to work on her shoulder, and how it had taken two of them to hold her head. I wangled my way into the conversation. 'Perhaps a horse of less temperament would be a better mount for the Queen?' I suggested.
'Ah, no. Our queen likes Softstep's pride and spirit. She said so herself, to me, when she was down in the stables this morning. She came herself, to see the horse, and to ask when she might be ridden again. She spoke directly to me, she did. So I told her, no horse wanted to be ridden on a day such as this, let alone with a gashed shoulder. And Queen Kettricken nodded, and we stood talking there, and she asked how I had lost my tooth.'
'And you told her a horse had thrown his head back when you were exercising him! Because you didn't want Burrich to know we'd been wrestling up in the hayloft and you'd fallen into the gray colt's stall!'
'Shut up! You're the one who pushed me, so it was your fault as much as mine!'
And the two were off, pushing and scuffling with each other, until a shout from Cook sent them tumbling from the kitchen. But I had as much information as I needed. I headed out for the stables.
I found it a colder and nastier day outside than I had expected. Even within the stables, the wind found every crack and came shrieking through the doors each time one was opened. The horses' breath steamed in the air, and stable mates leaned companionably close for the warmth they could share. I found Hands, and asked where Burrich was.
'Cutting wood,' he said quietly. 'For a funeral pyre. He's been drinking since dawn, too.'
Almost this drove my quest from my mind. I had never known such a thing to be. Burrich drank, but in the evenings, when the day's work was done. Hands read my face.
'Vixen. His old bitch hound. She died in the night. Yet I have never heard of a pyre for a dog. He's out behind the exercise pen now.'
I turned toward the pen.
'Fitz!' Hands warned me urgently.
'It will be all right, Hands. I know what she meant to him. The first night he had care of me, he put me in a stall beside her, and told her to guard me. She had a pup beside her, Nosy…'
Hands shook his head. 'He said he wanted to see no one. To send him no questions today. No one to talk to him. He's never given me an order like that.'
'All right.' I sighed.
Hands looked disapproving. 'As old as she was, he should have expected it. She couldn't even hunt with him anymore. He should have replaced her a long time ago.'
I looked at Hands. For all his caring for the beasts, for all his gentleness and good instincts, he couldn't really know. Once, I had been shocked to discover my Wit sense as a separate sense. Now to confront Hands's total lack of it was to discover his blindness. I just shook my head and dragged my mind back to my original errand. 'Hands, have you seen the Queen today?'
'Yes, but it was a while ago.' His eyes scanned my face anxiously. 'She came to me and asked if Prince Verity had taken Truth out of the stables and down to town. I told her no, that the Prince had come to see him, but had left him in the stables today. I told her the streets would be all iced cobbles. Verity would not risk his favorite on a surface like that. He walks down to Buckkeep Town as often as not these days, though he comes through the stable almost every day. He told me it's an excuse to be out in the air and the open.'
My heart sank. With a certainty that was like a vision, I knew that Kettricken had followed Verity into Buckkeep Town. On foot? With no one accompanying her? On this foul day? While Hands berated himself for not foreseeing the Queen's intention, I took Sidekick, a well-named but surefooted mule, from his stall. I dared not take the time to go back to my room for warmer clothes. So I borrowed Hands's cloak to supplement mine and dragged the reluctant animal out of the stables and into the wind and falling snow.
Are you coming now?
Not now, but soon. There is something I must see to.
May I go, too?
No. It isn't safe. Now be quiet and stay out of my thoughts.
I stopped at the gate to question the guard most bluntly. Yes, a woman on foot had come this way this morning. Several of them, for there were some whose trades made this trip necessary, no matter the weather. The Queen? The men on watch exchanged glances. No one replied. I suggested perhaps there had been a woman, heavily cloaked, and hooded well? White fur trimming the hood? A young guard nodded. Embroidery on the cloak, white and purple at the hem? They exchanged uncomfortable glances. There had been a woman like that. They had not known who she was, but now that I suggested those colors, they should have known…
In a coldly level voice, I berated them as dolts and morons. Unidentified folk passed unchallenged through our gates? They had looked on white fur and purple embroidery, and never even guessed it might be the Queen? And none had seen fit to accompany her? None chose to be her guard? Even after yesterday? A fine place was Buckkeep these days, when our queen had not even a foot soldier at her heels when she went out walking in a snowstorm down to Buckkeep Town. I kicked Sidekick and left them settling blame among themselves.
