Royal Assassin

The trained crews from the warships soon over took them, and by the time we reached the outer walls of the Keep, there was an attitude of cooperation, if not any real organization. The prisoners we had freed were weak from lack of food and water, but recovered quickly and were indispensable in giving us intimate knowledge of the outer earthworks. By afternoon, our siege of the besiegers was in place. With difficulty, Burrich persuaded all involved that at least one of our warships should remain fully manned and on alert, in the water. His premonition was proven correct the next morning, when two more Red-Ships sailed around the northern point of the bay. The Rurisk ran them off, but they fled too easily for us to take any satisfaction in it. All knew they would simply find an undefended village to raid farther up the coast. Several of the fishing vessels belatedly gave chase, though there was little chance of them catching the oared vessels of the Raiders.

By the second day of waiting, we were beginning to be bored and uncomfortable. The weather had turned foul again. The hard bread was starting to taste of mold, the dried fish was no longer completely dry. To cheer us, Duke Kelvar had added the Buck flag of the Six Duchies to his own pennon flying over Bayguard to acknowledge us. But like us, he had chosen a waiting strategy. The Outislanders were penned. They had not attempted to break out past us, nor to advance closer to the Keep. All was still and waiting.

“You don’t listen to warnings. You never have.” Burrich spoke quietly to me.

Night had fallen. It was the first time since our arrival that we had had more than a few moments together. He sat on a log, his injured leg stretched straight in front of him. I crouched by the fire, trying to warm my hands. We were outside a temporary shelter set up for the Queen, tending a very smoky fire. Burrich had wanted her to settle in one of the few intact buildings left in Neatbay, but she had refused, insisting on staying close to her warriors. Her guard came and went freely, in her shelter and at her fire. Burrich frowned over their familiarity, but also approved her loyalty. “Your father, too, was like that,” he observed suddenly as two of Kettricken’s guard emerged from her shelter and went to relieve others still on watch.

“Didn’t take warnings?” I asked in surprise.

Burrich shook his head. “No. Always his soldiers, coming and going, at all hours. I’ve always wondered when he found the privacy to create you.”

I must have looked shocked, for Burrich suddenly flushed as well. “Sorry. I’m tired and my leg is . . . uncomfortable. I wasn’t thinking what I was saying.”

I found a smile unexpectedly. “It’s all right,” I said, and it was. When he had found out about Nighteyes, I was afraid he was going to banish me again. A jest, even a rough jest, was welcome. “You were saying about warnings?” I asked humbly.

He sighed. “You said it. We are as we are. And he said it. Sometimes they don’t give you a choice. They just bond to you.”

Somewhere off in the darkness, a dog howled. It was not really a dog. Burrich glared at me. “I can’t control him at all,” I admitted.

Nor I, you. Why should there be control, one of the other?

“Nor does he stay out of personal conversations,” I observed.

“Nor personal anything,” Burrich said flatly. He spoke in the voice of a man who knew.

“I thought you said you never used . . . it.” Even out here, I would not say “the Wit” aloud.

“I don’t. No good comes of it. I will tell you plainly now what I’ve told you before. It . . . changes you. If you give in to it. If you live it. If you can’t shut it out, at least don’t seek after it. Don’t become—”

“Burrich?”

We both jumped. It was Foxglove, come quietly out of the darkness to stand on the other side of the fire. How much had she heard?

“Yes? Is there a problem?”

She hunkered down in the darkness, lifted her red hands to the fire. She sighed. “I don’t know. How do I ask this? Are you aware she’s pregnant?”

Burrich and I exchanged glances. “Who?” he asked levelly.

“I’ve got two children of my own, you know. And most of her guard is women. She pukes every morning, and lives off raspberry-leaf tea. She can’t even look at the salt fish without retching. She shouldn’t be here, living like this.” Foxglove nodded toward the tent.

Oh. The Vixen.

Shut up.

“She did not ask our advice,” Burrich said carefully.

“The situation here is under control. There is no reason she should not be sent back to Buckkeep,” Foxglove said calmly.

“I can’t imagine ‘sending her back’ to anywhere,” Burrich observed. “I think it would have to be a decision she reached on her own.”

“You might suggest it to her,” Foxglove ventured.

“So might you,” Burrich countered. “You are captain of her guard. The concern is rightly yours.”

“I haven’t been keeping watch outside her door each night,” Foxglove objected.