'What did she say?' I rose from my chair.
'Not very much. She is always very correct with me. I am very direct with her. I simply told her you missed her.'
'And she said?'
'Nothing.' He grinned. 'But she blushes very prettily.' He sighed, suddenly serious. 'And, as directly, I asked her if anyone had given her any further cause to fear. She squared her little shoulders and tucked in her chin like I was trying to force a bit in her teeth. She said she thanked me kindly for my concern, as she had before, but that she was capable of seeing to herself.' In a quieter voice, he asked, 'Will she ask for help if she needs it?'
'I don't know,' I confessed. 'She has her own store of courage. Her own way of fighting. She turns and confronts things. Me, I slink about and try to hamstring them when they aren't looking. Sometimes, she makes me feel a coward.'
Burrich stood up, stretching so that his shoulders cracked. 'You're no coward, Fitz. I'll vouch for you there. Perhaps you just understand odds better than she does. I wish I could put your mind at rest about her. I can't. I'll watch over her as well as I can. As much as she'll let me.' He gave me a sideways glance. 'Hands asked me today who the pretty lady is who calls on me so often.'
'What did you tell him?'
'Nothing. I just looked at him.'
I knew the look. There would be no more questions from Hands.
Burrich left and I sprawled on my bed, trying to rest. I could not. I made my body be still, reasoning that at least my flesh would take some rest, even if my mind persisted in rattling on. A better man's thoughts would have been solely of his king's plight. I am afraid a good share of mine went to Molly, alone in her room. When I could stand it no more, I rose from my bed and ghosted out into the Keep.
Sounds of dying revelry still drifted up from the Great Hall below. The corridor was empty. I ventured silently toward the stairs. I told myself I would be very, very careful, that all I would do was tap at her door, perhaps go in for a few moments, just to see she was all right. No more than that. Just the briefest of visits…
You are followed. Nighteyes' new caution of Burrich made his voice but the tiniest whisper in my head.
I did not halt. That would have let my follower know I was suspicious. Instead I scratched my shoulder, making it an excuse to swivel my head about and glance behind me. I saw no one.
Snuff.
I did, a short breath followed by a deeper intake. A bare scent on the air. Sweat and garlic. I quested gently and my blood went cold. There, at the far end of the hall, concealed in a doorway. Will. Dark, slender Will, with his eyes always halflidded. The coterie member who had been recalled from Bearns. Very cautiously I touched the Skill shield that hid him from me, a subtle bidding that I not notice him, a quiet scent of self-confidence sent my way to bolster me in doing whatever I wished to do. Very guileful. Very artful, much more delicate a touch than either Serene or Justin had ever shown me.
A much more dangerous man.
I went to the landing of the stairs and took candles from the extra ones stored there, then returned to my room as if that had been my sole errand.
When I closed my door behind me, my mouth was dry. I sighed out a shuddering breath. I forced myself to examine the guards that warded my mind. He had not been in me, that I could tell. He was not sniffing out my thoughts, then, but only imposing his on me to make it easier for him to shadow me. Had it not been for Nighteyes, he would have followed me right to Molly's door tonight. I forced myself to lie down on my bed again, to try to recall all of my actions since Will had returned to Buckkeep. I had been dismissing him as an enemy simply because he did not radiate the hatred for me that Serene and Justin did. He had always been a quiet and unimposing youth. He had grown to be an unremarkable man, scarce worth anyone's attention.
I had been a fool.
I do not think he has followed you before. But I cannot be sure either.
Nighteyes, my brother. How do I thank you?
Stay alive. A pause. And bring me ginger cake.
You shall have it, I promised fervently.
Burrich's fire had burned low and I still had not slept when I felt Chade's draft sweep through my room. It was almost a relief to rise and go to him.
I found him awaiting me impatiently, pacing about his small room. He pounced on me as I came out of the stairwell.
'An assassin is a tool,' he informed me in a hiss. 'Somehow, I never got that across to you. We are tools. We do not do anything of our own volition.'
I stopped still, shocked at the anger in his voice. 'I haven't killed anyone!' I said indignantly.
'Shush! Speak softly. I would not be too sure of that, were I you,' he replied. 'How many times have I done my job, not by putting the knife in myself, but simply by giving someone else sufficient reason and opportunity to do it for me?'
I said nothing.
He looked at me and sighed, the anger and strength going out of him. Softly he said, 'Sometimes, the best you can do is just salvage work. Sometimes we have to resign ourselves to that. We are not the ones to set the wheels in motion, boy. What you did tonight was ill-considered.'
'So the Fool and Burrich have both told me. I don't think Kettricken would agree.'
'Kettricken and her child could both have lived with her grief. As could King Shrewd. Look at what they were. A foreign woman, widow of a dead King-in-Waiting, mother of a child that isn't visible yet, and who will be unable to wield power for years to come. Regal judged Shrewd to be but a doddering helpless old man, useful as a puppet perhaps, but harmless enough. Regal had no immediate reason to put them aside. Oh, I agree Kettricken's position was not as secure as it could be, but she was not in direct opposition to Regal. That is where she is now.'
'She did not tell him what we had discovered,' I said unwillingly.
'She did not have to. It will show, in her bearing and in her will to resist him. He had reduced her to a widow. You have restored her to a Queen-in-Waiting. But it is for Shrewd that I worry. Shrewd is the one who holds the key, who can stand up and say, even in a whisper, `Verity still lives, Regal has no right to be king-in- waiting.' He is the one Regal must fear.'
'I have seen Shrewd, Chade. Really seen him. I do not think he will betray what he knows. Beneath that faltering body, beneath the numbing drugs and the savage pain, there is a shrewd man still.'
'Perhaps. But he is buried deep. Drugs, and pain even more so, will drive a sagacious man to foolish acts. A man dying of his wounds will leap to his horse to lead a last charge. Pain can make a man take risks, or assert himself in strange ways.'
What he was saying made all too much sense. 'Cannot you counsel him against letting Regal know that he knows Verity is alive?'
'I could try, perhaps. Were not that damnable Wallace always in my way. It was not so bad at first; at first, he was tractable and useful, easy to manipulate from afar. He never knew I was behind the herbs the peddlers brought him; never even suspected I existed. But now he clings to the King like a limpet, and not even the Fool can drive him away for long. I seldom have more than a few minutes with Shrewd at a time anymore. And I am lucky if my brother is lucid for half of them.'
There was something in his voice. I lowered my head, shamed. 'I am sorry,' I said quietly. 'Sometimes I forget that he is more to you than just your king.'
'Well. We were never really that close, that way. But we are two old men, who have grown old together. Sometimes that is a greater closeness. We have come through time to your day and age. We can talk together, quietly, and share memories of a time that exists no more. I can tell you how it was, but it is not the same. It is like being two foreigners, trapped in a land we have come to, unable to return to our own, and having only each other to confirm the reality of the place we once lived. At least, once we could.'
I thought of two children running wild on the beaches of Buckkeep, plucking sheel off the rocks and eating them raw. Molly and I. It was possible to be homesick for a time, and to be lonely for the only other person who could recall it. I nodded.
'Ah. Well. Tonight we contemplate salvage. Now. Listen to me. On this I must have your word. You will not