The going was miserable. The wind was in a fickle mood, changing directions as often as I found a way to block it with my cloak. The snow not only fell, the wind caught up the frozen crystals from the ground and swirled it up under my cloak at every opportunity. Sidekick was not happy, but he plodded along through the thickening snow. Beneath the snow, the uneven trail to town was glazed with treacherous ice. The mule became resigned to my stubbornness and trudged disconsolately along. I blinked the clinging flakes from my eyelashes and tried to urge him to greater speed. Images of the Queen, crumpled in the snow, the blowing flakes covering her over, kept trying to push into my mind. Nonsense! I told myself firmly. Nonsense.
I was on the outskirts of Buckkeep Town before I overtook her. I knew her from behind, even if she had not been wearing her purple and white. She strode through the drifting snow with a fine indifference to it, her Mountain-bred flesh as immune to the cold as I was to salt breeze and damp. 'Queen Kettricken! Lady! Please, wait for me!'
She turned and, as she caught sight of me, smiled and waited. I slid from Sidekick's back as I came abreast of her. I had not realized how worried I was until the relief flooded through me at seeing her unharmed. 'What are you doing out here, alone, in this storm?' I demanded of her, and belatedly added, 'My lady.'
She looked about her as if just noticing the falling snow and gusting wind, then turned back to me with a rueful grin. She was not the least bit chilled or uncomfortable. To the contrary, her cheeks were rosy with her walk, and the white fir around her face set off her yellow hair and blue eyes. Here, in this whiteness, she was not pale and colorless, but tawny and pink, blue eyes sparkling. She looked more vital than I had seen her in days. Yesterday she had been Death astride a horse, and Grief washing the bodies of her slain. But today, here, in the snow, she was a merry girl, escaped from Keep and station to go hiking through the snow. 'I go to find my husband.'
'Alone? Does he know you are coming, and like this, afoot?'
She looked startled. Then she tucked her chin and bridled just like my mule. 'Is he not my husband? Do I need an appointment to see him? Why should not I go afoot and alone? Do I seem so incompetent to you that I might become lost on the road to Buckkeep Town?'
She set off walking again, and I was forced to keep pace with her. I dragged the mule along with me. Sidekick was not enthused. 'Queen Kettricken,' I began, but she cut me off.
'I grow so weary of this.' She halted abruptly and turned to face me. 'Yesterday, for the first time in many days, I felt as if I were alive and had a will of my own. I do not intend to let that slip away from me. If I wish to visit my husband at his work, I shall. Well do I know that not one of my ladies would care for this outing, in this weather and afoot, or otherwise. So I am alone. And any horse was injured yesterday, and the footing here is not kind to a beast anyway. So I do not ride. All of this makes sense. Why have you followed me and why do you question me?'
She had chosen bluntness as the weapon, so I took it up as well. But I took a breath and tuned my voice to courtesy before I began. 'My lady queen, I followed to be sure you had not come to any harm. Here, with only a mule's ears to hear us, I will speak plainly. Have you so swiftly forgotten who tried to topple Verity from the throne in your own Mountain Kingdom? Would he hesitate to plot here as well? I think not. Do you believe it an accident you were lost and astray in the woods two nights ago? I do not. And do you think that your actions yesterday were pleasing to him? Quite the contrary. What you do for the sake of your people, he sees as your ploy to take power to yourself. So he sulks and mutters and decides you are a greater threat than before. You must know all this. So why do you set yourself out as a target, here where an arrow or a knife could find you with such ease and no
