She halted. I could see that she still quivered with anger, but at least she was hearing me. She took a breath. I sensed her calming herself.

“This was why he left you here, Fitz. To see these things for me.”

“What?” It was my turn to be jolted.

“I thought you had known. You must have wondered why he did not ask you to accompany him. It was because I asked him who I should trust, as an adviser. He said to rely on you.”

Had he forgotten Chade’s existence? I wondered, and then realized that Kettricken knew nothing of Chade. He must have known I would function as a go-between. Inside myself, I felt Verity’s agreement. Chade. In the shadows as always.

“Think with me again,” she bade me. “What will happen next?”

She was right. This was not an isolated instance.

“We will have visitors. The Duke of Bearns and his lesser nobles. Duke Brawndy is not a man to send emissaries on a mission like that. He will come himself and he will demand answers. And all the Coastal Dukes will be listening to what is said to him. His coast is the most exposed of all, save that of Buck itself.”

“Then we must have answers worth hearing,” Kettricken declared. She closed her eyes. She set her hands to her forehead for a moment, then pressed her own cheeks. I realized how great a control she was keeping. Dignity, she was telling herself, calm and rationality. She took a breath and looked at me again. “I go to see King Shrewd,” she announced. “I shall ask him about everything. This whole situation. I shall ask him what he intends to do. He is the King. His position must be affirmed to him.”

“I think that is a wise decision,” I told her.

“I must go alone. If you go with me, if you are always at my side, it will make me appear weak. It may give rise to rumors of a schism in the reign. You understand this?”

“I do.” Though I longed to hear for myself what Shrewd might say to her.

She gestured at the maps and items I had sorted onto a table. “You have a safe place for those?”

Chade’s chambers. “I do.”

“Good.” She gestured with a hand, and I realized I was still blocking her from the door. I stepped aside. As she swept past me her mountainsweet scent engulfed me for a moment. My knees went weak, and I cursed the fate that sent emeralds to rebuild houses when they should have girdled that graceful throat. But I knew, too, with a fierce pride, that if I set them in her hands this moment, she would insist they be spent for Ferry. I slipped them into a pocket. Perhaps she would be able to rouse King Shrewd’s wrath, and he would rattle the coin loose from Regal’s pocket. Perhaps, when I returned, these emeralds could still clasp that warm skin.

If Kettricken had looked back, she would have seen the Fitz blushing with her husband’s thoughts.

I went down to the stables. It had always been a soothing place for me, and with Burrich gone I felt a certain obligation to look in on it from time to time. Not that Hands had shown any signs of needing my help. But this time as I approached the stable doors, there was a knot of men outside them, and voices raised in anger. A young stable boy hung on to the headstall of an immense draft horse. An older boy was tugging at a lead attached to the horse’s halter, attempting to take the horse from the boy, as a man in Tilth colors looked on. The usually placid animal was becoming distressed at the tugging. In a moment someone was going to get hurt.

I stepped boldly into the midst of it, plucking the lead from the startled boy’s hand even as I quested soothingly toward the horse. He did not know me as well as he once had, but he calmed at the touch. “What goes on here?” I asked the stable boy.

“They came and took Cliff out of his stall. Without even asking. He’s my horse to take care of each day. But they didn’t even tell me what they were doing.”

“I have orders—” began the man who had been standing by.

“I am speaking to someone,” I informed him, and turned back to the boy. “Has Hands left orders with you about this horse?”

“Only the usual ones.” The boy had been close to tears when I first came on the struggle. Now that he had a potential ally, his voice was firming. He stood up straighter and met my eyes.

“Then it’s simple. We take the horse back to his stall until we have other orders from Hands. No horse moves from the Buckkeep stable without the knowledge of the acting stablemaster.” The boy had never let go his grip on Cliffs headstall. Now I placed the lead rope in his hands.

“Exactly what I thought, sir,” he told me chippily. He turned on his heel. “Thank you, sir. Come on, Cliffie.” The boy marched off with the big horse lumbering placidly after him.