Royal Assassin

‘Do you think it’s Buckkeep?’ Hands shouted through the rising wind.

‘It is,’ Burrich asserted quietly, his deep voice carrying effortlessly. ‘I know where we are now. This is where Prince Verity killed that big doe about six years ago. I remember because she leaped when the arrow went in, and tumbled down that gully. It took us the rest of the day to get down there and pack the meat out.’

The gully he gestured to was no more than a line of brush glimpsed through the falling snow. But suddenly it all snapped into place for me. The lie of this hillside, the types of trees, the gully there, and so Buckkeep was that way, just a brief ride before we could clearly see the fortress on the sea-cliffs overlooking the bay and Buckkeep Town below. For the first time in days, I knew with absolute certainty where we were. The heavy overcast had kept us from checking our course by the stars, and the unusually deep snowfall had altered the lay of the land until even Burrich had seemed unsure. But now I knew that home was but a brief ride away. In summer. But I picked up what was left of my determination.

‘Not much farther,’ I told Burrich.

Hands had already started his horse. The stocky little gelding surged ahead bravely, breaking trail through the banked snow. I nudged Sooty and the tall mare reluctantly stepped out. As she leaned into the hill, I slid to one side. As I scrabbled futilely at my saddle, Burrich nudged his horse abreast of mine. He reached out, seized me by the back of my collar and dragged me upright again. ‘It’s not much farther,’ he agreed. ‘You’ll make it.’

I managed a nod. It was only the second time he’d had to steady me in the last hour or so. One of my better evenings, I told myself bitterly. I pulled myself up straighter in the saddle, resolutely squared my shoulders. Nearly home.

The journey had been long and arduous. The weather had been foul, and the constant hardships had not improved my health. Much of it I remembered like a dark dream; days of jolting along in the saddle, barely cognizant of our path, nights when I lay between Hands and Burrich in our small tent and trembled with a weariness so great I could not even sleep. As we had drawn closer to Buck Duchy, I had thought our travel would become easier. I had not reckoned on Burrich’s caution.

At Turlake, we had stopped a night at an inn. I had thought that we’d take passage on a river barge the next day, for though ice might line the banks of the Buck River, its strong current kept a channel clear year round. I went straight to our room, for I had not much stamina. Burrich and Hands were both anticipating hot food and companionship, to say nothing of ale. I had not expected them to come soon to the room. But scarcely two hours had passed before they both came up to ready themselves for bed.

Burrich was grim and silent, but after he had gone to bed, Hands whispered to me from his bed how poorly the King was spoken of in this town. ‘Had they known we were from Buckkeep, I doubt they would have spoken so freely. But clad as we are in Mountain garments, they thought us traders or merchants. A dozen times I thought Burrich would challenge one of them. In truth, I do not know how he contained himself. All complain about the taxes for defending the coast. They sneer, saying that for all the taxes they bleed, the Raiders still came unlooked for in autumn, when the weather lasted fine, and burned two more towns.’ Hands had paused, and uncertainly added, ‘But they speak uncommonly well of Prince Regal. He passed through here escorting Kettricken back to Buckkeep. One man at the table called her a great white fish of a wife, fit for the Coast King. And another spoke up, saying that at least Prince Regal bore himself well despite his hardships, and looked ever as a prince should. Then they drank to the Prince’s health and long life.’

A cold settled in me. I whispered back, ‘The two Forged villages. Did you hear which ones they were?’

‘Whale-jaw up in Bearns. And Siltbay in Buck itself.’

The darkness settled darker around me, and I lay watching it all night.

The next morning we left Turlake. On horseback. Overland. Burrich would not even let us keep to the road. I had protested in vain. He had listened to me complain, then taken me aside to demand fiercely, ‘Do you want to die?’

I looked at him blankly. He snorted in disgust.

‘Fitz, nothing has changed. You’re still a royal bastard, and Prince Regal still regards you as an obstacle. He’s tried to be rid of you, not once, but thrice. Do you think he’s going to welcome you back to Buckkeep? No. Even better for him if we never make it back at all. So let’s not make easy targets of ourselves. We go overland. If he or his hirelings want us, they’ll have to hunt us through the woods. And he’s never been much of a hunter.’

‘Wouldn’t Verity protect us?’ I asked weakly.

