CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Burrich

    LADY PATIENCE, SHE who was queen-in-waiting to Chivalry's king-in-waiting, came originally of inland stock. Her parents, Lord Oakdell and Lady Averia, were of very minor nobility. For their daughter to rise in rank to marry a Prince of the realm had to have been a shock to them, especially given their daughter's wayward and, some might say, obtuse nature. Chivalry's avowed ambition to wed Lady Patience was the cause of his first difference with his father, King Shrewd. By this marriage, he gained no valuable alliances or political advantages; only a highly eccentric woman whose great love for her husband did not preclude her forthright declaring of unpopular opinions. Nor did it dissuade her from the single-minded pursuit of any avocation that caught her fleeting fancy. Her parents preceded her in death, dying in the year of the Blood Plague, and she was childless and presumed barren when her husband, Chivalry, fell to his death from a horse.

    I awoke. Or, at least, I came back to myself. I was in my bed, surrounded by warmth and gentleness. I didn't move, but cautiously searched myself for pain. My head no longer pounded, but I felt tired and achy, stiff as one sometimes is after pain passes. A shiver went up my back. Molly was naked beside me, breathing gently against my shoulder. The fire had burned low, nearly out. I listened. It was either very very late, or very early. The Keep was near silent.

    I didn't remember getting here.

    I shivered again. Beside me, Molly stirred. She pulled closer to me, smiled sleepily. "You are so strange sometimes," she breathed. "But I love you." She closed her eyes again.

    Nighteyes!

    I am here. He was always there.

    Suddenly I couldn't ask, I didn't want to know. I just lay still, feeling sick and sad and sorry for myself.

    I tried to rouse you, but you were not ready to come back. That Other One had drained you.

    That "Other One" is our king.

    Your king. Wolves have no kings.

    What did ... I let the thought trail off. Thank you for guarding me.

    He sensed my reservations. What should I have done? Turned her away? She was grieving.

    I don't know. Let us not talk of it. Molly was sad, and he had comforted her? I didn't even know why she was sad. Had been sad, l amended, looking at the soft smile on her sleeping face. I sighed. Better face it sooner than later. Besides, I had to send her back to her own room. It would not do for her to be here when the Keep awoke.

    "Molly?" I said gently.

    She stirred and opened her eyes. "Fitz," she agreed sleepily.

    "For safety's sake, you have to go back to your own room."

    "I know. I shouldn't have come in the first place." She stopped. "All those things I said to you a few days ago. I didn't-"

    I put a finger across her lips. She smiled past it. "You make these new silences ... very interesting." She pushed my hand aside, kissed me warmly. Then she slid from my bed and began to dress briskly. I arose, moving more slowly. She glanced over at me, her face full of love. "I'll go alone. It's safer. We should not be seen together."

    "Someday, that will-" I began. This time she silenced me, small hand on my lips.

    "We will talk of nothing like that now. Let us leave tonight as it is. Perfect." She kissed me again, quickly, and slipped from my arms and then out the door. She shut it silently behind her. Perfect?

    I finished dressing and built up my fire. I sat down in my chair by the hearth and waited. It was not long before I was rewarded. The entrance to Chade's domain opened. I went up the stairs as quickly as I could manage. Chade was sitting before his hearth. "You have to listen to me," I greeted him. His eyebrows rose in alarm at the intensity in my voice. He gestured at the chair opposite him, and I took it. I opened my mouth to speak. What Chade did then put every hair on my body on end. He glanced all around himself, as if we stood in the midst of a great crowd. Then he touched his own lips, and made a gesture for softness. He leaned toward me until our heads were nearly touching. "Softly, softly. Sit down. What is it.

    I sat, in my old place on the hearth. My heart was hammering in my chest. Of all places in Buckkeep, I had never expected to have to use caution in what I said here.

    "All right," he breathed out to me. "Report."

    I took a breath and began. I left out nothing, revealing my link with Verity so that the entire story would make sense. I put in every detail: the Fool's beating, and Kettricken's offering to Beams, as well as my service to the King that evening. Serene and Justin in my room. When I whispered of Regal's spies, he pursed his mouth, but did not seem overly surprised. When I was finished, he regarded me calmly.

    A whisper again. "And what do you conclude from all this?" he asked me, as if it were a puzzle he had set me as a lesson.

