Royal Assassin

to burden me with its oppressiveness, so that I often heartily wished to be away from her.

'Teach her to cheat first. Only, just tell her that's how the game is played. Tell her the rules permit deception. A bit of sleight of hand, easily taught, and she could clean Regal's pockets for him a time or two before he dared suspect her. And then what could he do? Accuse Buckkeep's lady of cheating at dice?'

The Fool, of course. At my elbow, companionably pacing alongside me, his rat scepter jouncing lightly on his shoulder. I did not startle physically, but he knew that once more, he had taken me by surprise. His amusement shone in his eyes.

'I think our queen-in-waiting might take it amiss if I so misinformed her. Why do you not come with me instead, to brighten her spirits a bit? I shall set aside the dice, and you can juggle for her,' I suggested.

'Juggle for her? Why, Fitz, that is all I do, all day long, and you see it as but my foolery. You see my work and deem it play, while I see you work so earnestly at playing games you have not yourself devised. Take a Fool's advice on this. Teach the lady not dice, but riddles, and you will both be the wiser.'

'Riddles? That's a Bingtown game, is it not?'

''Twere one played well at Buckkeep these days. Answer me this one, if you can. How does one call a thing when one does not know how to call it?'

'I have never been any good at this game, Fool.'

'Nor any other of your bloodline, from what I have heard. So answer this. What has wings in Shrewd's scroll, a tongue of flame in Verity's book, silver eyes in the Relltown Vellums, and gold-scaled skin in your room?'

'That's a riddle?'

He looked at me pityingly. 'No. A riddle is what I just asked you. That's an Elderling. And the first riddle was, how do you summon one?'

My stride slowed. I looked at him more directly, but his eyes were always difficult to meet.

'Is that a riddle? Or a serious question?'

'Yes.' The Fool was grave.

I stopped in midstride, completely bemuddled. I glared at him. In answer, he went nose to nose with his rat scepter. They simpered at one another. 'You see, Ratsy, he knows no more than his uncle or his grandfather. None of them know how to summon an Elderling.'

'By the Skill,' I said impetuously.

The Fool looked at me strangely. 'You know this?'

'I suspect it is so.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. Now that I consider it, I do not think it likely. King Wisdom made a long journey to find the Elderlings. If he could simply have Skilled to them, why didn't he?

'Indeed. But sometimes there is truth in impetuosity. So riddle me this, boy. A King is alive. Likewise a Prince. And both are Skilled. But where are those who trained alongside the King, or those who trained before him? How come we to this, this paucity of Skilled ones at a time when they are so grievously needed?'

'Few are trained in times of peace. Galen didn't see fit to train any, up until his last year. And the coterie he created…' I paused suddenly, and though the corridor was empty, I suddenly did not want to speak anymore about it. I had always kept whatever Verity told me about the Skill in confidence.

The Fool pranced in a sudden circle about me. 'If the shoe does not fit, one cannot wear it, no matter who made it for you,' he declared.

I nodded grudgingly. 'Exactly.'

'And he who made it is gone. Sad. So sad. Sadder than hot meat on the table and red wine in your glass. But he who is gone was made by someone in turn.'

'Solicity. But she is also gone.'

'Ah. But Shrewd is not. Nor Verity. It seems to me that if there are two she created still breathing, there ought to be others. Where are they?'

I shrugged. 'Gone. Old. Dead. I don't know.' I forced my impatience down, tried to consider his question. 'King Shrewd's sister, Merry. August's mother. She would have been trained, perhaps, but she is long dead. Shrewd's father, King Bounty, was the last to have a coterie, I believe. But very few folk of that generation are still alive.' I halted my tongue. Verity had once told me that Solicity had trained as many in the Skill as she could find the talent in. Surely there must be some of them left alive; they would be no more than a decade or so older than Verity…

'Dead, too many of them, if you ask me. I do know.' The Fool interjected an answer to my unspoken question. I looked at him blankly. He stuck his tongue out at me, waltzed away from me a bit. He considered his scepter, chucked the rat lovingly under the chin. 'You see, Ratsy. It is as I told you. None of them know. None of them are smart enough to ask.'

'Fool, cannot you ever speak plain?' I cried out in frustration.

He halted as suddenly as if struck. In mid-pirouette, he lowered his heels to the floor and stood like a statue. 'Would it help any?' he asked soberly. 'Would you listen to me if I came to you and did not speak in riddles? Would that make you pause and think and hang upon every word, and ponder those words later, in your chamber? Very well then. I shall try. Do you know the rhyme `Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe town'?'

I nodded, as confused as ever.

'Recite it for me.'

'`Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe-town, climbed a hill and never came down, turned to stone and flew away…'' The old nursery rhyme eluded me suddenly. 'I don't recall it all. It's nonsense anyway, one of those rhyming things that sticks in your head but means nothing.'

'That, of course, is why it is enscrolled with the knowledge verses,' the Fool concluded.

'I don't know!' I retorted. I suddenly felt irritated beyond endurance. 'Fool, you are doing it again. All you speak is riddles, ever! You claim to speak plain, but your truth eludes me. '

'Riddles, dear Fitzy-fitz, are supposed to make folk think. To find new truth in old saws. But, be that as it may… Your brain eludes me. How shall I reach it? Perhaps if I came to you, by dark of night, and sang under your window:

'`Bastard Princeling, Fitz my sweet,
You waste your hours to your own defeat.
You work to stop, you strive to refrain,
When all your effort should go to a gain.

He had flung himself to one knee, and plucked nonexistent strings on his scepter. He sang quite lustily, and even well. The tune belonged to a popular love ballad. He looked at me, sighed theatrically, wet his lips, and continued mournfully:

'`Why does a Farseer look never afar,
Why dwells he completely in things as they are?
Your coasts are besieged, your people beset.
I warn and I urge, but they all say, 'not yet!'
O Bastard Princeling, gentle Fitz,
Will you delay until chopped to bits?''

A passing servant girl paused to stand bemused and listen. A page came to the door of one chamber and peeped out at us, grinning widely. A slow flush began to heat my cheeks, for the Fool's expression was both tender and ardent as he looked up at me. I tried to walk casually away from him, but he followed me on his knees, clutching at my sleeve. I was forced to stand, or engage in a ridiculous struggle to free myself. I stood, feeling