guards reached for me I flung his twitching body into them, found a table at my back, and leaped onto it. I held up my dripping blade. 'The King's knife!' I told them, and showed it 'round. 'Taking blood in vengeance for the King's death. That is all!'
'He's mad!' someone cried. 'Verity's death has driven him mad!'
'Shrewd!' I cried in fury. 'King Shrewd has fallen to treachery this night!'
Regal's Inlander guards hit my table in a wave. I had not thought there were that many of them. We all went down in a wave of food and crockery. Folk were screaming, but as many surged forward to witness as retreated in horror. Hod would have been proud of me. With the king's belt knife, I held off three men with short swords. I danced, I leaped, I pirouetted. I was much too fast for them and the cuts they did inflict on me caused me no pain. I scored two good slashes on two of them, simply because they did not think I would dare lunge close enough to inflict them.
Somewhere back in the crowd, someone raised a cry. 'Arms! To the Bastard! They are killing FitzChivalry!' A struggle began, but I could not see who was involved, nor give it any attention at all. I stabbed one of the guards in the hand and he dropped his blade. 'Shrewd!' someone cried above the din. 'King Shrewd is slain!' By the sounds of the other struggle, more folk were becoming involved. I could not look to see. I heard another table crash to the floor, and a scream across the room. Then Buckkeep's own guard came pouring into the room. I heard Kerf's voice raised above the general din. 'Separate them! Quell it! Try not to spill blood in the King's own hall!' I saw my attackers ringed, saw Blade's look of consternation as he saw me and then cried out over his shoulder, 'It's FitzChivalry! They're trying to take down the Fitz!'
'Separate them! Disarm them!' Kerf butted heads with one of Regal's guards, dropping him. Beyond him I saw knots of struggling break out as Buck guards fell on Regal's personal guard, battering blades down and demanding that swords be sheathed. I had space for a breath, and could lift my eyes from my own struggle to see that, indeed, a great many folk had become involved, and not just guards. Fistfights had broken out among the guests as well. It looked to become both brawl and riot when suddenly Blade, one of our own guardsmen, shouldered between two of my attackers, sending them sprawling to the floor. He leaped forward and confronted me.
'Blade!' I greeted him with delight, thinking him an ally. Then, as I noticed his defensive stance, I told him, 'You know I would not draw blade against you!'
'I know that well, lad,' he told me sadly, and the old soldier flung himself forward to trap me in a bear hug. I do not know who hit me on the back of the head, or with what.
CHAPTER THIRTY. Dungeons
IF A HOUNDSMAN suspects that a dog boy is using the Wit to defile and divert the hounds to his own ends, he should be watchful for these signs. If the boy speaks not overmuch to his fellows, be wary. If the hounds perk up before the boy is in sight, or whine before he has left, be watchful. If a hound will leave off his snuffing for a bitch in season, or turn aside from a blood trail and lie quiet at the boy's word, be certain. Let the boy be hanged, over water if possible, well away from the stables, and his body burned. Let every hound he has trained be drowned, as well as all sired by defiled hounds. A hound who has known the Wit use will neither fear nor respect any other master, but is sure to turn vicious when deprived of the Witted one. A Witted boy cannot be trusted to beat an unruly hound, nor will he suffer his Wit hound to be sold away, or used as bear bait, no matter how old the dog. A Wit boy will turn his master's hounds to his own purposes, and never has any true loyalty to his master, but only to his Wit hound.
I woke up sometime. Of all the cruel jests fate had recently played on me, I decided that awakening was the cruelest. I lay still and cataloged my various discomforts. The exhaustion from my carris-seed frenzy combined well with the exhaustion from my Skill battle with Justin and Serene. I had taken some nasty sword cuts to my right forearm, and one to my left thigh that I recalled not at all. None of them had been dressed; my sleeve and trousers were matted to my skin with dried blood. Whoever had knocked me unconscious had made sure of his work with several more blows. Other than that, I was fine. I told myself this a number of times, ignoring the trembling in my left leg and arm. I opened my eyes.
The room I was in was small and stone. There was a pot in the corner. When I finally decided I could move, I craned my head enough to see that there was a door, with a small barred window in it. This was the light source, fed by a torch somewhere down a hallway outside. Oh. Yes. The dungeons. My curiosity satisfied, I closed my eyes again and slept. Nose to tail, I rested safe in a deep den covered over by the blowing snow. The illusion of safety was as much as Nighteyes could offer me. So weak I was that even his thoughts to me seemed misty. Safe. That was as much as he could convey.
I awoke again. I could tell time had passed by how much thirstier I was. Other than that, everything was remarkably the same. This time I determined that the bench I was lying on was also made of stone. There was nothing between me and the stone save the clothes I wore. 'Hey!' I called. 'Guards!' There was no answer. Everything seemed a bit vague. After a time I could not recall if I had already cried out, or if I was summoning the strength to do so. After a bit more time I decided I did not have the strength. I went back to sleep. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
I awoke to Patience's voice arguing. Whoever she was arguing with wasn't answering much, and wasn't giving in. 'It's ridiculous. What are you afraid I'll do?' A silence. 'I've known him since he was a child.' Another silence. 'He's hurt. What possible damage can it do for me to at least look at his injuries? You can hang him whole as easily as you can wounded, can't you?' Another silence.
After a time I decided I might be able to move. I had a lot of bruises and scrapes I couldn't account for, probably gained on the journey between the Great Hall and here. The worst part of moving was that it tugged my clothing against the scabbed over cuts. I decided I could stand it. For such a small room, it was a very long way from the bed to the door. When I got there, I discovered I could just see out the little barred window. What I could see was the stone wall on the opposite side of the narrow corridor. I gripped the bars with my good left hand.
'Patience?' I croaked.
'Fitz? Oh, Fitz, are you all right?'
Such a question. I started to laugh and coughed instead, finishing with the taste of blood in my mouth. I didn't know what to say. I wasn't fine, but it wasn't healthy for her to be too interested in me. Even as fuddled as I was, I knew that. 'I'm all right,' I croaked at last.
'Oh, Fitz, the King is dead!' she called to me from down the hall. The words tumbled from her in her haste to tell me all. 'And Queen Kettricken is missing, and King-in-Waiting Regal says you are at the bottom of all of it. They say—'
'Lady Patience, you'll have to leave now,' the guard attempted to break in. She ignored him.
'— you went crazy in grief over Verity's death, and killed the King and Serene and Justin, and they don't know what you've done with the Queen, and no one can—'
'You cannot speak to the prisoner, madam!' He spoke with conviction, but she paid no mind.
'— find the Fool. Wallace, he's the one, he said he saw you and the Fool quarreling over the King's body, and then he saw the Pocked Man, come to carry his spirit away. The man is crazy! And Regal accuses you, too, of the low magic, of having the soul of a beast! That's how he said you killed the King. And—'
'Madam! You have to leave now, or I will have to have you taken away.'
'Then do that,' Patience spat at him. 'I just dare you to try. Lacey, this man is bothering me. Ah! You dare to think of touching me! I, who was Chivalry's queen-in-waiting! Now, Lacey, do not hurt him, he's only a boy. A mannerless boy, but a boy nonetheless.'
'Lady Patience, I beg you…' A change in tone from the guard.
'You can't very well drag me away from here without leaving your post. Do you think I'm so stupid I can't see that? What will you do? Attack two old women with your sword?'
'Chester! Chester, where are you?' the guard on duty bellowed. 'Damn you, Chester!' I could hear the
