tomorrow, when you are as bereaved as she, well, we shall see what mutual sympathy leads to.'
'She is big as a cow and pale as a fish.'
'But with the mountain lands, you will have a defensible inland kingdom. You know the Coastal Duchies will not stand for you, and Farrow and Tilth cannot stand alone between the mountains and the Coastal Duchies. Besides, she need not live longer than her first child's birth.'
'FitzChivalry Farseer,' Verity said in his sleep. King Shrewd and Chade played at dice bones together. Patience stirred in her sleep. 'Chivalry?' she asked softly. 'Is that you?'
'No,' I said. 'It's no one. No one at all.'
She nodded and slept on.
When my eyes focused again, it was dark and I was alone. My jaws trembled, and my chin and shirtfront were wet with my own saliva. The numbness seemed less. I wondered if that meant the poison wouldn't kill me. I doubted that it mattered; I would have small chance to speak in my own behalf. My hands had gone numb. At least they didn't hurt anymore. I was horribly thirsty. I wondered if Rurisk was dead yet. He had taken a lot more of the wine than I had. And Chade had said it was quick.
As if in answer to my question, a cry of purest pain rose to the moon. The ululation seemed to hang there, and to pull my heart out with it as it rose. Nosy's master was dead.
I flung myself toward him, wrapped the Wit around him. I know, I know, and we shivered together as one he had loved passed beyond reach. The great aloneness wrapped us together.
Boy? Faint, but true. A paw and a nose, and a door edged open. He padded toward me, his nose telling me how bad I smelled. Smoke and blood and fear sweat. When he reached me, he lay down beside me and put his head on my back. With the touch came the bond again. Stronger now that Rurisk was gone.
He left me. It hurts.
I know. A long time passed. Free me? The old dog lifted his head. Men cannot grieve as dogs do. We should be grateful for that. But from the depths of his anguish, he still rose, and set worn teeth to my bonds. I felt them loosen, a strand at a time, but had not even the strength to pull them apart. Nosy turned his head to set his back teeth to them.
At last the thongs parted. I pulled my arms forward. That made everything hurt differently. I still could not feel my hands, but I could roll over and get my face out of the straw. Nosy and I sighed together. He put his head on my chest and I wrapped a stiff arm around him. Another tremor shook me. My muscles clenched and unclenched themselves so violently that I saw dots of light. But it passed, and I still breathed.
I opened my eyes again. Light blinded me, but I did not know if it was real. Beside me, Nosy's tail thumped the straw. Burrich slowly sank down beside us. He put a gentle hand on Nosy's back. As my eyes adjusted to his lantern I could see the grief in his face. 'Are you dying?' he asked me. His voice was so neutral, it was like hearing a stone speak.
'I'm not sure.' That was what I tried to say. My mouth still wasn't working very well. He rose and walked away. He took the lantern with him. I lay alone in the dark.
Then the light came back and Burrich with a bucket of water. He lifted my head and sloshed some into my mouth. 'Don't swallow it,' he cautioned me, but I couldn't have made those muscles work anyway. He washed out my mouth twice more and then half drowned me trying to get me to drink some. I fended off the bucket with a wooden hand. 'No,' I managed.
After a bit my head seemed to clear. I moved my tongue against my teeth and could feel them. 'I killed Cob,' I told him.
'I know. They brought his body out to the stables. No one wanted to tell me anything.'
'How did you know to find me?'
He sighed. 'I just had a feeling.'
'You heard Nosy.'
'Yes. The howling.'
'That isn't what I meant.'
He was quiet a long time. 'Sensing a thing isn't the same as using a thing.'
I couldn't think of anything to say back to that. After a while I said, 'Cob is the one who knifed you on the stairs.'
'Was he?' Burrich considered. 'I had wondered why the dogs barked so little. They knew him. Only Smithy reacted.'
My hands screamed suddenly to life. I folded them to my chest and rocked over them. Nosy whined.
'Stop it,' Burrich hissed.
'Just now, I can't help it,' I replied. 'It all hurts so bad, I'm spilling out all over.'
Burrich was silent. 'Are you going to help me?' I asked finally.
'I don't know,' he said softly, and then, almost pleadingly, 'Fitz, what are you? What have you become?'
'I am what you are,' I told him honestly. 'A king's man. Burrich, they're going to kill Verity. If they do, Regal will become King.'
'What are you talking about?'
'If we stay here while I explain it all, it will happen. Help me get out of here.'
He seemed to take a very long time to think about it. But in the end, he helped me to stand and I held on to his sleeve as I staggered out of the stables and into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. The Wedding
THE ART OF DIPLOMACY is the luck of knowing more of your rival's secrets than he knows of yours. Always deal from a position of power. These were Shrewd's maxims. And Verity abided by them.
'You have to get August. He's the only hope Verity has.' We were sitting in the grayness before dawn on a hillside above the palace. We had not gotten far. The terrain was steep, and I was in no condition for hiking. I was beginning to suspect that Regal's kick had renewed Galen's old damage to my ribs. Every deep breath stabbed me. Regal's poison still sent tremors through me, and my legs buckled often and unpredictably. Alone, I could not stand, for my legs would not support me. I could not even cling to a tree trunk and hold myself upright; there was no strength in my arms. Around us in the dawn forest birds called, squirrels were gathering stores for the winter, and insects chirred. It was hard, in the midst of all that life, to wonder how much of this damage was permanent. Were the days and strength of my youth already spent, and nothing left to me but trembling and weakness? I tried to push the question from my mind., to concentrate on the greater problems facing the Six Duchies. I stilled myself, as Chade had taught me. Around us, the trees were immense, with a presence like peace. I understood why Eyod would not cut them for timber. Their needles were soft beneath us, the fragrance soothing. I wished I could just lie back and sleep, like Nosy at my side. Our pains still mingled together, but at least Nosy could escape his in sleep.
'What makes you think August would help us?' Burrich asked. 'If I could get him out here.'
I pulled my thoughts back to our dilemma. 'I don't think he's involved with the rest of it. I think he is still loyal to the King.' I had presented my information to Burrich as my own careful conclusions. He was not a man likely to be convinced by phantom voices overheard in my head. So I could not tell him that Galen had not suggested killing August, and therefore he was probably ignorant of their plot. I was still unsure myself of what I had experienced. Regal could not Skill. Even if he could, how could I have overheard Skilling between two others? No, it had to be something else, some other magic. Of Galen's devising? Was he capable of a magic that strong? I did not know. So much I did not know. I forced myself to set it all aside. For now, it fit the facts I had, better than any other supposition I could imagine.
'If he's loyal to the King, and has no suspicions of Regal, then he is loyal to Regal as well,' Burrich pointed out as if I were a witling.
'Then we'll have to force him, somehow. Verity must be warned.'
'Of course. I'll just walk in, put a knife to August's back, and march him out of there. No one will bother us.'
I floundered for ideas. 'Bribe someone to lure him out here. Then jump him.'
'Even if I knew someone bribable, what would we use?'
'I have this.' I touched the earring in my ear.
