Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (44 page)

Then I suggest you take them back again, pin and
word both. You will never get well with this type of disruption
going on in your rooms. Again, that edge of command in Regal's
voice. I waited, silent.

The King lifted a hand to shakily rub his face
and eyes. I gave those things, he said, and the words were firm,
but the strength was fading from his voice. Once given, a man's
word is no longer his to call back. Am I right about this,
FitzChivalry? Do you agree that once a man has given his word, he
may not take it back? The old test was in that question.

As ever I have, my king, I agree with you. Once
a man has given his word, he may not call it back. He must abide by
what he has promised.

Good, then. That's settled. It's all settled. He
proffered the pin to me. I took it from him, relief so immense it
was like vertigo. He leaned back into his pillows. I had another
dizzying moment. I knew those pillows, this bed. I had lain there,
and looked with the Fool down on the sack of Siltbay. I had burned
my fingers in that fireplace ....

The King heaved a heavy sigh. There was
exhaustion in it. In another moment he would be asleep.

Forbid him to come and disturb you again, unless
you summon him, Regal commanded.

King Shrewd pried his eyes open one more time.
Fitz. Come here, boy.

Like a dog, I came closer to him. I knelt by his
bed. He lifted a thinned hand, patted me awkwardly. You and I, boy.
We have an understanding, don't we? A genuine question. I nodded.
Good lad. Good. I've kept my word. You see that you keep yours,
now. But -he glanced at Regal, and that pained me it were better if
you came to see me in the afternoons. I am stronger in the
afternoons. He was slipping away again.

Shall I come back this afternoon, sire? I asked
quickly.

He lifted a hand and waved it in a vaguely
denying gesture. Tomorrow. Or the next day. His eyes closed and he
sighed out as heavily as if he would never breathe in
again.

As you wish, my lord, I concurred. I bowed
deeply, formally. As I straightened I carefully returned the pin to
my jerkin lapel. I let them all spend a moment or two watching me
do that. Then: If you will excuse me, my prince? I requested
formally.

Get out of here, Regal growled.

I bowed less formally to him, turned carefully,
and left.

His guards' eyes watched me go. I was outside
the room before I recalled that I had never brought up the subject
of me marrying Molly. Now it seemed unlikely I would have an
opportunity to for some time. I knew that afternoons would now find
Regal or Wallace or some spy of theirs always at King Shrewd's
side. I had no wish to broach that topic before anyone save my
king.

Fitz?

I'd like to be alone for a while just now, my
prince. If you do not mind?

He vanished from my mind like a bursting soap
bubble. Slowly I made my way down the stairs.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Secrets

PRINCE VERITY CHOSE to unveil his fleet of
warships on the midday of Winterfest that decisive year. Tradition
would have had him wait until the coming of better weather, to
launch them on the first day of Springfest. That is considered a
more auspicious time to launch a new ship. But Verity had pushed
his shipwrights and their crews hard to have all four vessels ready
for a midwinter launch. By choosing the midday of Winterfest, he
ensured himself a large audience, both for the launch and for his
words. Traditionally, a hunt is held that day, with the meat
brought in seen as a harbinger of days to come. When he had the
ships pushed out of the sheds on their rollers, he announced to the
gathered folk that these were his hunters, and that the only prey
that would slake them would be Red-Ships. The reaction to his
announcement was muted, and clearly not what he had hoped for. It
is my belief that the people wanted to put all thoughts of the
Red-Ships from their minds, to hide themselves in winter and
pretend that the spring would never come. But Verity refused to let
them. The ships were launched that day, and the training of the
crews begun.

Nighteyes and I spent the early afternoon
hunting. He grumbled about it, saying it was a ridiculous time of
day to hunt, and why had I wasted the early dawn hours tussling
with my litter mate? I told him that that was simply a thing that
had to be, and would continue to be for several days, and possibly
longer. He was not pleased. But neither was I. It rattled me not a
little that he could be so clearly aware of how I spent my hours
even if I had no conscious sense of being in touch with him. Had
Verity been able to sense him?

