We made a sincere effort, but fate did not allow us sufficient time. A determined rapping at Burrich’s door proved to be Lacey with a basket on her arm. She came in quickly, shutting the door fast behind her. “Get rid of this for me, will you?” she asked, and tumbled the slain chicken out on the table before us.

“Dinner!” announced the Fool enthusiastically.

It took Lacey a moment to realize the state we were in. It took her less than that to be furious. “While we gamble our lives and reputations, you get drunk!” She rounded on Burrich. “In twenty years, you have not learned that it solves nothing!”

Burrich flinched not at all. “Some things cannot be solved,” he pointed out philosophically. “Drink makes those things much more tolerable.” He came to his feet easily, stood rock steady before her. Years of drinking seemed to have taught him the knack of handling it well. “What did you need?”

Lacey bit her lip a moment. She decided to follow where he had pointed the conversation. “I need that disposed of. And I need an ointment for bruises.”

“Does no one around here ever use the healer?” the Fool asked of no one in particular. Lacey ignored him.

“That is what I supposedly came here for, so I had best return with it, in case someone asks to see it. My real mission is to find the Fitz, and ask him if he knows there are guards chopping down King Shrewd’s door with axes.”

I nodded gravely. I wasn’t going to attempt Burrich’s graceful stance. The Fool leaped to his feet instead, crying, “What?” He rounded on me. “I thought you said you had succeeded! What success is this?”

“The best I could manage on very short notice,” I retorted. “It will either be all right, or it won’t. We’ve done all we can just now. Besides, think on it. That’s a good stout oaken door. It will take them a while to get through it. And when they do, I fancy they will find the inner door to the King’s bedchamber is likewise bolted and barred.”

“How did you manage that?” Burrich asked quietly.

“I didn’t,” I said brusquely. I looked at the Fool. “I have said enough, for now. It is time to have a bit of trust.” I turned to Lacey. “How are the Queen and Patience? How went our masquerade?”

“Well enough. The Queen is sore bruised from her fall, and for myself, I am not all that sure that the babe is out of danger of being lost. A miscarriage from a fall does not always happen immediately. But let us not borrow trouble. Wallace was concerned but ineffectual. For a man who claims to be a healer, he knows remarkably little of the true lore of herbs. As for the Prince …” Lacey snorted, but said no more.

“Does no one beside myself think there is a danger to letting a rumor of a miscarriage circulate?” the Fool asked airily.

“I had no time to devise anything else,” I retorted. “In a day or so, the Queen will deny the rumor, saying that all seems to be well with the child.”

“So. For the moment we are as secured as we may be,” Burrich observed. “But what comes next? Are we to see the King and Queen Kettricken carried off to Tradeford?”

“Trust. I ask for one day of trust,” I said carefully. I hoped it would be enough. “And now we must disperse and go about our lives as normally as we can.”

“A stablemaster with no horses and a Fool with no king,” the Fool observed. “Burrich and I can continue to drink. I believe that is a normal life under these circumstances. As for you, Fitz, I have no idea what title you give yourself these days, let alone what you normally do all day. Hence—”

“No one is going to sit about and drink,” Lacey intoned ominously. “Put the bottle aside and keep your wits sharp. And disperse, as Fitz here said. Enough has been said and done in this room to put us all swinging from a tree for treason. Save you, of course, FitzChivalry. It would have to be poison for you. Those of the royal blood are not allowed to swing.”

Her words had a chilling effect. Burrich picked up the cork and restoppered the bottle. Lacey left first, a pot of Burrich’s ointment in her basket. The Fool followed her a short time later. When I left Burrich, he had finished cleaning the fowl and was plucking the last stubborn feathers from it. The man wasted nothing.

I went out and wandered about a bit. I watched behind me for shadows. Kettricken would be resting, and I did not think I could withstand Patience’s nattering, or her insights just then. If the Fool was in his chamber, it was because he did not want company. And if he was elsewhere, I had no idea where that might be. The whole of Buckkeep was as plagued with Inlanders as a sick dog with fleas. I strolled through the kitchen, purloining gingerbread. Then I wandered about disconsolately, trying not to think, trying to appear without purpose as I headed back to the hut where once I had hidden Nighteyes. The hut was empty now, as cold within as without. It had been some time since Nighteyes had laired here. He preferred the forested hills behind Buckkeep. But I did not wait long before his shadow crossed the threshold of the open door.