‘You’re a King’s Man, and Verity is King-in-Waiting,’ Burrich had pointed out shortly. ‘You protect your king, Fitz. Not the reverse. Not that he doesn’t think well of you, and would do all he could to protect you. But he has weightier matters to attend. Red Ships. A new bride. And a younger brother who thinks the crown would sit better on his own head. No. Don’t expect the King-in-Waiting to watch over you. Do that for yourself.’

All I could think of was the extra days he was putting between me and my search for Molly. But I did not give that reason. I had not told him of my dream. Instead, I said, ‘Regal would have to be crazy to try to kill us again. Everyone would know he was the murderer.’

‘Not crazy, Fitz. Just ruthless. Regal is that. Let’s not ever suppose that Regal abides by the rules we observe, or even thinks as we do. If Regal sees an opportunity to kill us, he’ll take it. He won’t care who suspects so long as no one can prove it. Verity is our King-in-Waiting. Not our king. Not yet. While King Shrewd is alive and on the throne, Regal will find ways around his father. He will get away with many things. Even murder.’

Burrich had reined his horse aside from the well travelled road, plunged off through drifts and up the unmarked snowy hillside beyond, to strike a straight course for Buckkeep. Hands had looked at me as if he felt ill. But we had followed. And every night when we had slept, bundled all together in a single tent for warmth instead of in beds at a cosy inn, I had thought of Regal. Every floundering step up each hillside, leading our horses more often than not, and during every cautious descent, I had thought of the youngest prince. I tallied every extra hour between Molly and me. The only times I felt strength surge through me were during my day-dreams of battering Regal into ruin. I could not promise myself revenge. Revenge was the property of the crown. But if I could not have revenge, Regal would not have satisfaction. I would return to Buckkeep, and I would stand tall before him, and when his black eye fell upon me, I would not flinch. Nor, I vowed, would Regal ever see me tremble, or catch at a wall for support, or pass a hand before my blurry eyes. He would never know how close he had come to winning it all.

So at last we rode to Buckkeep, not up the winding sea-coast road, but from the forested hills behind her. The snow dwindled, then ceased. The night winds blew the clouds aside, and a fine moon made Buckkeep’s stone walls shine black as jet against the sea. Light shimmered yellow in her turrets and at the side gate. ‘We’re home,’ Burrich said quietly. We rode down one last hill, struck the road at last, and rode around to the great gate of Buckkeep.

A young soldier stood night-guard. He lowered his pike to block our way and demanded our names.

Burrich pushed his hood back from his face, but the lad didn’t move. ‘I’m Burrich, the Stablemaster!’ Burrich informed him incredulously. ‘The Stablemaster here for longer than you’ve been alive, most likely. I feel I should be asking you what your business is here at my gate!’

Before the flustered lad could reply, there was a tumble and rush of soldiers from the guard house. ‘It is Burrich!’ the watch sergeant exclaimed. Burrich was instantly the centre of a cluster of men, all shouting greetings and talking at once while Hands and I sat on our weary horses at the edge of the hubbub. The sergeant, one Blade, finally shouted them to silence, mostly so he could speak his own comments easily. ‘We hadn’t looked for you until spring, man,’ the burly old soldier declared. ‘And even then, we was told you might not be the man that left here. But you look good, you do. A bit cold, and outlandishly dressed, and another scar or two, but yourself for all that. Word was that you was hurt bad, and the Bastard like to die. Plague or poison, the rumours was.’

Burrich laughed and held out his arms that all might admire his Mountain garb. For a moment I saw Burrich as they must have seen him, his purple and yellow quilted trousers and smock and buskins. I no longer wondered at how we had been challenged at the gate. But I did wonder at the rumours.

‘Who said the Bastard would die?’ I demanded curiously.

‘Who’s asking?’ Blade demanded in return. He glanced over my garments, looked me in the eye, and knew me not. But as I sat up straighter on my horse, he gave a start. To this day, I believe he knew Sooty and that was how he recognized me. He did not cover his shock.

‘Fitz? There’s hardly half of you left! You look like you’ve had the blood plague.’ It was my first inkling of just how bad I looked to those who knew me.

‘Who said I had been poisoned, or afflicted with plague?’ I repeated the question quietly.

Blade flinched and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Oh, no one. Well, no one in particular. You know how it is. When you didn’t come back with the others, well, some supposed this and some that, and pretty soon, it was almost like we knew it. Rumours, guard-room talk. Soldiers gossip. We wondered why you didn’t come back, that was all. No one believed anything that was said. We spread too many rumours ourselves to give gossip any credence. We just wondered why you and Burrich and Hands hadn’t come back.’

