“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 Bearns, 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 Bearns 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 Bearns? 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.”