    "May I speak frankly of my suspicions?" I asked quietly.

    A nod.

    I sighed in relief. As I spoke of the picture that had emerged for me over the past weeks, I felt a great burden lifting. Chade would know what to do. And so I spoke, quickly, tersely. Regal knew that the King was dying of disease. Wallace was his tool, to keep the King sedated and open to Regal's whisperings. He would discredit Verity, he would strip Buckkeep of every bit of wealth that he could. He would abandon Beams to the Red-Ships, to keep them busy while Regal acted on his own ambitions. Paint Kettricken as a foreigner with ambitions to the throne. A devious, disloyal wife. Gather power to himself. His eventual aim, as ever, was the throne. Or at least as much of the Six Duchies as he could gather to himself. Hence his lavish entertainments for the Inland Dukes and their nobles.

    Chade nodded unwillingly as I spoke. When I paused, he injected softly, "There are many holes in this web you say Regal is weaving."

    "I can fill in a few," I whispered. "Suppose the coterie that Galen created is loyal to Regal? Suppose all messages go to him first, and only those he approves continue to their intended destination?"

    Chade's face grew still and grave.

    My whisper grew more desperate. "What if messages are delayed just enough to make our efforts to defend ourselves pathetic? He makes Verity look a fool, he undermines confidence in the man."

    "Wouldn't Verity be able to tell?"

    I shook my head slowly. "He is powerfully Skilled. But he cannot be listening everywhere at once. The strength of his talent is his ability to focus it so tightly. To spy on his own coterie, he would have had to give off watching the coast waters for Red-Ships."

    "Does he ... is Verity aware of this discussion right now?"

    I shrugged ashamedly. "I don't know. That is the curse of my flaws. My link with him is erratic. Sometimes I know his mind as clearly as if he stood beside me and spoke it aloud. At other times I am scarcely aware of him at all. Last night, when they spoke through me, I heard every word. Right now ..." I felt about inside myself, a pocket-patting sort of thinking. "I feel nothing more than that we are still linked." I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. I felt drained.

    "Tea?" Chade asked me gently.

    "Please. And if I could just sit for a bit longer, quietly. I don't know when my head has throbbed this badly."

    Chade set the kettle over the fire. I watched with distaste as he mixed brewing herbs for it. Some elfbark, but not near as much as I would have required earlier. Peppermint and catmint leaves. A bit of precious ginger root. I recognized much of what he used to give Verity for his Skill exhaustion. Then he came back to sit close beside me again. "It could not be. What you suggest would require blind loyalty from the coterie to Regal."

    "It can be created by one strongly Skilled. My flaw is a result of what Galen did to me. Do you remember Galen's fanatical admiration of Chivalry? That was a created loyalty. Galen could have done it to them, before he died, when he was finishing their training."

    Chade shook his head slowly. "Do you think Regal could be so stupid as to think the Red-Ships would stop at Beams? Eventually they will want Buck, they will want Rippon and Shoaks. Where does that leave him?"

    "With the Inland Duchies. The only ones he cares about, the only ones with which he has a mutual loyalty. It would give him a vast perimeter of land as an insulation against anything the Red-Ships might do. And like you, perhaps, he may believe they are not after territory, but only a raiding grounds. They are sea folk. They will not come that far inland to trouble him. And the Coastal Duchies will be too busy fighting the Red-Ships to turn on Regal."

    "If the Six Duchies loses her seacoast, she loses her trade, her shipping. How pleased will his Inland Dukes be with that?"

    I shrugged. "I do not know. I have not all the answers, Chade. But this is the only theory I've been able to put together in which almost all the pieces fit."

    He rose, to pour steaming water from the kettle into a fat brown pot. He rinsed it well with the boiling water, then dumped in the paper of herbs he had compounded. I watched him pour the boiling water over the herbs. The scent of a garden filled his chambers. I took the image of the old man putting the lid on the pot, wrapped up the homey simple moment of him setting the pot on the tray with some cups, and stowed it carefully somewhere in my heart. Age was creeping up on Chade, just as surely as disease devoured Shrewd. His deft movements were no longer quite so sure, his bird alertness not as quick as it once had been. My heart ached suddenly with my glimpse of the inevitable. As he set a warm cup of steaming tea in my hand, he frowned at my expression.

    "What's wrong?" he whispered. "Do you want some honey in that?"

