Robin Hobb - Royal Assassin

I rounded to confront him. "What are you talking about?" I asked in a low voice. My heart began to thunder. I hoped he'd make me kill him. Frightening to know suddenly how badly I wanted to.

He blanched but did not back down. He reminded me of a braggart child. "You walk like you are the King himself, you sneer down at me, and make mock of me behind my back. Don't think I don't know it!" He clawed his way up the wall, staggered to his feet. "But you are not so great. You Skill once, and think you are a master, but your Skilling stinks of your dog magic! Do not think you will walk so proud always. You will be brought down! And soon!"

A wolf clamored in me for instant vengeance. I leashed my temper. "Do you dare to spy upon my Skilling to Prince Verity, Justin? I did not think you had the courage."

"You know I did, Bastard. I do not fear you so that I must hide from you. I dare much; Bastard! Much more than you would suppose." His stance showed him growing braver by the minute.

"Not if I suppose treachery and treason, though. Has not King-in-Waiting Verity been declared dead, oh loyally sworn coterie member? Yet you spy upon me Skilling to him, and you express no surprise?"

For a moment Justin stood stock-still. Then he grew bold. "Say what you like, Bastard. No one will believe you if we deny it."

"Have the sense to be silent at least," Serene declared. She came down the hallway like a ship under full sail. I did not step aside, but forced her to brush past me. She seized Justin's arm, claiming him like a dropped basket.

"Silence is but another form of lying, Serene." She had turned Justin about and was walking him away from me. "You know that King Verity still lives!" I shouted after them. "Do you think he will never return? Do you think you will never have to answer for the lie you live?"

They turned a corner and were gone, leaving me to seethe silently, and curse myself for shouting so blatantly aloud what as yet we must conceal. But the incident had pushed me into an aggressive frame of mind. I left Verity's study and prowled the Keep. The kitchens were abustle and Cook had no time for me, other than to ask if I had heard that a serpent had been found lying before the fire on the main hearth. I said doubtless it had crawled into the firewood to shelter for the winter and come in with a log. The warmth would have brought it to life. She just shook her head and said she had never heard of the like, but that it boded evil. She told me again of the Pocked Man by the well, but in her story, he had been drinking from the bucket, and when he lowered it from his spotted face, the water that ran down his chin was red as blood. She was making the kitchen boys bring water from the well in the washing courts for all the cooking. She'd have no one dropping dead at her table.

On that cheerful note, I left the kitchen, with a couple of sweet cakes I had light-fingered from a tray. I had not gotten far before a page stood before me. "FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry?" he addressed me cautiously.

His wider cheekbones marked him as probably being Bearns stock, and when I looked for it, I found the yellow flower that was the Bearns sigil sewn to his patched jerkin. For a boy of his height, he was wretchedly thin. I nodded gravely.

"My master, Duke Brawndy of Bearns, desires that you wait upon him as soon as you handily may." He spoke the words carefully. I doubted he had been a page long.

"That would be now."

"Then shall I show you to him?"

"I can find my way. Here. I should not take these up there with me." I handed him the sweet cakes, and he received them doubtfully.

"Shall I save them for you, sir?" he asked seriously, and it smote me to see a boy put such a high value on food.

"Perhaps you would eat them for me, and if they suit you, you might go in the kitchens and tell our cook Sara what you think of her work."

No matter how busy it was in there, I knew a compliment from a skinny boy would win him at least a bowl of stew.

"Yes, sir!" His face lit at my orders and he hastened away from me, half of one cake already in his mouth.

The lesser guest rooms were those on the opposite side of the Great Hall from the King's rooms. They were considered lesser, I suppose, mostly because their windows faced onto the mountains rather than the sea, and hence the rooms were gloomier. But the chambers were no smaller, nor less handsome in any other way.

Save that the last time I had been admitted to one, it had been decently furnished. Bearns guards admitted me to a sitting room that offered only three chairs in which to sit and a bare rickety table in the middle. Faith greeted me, neutrally formal, and then went to let Duke Brawndy know I was there. The tapestries and hangings that had once warmed the walls and given color to the stone chamber were gone. It was as cheery as a dungeon, save that a warm fire on the hearth brightened it. I remained standing in the center of the room until Duke Brawndy emerged from his bedchamber to greet me. He invited me to be seated, and awkwardly we drew two of the chairs closer to the hearth. There should have been breads and pastries upon the table, there should have been kettles and mugs and brewing herbs for tea, and bottles of wine in these rooms to welcome Buckkeep's guests. It pained me that there were not. Faith hovered in the background like a hunting hawk. I could not help but wonder where Celerity was.

We exchanged a few minor pleasantries, and then Brawndy plunged into his topic like a draft horse into a snowdrift. "I understand King Shrewd is ill, too ill to see any of his dukes. Regal, of course, is much too busy with preparations for tomorrow." The sarcasm was heavy as thick cream. "So I wished to visit Her Majesty Queen Kettricken," he announced ponderously. "For as you know, she has been most courteous to me in the past. But at her door, her ladies told me she was not well and should not have visitors. I have heard a rumor that she was with child, and that now, in her grief and her foolishness at riding to Rippon's defense, she has lost it. Is this so?"

I took a breath, studied fair words for my response. "Our king is, as you say, very ill. I do not think you shall see him, save at the ceremony. Our queen is likewise indisposed, but I am sure that if she had been told you were at her door yourself, you would have been admitted. She has not lost the child. She rode to the defense of Neatbay for the same reasons she has gifted you with opals; for fear that if she did not act, no other would. Nor was it her actions at Neatbay that threatened her child, but a fall down a tower stair here at Buckkeep. And the child was only threatened, not lost, though our queen was sorely bruised."

"I see." He sat back in his chair and pondered for a bit. The silence took root between us and grew while I waited. At last he leaned forward and motioned me to do the same. When our heads were close together, he asked quietly, "FitzChivalry, have you any ambitions?"

This was the moment. King Shrewd had predicted it years ago, and Chade more recently. When I made no immediate answer, Brawndy went on as if each word were a stone he shaped before handing it to me. "The heir to the Farseer throne is a babe as yet unborn. Once Regal has declared himself King-in-Waiting, do you think he will wait long to claim the throne? We do not. For although these words come from my lips, I speak for Rippon and Shoaks Duchies as well. Shrewd has become old, and feeble. A King in name only. We have had a taste of what kind of king Regal would be. What should we suffer while Regal holds title until Verity's child comes of age? Not that I expect the child will manage to be born, let alone mount the throne." He paused, cleared his throat, and looked at me earnestly. Faith stood by the door as if guarding our talk. I kept my silence.