many guards would be there, would they be ones I knew, would Wallace be there, would Regal have dropped by for a chat?
On my earlier foray to Kettricken's room, I had noticed that makeshift curtains had been tacked up over the splintered door frames of the King's chambers. Most of the wreckage had been carried off, but bits of oaken door still littered the corridor. No workmen had been called in to do repairs. Another sign that Regal had no intention of ever returning to Buckkeep.
I tried to find some excuse to introduce myself into that room. The Keep downstairs was busier than ever, for today the Dukes of Bearns, Rippon, and Shoaks Duchies were expected to arrive with their retinues to witness the King-in-Waiting ceremony for Regal. They were being put in the lesser guest rooms, across the Keep. I wondered how they would react to the sudden disappearance of the King and Queen. Would it be seen as treachery, or would Regal find some way to conceal it from them? What would it auger for his new reign to begin so? I put it from my mind; it wasn't helping me get the King alone in his chamber.
I left my room and went pacing through Buckkeep, hoping for inspiration. Instead I found only confusion. Noble folk of every degree were arriving for Regal's ceremony, and the influx of guests and their households and servants swept and eddied about the outflow of goods and folk that Regal was sending inland. My feet carried me unplanned to Verity's study. The door was ajar and I went in. The hearth was cold, the room musty with disuse. There was a distinct odor of mouse in the air. I hoped whatever scrolls they were nesting in weren't irreplaceable. I was fairly certain I had removed the ones Verity treasured to Chade's rooms. I walked about the room, touching his things. I suddenly missed him acutely. His unyielding steadiness, his calmness, his strength; he would never have let things come to such a situation. I sat down in his work chair at his map table. Scuffs and scribbles of ink where he had tried colors on it marred the tabletop. Here were two badly cut quills, discarded with a brush worn hairless. In a box on the table were several little pots of color, cracked and dried now. They smelled like Verity to me, in the same way that leather and harness oil always smelled like Burrich. I leaned forward on the table and put my head in my hands. 'Verity, we need you now.'
I cannot come.
I leaped to my feet, my legs tangling in the chair's, and fell on the rug. Frantically I scrabbled to my feet, and even more frantically scrabbled after the contact. Verity!
I hear you. What is it, boy? A pause. You've reached me on your own, have you? Well done!
We need you to come home right now!
Why?
Thoughts tumbled so much faster than words, and in far greater detail than he could have wished to know. I felt him grow sad with the information, and wearier. Come home. If you were here, you could put it all to rights. Regal could not claim to be King-in-Waiting, he could not strip Buckkeep like this, or take away the King.
I cannot. Be calm now. Think this through. I could not come home in time to prevent any of this. It grieves me. But I am too close now to give up my goal. And if I am to be a father — his thoughts were warm with this new feeling — it becomes even more important that I succeed. My goal must be to retain the Six Duchies intact, and with a coast freed of sea wolves. This, for the child to inherit.
What am I to do?
Just as you have planned. My father, my wife, and my child; it is a weighty burden I have put upon you. He sounded suddenly uncertain.
I will do what I can do, I told him, fearing to promise any more than that.
I have faith in you. He paused. Did you feel that?
What?
Another is here, trying to break in, to listen on our Skilling. One of Galen's spying brood of vipers.
I did not think that possible!
Galen found a way, and schooled his poisonous offspring in it. Skill no more to me now.
I felt something similar to when he had broken our Skill contact the last time to save Shrewd's strength, but much rougher. A surging outward of Verity's Skill that pushed someone away from us. I thought I felt the effort it cost him. Our Skill contact broke.
He was gone, as abruptly as I had found him. I groped tentatively after our contact, found nothing. What he had said about another listening in on us rattled me. Fear warred with triumph in me. I had Skilled. We had been spied upon. But I had Skilled, alone and unaided! But how much had they overheard? I pushed back the chair from the table, sat a moment longer in the storm of my thoughts. Skilling had been easy. I still didn't know quite how I had initiated it, but it had been easy. I felt like a child who had worked a puzzle box, but was unable to recall the exact sequence of moves. The knowledge that it could be done made me want instantly to attempt it again. I set the temptation aside firmly. I had other tasks to accomplish, ones of far more weight.
I sprang up and rushed out of the study, almost tripping over Justin. He sat, legs outstretched, with his back against the wall. He looked drunk. I knew better. He was half-stunned by the push Verity had given him. I brought myself up short and stared down at him. I knew I should kill him. The poison I had composed for Wallace so long ago still rode in a pocket in my cuff. I could force it down his throat. But it was not designed to act quickly. As if he could guess my thoughts, he cowered away from me, scrabbling along the wall.
For a moment longer I stared at him, striving to think calmly. I had promised Chade to take no more actions on my own without consulting him. Verity had not bid me find and kill the spy. He could have, in less than an instant of thought. This decision did not belong to me. One of the hardest things I have ever done was to force myself to walk away from Justin. Half a dozen strides down the hall, I suddenly heard him blurt, 'I know what you've been doing!'
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
