A sound. All heads, even mine, turned toward it. Horses coming. Vindeliar returning with his escorts. Dwalia made her second mistake. Hope lit in her eyes.
Ellik read it as clearly as I did. He smiled the cruelest smile that I had ever seen. “No. That is what does not happen.” He turned to his men. They had packed behind him, their eagerness straining like hounds on a huntsman’s lead. “Go meet them. Stop them. Take Vindeliar. Tell him we know his tricks. Tell him we are amazed and think him wonderful. Pump his vanity like you’d stroke yourself!” Ellik barked a crude laugh the others echoed. “Tell him this woman has bid you command him not to use his tricks on us anymore, for his path now lies with ours. Take him to our tents and keep him there. Give him every good thing we have there. Praise him. Slap him on the shoulder, make him feel he is a man now. But be wary of him. If you feel your resolve weakening at all, kill him.
“Yet try not to. He is very useful, that one. Worth more than any gold this old whore can offer us. He is the true prize we will take home.” He turned his attention back to Dwalia. “He is even more useful than a woman ready to be raped.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Confrontations
The princess may confront, or the king may make demands. The queen or prince may even threaten or issue ultimatums. The diplomat or emissary will mediate, cooperate, or negotiate. But the royal assassin, the one who wreaks the king’s justice, has none of those tools at his disposal. She is the ruler’s weapon, deployed as the Farseer king or queen sees fit. When the assassin is called into play by the one who rules her, her own will shall be suspended. She is both as powerful and as powerless as a game-piece deployed upon the gaming cloth. She goes and she acts and then she is done with it. She makes no judgment and takes no vengeance.
Only in that way can she maintain his virtue and his innocence of true crime. She never kills of her own volition. What is done by the royal assassin’s hand is not murder but execution. The sword never bears any guilt.
—Instructions to an assassin, unsigned
“I did not know how to stop them.” FitzVigilant stood very straight before an odd court of judgment. We had convened in Verity’s tower, where once my king had defended the Six Duchies coast from Red Ships, and where later Chade and Dutiful and I had done our best to master the Skill-magic with the limited information we had. How it had changed over the years! When first Verity had used it as a lookout over the water to help him focus his search for the Red Ships attacking us, it had been dusty and disused, a refuge for retired bits of furniture. The dark circular table in the center of the room now was warmly polished, and the chairs that surrounded it had high backs with carvings of bucks on them. I pitied whichever servants had carried the heavy furniture up all those spiraling stairs. Lant stood, and seated at the table were the king and queen, Lady Kettricken, Nettle, and myself.
Lady Rosemary and Ash were also there, dressed entirely in blue so dark it was almost black. They stood, motionless and silent, their backs to the wall. Waiting. Like sheathed blades.
Dutiful sighed. “I had hoped for better from them. I had hoped that when the conspirators were cut out of their ranks, something worthy of duty might remain among the Rousters. But it appears not.” He had been looking at his hands. Now he looked at Lant. “Did any of them threaten you in any way? Or give any sign that they had been aware of the plot to kill Lord Chade?”
Lant stood straighter. “When I rode with them, I was only partially aware of what had happened to Lord Chade and Prince FitzChivalry. If I had been better informed, I might have taken a different tack. And been more watchful and wary of all they did and said.”
“That’s valid,” King Dutiful concurred, and once again I thought it almost seemed as if Lant were on trial here rather than giving testimony that would decide the fate of the Rousters. Thick had been entrusted to a healer. He had already given a long and wandering account of his ill treatment at the hands of the men who were supposed to protect him. Then he had wanted his own bed. The steams had warmed him through but he was still coughing when he left us. Perseverance, very pale and nervous at being called to speak before such an august board, had corroborated all that Thick had recounted.
Queen Elliania spoke. She did not raise her voice but her clear words carried. “Sir, did you at any time outright forbid their ill behavior? Did you remind them that Thick was entrusted to their care?”
Lant paused to think, and my heart sank for him. He hadn’t. “I remonstrated with them. I pointed out that they should behave as befitted a guard company, especially when in a public place such as a tavern. It did little good. Shorn of their officers, they seemed to have no self-discipline.”
Dutiful’s brow furrowed. “But you never ordered them directly to cease their ill treatment of Thick?”