He laughed at me. Hard enough to make you hear
me sometimes. Should I batter through to you and then shout for him
as well?

Our hunting success was small. Two rabbits,
neither with much fat. I promised to bring him kitchen scraps on
the morrow. I had even less success at conveying to him my demand
for privacy at certain times: He could not grasp why I set mating
apart from other pack activities such as hunting or howling. Mating
suggested offspring in the near future, and offspring were the care
of the pack. Words cannot convey the difficulties of that
discussion. We conversed in images, in shared thoughts, and such do
not allow for much discretion. His candor horrified me. He assured
me he shared my delight in my mate and my mating. I begged him not
to. Confusion. I finally left him eating his rabbits. He seemed
piqued that I would not accept a share of the meat. The best I had
been able to get from him was his understanding that I did not want
to be aware of him sharing my awareness of Molly. That was scarcely
what I wanted, but it was the best I could convey it to him. The
idea that at times I would want to sever my bond to him completely
was not a thought he could comprehend. It made no sense, he argued.
It was not pack. I left him wondering if I would ever again really
and truly have a moment to myself.

I returned to the Keep and sought the solitude
of my own room. If only for a moment, I had to be where I could
close the door behind me and be alone. Physically, anyway. As if to
fuel my quest for quiet, the halls and stairways were full of
hurrying folk. Servants were cleaning away old rushes and spreading
new ones, fresh candles were being placed in holders, and boughs of
evergreen were hung in festoons and swags everywhere. Winterfest. I
didn't much feel like it.

I finally reached my own door and slipped
inside. I shut it firmly behind me.

Back so soon? The Fool looked up from the
hearth, where he crouched in a semicircle of scrolls. He seemed to
be sorting them into groups.

I stared at him with unconcealed dismay. In an
instant it flashed into anger. Why didn't you tell me of the King's
condition?

He considered another scroll, after a moment set
it in the pile to his right. But I did. A question in exchange for
yours: why didn't you already know of it?

That set me back. I admit I've been lax in
calling upon him. But-

None of my words could have had the impact of
seeing for yourself. Nor do you pause to think what it would have
been like had I not been there every single day, emptying chamber
pots, sweeping, dusting, carrying out dishes, combing his hair and
his beard ....

Again he had shocked me into silence. I crossed
the room, sat down heavily atop my clothing chest. He's not the
King I remember, I said bluntly. It frightens me that he could sink
so far, so fast.

Frightens you? Appalls me. At least you've
another King when this one's been played. The Fool flipped another
scroll onto the pile.

We all do, I pointed out carefully.

Some more than others, the Fool said
shortly.

Without thinking, my hand rose to tuck the pin
tighter in my jerkin. I'd almost lost it today. It had made me
think of all it had symbolized all these years. The King's
protection, for a bastard grandson that a more ruthless man would
have done away with quietly. And now that he needed protection?
What did it symbolize to me now?

So. What do we do?

You and I? Precious little. I'm but a Fool, and
you are a bastard.

I nodded grudgingly. I wish Chade were here. I
wish I knew when he was coming back. I looked to the Fool,
wondering how much he knew..

Shade? Shade returns when the sun does, I've
heard. Evasive as always. Too late for the King, I imagine, he
added more quietly.

So we are powerless?

You and I? Never. We've too much power to act
here; that is all. In this area, the powerless ones are always the
most powerful. Perhaps you are right; they are who we should
consult in this. And now ... Here he rose and made a show of
shaking all his joints loose as if he were a marionette with
tangled strings. He set every bell he had to jingling. I could not
help but smile. My king will be coming into his best time of day.
And I will be there, to do what little I can for him.

He stepped carefully out of his ring of sorted
scrolls and tablets. He yawned. Farewell, Fitz.

Farewell.

He halted, puzzled, by the door. You have no
objections to my going?

I believe I objected first to your
staying.

