested, recalling Patience's account of it.

Verity cocked his eye at me.

"The old ones, atop the tower," I explained. "They have been unused for years. I saw what was left of them, before Galen ordered us to dismantle them to clear space for our Skill lessons. It must have been a charming place at one time. Tubs of earth and greenery, statuary, climbing vines."

Verity smiled to himself. "And basins of water, too, with pond lilies in them, and fish, and even tiny frogs. The birds came there often in summer, to drink and to splash. Chivalry and I used to play up there. She had little charms hung on strings, made of glass and bright metal. And when the wind stirred them, they would chime together, or flash like jewels in the sun." I could feel myself warming with his memory of that place and time. "My mother kept a little hunting cat, and it would lounge on the warm stone when the sun struck it. Hisspit; that was her name. Spotted coat and tufted ears. And we would tease her with string and tufts of feathers, and she would stalk us among the pots of flowers. While we were supposed to be studying tablets on herbs. I never properly learned them. There was too much else to do there. Except for thyme. I knew every kind of thyme she had. My mother grew a lot of thyme. And catmint." He was smiling.

"Kettricken would love such a place," I told him. "She gardened much in the Mountains."

"Did she?" He looked surprised. "I would have thought her occupied with more ... physical pastimes."

I felt an instant of annoyance with him. No, of something more than annoyance. How could it be that I knew more of his wife than he did? "She kept gardens," I said quietly. "Of many herbs, and knew all the uses of those that grew therein. I have told you of them myself."

"Yes, I suppose you have." He sighed. "You are right, Fitz. Visit her for me, and tell her of the Queen's Garden. It is winter now, and there is probably little she can do with it. But come spring, it would be a wondrous thing to see it restored ...."

"Perhaps, you yourself, my prince," I ventured, but he shook his head.

"I haven't the time. But I trust it to you. And now, downstairs. To the maps. I have things I wish to discuss with you."

I turned immediately toward the door. Verity followed more slowly. I held the door for him and on the threshold he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the open window. "It calls me," he admitted to me, calmly, simply, as if observing that he enjoyed plums. "It calls to me, at any moment when I am not busied. And so I must be busy, Fitz. And too busy."

"I see," I said slowly, not at all sure that I did.