Royal Assassin

What did . . . I let the thought trail off. Thank you for guarding me.

He sensed my reservations. What should I have done? Turned her away? She was grieving.

I don’t know. Let us not talk of it. Molly was sad, and he had comforted her? I didn’t even know why she was sad. Had been sad, I amended, looking at the soft smile on her sleeping face. I sighed. Better face it sooner than later. Besides, I had to send her back to her own room. It would not do for her to be here when the Keep awoke.

“Molly?” I said gently.

She stirred and opened her eyes. “Fitz,” she agreed sleepily.

“For safety’s sake, you have to go back to your own room.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have come in the first place.” She stopped. “All those things I said to you a few days ago. I didn’t—”

I put a finger across her lips. She smiled past it. “You make these new silences . . . very interesting.” She pushed my hand aside, kissed me warmly. Then she slid from my bed and began to dress briskly. I arose, moving more slowly. She glanced over at me, her face full of love. “I’ll go alone. It’s safer. We should not be seen together.”

“Someday, that will—” I began. This time she silenced me, small hand on my lips.

“We will talk of nothing like that now. Let us leave tonight as it is. Perfect.” She kissed me again, quickly, and slipped from my arms and then out the door. She shut it silently behind her. Perfect?

I finished dressing and built up my fire. I sat down in my chair by the hearth and waited. It was not long before I was rewarded. The entrance to Chade’s domain opened. I went up the stairs as quickly as I could manage. Chade was sitting before his hearth. “You have to listen to me,” I greeted him. His eyebrows rose in alarm at the intensity in my voice. He gestured at the chair opposite him, and I took it. I opened my mouth to speak. What Chade did then put every hair on my body on end. He glanced all around himself, as if we stood in the midst of a great crowd. Then he touched his own lips, and made a gesture for softness. He leaned toward me until our heads were nearly touching. “Softly, softly. Sit down. What is it?”

I sat, in my old place on the hearth. My heart was hammering in my chest. Of all places in Buckkeep, I had never expected to have to use caution in what I said here.

“All right,” he breathed out to me. “Report.”

I took a breath and began. I left out nothing, revealing my link with Verity so that the entire story would make sense. I put in every detail: the Fool’s beating, and Kettricken’s offering to Bearns, as well as my service to the King that evening. Serene and Justin in my room. When I whispered of Regal’s spies, he pursed his mouth, but did not seem overly surprised. When I was finished, he regarded me calmly.

A whisper again. “And what do you conclude from all this?” he asked me, as if it were a puzzle he had set me as a lesson.

“May I speak frankly of my suspicions?” I asked quietly.

A nod.

I sighed in relief. As I spoke of the picture that had emerged for me over the past weeks, I felt a great burden lifting. Chade would know what to do. And so I spoke, quickly, tersely. Regal knew that the King was dying of disease. Wallace was his tool, to keep the King sedated and open to Regal’s whisperings. He would discredit Verity, he would strip Buckkeep of every bit of wealth that he could. He would abandon Bearns to the Red-Ships, to keep them busy while Regal acted on his own ambitions. Paint Kettricken as a foreigner with ambitions to the throne. A devious, disloyal wife. Gather power to himself. His eventual aim, as ever, was the throne. Or at least as much of the Six Duchies as he could gather to himself. Hence his lavish entertainments for the Inland Dukes and their nobles.

Chade nodded unwillingly as I spoke. When I paused, he injected softly, “There are many holes in this web you say Regal is weaving.”

“I can fill in a few,” I whispered. “Suppose the coterie that Galen created is loyal to Regal? Suppose all messages go to him first, and only those he approves continue to their intended destination?”

Chade’s face grew still and grave.

My whisper grew more desperate. “What if messages are delayed just enough to make our efforts to defend ourselves pathetic? He makes Verity look a fool, he undermines confidence in the man.”

“Wouldn’t Verity be able to tell?”

I shook my head slowly. “He is powerfully Skilled. But he cannot be listening everywhere at once. The strength of his talent is his ability to focus it so tightly. To spy on his own coterie, he would have had to give off watching the coast waters for Red-Ships.”

“Does he . . . is Verity aware of this discussion right now?”