“My prince,” I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

“Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more encounters with Forged ones. Would I could think of something to busy her,” he added wearily.

“The Queen’s Garden,” I suggested, recalling Patience’s account of it.

Verity cocked his eye at me.

“The old ones, atop the tower,” I explained. “They have been unused for years. I saw what was left of them, before Galen ordered us to dismantle them to clear space for our Skill lessons. It must have been a charming place at one time. Tubs of earth and greenery, statuary, climbing vines.”

Verity smiled to himself. “And basins of water, too, with pond lilies in them, and fish, and even tiny frogs. The birds came there often in summer, to drink and to splash. Chivalry and I used to play up there. She had little charms hung on strings, made of glass and bright metal. And when the wind stirred them, they would chime together, or flash like jewels in the sun.” I could feel myself warming with his memory of that place and time. “My mother kept a little hunting cat, and it would lounge on the warm stone when the sun struck it. Hiss-pit; that was her name. Spotted coat and tufted ears. And we would tease her with string and tufts of feathers, and she would stalk us among the pots of flowers. While we were supposed to be studying tablets on herbs. I never properly learned them. There was too much else to do there. Except for thyme. I knew every kind of thyme she had. My mother grew a lot of thyme. And catmint.” He was smiling.

“Kettricken would love such a place,” I told him. “She gardened much in the Mountains.”

“Did she?” He looked surprised. “I would have thought her occupied with more … physical pastimes.”

I felt an instant of annoyance with him. No, of something more than annoyance. How could it be that I knew more of his wife than he did? “She kept gardens,” I said quietly. “Of many herbs, and knew all the uses of those that grew therein. I have told you of them myself.”

“Yes, I suppose you have.” He sighed. “You are right, Fitz. Visit her for me, and tell her of the Queen’s Garden. It is winter now, and there is probably little she can do with it. But come spring, it would be a wondrous thing to see it restored….”

“Perhaps, you yourself, my prince,” I ventured, but he shook his head.

“I haven’t the time. But I trust it to you. And now, downstairs. To the maps. I have things I wish to discuss with you.”

I turned immediately toward the door. Verity followed more slowly. I held the door for him and on the threshold he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the open window. “It calls me,” he admitted to me, calmly, simply, as if observing that he enjoyed plums. “It calls to me, at any moment when I am not busied. And so I must be busy, Fitz. And too busy.”

“I see,” I said slowly, not at all sure that I did.

“No. You don’t.” Verity spoke with great certainty. “It is like a great loneliness, boy. I can reach out and touch others. Some, quite easily. But no one ever reaches back. When Chivalry was alive … I still miss him, boy. Sometimes I am so lonely for him; it is like being the only one of something in the world. Like the very last wolf, hunting alone.”

A shiver went down my spine. “What of King Shrewd?” I ventured to ask.

He shook his head. “He Skills seldom now. His strength for it has dwindled, and it taxes his body as well as his mind.” We went down a few more steps. “You and I are the only ones now to know that,” he added softly. I nodded.

We went down the stairs slowly. “Has the healer looked at your arm?” he queried.

I shook my head.

“Nor Burrich.”

He was stating this as fact, already knowing it was true.

I shook my head again. The marks of Nighteyes’ teeth were too plain upon my skin, although he had given those bites in play. I could not show Burrich the marks of the Forged ones without betraying my wolf to him.

Verity sighed. “Well. Keep it clean. I suppose you know as well as any how to keep an injury clean. Next time you go out, remember this, and go prepared. Always. There may not always be one to step in and aid you.”

I came to a slow stop on the stairs. Verity continued down. I took a deep breath. “Verity,” I asked quietly. “How much do you know? About … this.”

“Less than you do,” he said jovially. “But more than you think I do.”

“You sound like the Fool,” I said bitterly.