Or anyone’s, save mine.’
‘The girl?’
I shook my head again, more violently. ‘She’s taken care of one cripple already, and spent her youth doing so only to find that he left her a debtor. Shall I go back and seek her out, like this? Shall I ask her to love me, so I can be a burden to her like her father was? No. Alone or wed to another, she’s better off now as she is.’
The silence stretched long between us. Jonqui was busy in a corner of the room, concocting yet another herbal draught that would do nothing for me. Burrich stood over me, black and lowering as a thundercloud. I knew how badly he wanted to shake me, how he longed to cuff the stubbornness from me. But he did not. Burrich did not hit cripples.
‘So,’ he said at last. ‘That leaves only your king. Or do you forget you are sworn as a King’s Man?’
‘I do not forget,’ I said quietly. ‘And did I believe myself a man still, I would go back. But I am not, Burrich. I am a liability. On the gameboard, I have become but one of those tokens that must be protected. A hostage for the taking, powerless to defend myself or anyone else. No. The last act I can make as a King’s Man is to remove myself, before someone else does and injures my king in the doing.’
Burrich turned aside from me. He was a silhouette in the dim room, his face unreadable by the firelight. ‘Tomorrow we will talk,’ he began.
‘Only to say farewell,’ I interrupted. ‘My heart is firm on this, Burrich.’ I reached up to touch the earring in my ear.
‘If you stay, then so must I.’ There was a fierceness in his low voice.
‘That isn’t how it works,’ I told him. ‘Once, my father told you to stay behind, and raise a bastard for him. Now I tell you to leave, to go to serve a king who still needs you.’
‘FitzChivalry, I don’t –’
‘Please.’ I don’t know what he heard in my voice. Only that he was suddenly still. ‘I am so tired. So damnably tired. The only thing I know is that I can’t live up to what every one else thinks I should do. I just can’t do it.’ My voice quavered like an old man’s. ‘No matter what I ought to do. No matter what I am pledged to do. There isn’t enough of me left to keep my word. Maybe that’s not right, but that’s how it is. Every one else’s plans. Every one else’s goals. Never mine. I tried, but …’ The room rocked around me as if someone else were speaking, and I was shocked at what he was saying. But I couldn’t deny the truth of his words. ‘I need to be alone now. To rest,’ I said simply.
Both of them just looked at me. Neither one of them spoke. They left the room, slowly, as if hoping I would relent and call them back. I did not.
But after they had gone, and I was alone, I permitted myself to breathe out. I felt dizzy with the decision I had made. I wasn’t going back to Buckkeep. What I was going to do, I had no idea. I had swept my broken bits of life from the game table. Now there was room to set out anew what pieces I still had, to plot a new strategy for living. Slowly, I realized I had no doubts. Regrets warred with relief, but I had no doubts. Somehow it was much more bearable to move forward into a life where no one would recall who I had once been. A life not pledged to someone else’s will. Not even my king’s. It was done. I lay back in my bed, and for the first time in weeks, I relaxed completely. Farewell, I thought wearily. I would have liked to wish them all farewell, to stand one last time before Verity and see his brief nod that I had done well. Perhaps I could have made him understand why I did not wish to go back. It was not to be. It was done now, all done. ‘I am sorry, my king,’ I muttered. I stared into the dancing flames in the hearth until sleep claimed me.
To be the King-in-Waiting, or the Queen-in-Waiting, is to straddle firmly the fence between responsibility and authority. It is said that the position was created to satisfy the ambitions of an heir for power, while schooling him in the exercising of it. The eldest child in the royal family assumes this position upon its sixteenth birthday. From that day on, the King- or Queen-in-Waiting assumes a full share of responsibility for the running of the Six Duchies. Generally, he immediately assumes such duties as the ruling monarch cares for least, and these have varied greatly from reign to reign.
Under King Shrewd, Prince Chivalry first became King-in-Waiting. To him, King Shrewd ceded over all that had to do with the borders and frontiers: warfare, negotiations and diplomacy, the discomforts of extended travel and the miserable conditions often encountered on the campaigns. When Chivalry abdicated and Prince Verity became King-in-Waiting, he inherited all the uncertainties of the war with the Outislanders, and the civil unrest this situation created between the Inland and Coastal duchies. All of these tasks were rendered more difficult in that, at any time, his decisions could be overridden by the King. Often he was left to cope with a situation not of his creating, armed only with options not of his choosing.
Even less tenable, perhaps, was the position of Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. Her Mountain ways marked her as a foreigner in the Six Duchies court. In peaceful times, perhaps she would have been received with more tolerance. But the court at Buckkeep seethed with the general unrest of the Six Duchies. The Red Ships from the Outislands harried our shoreline as they had not for generations, destroying far more than they stole. The first winter of Kettricken’s reign as Queen-in-Waiting saw also the first winter raiding we had ever experienced. The constant threat of raids, and the lingering torment of Forged ones in our midst rocked the foundations of the Six Duchies. Confidence in the monarchy was low, and Kettricken had the unenviable position of being an unadmired King-in-Waiting’s outlandish queen.
Civil unrest divided the court as the Inland duchies voiced their resentment at taxes to protect a coastline they did not share. The Coastal duchies cried out for warships and soldiers and an effective way to battle the raiders that always struck where we were least prepared. Inland-bred Prince Regal sought to gather power to himself by courting the Inland dukes with gifts and social attentions. King-in-Waiting Verity, convinced that his Skill was no longer sufficient to hold the raiders at bay, put his attentions to building warships to guard the Coastal duchies, with little time for his new queen. Over all, King Shrewd crouched like a great spider, endeavouring to keep power spread amongst himself and his sons, to keep all in balance and the Six Duchies intact.
I awakened to someone touching my forehead. With an annoyed grunt, I turned my head aside from the touch. My blankets were weltered around me; I fought my way clear of their restraint and then sat up to see who had dared disturb me. King Shrewd’s Fool perched anxiously on a chair beside my bed. I stared at him wildly, and he drew back from my look. Uneasiness assailed me.
The Fool should have been back in Buckkeep, with the King, many miles and days from here. I had never known him to leave the King’s side for more than a few hours or a night’s rest. That he was here boded no good. The Fool was my friend, as much as his strangeness allowed him to be friends with anyone. But a visit from him always had a purpose, and such purposes were seldom trivial or pleasant. He looked as weary as I had ever seen him. He wore an unfamiliar motley of greens and reds and carried a fool’s sceptre with a rat’s head on it. The gay garments contrasted too strongly with his colourless skin, making him a translucent candle wreathed in holly. His clothing seemed more substantial than he did. His fine, pale hair floated from the confines of his cap like a drowned man’s hair in sea water, while the dancing flames of the fireplace shone in his eyes. I rubbed my gritty eyes and pushed some of the hair
