‘A Sta­ble­mas­ter with no horses and a Fool with no king,’ the Fool ob­served. ‘Burrich and I can con­tinue to drink. I be­lieve that is a nor­mal life un­der these cir­cum­stances. As for you, Fitz, I have no idea what title you give your­self these days, let alone what you nor­mally do all day. Hence …’

  ‘No one is go­ing to sit about and drink,’ Lacey in­toned omin­ously. ‘Put the bottle aside and keep your wits sharp. And dis­perse, as Fitz here said. Enough has been said and done in this room to put us all swinging from a tree for treason. Save you, of course, FitzChiv­alry. It would have to be poison for you. Those of the royal blood are not al­lowed to swing.’

  Her words had a chilling ef­fect. Burrich picked up the cork and restoppered the bottle. Lacey left first, a pot of Burrich’s oint­ment in her bas­ket. The Fool fol­lowed her a short time later. When I left Burrich, he had fin­ished clean­ing the fowl and was pluck­ing the last stub­born feath­ers from it. The man wasted noth­ing.

  I went out and wandered about a bit. I watched be­hind me for shad­ows. Kettricken would be rest­ing, and I did not think I could with­stand Pa­tience’s nat­ter­ing, or her in­sights just then. If the Fool was in his cham­ber, it was be­cause he did not want com­pany. And if he was else­where, I had no idea where that might be. The whole of Buck­keep was as plagued with In­land­ers as a sick dog with fleas. I strolled through the kit­chen, pur­loin­ing ginger­bread. Then I wandered about dis­con­sol­ately, try­ing not to think, try­ing to ap­pear without pur­pose as I headed back to the hut where once I had hid­den Nighteyes. The hut was empty now, as cold within as without. It had been some time since Nighteyes had laired here. He pre­ferred the for­es­ted hills be­hind Buck­keep. But I did not wait long be­fore his shadow crossed the threshold of the open door.

  Per­haps the greatest com­fort of the Wit bond is never hav­ing to ex­plain. I did not need to re­count the last day’s events to him, did not have to find words to de­scribe how it felt to watch Molly walk away from me. Nor did he ask ques­tions or make sym­path­etic talk. The hu­man events would have made small sense to him. He ac­ted on the strength of what I felt, not why. He simply came to me and sat be­side me on the dirty floor. I could put an arm around him and lean my face against his ruff and sit.

  Such packs men make, he ob­served to me after a while. How can you hunt to­gether when you can­not all run in the same dir­ec­tion?

  I made no reply to this. I knew no an­swer and he did not ex­pect one.

  He leaned down to nibble an itch on his fore­leg. Then he sat up, shook him­self all over, and asked, What will you do for a mate now?

  Not all wolves take mates.

  The leader al­ways does. How else would the pack mul­tiply?

  My leader has a mate, and she is with child. Per­haps wolves have it aright, and men should pay at­ten­tion. Per­haps only the leader should mate. That was the de­cision that Heart of the Pack made long ago. That he could not have both a mate, and a leader he fol­lowed with all of his heart.

  That one is more wolf than he cares to ad­mit. To any­one. A pause. Ginger­bread?

  I’ve missed your dreams at night.

  They are not my dreams. They are my life. You are wel­come to them, so long as Heart of the Pack does not get angry with us. Life shared is bet­ter. A pause. You would rather have shared the fe­male’s life.

  It is my weak­ness to want too much.

  He blinked his deep eyes. You love too many. My life is much sim­pler.

  He loved only me.

  That is true. The only real dif­fi­culty I have is know­ing that you will never trust that is so.

  I sighed heav­ily. Nighteyes sneezed sud­denly, then shook him­self all over. I mis­like this mouse dust. But be­fore I go, use your so clever hands to scratch in­side my ears. It is hard for me to do well without leav­ing welts.

  And so I scratched his ears, and un­der his throat and the back of his neck un­til he fell over on his side like a puppy.

  ‘Hound,’ I told him af­fec­tion­ately.

  For that in­sult, you pay! He flipped him­self up onto his feet, bit me hard through my sleeve, and then dar­ted out the door and was gone. I pulled back my sleeve to sur­vey the deep white dents in my flesh that were not quite bleed­ing. Wolf hu­mour.

