Free Royal Assassin by Hobb Robin Page B

Jhaampe. I am at a loss as to how to reward him. It would have to be subtle. Given who was involved, a public recognition would not do. Have you any suggestions?”
    “Your word of thanks would be all he would accept. He would bridle that you thought he needed more. My own feelings are that no object you gave him would be a match for what he did for me. The way to handle him is to tell him to take his pick of the likely two-year-olds, for his horse is growing old. He’d understand that.” I considered it carefully. “Yes. You might do that.”
    “Might I?” Verity asked me dryly. There was an acid edge to the amusement in his voice.
    I was suddenly amazed at my own boldness. “I forgot myself, my prince,” I said humbly.
    A smile curved his lips and his hand fell on my shoulder in a heavy pat. “Well, I asked you, did I not? For a moment I would have sworn it was old Chivalry instructing me in handling my men, rather than my young nephew. Your trip to Jhaampe has quite changed you, boy. Come. I meant what I said about a warmer spot and a glass of something. Kettricken will be wanting to see you later in the day. And Patience, too, I imagine.”
    My heart sank as he heaped the tasks before me. Buckkeep Town pulled at me like a lodestone. But this was my king-in-waiting. I bowed my head to his will.
    We left the tower and I followed him down the stairs, speaking of inconsequential things. He told me to tell Mistress Hasty I needed new clothes; I asked after Leon, his wolfhound. He stopped a lad in the corridor and asked him to bring wine and meat pies to his study. I followed him, not up to his chambers, but to a lower room at once familiar and strange. The last time I had been in it, Fedwren the scribe had been using it to sort and dry herbs and shells and roots for the making of his inks. All signs of that had been cleared from it. A fire burned low in the small hearth. Verity poked this up and added wood as I looked around. There was a large carved oak table and two smaller ones, a variety of chairs, a scroll rack, and a battered shelf littered with miscellaneous objects. Spread out on the table was the beginnings of a map of the Chalced States. The corners of it were weighted with a dagger and three stones. Various scraps of parchment that littered the tabletop were covered with Verity’s hand and preliminary sketches with notes scratched across them. The friendly litter that covered the two smaller tables and several of the chairs seemed familiar. After a moment I recognized it as the layer of Verity’s possessions that had previously been scattered about his bedchamber. Verity rose from awakening the fire and smiled ruefully at my raised eyebrows. “My queen-in-waiting has small patience with clutter. ‘How,’ she asked me, ‘can you hope to create precise lines in the midst of such disorder?’ Her own chamber has the precision of a military encampment. So I hide myselfaway down here, for I quickly found that in a clean and sparse chamber I could get no work done at all. Besides, it gives me a place for quiet talk, where not all know to seek me.”
    He had scarcely finished speaking when the door opened to admit Charim with a tray. I nodded to Verity’s serving man, who not only seemed unsurprised to see me, but had added to Verity’s request a certain type of spice bread that I had always enjoyed. He moved about the room briefly, making perfunctory tidying motions as he shifted a few books and scrolls to free a chair for me, and then vanished again. Verity was so accustomed to him he scarce seemed to notice him, save for the brief smile they exchanged as Charim left.
    “So,” he said, as soon as the door was fairly shut. “Let’s have a full report. From the time you left Buckkeep.”
    This was not a simple recounting of my journey and the events of it. I had been trained by Chade to be a spy as well as an assassin. And since my earliest days Burrich had always demanded that I be able to give a