    I shook my head to his questions, took a sip of tea, and near scalded my tongue. A pleasant taste overlay the bite of the elfbark. After a few moments I felt my mind clear and a pain I had scarcely been aware of went back to sleep. "That's much better." I sighed, and Chade sketched a bow at me, pleased with himself.

    He leaned close again. "It is still a weak theory. Perhaps we simply have a self-indulgent Prince, who pleases himself with entertainments for his flatterers while the heir is away. He neglects protecting his coastline because he is shortsighted, and because he expects his brother will come home and tidy up his mess. He raids the treasury and sells off horses and cattle to amass wealth to himself while there is no one to stop him."

    "Then why paint Beams as a traitor? And set up Kettricken as an outsider? Why spread rumors of ridicule about Verity and his quest?"

    "Jealousy. Regal has always been his father's spoiled pet. I do not think he would turn on Shrewd." Something in Chade's voice made me realize this was what he desperately wished to believe. "I supply the herbs that Wallace administers to Shrewd for his pain."

    "I do not doubt your herbs. But I think others are added to them."

    "What would be the point? Even if Shrewd dies, Verity is still the heir."

    "Unless Verity dies first." I held up my hand as Chade opened his mouth to protest. "It need not really happen. If Regal controls the coterie, he can supply word of Verity's death at any time. Regal becomes king-in-waiting. Then ..." I let my words trail off.

    Chade let out a long sigh. "Enough. You have given me enough to ponder. I will look into these ideas, with my own resources. For now, you must watch over yourself. And Kettericken. And the Fool. If there is even a drop of truth in your theories, you all become obstacles to Regal's goal."

    "And what of you?" I asked quietly. "What is this caution we now must suffer?"

    "There is a chamber, whose wall adjoins this one. Always before, it was left empty. But one of Regal's guests is now ensconced in it. Bright, Regal's cousin, and heir to Farrow Duchy. The man is a very light sleeper. He has complained to the servants of rats squeaking in the walls. Then, last night, Slink overset a kettle, with quite a clatter. It awoke him. The man is overly curious as well. He asks servants now if spirits have ever been known to walk in Buckkeep. And I have heard him tapping at the walls. I think he suspects this chamber. It need not concern us all that much; soon he will be leaving, I'm sure. But a bit more caution is called for."

    I felt there was more, but whatever he did not wish to say would not be gained by questions. I asked one more, however. "Chade. Are you still able to see the King once a day?"

    He glanced down at his hands and shook his head slowly. "Regal seems to suspect my existence. I will admit that to you. At least, he suspects something, and seems always to have some of his folk lurking about. It makes life difficult. But enough of our worries. Let us try to think of how things may go right."

    And then Chade began a long discussion of Elderlings, based on what little we knew of them. We chatted of how it would be if Verity succeeded, and speculated what form the Elderlings' aid would take. Chade seemed to speak with great hope and sincerity, even enthusiasm. I tried to share it, but my belief was that the salvation of the Six Duchies depended on eliminating the viper in our midst. It was not long before he sent me back to my own room. I lay down on the bed, intending to rest for just a few minutes before facing the day, but instead fell into a deep sleep.

    We were blessed with storms for a time. Each day that I woke to driving wind and rain against my shutters was a day to be treasured. I tried to be unobtrusive about the Keep, avoiding Regal even if it meant taking all my meals in the watch room, drifting out of any room that Justin and Serene might enter. Will, too, had returned from his Skill post at the Red Tower in Beams. On rare occasions I saw him in company with Serene and Justin. More often he dawdled in the hall at table, his half-lidded eyes always seeming on the verge of closing. His dislike of me was not the focused hatred that Serene and Justin shared for me, but all the same I avoided him as well. I told myself I was wise, but feared myself a coward. I attended my king as often as I was allowed to. It was not often enough.

    Came a morning when I was jolted awake to someone pounding on my door and yelling my name. I stumbled from my bed and jerked the door open. A white-faced stable boy stood shaking on my doorstep. "Hands says come to the stables. Right now!"

    He gave me no time to reply to his urgent message, but raced off as if seven kinds of demons were after him.

