this time as I approached the stable doors, there was a knot of men outside them, and voices raised in anger. A young stable boy hung on to the headstall of an immense draft horse. An older boy was tugging at a lead attached to the horse's halter, attempting to take the horse from the boy, as a man in Tilth colors looked on. The usually placid animal was becoming distressed at the tugging. In a moment someone was going to get hurt.
I stepped boldly into the midst of it, plucking the lead from the startled boy's hand even as I quested soothingly toward the horse. He did not know me as well as he once had, but he calmed at the touch. 'What goes on here?' I asked the stable boy.
'They came and took Cliff out of his stall. Without even asking. He's my horse to take care of each day. But they didn't even tell me what they were doing.'
'I have orders—' began the man who had been standing by.
'I am speaking to someone,' I informed him, and turned back to the boy. 'Has Hands left orders with you about this horse?'
'Only the usual ones.' The boy had been close to tears when I first came on the struggle. Now that he had a potential ally, his voice was firming. He stood up straighter and met my eyes.
'Then it's simple. We take the horse back to his stall until we have other orders from Hands. No horse moves from the Buckkeep stable without the knowledge of the acting stablemaster.' The boy had never let go his grip on Cliff's headstall. Now I placed the lead rope in his hands.
'Exactly what I thought, sir,' he told me chippily. He turned on his heel. 'Thank you, sir. Come on, Cliffie.' The boy marched off with the big horse lumbering placidly after him.
'I have orders to take that animal. Duke Ram of Tilth wishes him sent up the river immediately.' The man in Tilth colors was breathing through his nose at me.
'He does, does he? And has he cleared that with our stablemaster?' I was sure he had not.
'What goes on here?' This was Hands come running, very pink about the ears and cheeks. On another man it might have looked funny. I knew it meant he was angry.
The Tilth man drew himself up straight. 'This man, and one of your stable hands, interfered when we came to get our stock from the stables!' he declared haughtily.
'Cliff isn't Tilth stock. He was foaled right here at Buckkeep. Six years ago. I was present at the time,' I pointed out.
The man gave me a condescending look. 'I was not speaking to you. I was speaking to him.' He jerked a thumb at Hands.
'I have a name, sir,' Hands pointed out coldly. 'Hands. I'm acting as stablemaster while Burrich is gone with king-in-waiting Verity. He has a name, too. FitzChivalry. He assists me from time to time. He belongs in my stable. As does my stable boy, and my horse. As to you, if you have a name, I haven't been told it. I know of no reason why you should be in my stable.'
Burrich had taught Hands well. We exchanged a glance. In accord, we turned our backs and began to go back into the stables.
'I am Lance, a stable man for Duke Ram. That horse was sold to my duke. And not just him. Two spotted mares, and a gelding as well. I have the papers here.'
As we turned back slowly the Tilth man proffered a scroll. My heart lurched at the sight of a blob of red wax with the buck sign mashed into it. It looked real. Hands took it slowly. He gave me a sideways glance, and I moved to stand beside him. He had some letters, but reading was usually a lengthy business for him. Burrich had been working on it with him, but letters did not come easily to him. I looked over his shoulder as he unrolled the scroll and began to study it.
'It's quite clear,' said the Tilth man. He reached for the scroll. 'Shall I read it to you?'
'Don't bother,' I told him as Hands rerolled the scroll. 'What's written there is as plain as what's not. Prince Regal has signed it. But Cliff is not his horse. He, and the mares and gelding, are Buckkeep horses. Only the King may sell them.'
'King-in-Waiting Verity is away. Prince Regal acts in his stead now.'
I put a restraining hand on Hands's shoulder. 'King-in-Waiting Verity is indeed away. But King Shrewd is not. Nor is Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. One of those must sign to sell a horse from Buckkeep stable.'
Lance snatched his scroll back, examined the signature for himself. 'Well, Prince Regal's mark should be good enough for you, with Verity away. After all, everyone knows the old King is not in his right mind most of the time. And Kettricken is, well… not of the family. Really. So, with Verity gone, Regal is—'
'Prince.' I spoke the word crisply. 'To say less of him would be treason. As it would be to say he were king. Or queen. When he is not.'
I let the implied threat settle into his mind. I would not directly accuse him of treason, for then he would have to die for it. Not even a pompous ass like Lance deserved to die just for parroting what his master had no doubt spoken aloud. I watched his eyes grow wide.
'I meant nothing…'
'And no harm is done,' I filled in. 'As long as you remember one cannot buy a horse from a man who doesn't own it. And these are Buckkeep horses, owned by the King.'
'Of course,' Lance dithered. 'Perhaps this is the wrong paper. I am sure there is a mistake of some kind. I will go back to my master.'
'A wise choice.' Hands spoke softly beside me, taking authority back.
'Well, come along, then,' Lance snapped at his boy and gave the lad a shove. The boy glowered at us as he trailed off after his master. I scarcely blamed him. Lance was the sort who must vent his ill temper somewhere.
'Will they be back, do you think?' Hands asked me quietly.
'Either that, or Regal must give Ram his coin back.'
We silently considered the likelihood of that.
'So. What must I do when they come back?'
'If it's only Regal's mark, nothing. If the King or Queen-in-Waiting's mark is upon it, then you must give him the horses. '
'One of those mares is pregnant!' Hands protested. 'Burrich has big plans for the foal. What will he say to me if he comes back and those horses are gone?'
'We have always had to remember that these horses belong to the King. He will not fault you for obeying a proper command.'
'I don't like this.' He looked up at me with anxious eyes.
'I don't think this would be happening if Burrich were still here.'
'I think it would, Hands. Don't take any blame to yourself. I doubt that this is the worst that we'll see before the winter is over. But, send me word if they do come back.'
He nodded gravely and I left him, my visit to the stables soured. I did not want to walk down the rows of stalls and wonder how many horses would still remain by the end of winter.
I walked slowly across the courtyard and then inside and up the stairs to my room. I paused on the landing. Verity? Nothing. I could sense his presence inside myself, he could convey his will to me and sometimes even his thoughts. But still, whenever I tried to reach out to him, there was nothing. It frustrated me. If only I had been able to Skill reliably, none of this would be happening. I paused to carefully curse Galen and all he had done to me. I had had the Skill, and he had burned it out of me, and left me with but this unpredictable form of it.
But what about Serene? Or Justin, or any of the others of the coterie? Why was not Verity using them to keep in touch with what was happening, and to let his will be known?
A creeping dread filled me. The messenger birds from Bearns. The signal lights, the Skilled ones in the towers. All the lines of communications within the kingdom and with the King seemed not to be working very well. They were what stitched the Six Duchies into one and made of us a kingdom rather than an alliance of Dukes. Now, in these troubled times, more than ever we needed them. Why were they failing?
I saved the question to ask Chade, and prayed that he would summon me soon. He called me less often than he had once, and I felt I was not as privy to his councils as I once had been. Well, and had not I excluded him from much of my life as well? Perhaps what I felt was only a reflection of all the secrets I kept from him. Perhaps it was the natural distance that grew between assassins.
I arrived at the door of my room just as Rosemary had given up knocking.
