The Complete Farseer Trilogy: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

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 the plot. I was still not sure 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 fitted 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.

      Burrich looked at it and almost jumped. ‘Where did you get that?’

      ‘Patience gave it to me. Just before I left.’

      ‘She had no right!’ And then, more quietly, ‘I thought it went to his grave with him.’

      I was silent, waiting.

      Burrich looked aside. ‘It was your father’s. I gave it to him.’ He spoke quietly.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I wanted to, obviously.’ He closed the topic.

      I reached up and began to unfasten it.

      ‘No,’ he said gruffly. ‘Keep it where it is. But it is not a thing to be spent in a bribe. These Chyurda can’t be bribed anyway.’

      I knew he was right about that. I tried to think of other plans. The sun was coming up. Morning, when Galen would act. Perhaps had already acted. I wished I knew what was going on in the palace below. Did they know I was missing? Was Kettricken preparing to pledge herself to a man she would hate? Were Sevrens and Rowd dead yet? If not, could I turn them against Regal by warning them?

      ‘Someone’s coming!’ Burrich flattened himself. I lay back, resigned to whatever happened. I had no physical fight left in me. ‘Do you know her?’ Burrich breathed.

      I turned my head. Jonqui, preceded by a little dog that would never climb a tree for Rurisk again. ‘The King’s sister.’ I didn’t bother whispering. She was carrying one of my nightshirts, and an instant later the tiny dog was leaping joyously around us. He romped invitingly at Nosy, but Nosy just looked at him mournfully. An instant later, Jonqui strode up to us.

      ‘You must come back,’ she said to me without preamble. ‘And you must hurry.’

      ‘Hard enough to come back,’ I told her, ‘without hurrying to my death.’ I was watching behind her for other trackers. Burrich had risen and taken a defensive posture over me.

      ‘No death,’ she promised me calmly. ‘Kettricken has forgiven you. I have been counselling her since last night, but only lately convinced her. She has invoked her kin-right to forgive kin for injury to kin. By our law, if kin forgive kin, no other can do otherwise. Your Regal sought to dissuade her, but only made her angry. “Here, while I am in this palace, I can still invoke the law of the Mountain People,” she told him. King Eyod agreed. Not because he does not mourn Rurisk, but because the strength and wisdom of Jhaampe law must be respected, by all. So, you must come back.’

      I considered. ‘And have you forgiven me?’

      ‘No,’ she snorted. ‘I do not forgive my nephew’s murderer. But I cannot forgive you for what you did not do. I do not believe you would drink wine you had poisoned. Not even a little. Those of us who know best the dangers of poisons tempt them least. You would have just pretended to drink, and never spoken of poison at all. No. This was done by someone who believes himself very clever, and believes others are very stupid.’

      I felt rather than saw Burrich lower his guard. But I couldn’t completely relax. ‘Why can’t Kettricken just forgive me and let me go away? Why must I come back?’

      ‘There is no time for this!’ Jonqui hissed, and it was the closest I had seen to an angry Chyurda. ‘Shall I take months and years to teach you all I know about balances? For a pull, a push, for a breath, a sigh? Do you think no one can feel how power slews and tilts just now? A princess must endure being bartered away like a cow. But my niece is not a playing-piece to be won in a dice game. Whoever killed my nephew clearly wished you to die also. Shall I let him win that toss? I think not. I do not know whom I wish to win; until I do, I will let no player be eliminated.’

      ‘That’s logic I understand,’ Burrich said approvingly. He stooped and hauled me suddenly to my feet. The world rocked alarmingly. Jonqui came to put her shoulder under my other arm. They walked and my feet marionetted across the ground between them. Nosy heaved himself to his feet and followed. And so we returned to the palace at Jhaampe.

      Burrich and Jonqui took me right through the people gathered throughout the grounds and palace to my room. Actually, I excited little interest. I was just an outlander who had had too much wine and smoke last night. People were too absorbed in finding good places from which to view the dais to worry about me. There was no air of mourning, so I assumed the word of Rurisk’s death had not been released. When we finally entered my room, Jonqui’s placid face darkened.

      ‘I did not do this! I only took a nightshirt, to give Ruta a scent.’

      ‘This’ was the disassembly of my room. It had been thoroughly if not discreetly done. Jonqui immediately set to putting things right, and after a moment Burrich helped her. I sat in a chair and tried to make sense of the situation. Nosy, unnoticed, curled up in a corner. Unthinkingly, I extended comfort to him. Burrich immediately glanced at me, then at the woebegone dog. He looked away. When Jonqui left to fetch wash-water and food for me, I asked Burrich, ‘Have you found a tiny wooden chest? Carved with acorns?’

      He shook his head. So they had taken my poison-cache. I would have liked to prepare another dagger, or even a powder to fling. Burrich could not always be beside me to protect me, and I certainly couldn’t fend off an attacker, or run away in my present condition. But my trade-tools were gone. I would have to hope I wouldn’t need them. I suspected Rowd was the one who had been here, and wondered if this had been his last act. Jonqui returned with water and food, and then excused herself. Burrich and I shared wash-water, and with some help I managed to change into clean, if simple, clothes. Burrich ate an apple. My stomach quailed at the mere thought of food, but I drank the water, cold from the well, that Jonqui had brought me. Getting my throat muscles to swallow still took conscious effort, and I felt as if the water sloshed unpleasantly inside me. But I suspected it was good for me.

      I felt each moment ticking by, and wondered when Galen would make his move.

      The screen slid aside. I looked up, expecting Jonqui again, but August entered on a wave of contempt. He spoke immediately, anxious to do his errand and depart. ‘I do not come here of my own volition. I come at the bidding of the King-in-Waiting, Verity, to speak his words for him. This is his message, exactly. He is grieved beyond telling by …’

      ‘You Skilled to him? Today? Was he well?’

      August