Never bandy words with a Fool. But do you
forget? I offered you a bargain. A secret for a secret.

I had not forgotten. But I was not sure,
suddenly, that I wanted to know. Whence comes the Fool, and why? I
asked softly.

Ah. He stood a moment, then asked gravely, You
are certain you wish the answers to these questions?

Whence comes the Fool, and why? I repeated
slowly.

For an instant he was dumb. I saw him then. Saw
him as I had not in years, not as the Fool, glib-tongued and wits
as cutting as any barnacle, but as a small and slender person, all
so fragile, pale flesh, bird-boned, even his hair seemed less
substantial than that of other mortals. His motley of black and
white trimmed in silver bells, his ridiculous rat scepter were all
the armor and sword he had in this court of intrigues and
treachery. And his mystery. The invisible cloak of his mystery. I
wished for an instant he had not offered the bargain, and that my
curiosity had been less consuming.

He sighed. He glanced about my room, then walked
over to stand before the tapestry of King Wisdom greeting the
Elderling. He glanced up at it, then smiled sourly, finding some
humor there I had never seen. He assumed the stance of a poet about
to recite. Then he halted, looked at me squarely once more. You are
certain you wish to know, Fitzy-fitz?

Like a liturgy, I repeated the question. Whence
comes the Fool and why?

Whence? Ah, whence? He went nose to nose with
Ratsy for a moment, formulating a reply to his own question. Then
he met my eyes. Go south, Fitz. To lands past the edges of every
map that Verity has ever seen. And past the edges of the maps made
in those countries as well. Go south, and then east across a sea
you have no name for. Eventually, you would come to a long
peninsula, and on its snaking tip you would find the village where
a Fool was born. You might even find, still, a mother who recalled
her wormy-white babe, and how she cradled me against her warm
breast and sang. He glanced up at my incredulous, enraptured face
and gave a short laugh. You cannot even picture it, can you? Let me
make it harder for you. Her hair was long and dark and curling, and
her eyes were green. Fancy that! Of such rich colors was this
transparency made. And the fathers of the colorless child? Two
cousins, for that was the custom of that land. One broad and
swarthy and full of laughter, ruddy-lipped and brown-eyed, a farmer
smelling of rich earth and open air. The other as narrow as the one
was wide, and gold to his bronze, a poet and songster, blue-eyed.
And, oh, how they loved me and rejoiced in me! All the three of
them, and the village as well. I was so loved. His voice grew soft,
and for a moment he fell silent. I knew with great certainty that I
was hearing what no other had ever heard from him. I remembered the
time I had ventured into his room, and the exquisite little doll in
its cradle that I had found there. Cherished as the Fool had once
been cherished. I waited.

When I was ... old enough, I bade them all
farewell. I set off to find my place in history, and choose where I
would thwart it. This was the place I selected; the time had been
destined by the hour of my birth. I came here, and became Shrewd's.
I gathered up whatever threads the fates put into my hands, and I
began to twist them and color them as I could, in the hopes of
affecting what was woven after me.

I shook my head. I don't understand a thing you
just said.

Ah. He shook his head, setting his bells to
jingling. I offered to tell you my secret. I didn't promise to make
you understand it.

A message is not delivered until it is
understood, I countered. This was a direct quote from
Chade.

The Fool teetered on accepting it. You do
understand what I said, he compromised. You simply do not accept
it. Never before have I spoken so plainly to you. Perhaps that is
what confuses you.

He was serious. I shook my head again. You make
no sense! You went somewhere to discover your place in history? How
can that be? History is what is done and behind us.

He shook his head, slowly this time. History is
what we do in our lives. We create it as we go along. He smiled
enigmatically. The future is another kind of history.

No man can know the future, I agreed.

His smile widened. Cannot they? he asked in a
whisper. Perhaps, Fitz, somewhere, there is written down all that
is the future. Not written down by one person, know, but if the
hints and visions and premonitions and foreseeings of an entire
race were written down, and cross-referenced and related to one
another, might not such a people create a loom to hold the weaving
of the future?

