Royal Assassin

"No. You don't." Verity spoke with great certainty. "It is like a great loneliness, boy. I can reach out and touch others. Some, quite easily. But no one ever reaches back. When Chivalry was alive ... I still miss him, boy. Sometimes I am so lonely for him; it is like being the only one of something in the world. Like the very last wolf, hunting alone."

A shiver went down my spine. "What of King Shrewd?" I ventured to ask.

He shook his head. "He Skills seldom now. His strength for it has dwindled, and it taxes his body as well as his mind." We went down a few more steps. "You and I are the only ones now to know that," he added softly. I nodded.

We went down the stairs slowly. "Has the healer looked at your arm?" he queried.

I shook my head.

"Nor Burrich."

He was stating this as fact, already knowing it was true.

I shook my head again. The marks of Nighteyes' teeth were too plain upon my skin, although he had given those bites in play. I could not show Burrich the marks of the Forged ones without betraying my wolf to him.

Verity sighed. "Well. Keep it clean. I suppose you know as well as any how to keep an injury clean. Next time you go out, remember this, and go prepared. Always. There may not always be one to step in and aid you."

I came to a slow stop on the stairs. Verity continued down. I took a deep breath. "Verity," I asked quietly. "How much do you know? About ... this."

"Less than you do," he said jovially. "But more than you think I do."

"You sound like the Fool," I said bitterly.

"Yes. Sometimes. He is another one who has a great understanding of aloneness, and what it can drive a man to do." He took a breath, and almost I thought he might say that he knew what I was, and did not condemn me for it. Instead, he continued, "I believe the Fool had words with you, a few days ago.

I followed him silently now, wondering how he knew so much about so many things. The Skilling, of course. We came to his study and I followed him in. Charim, as ever, was already waiting for us. Food was set out, and mulled wine. Verity set upon it with a great appetite. I sat across from him, mostly watching him eat. I was not very hungry, but it built my appetite to watch how much he enjoyed this simple, robust meal. In this he was still a soldier, I thought. He would take this small pleasure, this good, well-served food when he was hungry, and relish it while he could. It gave me much satisfaction to see him with this much life and appetite to him. I wondered how he would be next summer, when he would have to Skill for hours every day, keeping watch for Raiders off our coast, and using the tricks of his mind to set them astray while giving our own folk early warning. I thought of Verity as he had been last summer by harvest time, worn to thinness, face lined, without the energy to eat save that he drank the stimulants that Chade put in his tea. His life had become the hours he spent Skilling. Come summer, his hunger for the Skilling would replace every other hunger in his life. How would Kettricken react to that? I wondered.

After we had eaten, Verity went over his maps with me. There was no longer any mistaking the pattern that emerged.

Regardless of what obstacles, forest or river or frozen plains, the Forged ones were moving toward Buckkeep. It made no sense to me. The ones I had encountered seemed all but bereft of their senses. I found it difficult to believe that any one of them would conceive of traveling overland, despite hardships, simply to come to Buckkeep. "And these records you've kept indicate that all of them have. All of the Forged ones that you've identified seem to be moving toward Buckkeep."

"Yet you have difficulty seeing it as a coordinated plan?" Verity asked quietly.

"I fail to see how they could have any plan at all. How have they contacted each other? And it doesn't seem a concerted effort. They aren't meeting up and traveling here in bands. It simply seems that each and every one sets out this way, and some of them fall in together."

"Like moths drawn to a candle flame," Verity observed.

"Or flies to carrion," I added sourly.

"The ones to fascination, the others to feed," Verity mused. "I wish I knew which it is that draws the Forged ones to me. Perhaps another thing entirely."

"Why do you think you must know why they come? Do, you think you are their target?"

"I do not know. But if I find out, I may understand my enemy. I do not think it chance that all the Forged ones make their way to Buckkeep. I think they move against me, Fitz. Perhaps not of their own will, but it is still a move against me. I need to understand why."

"To understand them, you must become them."

"Oh." He looked less than amused. "Now who sounds like the Fool?"