    I pulled on yesterday's clothes. I thought of splashing my face with water, or smoothing my hair back into its tail afresh, but those thoughts occurred to me halfway down the stairs. As I raced across the courtyard I could already hear the raised voices of a quarrel in the stable. I knew Hands would not have called me for a simple squabble among stable hands. I could not imagine what he would call me for. I pushed open the stable doors, then shoved my way past a gaggle of stable boys and grooms to get to the center of the commotion.

    It was Burrich. He was no longer shouting. Travel worn and weary, he now stood silent. Hands was beside him, white-faced but standing firm. "I had no choice," he said quietly in answer to something Burrich had said. "You would have had to do the same."

    Burrich's face looked ravaged. His eyes were unbelieving, empty with shock. "I know," he said after a moment. "I know." He turned to look at me. "Fitz. My horses are gone." He swayed slightly on his feet.

    "It wasn't Hands's doing," I said quietly. Then I asked, "Where is Prince Verity?"

    His brows knit and he looked at me oddly. "You did not expect me?" He paused, said more loudly, "Messages were sent ahead of me. Didn't you get them?"

    "We've heard nothing. What happened? Why are you back?"

    He looked around at the gaping stable boys, and something of the Burrich I knew came into his eyes again. "If you have not heard yet, then it is not for gossip and common talk. I must go straight to the King." He drew himself up straight, looked around again at the boys and grooms. The old whiplash was back in his voice as he demanded, "Have you no work to do? I shall be looking over how you have cared for things in my absence as soon as I return from the Keep."

    Like fog in the sunlight, the workers dissipated. Burrich turned to Hands. "Would you care for my horse? Poor Ruddy's been poorly treated these last days. Treat him well, now that he's home."

    Hands nodded. "Of course. Shall I send for the healer? I could have him waiting here for you when you come back."

    Burrich shook his head. "What can be done for this, I can do for myself. Come, Fitz. Give me your arm."

    In disbelief, I offered my arm and Burrich took it, leaning on me heavily. For the first time I glanced down. What I had taken to be heavy winter leggings at first glance was actually a thick wrap of bandaging on his bad leg. He favored it, putting most of his weight on me as he limped along. I could feel the exhaustion thrumming through him. Up close, I could smell the sweat of pain on him. His clothing was stained and torn, his hands and face begrimed. This was as unlike the man I knew as anything I could imagine. "Please," I said quietly as I helped him toward the castle. "Is Verity all right?"

    He gave me a ghost of a smile. "You think our prince could be dead, and I still be alive? You insult me. Besides, use your wits. You'd know if he was dead. Or injured." He paused and studied me carefully. "Wouldn't you?"

    It was plain what he spoke of. Ashamedly, I admitted, "Our link is not reliable. Some things are clear. Some are not. Of this, I knew nothing. What's happened?"

    He looked thoughtful. "Verity said he would try to send word through you. If you've relayed no tidings to Shrewd, then this information should first go to the King."

    I asked no more questions.

    I had forgotten how long it had been since Burrich had seen King Shrewd. Mornings were not the King's best times, but when I mentioned this to Burrich, he said he would rather report immediately at a bad time than delay information. So we knocked and, to my surprise, were admitted. Once within, I realized this was because Wallace was nowhere about.

    Instead, as I entered, the Fool asked me graciously, "Back for more Smoke?" Then, as he caught sight of Burrich, the mocking grin faded from his face. His eyes met mine. "The Prince?"

    "Burrich has come to report to the King."

    "I shall try to rouse him. Though the way he has been of late, one might as well report to him sleeping as awake. He takes as much notice either way."

    Accustomed as I was to the Fool's mockery, this still jarred me. The sarcasm bit wrong, for there was too much resignation in his voice. Burrich looked at me worriedly. He whispered, "What is wrong with my king?"

    I shook my head at him for quiet and tried to get him to take a seat.

    "I stand before my king, until he bids me be seated," he said stiffly.

    "You are injured. He would understand."

    "He is my king. That is what I understand."

    So I gave off urging him. We waited for a time, and more than a time. At last the Fool came out of the King's bedchamber. "He is not well," he cautioned us. "It has taken me a time to make him understand who is here. But he says he will hear your report. In his chambers."

    So Burrich leaned on me as we went into the dimness and smoke of the King's bedchamber. I saw Burrich wrinkle his nose in distaste. Acrid fumes of Smoke hung heavy here, and several small censers burned. The Fool had drawn back the bed curtains, and as we stood he patted and poked cushions and pillows behind the King's back until Shrewd waved him aside with a small gesture.

