Royal Assassin - Страница 79

I presented myself formally, and carefully let Verity know that King Shrewd had summoned me.

“No,” he told me gently. “I summoned you to present yourself to King Shrewd. Along with Kettricken and me. I wished you witness for this.”

Relief flooded me. This was not about Celerity, then. “Witness for what, my prince?” I managed to ask.

He looked at me as if I were daft. “I ask the King’s permission to leave on a quest. To seek out the Elderlings and bring back the aid we so desperately need.”

“Oh.” I should have noticed the quiet page, all in black, bearing an armful of scrolls and tablets. The boy’s face was white and stiff. I would wager he had never before done anything more formal for Verity than wax his boots. Rosemary, freshly washed and clothed in Kettricken’s colors, reminded me of a scrubbed purple-and-white turnip. I smiled at the chubby child, but she returned my look gravely.

Without preamble, Verity rapped once on King Shrewd’s door. “A moment!” called a voice. Wallace’s. He opened the door a crack, glared out, then realized that this was Verity he was keeping out. He had a moment of too obvious hesitation before he swung the door wide.

“Sir,” he quavered. “I did not expect you. That is, I was not informed that the King was to have—”

“You are not needed for this. You may go, now.” Usually Verity did not dismiss even a page so coldly.

“But . . . the King may have need of me. . . .” The man’s eyes shifted wildly about. He feared something.

Verity’s eyes narrowed. “If he does, I will see you are summoned. In fact, you may wait. Just outside the door. Be there if I call for you.”

After an instant’s pause Wallace stepped outside the door and stood beside it. We entered the King’s chambers. Verity himself set hand to the door and shut it. “I do not like that man,” he observed, more than loudly enough to be heard through the door. “He is officiously subservient, and greasily obsequious. A very poor combination.”

The King was not in his sitting room. As Verity crossed it the Fool suddenly appeared in Shrewd’s bedroom doorway. He goggled at us, grinned in a sudden lift of joy, and then made a floor-sweeping bow to all of us. “Sire! Awaken! It is as I have foretold, the minstrels have arrived!”

“Fool,” Verity growled, but it was good-natured. He brushed past him, fending off the Fool’s mocking attempts to kiss the hem of his robe. Kettricken lifted a hand to smother a smile and followed Verity. The Fool all but succeeded in tripping me with a suddenly stretched-forth foot. I avoided it, but made a clumsy entrance, nearly colliding with Kettricken. The Fool grinned and simpered at me, then capered over to Shrewd’s bedside. He lifted the old man’s hand, patted it with true gentleness. “Your Majesty? Your Majesty? You have callers.”

In the bed, Shrewd stirred and took a sudden deep breath. “What’s this? Who’s here? Verity? Pull back the curtains, Fool, I can scarcely see who’s here. Queen Kettricken? What’s all this? The Fitz! What is this about?” His voice was not strong, and there was a querulous note to it, but for all that, he was better than I had expected. As the Fool drew back the bed curtains and propped pillows behind him, I found myself facing a man who looked older than Chade. The resemblance between the two seemed to become more marked as Shrewd aged. The flesh of the King’s face had fallen, to reveal the same browline and cheekbones as his bastard brother. The eyes beneath those brows were alert, but weary. He seemed better than the last time I had seen him. He pushed himself more upright to confront us. “Well, what is this about?” he demanded, his eyes scanning our circle.

Verity bowed deeply, formally, and Kettricken echoed it with her curtsy. I did as I knew was required: went down on one knee and stayed there, head bowed. I still managed to peek up when Verity spoke. “King Shrewd. My father. I come to ask your permission for an undertaking.”

“Which is?” the King asked testily.

Verity lifted his eyes to meet his father’s. “I wish to leave Buckkeep with a picked band of men, to attempt to follow the same path King Wisdom took so long ago. I wish to journey this winter to the Rain Wilds beyond the Mountain Kingdom, to find the Elderlings and ask them to keep the pledge they made to our ancestor.”

An incredulous look passed briefly over Shrewd’s face. He pushed himself upright in bed, swung his thin legs over the side. “Fool. Bring wine. Fitz, get up and help him. Kettricken, dear, your arm if you will to help me to that chair by the fire. Verity, fetch the small table by the window. Please.”