He finally realized he was repeating himself and fell silent before my stare. I let the silence stretch long enough to make it plain that I didn’t intend to answer this question. Then I shrugged it away. ‘No harm done, Blade. But you can tell them all the Bastard isn’t done for yet. Plagues or poisons, you should have known Burrich would physick me through it. I’m alive and well; I just look like a corpse.’

‘Oh, Fitz, lad, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that …’

‘I said, no harm done, Blade. Let it go.’

‘Good enough, sir,’ he replied.

I nodded, and looked at Burrich to find him regarding me strangely. When I turned to exchange a puzzled glance with Hands, I met the same startlement on his face. I could not guess the reason.

‘Well, good night to you, sergeant. Don’t chide your man with the pike. He did well to stop strangers at Buckkeep’s gate.’

‘Yes sir. Good night, sir.’ Blade gave me a rusty salute and the great wooden gates swung wide before us as we entered the keep. Sooty lifted her head and some of the weariness fell from her. Behind me, Hands’ horse whinnied softly and Burrich’s snorted. Never before had the road from the keep wall to the stables seemed so long. As Hands dismounted, Burrich caught me by the sleeve and held me back. Hands greeted the drowsy stable-boy who appeared to light our way.

‘We’ve been some time in the Mountain Kingdom, Fitz,’ Burrich cautioned me in a low voice. ‘Up there, no one cares what side of the sheets you were born on. But we’re home now. Here, Chivalry’s son is not a prince, but a bastard.’

‘I know that.’ I was stung by his directness. ‘I’ve known it all my life. Lived it all my life.’

‘You have,’ he conceded. A strange look stole over his face, a smile half incredulous and half proud. ‘So why are you demanding reports of the sergeant, and giving out commendations as briskly as if you were Chivalry himself? I scarce believed it, how you spoke, and how those men came to heel. You didn’t even take notice of how they responded to you, you didn’t even realize you’d stepped up and taken command away from me.’

I felt a slow flush creep up my face. All in the Mountain Kingdom had treated me as if I were a prince in fact, instead of a prince’s bastard. Had I so quickly accustomed myself to that higher station?

Burrich chuckled at my expression, then quickly grew sober. ‘Fitz, you need to find your caution again. Keep your eyes down and don’t carry your head like a young stallion. Regal will take it as a challenge, and that’s something we aren’t ready to face. Not yet. Maybe not ever.’

I nodded grimly, my eyes on the churned snow of the stable yard. I had become careless. When I reported to Chade, the old assassin would not be pleased with his apprentice. I would have to answer for it. I had no doubt that he would know all about the incident at the gate before he next summoned me.

‘Don’t be a sluggard. Get down, boy.’ Burrich interrupted my musings abruptly. I jumped to his tone and realized that he, too, was having to readjust to our comparative positions at Buckkeep. How many years had I been his stable-boy and ward? Best that we resume those roles as closely as possible. It would save kitchen gossip. I dismounted and, leading Sooty, followed Burrich into his stables.

Inside it was warm and close. The blackness and cold of the winter night were shut outside the thick stone wall. Here was home, the lanterns shone yellow and the stalled horses breathed slow and deep. But as Burrich passed, the stables came to life. Not a horse or a dog in the whole place didn’t catch his scent and rouse to give greeting. The Stablemaster was home, and he was greeted warmly by those who knew him best. Two stable-boys soon trailed after us, rattling off simultaneously every bit of news concerning hawk or hound or horse. Burrich was in full command here, nodding sagely and asking a terse question or two as he absorbed every detail. His reserve only broke when his old bitch hound Vixen came walking stiff to greet him. He went down on one knee to hug and thump her and she wiggled puppyishly and tried to lick his face. ‘Now, here’s a real dog,’ he greeted her. Then he stood again, to continue his round. She followed him, hindquarters wobbling with every wag of her tail.

I lagged behind, the warmth robbing the strength from my limbs. One boy came hurrying back to leave a lamp with me, and then hastened away to pay court to Burrich. I came to Sooty’s stall and unlatched the door. She entered eagerly, snorting her appreciation. I set my light on its shelf and looked about me. Home. This was home, more than my chamber up in the castle, more than anywhere else in the world. A stall in Burrich’s stable, safe in his domain, one of his creatures. If only I could turn back the days, and burrow into the deep straw and drag a horse blanket over my head.

