Royal Assassin

I went directly to the kitchen, intending to get something to eat, then go rest as Burrich had suggested. The watch room was packed with the returning soldiers, telling stories to the ones who had stayed home while devouring stew and bread. I had expected that, and intended to find my own provisions and carry them off to my room. But within the kitchen, everywhere, kettles were bubbling, bread was rising, and meat was turning on spits. Kitchen servants were chopping, stirring, and going to and fro hurriedly.

"There is a feast tonight?' I asked stupidly.

Cook Sara turned to face me. "Oh, Fitz, so you're back and alive and in one piece for a change." She smiled as if she had complimented me. "Yes, of course, there's a feast to celebrate the victory at Neatbay. We would not neglect you."

"With Verity dead, we still sit down to feast?"

Cook looked at me levelly. "Were Prince Verity here, what would he wish?"

I sighed. "He would probably say to celebrate the victory. That folk need hope more than mourning."

"So exactly Prince Regal explained it to me this morning," Cook said with satisfaction. She turned back to rubbing spices into a leg of venison. "We'll mourn him, of course. But you have to understand, Fitz. He left us. Regal is the one who stayed here. He stayed here to look after the King, and mind the coasts as best as he could. Verity is gone, but Regal is still here with us. And Neatbay is not fallen to the Raiders."

I bit my tongue and waited for the fit to pass. "Neatbay did not fall because Regal stayed here to protect us." I wanted to make certain that Cook was connecting those two events, not merely mentioning them both in the same lecture.

She nodded as she kept rubbing the meat. Pounded sage, my nose told me. And rosemary. "It's what's been needed all along. Soldiers sent right away. Skilling is fine, but what's the good of knowing what's happening if no one does anything about it?"

"Verity always sent out the warships."

"And they always seemed to get there too late." She turned to me, wiping her hands down the front of her apron. "Oh, I know you worshiped him, lad. Our Prince Verity was a goodhearted man, who wore himself to death trying to protect us. I'm not speaking against the dead. I'm only saying that Skilling and chasing down Elderlings are not the way to fight these Red-Ships. What Prince Regal done, sending the soldiers and ships out the minute he heard, that's what was needed all along. Maybe with Prince Regal in charge, we'll survive here."

"What about King Shrewd?" I asked softly.

She misunderstood my question. In doing so, she showed me what she really thought. "Oh, he's as good as can be expected. He'll even be down to the feast tonight, at least for a bit. Poor man. He's suffering so much. Poor, poor man."

Dead man. She as much as said it. King no longer, Shrewd was just a poor, poor man to her. Regal had it. "Do you think our queen will be at the feast?" I asked. "After all, she has just heard of the death of her husband and king."

"Oh, I think she'll be there." Sara nodded to herself. She turned the leg over with a thud, to begin pricking the other side full of herbs. "I've heard it said she's saying she's with child now." The cook sounded skeptical. "She'll want to announce it tonight."

"Do you doubt she's with child?" I asked bluntly. Cook was not offended by it.

"Oh, I don't doubt she's pregnant, if she says she is. It just seems a bit odd, is all, her telling it after word of Verity's death came in instead of before."

"How's that?"

"Well, some of us are bound to wonder."

"Wonder what?" I asked coldly.

Cook darted a glance at me and I cursed my impatience. Shutting her up was not what I wanted to do. I needed to hear the rumors, all of them.

"Well ..." She hesitated, but could not deny my listening ears. "What's always wondered, when a woman doesn't conceive, and then when her husband's away, suddenly she announces she's pregnant by him." She glanced about to see who else might be listening. All seemed busy at their work, but I didn't doubt a few ears were tilted our way. "Why now? All of a sudden. And if she knew she was pregnant, what was she thinking of, racing off in the middle of the night, right into battle? That's strange behavior for a Queen carrying the throne's heir."

"Well"-I tried to make my voice mild-"I suppose when the child is born will show when it was conceived. Those who want to count moons on their fingers may do so then. Besides"-and I leaned in conspiratorially-" I heard that some of her ladies knew of it before she left. Lady Patience, for instance, and her maid Lacey." I would have to make sure that Patience bragged of her early knowledge, and that Lacey noised it about among the servants.

"Oh. That one." Cook Sara's dismissal quashed my hopes of an easy victory. "Well, not to offend, Fitz, but she can be a bit daft on occasion. Lacey, though, Lacey is solid. But she don't say much, and don't want to listen to what others have to say either."