    I looked at our monarch and wondered how I had not seen the signs of his disease. They were plainly there when one looked. The general wasting of his body, the sour edge of his sweat, the yellow in the whites of his eyes: these were the least things I should have seen. The shock on Burrich's face told me plainly that the change since Burrich had last seen him was immense. But he covered it well and drew himself up straight.

    "My king, I have come to report," he said formally.

    Shrewd blinked slowly. "Report," he said vaguely, and I was not sure if he gave Burrich an order, or simply repeated the word. Burrich took it as a command. He was as thorough and exact as he had always insisted I be. I stood, and he supported his weight on my shoulder as he told of journeying with Prince Verity through the winter snows, traveling always toward the Mountain Kingdom. He did not mince words, but spoke plainly. The journey had been full of hardships. Despite messengers sent ahead of Verity's expedition, hospitality and aid along the way had been poor. Those nobles whose homes lay along their route professed to have known nothing of Verity's coming. In many cases, they found only servants to greet them, and the hospitality no more than what would have been offered to any ordinary traveler. Supplies and extra horses that should have been waiting for them at assigned locations were not. The horses had suffered more grievously than the men. The weather had been savage.

    As Burrich reported I felt a tremor run through him from time to time. The man was at the edge of complete exhaustion. But each time he shook, I felt him take a deep breath, steady himself, and go on.

    His voice quavered only slightly as he told how they had been ambushed on the plains of Farrow, before they came in sight of Blue Lake. He drew no conclusions himself, but only observed that these highwaymen fought in a military style. While they wore no Duke's colors, they seemed well dressed and well armed for brigands. And Verity was obviously their intended target. When two of the baggage animals broke loose and fled, none of their attackers broke away to follow them. Bandits usually would have preferred chasing laden pack beasts to fighting armed men. Verity's men had finally found a place to take a stand and had successfully stood them off. Their attackers had finally given up when they realized that Verity's guard would die to the last man before surrendering or giving way. They had ridden off, leaving their fallen dead in the snow.

    "They had not defeated us, but we were not unscathed. We lost a good portion of our supplies. Seven men and nine horses were killed outright. Two of us were injured seriously. Three others took minor injuries. It was Prince Verity's decision to send the injured back to Buckkeep. With us he sent two sound men. His plan was to continue his quest, to take his guard with him as far as the Mountain Kingdom, and to have them stay there to await his return. Keen was placed in charge of those of us returning. To him, Verity entrusted written information. I do not know what that information packet contained. Keen and the others were killed five days ago. We were ambushed just outside the border of Buck, as we were traveling by the Buck River. Archers. It was very ... quick. Four of us went down right away. My horse was struck in the flank. Ruddy's a young beast. He panicked. He plunged over an embankment into the river, and I with him. The river is deep there, and the current strong. I clung to Ruddy, but we were both swept downriver. I heard Keen shouting to the others to ride, that some must make it back to Buckkeep. But none of them did. When Ruddy and I managed to clamber out of the Buck, we went back. I found the bodies. The papers Keen had carried were gone."

    He stood straight as he reported, and his voice was clear. His words were simple. His report was a simple description of what had happened. He mentioned nothing of what he had felt at being sent back, or at being the sole survivor to return. He would drink himself sodden tonight, I suspected. I wondered if he would want company for that. But for now, he stood, silent, awaiting his king's questions. The silence stretched overlong. "My king?" he ventured.

    King Shrewd shifted in the shadows of his bed. "It reminds me of my younger days," he said hoarsely. "Once I could sit a horse and hold a sword. When a man loses that well, once that is gone, he has actually lost far more than that. But your horse was all right?"

    Burrich furrowed his brow. "I did what I could for him, my king. He will take no permanent harm from it."

    "Well. At least there is that, then. At least there is that." King Shrewd paused. For a moment we listened to his breathing. He seemed to be working at it. "Go and get some rest, man," he said at last, gruffly. "You look terrible. I may ..." He paused and took two breaths. "I will call you back later. When you are rested. I am sure there are things to ask ...." His voice trailed off, and again he simply breathed. The deep breaths a man takes when the pain is almost too much to bear. I remembered what I had felt that night. I tried to imagine listening to Burrich report while enduring such pain. And struggling not to show it. The Fool leaned in over the King to look into his face. Then he looked at us and gave a tiny shake to his head.