  The brief winter day had ended. I went back to the keep and forced my­self to go through the kit­chens, to al­low Cook to tell me all the gos­sip. She stuffed me full of plum cake and mut­ton as she told me of the Queen’s pos­sible mis­car­riage, and then how the men had chopped through the outer door of the King’s room after his guard sud­denly per­ished of apo­plexy. ‘And the second door too, all the time Prince Regal wor­rit­ing and ur­ging them on, for fear some­thing had be­fallen the King him­self. But when they got through, des­pite all that chop­ping, the King was sleep­ing like a babe, sir. And so deep a sleep they could not rouse him at all, to tell him why they’d chopped his doors away.’

  ‘Amaz­ing,’ I agreed, and she went on to the lesser gos­sip of the keep. I found that centred these days mostly on who was and was not in­cluded in the flight to Trade­ford. Cook was to go, for the sake of her goose­berry tarts and bundle cakes. She did not know who was to take over the cook­ing here, but no doubt it would be one of the guards. Regal had told her she might take all her best pots, for which she was grate­ful, but what she would really miss was the west hearth, for she had never cooked on a bet­ter, for the draught be­ing just right and the meat-hooks at all the right heights. I listened to her, and tried to think only of her words, to be fully in­trigued by the small de­tails of what she con­sidered im­port­ant in her life. The Queen’s Guard, I found, was to stay at Buck­keep, as would those few who still wore the col­ours of King Shrewd’s per­sonal guard. Since they had lost the priv­ilege of his rooms, they had be­come a dis­pir­ited lot. But Regal in­sisted it was ne­ces­sary those groups stay, to main­tain a royal pres­ence in Buck­keep. Rose­mary would go, and her mother, but that was hardly sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing whom they served. Fed­wren would not, nor Mel­low. Now there was a voice she would miss, but she’d prob­ably get used to that In­land warb­ling after a while.

  She never thought to ask me if I were go­ing.

  As I climbed the stairs to my room, I tried to visu­al­ize Buck­keep as it would be. The high table would be empty at every meal, the food served would be the simple cam­paign food the mil­it­ary cooks were most fa­mil­iar with. For as long as the food sup­plies las­ted. I ex­pec­ted we would eat a lot of wild game and sea­weed be­fore spring. I wor­ried more for Pa­tience and Lacey than I did for my­self. Rough quar­ters and coarse food did not bother me, but it was not what they were used to. At least there would be Mel­low still to sing, if his mel­an­choly nature did not over­take him at his aban­don­ment. And Fed­wren. With few chil­dren to teach, per­haps he and Pa­tience could fi­nally study out their pa­per-mak­ing. So put­ting a brave face on it all, I tried to find a fu­ture for us.

  ‘Where have you been, Bas­tard?’

  Se­rene, step­ping out sud­denly from a door­way. She had ex­pec­ted me to startle. I had known by the Wit someone was there. I did not flinch. ‘Out.’

  ‘You smell like a dog.’

  ‘At least I have the ex­cuse of hav­ing been with dogs. What few are left in the stable.’

  It took her an in­stant to dis­cover the in­sult in my po­lite reply.

  ‘You smell like a dog be­cause you are more than half a dog your­self. Beast-ma­gicker.’

  I nearly re­spon­ded with some re­mark about her mother. In­stead, I sud­denly and truly re­called her mother. ‘When we were first learn­ing to scribe, re­mem­ber how your mother al­ways made you wear a dark smock, for you splattered your ink so?’

  She stared at me sul­lenly, turn­ing the re­mark every which way in her mind, try­ing to dis­cover some in­sult or slight or trick in it.

  ‘What of it?’ she asked at last, un­able to leave it hanging.

  ‘Noth­ing. I but re­membered it. Was a time when I helped you get­ting the tails right on your let­ters.’

  ‘That has noth­ing to do with now!’ she de­clared an­grily.

  ‘No, it does not. This is my door. Were you ex­pect­ing to come in with me?’

  She spat, not quite at me, but it landed on the floor at my feet. For some reason, I de­cided she would not have done it, had not she been leav­ing Buck­keep with Regal. It was no longer her home, and she felt free to soil it be­fore leav­ing it. It told me much. She never ex­pec­ted to come back here.

  In­side my room, I re­set every latch and bolt me­tic­u­lously, then ad­ded the heavy bar to the door. I went and checked my win­dow and found it well-shuttered still. I looked un­der my bed. Fi­nally, I sat down in a chair by my hearth to doze un­til Chade summoned me.

  I came out of a light doze to a tap­ping at my door. ‘Who is it?’ I called.

  ‘Rose­mary. The Queen wishes to see you.’