With this handful of requests, Shrewd popped the bubble of formality. Kettricken helped him with a familiarity that showed me she had a genuine bond with the old man. The Fool pranced off to the cupboard in the sitting room for wineglasses, leaving me to select a bottle of wine from the small store that Shrewd kept in his rooms. The bottles were covered in dust, as if he had not tasted these wines for a long time. I wondered suspiciously what was the source for what Wallace gave him. At least the rest of the room, I noted, was in good order. Much better than it had been before Winterfest. The Smoke censers that had so distressed me stood cold in the corner. And tonight the King seemed to have his wits still.

The Fool helped the King into a thick woolen robe and knelt to slipper his feet. Shrewd settled into his chair by the fire and set his wineglass on the table at his elbow. Older. Much older. But the King I had reported to so often in my youth once more held council before me. Suddenly I wished I could be the one speaking to him tonight. This sharp-eyed old man might actually hear out my reasons for wishing to wed Molly. I felt a new roiling of anger at Wallace for the habits he had led my King into.

But this was not my time. Despite the King’s informality, Verity and Kettricken were strung tight as bowstrings. The Fool and I brought chairs that they might be seated to either side of Shrewd. I stood behind Verity and waited.

“Tell it simply,” Shrewd requested of Verity, and he did. Kettricken’s scrolls were unfurled one at a time, and Verity read aloud the pertinent passages. The old map was studied at length. Shrewd did nothing but ask questions at first, making no comments or judgments until he was sure he had from them every scrap of information. The Fool stood at his elbow, alternately beaming at me and making terrible faces at Verity’s page in an attempt to make the petrified boy at least smile. I think it more likely he frightened the lad. Rosemary forgot entirely where she was and wandered off to toy with the tassels on the bed curtains.

When Verity had finished speaking, and Kettricken had added her comments, the King leaned back in his chair. He drained the bit of wine that was still in his glass, then held it out to the Fool to refill. He took a sip, sighed, then shook his head. “No. There is too much of pecksies and nursery tales to this for you to undertake it right now, Verity. You have shown me enough to make me believe it worth our while to send an emissary there. A man of your choosing, with a fitting entourage, gifts, and letters from you and me to confirm he is there at our behest. But yourself, the King-in-Waiting? No. We have not the resources to spare just now. Regal was at me earlier today, going over the costs of the new ships being built, and the fortifying of the towers on Antler Island. Money is becoming scarce. And it might not make the folk feel safe to have you leave the city.”

“I do not flee, I leave on a quest. A quest with their benefit as my goal. And I leave behind my Queen-in-Waiting, to represent me to them while I am gone. I did not have in mind a caravan with minstrels and cooks and embroidered tents, sir. We would be traveling on snowy roads, going into the heart of winter itself. I would take a military contingent, and travel as soldiers do. As I always have.”

“And you think this would impress the Elderlings? If you find them? If they ever existed at all?”

“Legend has it that King Wisdom went on his own. I believe the Elderlings existed, and that he found them. If I fail, I will return, to take up again with my Skilling and my warships. What will we have lost? If I succeed, I bring back a powerful ally.”

“And if you die in the seeking?” Shrewd asked heavily.

Verity opened his mouth to reply. But before he could speak, the sitting room door was flung open and Regal boiled into the room. His face was flushed. “What goes on here? Why was I not informed of this council?” He shot me a venomous look. Behind him, Wallace peeked in at the door.

Verity permitted himself a small smile. “If you were not informed by your spies, why are you here now? Rebuke them that you did not know sooner, not me.” Wallace’s head jerked back out of sight.

“Father, I demand to know what goes on here!” Regal very nearly stomped his foot. Behind Shrewd, the Fool mimicked Regal’s facial expression. At this, Verity’s page finally smiled, but then his eyes widened and he straightened his face.

King Shrewd addressed Verity instead. “Is there a reason that you wished Prince Regal excluded from this discussion?”

“I did not see that it concerned him.” He paused. “And I wished to be sure the decision reached was exclusively your own.” Verity, faithful to his name.

Regal hackled, his nostrils pinching white, but Shrewd held up a hand to quell him. Again he spoke only to Verity. “Does not concern him? But on whom would fall the mantle of authority while you were gone?”