    "Come," I said softly to Burrich. "Your king has given you an order."

    He seemed to lean on me more heavily as we left the King's bedchamber.

    "He did not seem to care," Burrich said quietly, carefully to me as we moved laboriously down the corridor.

    "He does. Trust me. He cares deeply." We had come to the staircase. I hesitated. A flight down, through the hall, the kitchen, across the court, and into the stables. Then up the steep stairs to Burrich's loft. Or up two flight of steps and down the hall to my room. "I'm taking you up to my room," I told him.

    "No. I want to be in my own place." He sounded fretful as a sick child.

    "In a while. After you've rested a bit," I told him firmly. He did not resist as I eased him up the steps. I don't think he had the strength. He leaned against the wall while I unlatched my door. Once the door was open, I helped him in. I tried to get him to lie down on my bed, but he insisted on the chair by the hearth. Once ensconced there, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. When he relaxed, all the privations of his journey showed in his face. Too much bone showed beneath his flesh, and his color was terrible.

    He lifted his head and looked around the room as if he'd never seen it before. "Fitz? Have you anything to drink up here?"

    I knew he didn't mean tea. "Brandy?"

    "The cheap blackberry stuff you drink? I'd sooner drink horse liniment."

    I turned back to him, smiling. "I might have some of that up here."

    He didn't react. It was as if he hadn't heard me.

    I built up my fire. I quickly sorted through the small supply of herbs I kept in my room. There wasn't much there. I had given most of them to the Fool. "Burrich, I'm going to go get you some food, and a few things. All right?"

    There was no reply. He was already deeply asleep sitting there. I went to stand by him. I did not even need to touch the skin of his face to feel the fever burning there. I wondered what had happened to his leg this time. An injury atop an old injury, and then traveled on. It would not be soon healed, that was plain to me. I hurried out of my room.

    In the kitchens, I interrupted Sara at pudding making, to tell her that Burrich was injured and sick and in my room. I lied and said he was ravenously hungry, and to please send a boy up with food, and some buckets of clean hot water. She immediately put someone else to stirring the pudding and began to clatter trays and teapots and cutlery. I would have enough food to supply a small banquet very quickly.

    I ran out to the stables to let Hands know that Burrich was up in my room and would be for a while. Then I climbed the steps to Burrich's room. I had it in my mind to get the herbs and roots I would need there. I opened the door. The chamber was cold. The damp had got into it, and mustiness. I made a mental note to have someone come up and make a fire, and bring in a supply of wood, water, and candles. Burrich had expected to be gone all winter. Characteristically, he had tidied his room to the point of severity. I found a few pots of herbal salve, but no stores of freshly dried herbs. Either he had taken them with him, or given them away before he left.

    I stood in the center of the room and looked around me. It had been months since I'd been here. Childhood memories came crowding back into my head. Hours spent before that hearth, mending or oiling harness. I'd used to sleep on a mat before the fire. Nosy, the first dog I'd ever bonded to. Burrich had taken him away, to try to break me of using the Wit. I shook my head at the flood of conflicting emotions, and quickly left the room.

    The next door I knocked on was Patience's. Lacey opened it and, at the look on my face, demanded immediately, "What's wrong?"

    "Burrich's come back. He's up in my room. He's badly hurt. I don't have much in the way of healing herbs-"

    "Did you send for the healer?"

    I hesitated. "Burrich has always liked to do things his own way."

    "Indeed he has." It was Patience, entering the sitting room. "What's that madman done to himself now? Is Prince Verity all right?"

    "The Prince and his guard were attacked. The Prince was not harmed and has continued to the Mountains. He sent back those who were injured, with two sound men as an escort. Burrich was the only one to survive and get home."

    "Was the journey back so difficult?" Patience asked. Lacey was already moving about the room, gathering herbs and roots and materials for bandaging.

    "It was cold and treacherous. Little hospitality was offered them along the way. But the men died when they were ambushed by archers, just across the Buck border. Burrich's horse carried him off into a river. They were swept downstream quite a ways; it was probably the only thing that saved him."

    "How is he hurt?" Now Patience was moving, too. She opened a little cupboard and began to take out prepared salves and tinctures.