Sooty snorted again, this time rebukingly. She’d carried me all those days and ways, and deserved every comfort I could give her. But every buckle resisted my numbed and weary fingers. I dragged the saddle down from her back and very nearly dropped it. I fumbled at her bridle endlessly, the bright metal of the buckles dancing before my eyes. Finally I closed them and let my fingers work alone to take her bridle off. When I opened my eyes, Hands was at my elbow. I nodded at him, and the bridle dropped from my lifeless fingers. He glanced at it, but said nothing. Instead he poured for Sooty the bucket of fresh water he had brought, and shook out oats for her and fetched an armful of sweet hay with much green still to it. I had taken down Sooty’s brushes when he reached past me and took them from my feeble grip. ‘I’ll do this,’ he said quietly.

‘Take care of your own horse first,’ I chided him.

‘I already did, Fitz. Look. You can’t do a good job on her. Let me do it. You can barely stand up. Go get some rest.’ He added, almost kindly, ‘Another time, when we ride, you can do Stoutheart for me.’

‘Burrich will have my hide off if I leave my animal’s care for someone else.’

‘No, he won’t. He wouldn’t leave an animal in the care of someone who can barely stand,’ Burrich observed from outside the stall. ‘Leave Sooty to Hands, boy. He knows his job. Hands, take charge of things here for a bit. When you’ve done with Sooty, check on that spotted mare at the south end of the stables. I don’t know who owns her or where she came from, but she looks sick. If you find it so, have the boys move her away from the other horses and scrub out the stall with vinegar. I’ll be back in a bit after I see FitzChivalry to his quarters. I’ll bring you food, and we’ll eat in my room. Oh. Tell a boy to start us a fire. Probably cold as a cave up there.’

Hands nodded, already busy with my horse. Sooty’s nose was in her oats. Burrich took my arm. ‘Come along,’ he said, just as he spoke to a horse. I found myself unwillingly leaning on him as he walked the long row of stalls. At the door he picked up a lantern. The night seemed colder and darker after the warmth of the stables. As we walked up the frozen path to the kitchens, the snow began to fall again. My mind went swirling and drifting with the flakes. I wasn’t sure where my feet were. ‘It’s all changed, forever, now,’ I observed to the night. My words whirled away with the snowflakes.

‘What has?’ Burrich asked cautiously. His tone bespoke his worry that I might be getting feverish again.

‘Everything. How you treat me. When you aren’t thinking about it. How Hands treats me. Two years ago, he and I were friends. Just two boys working in the stables. He’d never have offered to brush down my horse for me. But tonight, he treated me like some sickly weakling … not even someone he can insult about it. As if I should just expect him to do things like that for me. The men at the gate didn’t even know me. Even you, Burrich. Six months or a year ago, if I took sick, you’d have dragged me up to your loft and dosed me like a hound. And if I’d complained, you’d have had no tolerance for it. Now you walk me up to the kitchen doors and …’

‘Stop whining,’ Burrich said gruffly. ‘Stop complaining and stop pitying yourself. If Hands looked like you do, you’d do the same for him.’ Almost unwillingly he added, ‘Things change, because time passes. Hands hasn’t stopped being your friend. But you are not the same boy who left Buckkeep at harvest time. That Fitz was an errand boy for Verity, and had been my stable-boy, but wasn’t much more than that. A royal bastard, yes, but that seemed of small importance to any save me. But up at Jhaampe in the Mountain Kingdom, you showed yourself more than that. It doesn’t matter if your face is pale, or if you can barely walk after a day in the saddle. You move as Chivalry’s son should. That is what shows in your bearing, and what those guards responded to. And Hands.’ He took a breath and paused to shoulder the heavy kitchen door open. ‘And I, Eda help us all,’ he added in a mutter.

But then, as if to belie his own words, he steered me into the watch-room off the kitchen and unceremoniously dumped me at one of the long benches beside the scarred wooden table. The watch-room smelled incredibly good. Here was where any soldier, no matter how muddy or snowy or drunk, could come and find comfort. Cook always kept a kettle of stew simmering over the fire, and bread and cheese waited on the table, as well as a slab of yellow summer butter from the deep larder. Burrich served us up bowls of hot stew thick with barley and mugs of cold ale to go with the bread and butter and cheese.

