highly eccentric woman whose great love for her husband did not preclude her forthright declaring of unpopular opinions. Nor did it dissuade her from the single-minded pursuit of any avocation that caught her fleeting fancy. Her parents preceded her in death, dying in the year of the Blood Plague, and she was childless and presumed barren when her husband, Chivalry, fell to his death from a horse.
I awoke. Or, at least, I came back to myself. I was in my bed, surrounded by warmth and gentleness. I didn't move, but cautiously searched myself for pain. My head no longer pounded, but I felt tired and achy, stiff as one sometimes is after pain passes. A shiver went up my back. Molly was naked beside me, breathing gently against my shoulder. The fire had burned low, nearly out. I listened. It was either very very late, or very early. The Keep was near silent.
I didn't remember getting here.
I shivered again. Beside me, Molly stirred. She pulled closer to me, smiled sleepily. 'You are so strange sometimes,' she breathed. 'But I love you.' She closed her eyes again.
Nighteyes!
I am here. He was always there.
Suddenly I couldn't ask, I didn't want to know. I just lay still, feeling sick and sad and sorry for myself.
I tried to rouse you, but you were not ready to come back. That Other One had drained you.
That 'Other One' is our king.
Your king. Wolves have no kings.
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, l 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?'
I shrugged ashamedly. 'I don't know. That is the curse of my flaws. My link with him is erratic. Sometimes I know his mind as clearly as if he stood beside me and spoke it aloud. At other times I am scarcely aware of him at all. Last night, when they spoke through me, I heard every word. Right now…' I felt about inside myself, a pocket- patting sort of thinking. 'I feel nothing more than that we are still linked.' I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. I felt drained.
'Tea?' Chade asked me gently.
'Please. And if I could just sit for a bit longer, quietly. I don't know when my head has throbbed this badly.'
Chade set the kettle over the fire. I watched with distaste as he mixed brewing herbs for it. Some elfbark, but not near as much as I would have required earlier. Peppermint and catmint leaves. A bit of precious ginger root. I recognized much of what he used to give Verity for his Skill exhaustion. Then he came back to sit close beside me again. 'It could not be. What you suggest would require blind loyalty from the coterie to Regal.'
'It can be created by one strongly Skilled. My flaw is a result of what Galen did to me. Do you remember Galen's fanatical admiration of Chivalry? That was a created loyalty. Galen could have done it to them, before he died, when he was finishing their training.'
Chade shook his head slowly. 'Do you think Regal could be so stupid as to think the Red-Ships would stop at Bearns? Eventually they will want Buck, they will want Rippon and Shoaks. Where does that leave him?'
'With the Inland Duchies. The only ones he cares about, the only ones with which he has a mutual loyalty. It would give him a vast perimeter of land as an insulation against anything the Red-Ships might do. And like you, perhaps, he may believe they are not after territory, but only a raiding grounds. They are sea folk. They will not come that far inland to trouble him. And the Coastal Duchies will be too busy fighting the Red-Ships to turn on Regal.'
'If the Six Duchies loses her seacoast, she loses her trade, her shipping. How pleased will his Inland Dukes be with that?'
I shrugged. 'I do not know. I have not all the answers, Chade. But this is the only theory I've been able to