  By the time I had un­done the latches and catches, the child was gone. She was only a girl, but it still un­nerved me to have such a mes­sage vo­cal­ized through a door. I groomed my­self hast­ily and then hur­ried down to the Queen’s cham­bers. I noted in passing the wreck­age that had once been the oak door to Shrewd’s room. A bulky guard stood in the gap; an In­lander, not a man I knew.

  Queen Kettricken was re­clin­ing on a couch near her hearth. Sev­eral knots of her ladies gos­siped in dif­fer­ent corners of the room, but the Queen her­self was alone. Her eyes were closed. She looked so ut­terly worn that I wondered if Rose­mary’s mes­sage had been an er­ror. But Lady Hope­ful ushered me to the Queen’s side and fetched me a low stool to perch upon. She offered me a cup of tea and I ac­cep­ted. As soon as Lady Hope­ful de­par­ted to brew it, Kettricken opened her eyes. ‘What next?’ she asked in so low a voice that I had to lean closer to hear it.

  I looked askance at her.

  ‘Shrewd sleeps now. He can­not sleep forever. Whatever was given him will wear off, and when it does, we are back to where we were.’

  ‘The King-in-Wait­ing ce­re­mony ap­proaches. Per­haps the Prince will be busied with that. No doubt there are new clothes to be sewn and tried upon him, and all the other de­tails he glor­ies in. It may keep him from the King.’

  ‘After that?’

  Lady Hope­ful was back with my cup of tea. I took it with mur­mured thanks, and as she pulled up a chair be­side us, Queen Kettricken smiled weakly and asked if she might have one also. I was al­most shamed by how swiftly Lady Hope­ful leapt to do her bid­ding.

  ‘I do not know,’ I mur­mured in reply to her earlier ques­tion.

  ‘I do. The King would be safe in my moun­tains. He would be hon­oured and pro­tec­ted, and per­haps Jon­qui would know of … Oh, thank you, Hope­ful.’ Queen Kettricken took the proffered cup and sipped at it as Lady Hope­ful settled her­self.

  I smiled at Kettricken, and chose my words care­fully, trust­ing her to read my mean­ing. ‘But it is so far to the moun­tains, my queen, and the weather so hard this time of year. By the time a cour­ier got through to seek your mother’s rem­edy, it would be nigh on spring. There are other places that might of­fer the same cure for your troubles. Bearns or Rip­pon, per­haps, might of­fer if we asked. The worthy dukes of those provinces can deny you noth­ing, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Kettricken smiled wear­ily. ‘But they have such prob­lems of their own just now, I hes­it­ate to ask any­thing more of them. Be­sides, the root we call livelong grows only in the moun­tains. A de­term­ined cour­ier could travel there, I think.’ She sipped again at her tea.

  ‘Who to send with such a re­quest; ah, that would be the hard­est ques­tion,’ I poin­ted out. Surely she could see the dif­fi­culties of send­ing a sick old man off on a jour­ney to the moun­tains in winter. He could not go alone. ‘The man that went would have to be very trust­worthy and strong of will.’

  ‘Such a man sounds like a wo­man to me,’ Kettricken quipped, and Hope­ful laughed mer­rily, more to see the Queen’s mood lightened than at the wit­ti­cism. Kettricken paused with her cup at her lips. ‘Per­haps I should have to go my­self, to see the thing done right,’ she ad­ded, and smiled when my eyes widened. But the look she gave me was ser­i­ous.

  There fol­lowed some light talk, and a re­cipe of mostly fic­ti­tious herbs from Kettricken that I prom­ised to do my best to find for her. I be­lieved I took her mean­ing. When I ex­cused my­self and went back to my room, I wondered how I would keep her from act­ing be­fore Chade could. It was a pretty puzzle.

  I had scarcely re­fastened all my door catches and bars be­fore I felt a draught up my back. I turned to find the entry to Chade’s realm stand­ing ajar. I climbed the stairs wear­ily. I longed to sleep, but knew that once I lay down, I would be un­able to close my eyes.

  The smell of food en­ticed me as I entered Chade’s cham­ber, and I was sud­denly aware I was hungry. Chade was already at the small table he had set out. ‘Sit down and eat,’ he told me tersely. ‘We must plot to­gether.’

  I was two bites into a meat pie when he asked me softly, ‘How long do you think we might keep King Shrewd here, in these cham­bers, un­detec­ted?’

  I chewed and swal­lowed. ‘I’ve never been able to find a way into this cham­ber,’ I poin­ted out quietly.

