“Regal will not let that heir be born,” I said bluntly. Even the Fool widened his eyes to hear me speak so plain. “That child will not come to power without a King’s hand to shelter under. Shrewd, or Verity. You do not believe Verity is dead. You have as much as said so. Can you let Kettricken endure the torment of believing it is so? Can you let the Six Duchies go down in blood and ruin? What good is an heir to the Farseer throne, if the throne is but a broken chair in a burned-out hall?”

The Fool’s shoulders slumped. “There are a thousand crossroads,” he said quietly. “Some clear and bold, some shadows within shadows. Some are nigh onto certainties; it would take a great army or a vast plague to change those paths. Others are shrouded in fog, and I do not know what roads lead out of them, or to where. You fog me, bastard. You multiply the futures a thousandfold, just by your existing. Catalyst. From some of those fogs go the blackest, twisted threads of damnation, and from others shining twines of gold. To the depths or the heights, it seems, are your paths. I long for a middle path. I long for a simple death for a master who was kind to a freakish, jeering servant.”

He made no more rebuke than that. He lifted the latches and undid the bolts and left quietly. The rich clothing and careful walk made him appear deformed to me, as his motley and capers never had. I closed the door softly behind him and then stood leaning against it as if I could hold the future out.

I prepared myself most carefully for dinner that evening. When I was finally dressed in Mistress Hasty’s latest set of clothes for me, I looked almost as fine as the Fool. I had decided that as yet I would not mourn Verity, nor even give the appearance of mourning. As I descended the stairs it seemed to me that most of the Keep was converging on the Great Hall this evening. Evidently all had been summoned to attend, grand folk and humble.

I found myself seated at a table with Burrich and Hands and other of the stable folk. It was as humble a spot as I had ever been given since King Shrewd had taken me under his wing, and yet the company was more to my liking than that of the higher tables. For the honored tables of the Great Hall were packed with folk little known to me, the Dukes and visiting nobility of Tilth and Farrow for the most part. There were a scattering of faces I knew, of course. Patience was seated as almost befit her rank, and Lacey was actually seated at a table above me. I saw no sign of Molly anywhere. There were a scattering of folk from Buckkeep Town, most of them the well-to-do, and most of them seated more favorably than I would have expected. The King was ushered in, leaning on the newly elegant Fool, followed by Kettricken.

Her appearance shocked me. She wore a simple robe of drab brown, and she had cut her hair for mourning. She had left herself less than a hand’s width of hair, and bereft of its rich weight, it stuck out about her head like a dandelion gone to seed. Its color seemed to have been cut away with its length, leaving it as pale as the Fool’s. So accustomed had I been to seeing the heavy gold braids of her hair that her head now appeared oddly small atop her wide shoulders. Her pale blue eyes were made strange by eyelids reddened by weeping. She did not look like a mourning Queen. Rather she appeared bizarre, a new kind of fool for the court. I could see nothing of my queen, nothing of Kettricken in her garden, nothing of the barefoot warrior dancing with her blade; only a foreign woman, newly alone here. Regal, in contrast, was as lavishly clothed as if to go a-courting, and moved as surely as a hunting cat.

What I witnessed that evening was as cleverly paced and carefully led as a puppet play. There was old King Shrewd, doddering and thin, nodding off over his dinner, or making vague and smiling conversation to no one in particular. There was the Queen-in-Waiting, unsmiling, barely eating, silent and mourning. Presiding over it all was Regal, the dutiful son seated next to the failing father, and beside him the Fool, magnificently clad and punctuating Regal’s conversation with witticisms to make the Prince’s conversation more sparkling than it truly was. The rest of the High Table was the Duke and Duchess of Farrow, and the Duke and Duchess of Tilth, and their current favorites among the lesser nobility of those duchies. Bearns, Rippon, and Shoaks Duchies were not represented at all.

Following the meat, two toasts were offered to Regal. The first came from Duke Holder of Farrow. He toasted the Prince lavishly, declaring him the defender of the realm, praising his swift action on behalf of Neatbay, and lauding also his courage in taking the measures necessary for the best interests of the Six Duchies. That made me prick up my ears. But it was all a bit vague, congratulating and praising, but never quite laying out exactly what Regal had decided to do. Had it gone on any longer, it would have been suitable as a eulogy.