I was only too glad to change the topic. “As much as I could. Burrich will be in place and waiting, in the alder copse where the dog fox used to den.”

Chade rolled his eyes. “How do I find that? Ask a passing dog fox?”

I smiled inadvertently. “Close. Where will you emerge from Buck Castle?”

He was stubbornly silent for a moment. Still, that old fox hated to reveal his back door. Finally he said, “We will come out of the grain shed, the one third back from the stables.”

I nodded slowly. “A gray wolf will meet you. Follow him silently, and he will show you a way out of the walls of Buck that does not take you through the gates.”

For a long moment Chade just looked at me. I waited. For condemnation, for a look of disgust, even for curiosity. But the old assassin had studied too long how to mask his feelings. He said at last, “We are fools if we do not use every weapon that comes to hand. Is he any … danger to us?”

“No more than I am. You need not wear wolfsbane, nor offer him mutton to be allowed to pass.” I was as familiar with the old folklore as Chade was. “Simply show yourself, and he will appear to guide you. He will take you through the walls, and out to the copse where Burrich waits with the horses.”

“Is it a long walk?”

I knew he was thinking of the King. “It is not overly long, but it is not short, and the snow is deep and unpacked. It will not be easy to scrabble through the gap in the wall, but it can be done. I could ask Burrich to meet you at the wall instead, but I do not wish to draw attention to it. Perhaps the Fool could help you manage?”

“He will have to, from the sound of things. I am not willing to bring any others in on this plot. Our position seems only to become more and more untenable.”

I bowed my head to the truth of that. “And you?” I ventured to ask.

“My tasks are done as completely as they could be, ahead of time. The Fool has assisted me. He has spirited away both clothing and coin for his king’s journey. Shrewd has reluctantly agreed to our plan. He knows it is wise, but every part of it chafes him. Despite all, Fitz, Regal is his son, his favored youngest. Even having felt Regal’s ruthlessness, it is still hard for him to say the Prince threatens his life. You see how he is bound: to admit that Regal would turn on him is to admit he was wrong about his son. To flee Buckkeep is even worse, for that is admitting not only that Regal would turn on him, but that flight is his only option. Our king has never been a coward. It galls him now to run from one who should be most loyal of all to him. Yet he must. Of that I have convinced him; mostly, I’ll admit, by saying that without his acknowledgment, Kettricken’s child will have a poor claim on the throne.” Chade sighed. “All is as ready as I can make it. I have prepared the medicines, and all is well packed.”

“The Fool understands he cannot go with his king?”

Chade rubbed his forehead. “He intends to follow, a few days behind. He would not be dissuaded entirely. The best I could do was to get him to travel separately.”

“Then it but depends on me to find a way to empty the King’s room of witnesses, and for you to spirit him away.”

“Ah, yes,” Chade observed mirthlessly. “All is well planned and ready to carry out, save for the actual deed.”

We stared together into the fire.

29

Escapes and Captures

THE OUTBREAK OF strife between the coastal and Inland Duchies at the end of King Shrewd’s reign was not a new sundering, but rather a resumption of old differences. The four Coastal Duchies, Bearns, Buck, Rippon, and Shoaks, were a kingdom long before the Six Duchies came to be. When the unified battle tactics of the Chalced States convinced King Wielder that their conquest would be unprofitable, he turned his ambitions inland. The Farrow region, with its scattered nomadic tribal populations, fell easily to the organized armies he led. The more populous and settled Tilth grudgingly surrendered to him when the erstwhile King of that region found his territory surrounded and his trade routes severed.

Both the old kingdom of Tilth and the region that would come to be known as Farrow were held as conquered territory for over a generation. The wealth of their granaries, orchards, and herds were exploited lavishly for the benefit of the Coastal Duchies. Queen Munificence, granddaughter of Wielder, was wise enough to see that this was breeding discontent in the inland areas. She showed great tolerance and wisdom in elevating the tribal elders of the Farrow folk and the former ruling families of Tilth to nobles. She used marriages and grants of land to forge alliances between coastal and inland folk. She first referred to her kingdom as the Six Duchies. But all of her political maneuvers could not change the geographic and economic interests of the different areas. Climate, folk, and livelihoods of the Inland Duchies remained vastly different from that of the coastal peoples.