For a moment I just looked at it, too weary to lift a spoon. But the smell tempted me to one mouthful and that was all it took. Midway through, I paused to shoulder out of my quilted smock and break off another slab of bread. I looked up from my second bowl of stew to find Burrich watching me with amusement. ‘Better?’ he asked.

I stopped to think about it. ‘Yes.’ I was warm, fed, and though I was tired, it was a good weariness, one that might be cured by sleep. I lifted my hand and looked at it. I could still feel the tremors, but they were no longer obvious to the eye. ‘Much better.’ I stood, and found my legs unsteady under me.

‘Now you’re fit to report to the King.’

I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Now? Tonight? King Shrewd’s long abed. I won’t get past his door guard.’

‘Perhaps not, and you should be grateful for that. But you must at least announce yourself there tonight. It’s the King’s decision as to when he will see you. If you’re turned away, then you can go to bed. But I’ll wager that if King Shrewd turns you aside, King-in-Waiting Verity will still want a report. And probably right away.’

‘Are you going back to the stables?’

‘Of course.’ He smiled in wolfish self-satisfaction. ‘Me, I’m just the Stablemaster, Fitz. I have nothing to report. And I promised Hands I’d bring him something to eat.’

I watched silently as he loaded a platter. He sliced the bread lengthwise and covered two bowls of the hot stew with a slab of it, and then loaded a wedge of cheese and a thick slice of yellow butter onto the side.

‘What do you think of Hands?’

‘He’s a good lad,’ Burrich said grudgingly.

‘He’s more than that. You chose him to stay in the Mountain Kingdom and ride home with us, when you sent all the others back with the main caravan.’

‘I needed someone steady. At that time, you were … very ill. And I wasn’t much better, truth to tell.’ He lifted a hand to a streak of white in his dark hair, testimony to the blow that had nearly killed him.

‘How did you come to choose him?’

‘I didn’t really. He came to me. Somehow he found where they’d housed us, and then talked his way past Jonqui. I was still bandaged up and scarce able to make my eyes focus. I felt him standing there more than saw him. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me that I needed to put someone in charge, because with me sick and Cob gone, the stable help were getting sloppy.’

‘And that impressed you.’

‘He got to the point. No idle questions about me, or you, or what was going on. He had found the thing he could do and come to do it. I like that in a man. Knowing what he can do, and doing it. So I put him in charge. He managed it well. I kept him when I sent the others home because I knew I might need a man who could do that. And also to see for myself what he was. Was he all ambition, or was there a genuine understanding of what a man owes a beast when he claims to own him? Did he want power over those under him, or the well-being of his animals?’

‘What do you think of him now?’

‘I am not so young as I once was. I think there still may be a good Stablemaster in Buckkeep Stables when I can no longer manage an ill-tempered stallion. Not that I expect to step down soon. There is still much he needs to be taught. But we are both still young enough, him to learn and me to teach. There is a satisfaction in that.’

I nodded. Once, I supposed, he had planned that spot for me. Now we both knew it would never be.

He turned to go. ‘Burrich,’ I said quietly. He paused. ‘No one can replace you. Thank you. For all you’ve done these last few months. I owe you my life. Not just that you saved me from death. But you gave me my life, and who I am. Ever since I was six. Chivalry was my father, I know. But I never met him. You’ve fathered me day in and day out, over a lot of years. I didn’t always appreciate …’

Burrich snorted and opened the door. ‘Save speeches like that for when one of us is dying. Go report, and then go to bed.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I heard myself say, and knew that he smiled even as I did. He shouldered the door open and bore Hands’ dinner out to the stables for him. He was home there.

And this, here, was my home. Time I dealt with that. I took a moment to straighten my damp clothing and run a hand through my hair. I cleared our dishes from the table and then folded my wet smock over my arm.

As I made my way from the kitchen to the hall, and then to the Great Hall, I was mystified by what I saw. Did the tapestries glow more brightly than they once had? Had the strewing herbs always smelled so sweet, the carved woodwork by each doorway always gleamed so warmly? Briefly I put it down to my relief at finally being home. But when I paused at the foot of the great stair to take up a candle to light my way up to my chamber, I noticed that the table there was not bespattered with wax, and more, that an embroidered cloth graced it.