Royal Assassin

Down is always easier than up. In fact, it can be too much easier, when one arm is already injured. I looked down at the waves breaking like white lace on the rocks far away. Nighteyes had been right. The moon had managed to come out for a bit. The rope slipped a bit through my gloved hand and I grunted as my injured arm had to take my weight. Only a little more, I promised myself. I let myself down another two steps.

The ledge of Molly’s window was narrower than I had hoped it would be. I kept the rope in a wrap around my arm as I perched there. My knife blade slipped easily into the crack between the shutters; they were very poorly fitted. The upper catch had yielded and I was working on the lower one when I heard her voice from inside.

“If you come in, I shall scream. The guards will come.”

“Then you’d best put on tea for them,” I replied grimly, and went back to wriggling at the lower catch.

In a moment Molly snatched the shutters open. She stood framed in the window, the dancing light of the fire on the hearth illuminating her from behind. She was in her nightdress, but she hadn’t braided her hair back yet. It was loose and gleaming from brushing. She had thrown a shawl over her shoulders.

“Go away,” she told me fiercely. “Get out of here.”

“I can’t,” I panted. “I haven’t the strength to climb back up, and the rope isn’t long enough to reach to the base of the wall.”

“You can’t come in,” she repeated stubbornly.

“Very well.” I seated myself on the windowsill, one leg inside the room, the other dangling out the window. Wind gusted past me, stirring her night robe and fanning the flames of the fire. I said nothing. After a moment she began to shiver.

“What do you want?” she demanded angrily.

“You. I wanted to tell you that tomorrow I am going to the King to ask permission to marry you.” The words came out of my mouth with no planning. I was suddenly giddily aware that I could say and do anything. Anything at all.

Molly stared a moment. Her voice was low as she said, “I do not wish to marry you.”

“I wasn’t going to tell him that part.” I found myself grinning at her.

“You are intolerable!”

“Yes. And very cold. Please, at least let me come in out of the cold.”

She did not give me permission. But she did stand back from the window. I jumped lightly in, ignoring the jolt to my arm. I closed and fastened the shutters. I walked across the room. I knelt by her hearth and built up the fire well with logs to chase the chill from the room. Then I stood, thawing my hands at it. Molly said not a word. She stood sword straight, her arms crossed on her chest. I glanced over at her and smiled.

She didn’t smile. “You should go.”

I felt my own smile fade. “Molly, please, just talk to me. I thought, the last time we spoke, that we understood each other. Now you don’t speak to me, you turn away. . . . I don’t know what changed, I don’t understand what is happening between us.”

“Nothing.” She suddenly looked very fragile. “Nothing is happening between us. Nothing can happen between us. ‘FitzChivalry’” — and that name sounded so strange on her lips — “I’ve had time to think. If you had come to me, like this, a week ago, or a month ago, impetuous and smiling, I know I would have been won over.” She permitted herself the ghost of a sad smile. As if she were remembering the way a dead child had skipped on some long-ago summer day. “But you didn’t. You were correct and practical, and did all the right things. And foolish as it may sound, that hurt me. I told myself that if you loved me as deeply as you had declared you did, nothing — not walls, not manners or reputation or protocol — would get in the way of your seeing me. That night, when you came, when we . . . but it changed nothing. You did not come back.”

“But it was for your sake, for your reputation—” I began desperately.

“Hush. I told you it was foolish. But feelings do not have to be wise. Feelings just are. Your loving me was not wise. Nor my caring for you. I’ve come to see that. And I’ve come to see that wisdom must overrule feelings.” She sighed. “I was so angry when your uncle first spoke to me. So outraged. He made me defiant, he gave me a steel resolve to stay in spite of everything that stood between us. But I am not a stone. Even if I were, even a stone can be worn away by the constant cold drip of common sense.”

“My uncle? Prince Regal?” I was incredulous at the betrayal.

She nodded slowly. “He wished me to keep his visit to myself. Nothing, he said, could be gained by your knowing of it. He needed to act in his family’s best interests. He said I should understand that. I did, but it made me angry. It was only over time that he made me see that it was in my own best interests as well.” She paused and brushed a hand over her cheek. She was crying. Silently, just the tears running as she spoke.