  ‘Oh, but they do ex­ist. And as food and other ne­ces­sit­ies must go in and out of them, there are some few who are aware of them, without know­ing ex­actly what they know. My war­ren con­nects to rooms in the keep which are reg­u­larly stocked with sup­plies for me. But my life was much sim­pler when food and lin­ens were sup­plied for Lady Thyme.’

  ‘How will you fare after Regal is gone to Trade­ford?’ I asked.

  ‘Likely not as well as I have. Some tasks will be done out of habit, if those with the habits re­main, no doubt. But as food be­comes scarcer, some will won­der why they store sup­plies of it in a dis­used part of the keep. But we were speak­ing of Shrewd’s com­fort, not mine.’

  ‘It de­pends on how Shrewd dis­ap­peared. If Regal thought he had left the keep by or­din­ary means, you might keep him hid­den here for some time. But if Regal knows he is within Buck­keep still, he will stop at noth­ing. I sus­pect his first or­der would be to put men with ham­mers to work on the walls of the King’s bed­cham­ber.’

  ‘Dir­ect, but ef­fect­ive,’ Chade con­curred.

  ‘Have you found a safe place for him, at Bearns or Rip­pon?’

  ‘As swift as that? Of course not. We would have to hide him here, for days or per­haps weeks be­fore a place was made ready. And then he must be smuggled out of the Keep. It would mean find­ing men who can be bribed, and know­ing when they are on the gate. Un­for­tu­nately, men that can be bribed to do a thing can be bribed to speak of it later. Un­less they had ac­ci­dents.’ He looked at me.

  ‘Let that not be a con­cern. There is an­other way out of Buck­keep,’ I told him, think­ing of my wolf’s way. ‘We have an­other prob­lem also, and that is Kettricken. She will act on her own if she does not soon know we have a plan. Her own thoughts have taken her in the same dir­ec­tion as yours. To­night she pro­posed her­self tak­ing Shrewd to the moun­tains for safety.’

  ‘A preg­nant wo­man and a sick old man in mid-winter? Ri­dicu­lous.’ Chade paused. ‘But. It would never be ex­pec­ted. They would never look for them on that road. And with all the flow of folk that Regal has cre­ated go­ing up the Buck River, one more wo­man and her ail­ing father would scarcely be marked.’

  ‘It’s still ri­dicu­lous,’ I pro­tested. I did not like the sparks of in­terest I had seen kindle in Chade’s eyes. ‘Who could go with them?’

  ‘Burrich. It would save him drink­ing him­self to death from bore­dom, and he could man­age their an­im­als for them. And likely much else they would need. Would he go?’

  ‘You know he would,’ I said un­will­ingly. ‘But Shrewd would never sur­vive such a trip.’

  ‘He is more likely to sur­vive such a trip than to sur­vive go­ing with Regal. That which eats at him will con­tinue to de­vour his life, wherever he is.’ He frowned more darkly. ‘But why it eats at him so much more swiftly these days is bey­ond me to say.’

  ‘The cold. The priva­tion. It will not help him.’

  ‘There are inns for part of the way. I can find some coin for them yet. Shrewd looks so little like he used to, we al­most need not fear him be­ing re­cog­nized. The Queen would be trick­ier. There are few wo­men with her col­our­ing and height. Still, clothed heav­ily, we could in­crease her girth. Hood her hair, and …’

  ‘You can­not be ser­i­ous.’

  ‘To­mor­row night,’ he replied. ‘We must do some­thing by to­mor­row night. For that is when the sleep­ing po­tion I gave Shrewd will wear off. An­other at­tempt will prob­ably not be made on the Queen un­til she is on her way to Trade­ford. But once Regal has her in his power, well, so many ac­ci­dents hap­pen on a jour­ney. A slip from a barge into a freez­ing river, a run­away horse, a meal of bad meat. If his as­sas­sin is half as good as we are, he’ll suc­ceed.’

  ‘Regal’s as­sas­sin?’

  Chade gave me a pity­ing look. ‘You don’t sup­pose our prince is up to spread­ing grease and lamp­black on steps him­self, do you? Who do you think it is?’

  ‘Se­rene.’ The name popped to my lips.

  ‘Then most ob­vi­ously it is not her. No, we will find it to be some mouse of a man with a pleas­ant de­mean­our and a settled life. If we ever find him out at all. Ah, well, set it aside for now. Though there’s noth­ing quite as chal­len­ging as stalk­ing an­other as­sas­sin.’

  ‘Will,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Will what?’ he asked.

  I told him of Will, quickly and quietly. As he listened, his eyes widened.