    "His leg. The same one. I don't know exactly, I haven't looked at it yet. But it won't take his weight; he can't walk by himself. And he has a fever."

    Patience took down a basket and began loading the medicines into it. "Well, what are you standing about for?" she snapped at me as I waited. "Go back to your room and see what you can do for him. We'll be up in a moment with these."

    I spoke bluntly. "I don't think he'll let you help."

    "We'll see," Patience said calmly. "Now go see that there is hot water."

    The buckets of water I had asked for were outside my door. By the time the water in my kettle was boiling, people had begun to converge on my room. Cook sent up two trays of food, and warmed milk as well as hot tea. Patience arrived and began to set out her herbs on my clothing chest. She quickly sent Lacey to fetch a table for her, and two more chairs. Burrich slept on in my chair, deeply asleep despite occasional bouts of shivering.

    With a familiarity that astounded me, Patience felt his forehead, then searched under the angle of his jaw for swelling. She crouched slightly to look into his sleeping face. "Burr?" she queried quietly. He did not even twitch. Very gently, she stroked his face. "You are so thin, so worn," she grieved softly. She damped a cloth in warm water and gently wiped his face and hands as if he were a child. Then she swept a blanket off my bed and tucked it carefully about his shoulders. She caught me staring at her, and glared at me. "I need a basin of warmed water," she snapped. As I went to fill one she crouched before him and calmly took out her silver shears and snipped up the side of the bandaging wrapping his leg. The stained wrappings did not look as if they had been changed since his dunk in the river. It went up past his knee. As Lacey took the basin of warmed water and knelt next to her, Patience opened the soiled bandaging as if it were a shell.

    Burrich came awake with a groan, dropping his head forward onto his chest as his eyes opened. For a moment he was disoriented. He looked at me standing over him, and then at the two women crouched by his leg. "What?" was all he managed.

    "This is a mess," Patience told him. She rocked back on her heels and confronted him as if he'd tracked muck on a clean floor. "Why haven't you at least kept it clean?"

    Burrich glanced down at his leg. Old blood and river silt were caked together over the swollen fissure down his knee. He recoiled visibly from it. When he replied to Patience, his voice was low and harsh. "When Ruddy took me into the river, we lost everything. I had no clean bandaging, no food, nothing. I could have bared it and washed it, and then frozen it. Do you think that would have improved it?"

    "Here is food," I said abruptly. It seemed the only way to prevent their quarreling was to prevent them from talking to each other. I moved the small table laden with one of Cook's trays over beside him. Patience stood to be out of his way. I poured him a mug of the warmed milk and put it into his hands. They began to shake slightly as he raised it to his mouth. I had not realized how hungry he was.

    "Don't gulp that!" Patience objected. Both Lacey and I shot her warning looks. But the food seemed to take Burrich's attention completely. He set down the mug and took a warm roll that I had slathered butter onto. He ate most of it in the space of time it took me to refill his mug. It was odd to see him begin to shake once he had the food in his hands. I wondered how he had managed to hold himself together before that.

    "What happened to your leg?" Lacey asked him gently. Then: "Brace yourself," she warned him, and placed a warm, dripping cloth onto his knee. He gave a shudder and went paler, but refrained from making a sound. He drank some more milk.

    "An arrow," he said at last. "It was just damnably bad luck that it struck where it did. Right where that boar ripped me, so many years ago. And it lodged against the bone. Verity cut it out for me." He leaned back suddenly in the chair, as if the memory sickened him. "Right on top of the old scar," he said faintly. "And every time I bent my knee, it pulled open and bled some more."

    "You should have kept the leg still," Patience observed sagely. All three of us stared at her. "Oh, I suppose you couldn't, really," she amended.

    "Let's take a look at it now," Lacey suggested, and reached for the wet cloth.

    Burrich fended her off with a gesture. "Leave it. I'll see to it myself, after I've eaten."

    "After you've eaten, you'll rest," Patience informed him. "Lacey, please move aside."