Preposterous, I objected. How would anyone know
if any of it were true?

If such a loom were made, and such a tapestry of
predictions woven, not for a few years, but for tens of hundreds of
years, after a time it could be shown that it presented a
surprisingly accurate foretelling. Bear in mind that those who keep
these records are another race, an exceedingly long-lived one. A
pale lovely race, that occasionally mingled its bloodlines with
that of men. And then! He spun in a circle, suddenly fey, pleased
insufferably with himself. And then, when certain ones were born,
ones marked so clearly that history must recall them, they are
called to step forward, to find their places in that future
history. And they might further be exhorted to examine that place,
that juncture of a hundred threads, and say, these threads, here,
these are the ones I shall tweak, and in the tweaking, I shall
change the tapestry, I shall warp the weft, alter the color of what
is to come. I shall change the destiny of the world.

He was mocking me. I was certain of it now.
Once, in perhaps a thousand years, there may come a man capable of
making such a great change in the world. A powerful King, perhaps,
or a philosopher, shaping the thoughts of thousands. But you and I,
Fool? We are pawns. Ciphers.

He shook his head pityingly. This, more than
anything else, is what I have never understood about your people.
You can roll dice, and understand that the whole game may hinge on
one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man's
fortune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man's whole
life, you sniff at, and say, what, this naught of a human, this
fisherman, this carpenter, this thief, this cook, why, what can
they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sputter your
lives away, like candles burning in a draft.

Not all men are destined for greatness, I
reminded him.

Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a
life lived as if it made no difference at all to the great life of
the world? A sadder thing I cannot imagine. Why should not a mother
say to herself, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care
for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her,
and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that
plants a seed say to his neighbor, this seed I plant today will
feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?

This is philosophy, Fool. I have never had time
to study such things.

No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not
to think of such things. Each creature in the world should consider
this thing, every moment of the heart's beating. Otherwise, what is
the point of arising each day?

Fool, this is beyond me, I declared uneasily. I
had never seen him so impassioned, never heard him speak so
plainly. It was as if I had stirred gray-coated embers and suddenly
found the cherry-red coal that glowed in their depths. He burned
too brightly.

No, Fitz. I have come to believe it is through
you. He reached out and tapped me lightly with Ratsy. Keystone.
Gate. Crossroads. Catalyst. All these you have been, and continue
to be. Whenever I come to a crossroads, whenever the scent is
uncertain, when I put my nose to the ground, and cast about and bay
and snuffle, I find one scent. Yours. You create possibilities.
While you exist, the future can be steered. I came here for you,
Fitz. You are the thread I tweak. One of them, anyway.

I felt a sudden chill of foreboding. Whatever
more he had to say, I did not wish to hear it. Somewhere, far away,
a thin howl arose. A wolf baying in midday. A shiver ran up me,
setting up every hair on my body. You've had your joke, I said,
laughing nervously. I should have known better than to expect a
real secret from you.

You. Or not you. Linchpin, anchor, knot in the
line. I have seen the end of the world, Fitz. Seen it woven as
plainly as I've seen my birth. Oh, not in your lifetime, nor even
mine. But shall we be happy, to say that we live in the dusk rather
than in the full night? Shall we rejoice that we shall only suffer,
while your offspring will be the ones to know the torments of the
damned? Shall this be why we do not act?

Fool. I wish not to hear this.