    To my amazement, Burrich said nothing more. Lacey stepped back, out of the way, and Lady Patience knelt before the stablemaster. He watched her, a strange expression on his face, as she lifted the cloth away. She damped the corner of the cloth in clean water, wrung it out, and deftly sponged the wound. The warm wet cloth had loosened the crusted blood. Cleaned, it did not look as evil as it had at first. It was still a nasty injury, and the hardships that Burrich had endured would complicate its healing. The parted flesh gaped and proud flesh had formed where it should have closed. But everyone visibly relaxed as Patience cleaned it. There was redness, and swelling, and infection at one end. But there was no putrefaction, no darkening of the flesh around it. Patience studied it a moment. "What do you think?" she asked aloud, of no one in particular. "Devil's-club root? Hot, mashed in a poultice? Do we have any, Lacey?"

    "Some, my lady," and Lacey turned to the basket they had brought and began to sort through it.

    Burrich turned to me. "Are those pots from my room?"

    At my nod, he nodded in return. "I thought so. That fat little brown one. Bring it here."

    He took it from my hands and lifted the stopper from its mouth. "This. I had some of this, when I set out from Buckkeep, but it was lost with the pack animals, during the first ambush."

    "What is it?" Patience asked. She came, devil's-club root in hand, to gaze curiously.

    "Chickweed and plantain leaves. Simmered in oil, then worked with beeswax into a salve."

    "That should work well," she conceded. "After the root poultice. "

    I braced myself for his argument, but he only nodded. He suddenly looked very tired. He leaned back and pulled the blanket more closely about himself. His eyes sagged shut.

    There was a knock at my door. I went to answer it, and found Kettricken standing there, with Rosemary at her elbow. "One of my ladies told me there was a rumor Burrich had returned," she began. Then she looked past me into the room. "It's true, then. And he's hurt? What of my lord, oh, what of Verity?" She went suddenly paler than I thought she could be.

    "He's fine," I reassured her. "Come in." I cursed myself for my thoughtlessness. I should have sent word to her immediately of Burrich's return and of the tidings he carried. I should have known that otherwise she would not be told. As she entered, Patience and Lacey looked up from the devil's-club root they were steaming to welcome her with quick curtsies and murmurs of greeting.

    "What's happened to him?" Kettricken demanded. And so I told her; reporting all that Burrich had told King Shrewd, for I thought she had as much right to word of her husband as Shrewd had to word of his son. She blanched again at mention of the attack on Verity, but kept silent until my telling was done. "Thank all our gods that he draws closer to my Mountains. There he will be safe, from men at least." That said, she drew closer to where Patience and Lacey were preparing the root. It had been steamed soft enough to crush into a pliable mass, and they were letting it cool before applying it to the infection.

    "Mountain ash berry makes an excellent wash for such an injury," she suggested aloud.

    Patience looked up at her shyly. "I have heard of that. But this warmed root will do much to draw the infection from the wound. Another good wash for proud flesh such as this is raspberry leaf and slippery elm. Or as a poultice."

    "We have no raspberry leaf," Lacey reminded Patience. "The damp got into it somehow and it molded."

    "I have raspberry leaf if you are in need of it," Kettricken said softly. "I had prepared it for a morning tea. It was a remedy my aunt taught me." She looked down and smiled oddly.

    "Oh?" Lacey asked in sudden interest.

    "Oh my dear," Patience suddenly exclaimed. She reached to take Kettricken's hand with a sudden, strange familiarity. "Are you sure?"

    "I am. At first I thought it was just ... But then I began to have the other signs. Some mornings, even the smell of the sea can make me so miserable. And all I want to do is sleep."

    "But you should," Lacey exclaimed with a laugh. "As for the queasiness, it passes, after the first few months."

    I stood very still, foreign, excluded, forgotten. All three women suddenly laughed together. "No wonder you were so anxious to have word of him. Did he know, before he left?"

    "I did not even suspect it then. I so long to tell him, to watch his face."

    "You're with child," I said stupidly. They all turned to look at me, and then burst out laughing anew.

    "It's a secret, still," Kettricken cautioned me. "I want no rumors before the King has been told. I want to be the one to tell him."

    "Of course not," I assured her. I did not tell her that the Fool already knew, and had known for days. Verity's child, I thought to myself. A sudden strange shivering raced over me. The branching of the path that the Fool had seen, the sudden multiplying of possibilities. One factor emerged above all others: the sudden removal of Regal, pushed one more step away from the throne. One more small life standing between him and the power he craved. How little he would care for that.

    "Of course not," I repeated more heartily. "This news is best kept an absolute secret." For once it was out, I had no doubt that Kettricken would be in as much danger as her husband.