You had a chance to deny me. But thrice you
demanded it, and hear it you shall. He lifted his staff as if
leading a charge, and spoke as if he addressed the full Council of
the Six Duchies. The fall of the Kingdom of the Six Duchies was the
pebble that started the landslide. The soulless ones moved on from
there, spreading like a bloodstain down the world's best shirt.
Darkness devours, and is never satiated until it feeds upon itself.
And all because the line of House Farseer failed. That is the
future as it is woven. But wait! Farseer? He cocked his head and
peered at me, considering as a gore-crow. Why do they call you
that, Fitz? What have your ancestors ever foreseen afar to gain
such a name? Shall I tell you how it comes about? The very name of
your house is the future reaching back in time to you, and naming
you by the name that someday your house will deserve. The Farseers.
That was the clue I took to my heart. That the future reached back
to you, to your house, to where your bloodlines intersected with my
lifetime, and named you so. I came here, and what did I discover?
One Farseer, with no name at all. Unnamed in any history, past or
future. But I have seen you take a name, FitzChivalry Farseer. And
I shall see that you deserve it. He advanced on me, seized me by
the shoulders. We are here, Fitz, you and I, to change the fixture
of the world. To reach out and hold in place the tiny pebble that
could trigger the boulder's tumbling.

No. A terrible cold was welling up inside me. I
shook with it. My teeth began to chatter, and the bright motes of
light to sparkle at the edges of my vision. A fit. I was going to
have another fit. Right here, in front of the Fool. Leave! I cried
out, unable to abide the thought. Go away. Now! Quickly.
Quickly!

I had never seen the Fool astonished before. His
jaw actually dropped open, revealing his tiny white teeth and pale
tongue. A moment longer he gripped me, and then he let go. I did
not stop to think of what he might feel at my abrupt dismissal. I
snatched the door open and pointed out it, and he was gone. I shut
it behind him, latched it, and then staggered to my bed as wave
after wave of darkness surged through me. I fell facedown on the
coverlets. Molly! I cried out. Molly, save me! But I knew she could
not hear me, and I sank alone into my blackness.

The brightness of a hundred candles, festoons of
evergreen and swags of holly and bare black winter branches hung
with sparkling sugar candies to delight the eye and tongue. The
clacking of the puppets' wooden swords and the delighted
exclamations of the children when the Piebald Prince's head
actually came flying off and arced out over the crowd. Mellow's
mouth wide in a bawdy song as his unattended fingers danced
independently over his harp strings. A blast of cold as the great
doors of the hall were thrown open and yet another group of
merrymakers came into the Great Hall to join us. The slow knowledge
stole over me that this was no longer a dream, this was Winterfest,
and I was wandering benignly through the celebration, smiling
blandly at everyone and seeing no one. I blinked my eyes slowly. I
could do nothing quickly. I was wrapped in soft wool, I was
drifting like an unmanned sailboat on a still day. A wonderful
sleepiness filled me. Someone touched my arm. I turned. Burrich
frowning and asking me something. His voice, always so deep, almost
a color washing against me when he spoke. It's all good, I told him
calmly. Don't worry, it's all good. I floated away from him,
wafting through the room with the milling of the crowd.

King Shrewd sat on his throne, but I knew now
that he was made of paper. The Fool sat on the step by his feet and
clutched his rat scepter like an infant clutches a rattle. His
tongue was a sword, and as the King's enemies drew closer to the
throne, the Fool slew them, slashed them to bits, and turned them
back from the paper man on the throne.

And here were Verity and Kettricken on another
dais, pretty as the Fool's doll, each of them. I looked and saw
they were both made of hungers, like containers made of emptiness.
I felt so sad, I'd never be able to fill either of them, for they
were both so terribly empty. Regal came to speak to them, and he
was a big black bird, not a crow, no, not so merry as a crow, and
not a raven, he hadn't the cheery cleverness of a raven, no, a
miserable eye-pecker of a bird, circling, circling, dreaming of
them as carrion for himself to feast on. He smelled of carrion, and
I covered my mouth and nose with a hand and walked away from
them.

I sat down on a hearth, next to a giggling girl,
happy in her blue skirts. She chattered like a squirrel and I
smiled at her, and soon she leaned against me and began to sing a
funny little song about three milkmaids. There were others sitting
and standing about the hearth, and they joined in the song. We all
laughed at the end, but I wasn't sure why. And her hand was warm,
resting so casually on my thigh.