Regal noticed nothing. He tugged my boots off and set them aside. “You see, bastard,” he said as he paused to catch his breath. “Ruthlessness creates its own rules. So my mother taught me. People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences. Behave as if you cannot be touched and no one will dare to touch you. Look at the whole situation. Your death will anger some people, yes. But enough to make them take actions that would affect the security of the whole Six Duchies? I think not. Besides, your death will be eclipsed by other things. I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity to remove you.” Regal was so damnably calm and superior. I fought him, but he was surprisingly strong for the indulgent life he led. I felt like a kitten as he shook me out of my shirt. He folded my clothes neatly and set them aside. “Minimal alibis will work. If I made too much effort to appear guiltless, people might think I cared. They might start then to pay attention themselves. So, I simply know nothing. My man saw you enter with Burrich after I had left. And I go now to complain to August that you never came to talk with me so that I might forgive you, as I had promised Princess Kettricken. I will reprimand August most severely for not bringing you himself.” He looked around. “Let’s see. A nice deep hot one. Right here.” I clutched at his throat as he levered me up to the edge, but he shook me off easily.
“Good-bye, bastard,” he said calmly. “Pardon my haste, but you have quite delayed me. And I must rush to dress myself. Or I shall be late for the wedding.”
And he tumbled me in.
The pool was deeper than I was tall, designed to be neck-high on a tall Chyurda. It was painfully hot to my unprepared body. It drove the air from my lungs and I sank. I pushed feebly off the bottom and managed to get my face above water. “Burrich!” I wasted my breath on a shout to someone who could not aid me. The water closed on me again. My arms and legs would not work together. I blundered into a wall and pushed myself under before I could once again surface and gasp in some air. The hot water was loosening my already flaccid muscles. I think I would still have been drowning even if the water had been only knee-deep.
I lost count of how many times I floundered to the surface, to gasp a breath. The smooth-worked stone of the walls eluded my palsied grip, and my ribs stabbed me with pain each time I tried for a deep breath. My strength was flowing out of me, lassitude flowing in. So warm, so deep. Drowned like a puppy, I thought to myself as I felt the darkness closing. Boy? someone queried, but all was black.
So much water, so hot and so deep. I could not find a bottom anymore, let alone a side. I struggled feebly against the water, but there was no resistance. No up, no down. No use fighting to stay alive inside my body. Nothing left to protect, so drop the walls, and see if there is one last service you can render your king. The walls of my world fell away from me, and I sped forth like an arrow finally released. Galen had been right. There was no distance in Skilling, no distance at all. Buckkeep was right here, and Shrewd, I shrieked in desperation. But my king was intent upon other things. He was closed and walled to me, no matter how I stormed around him. No help there.
Strength was going from me. Somewhere, I was drowning. My body was failing, my thread to it was tenuous. One last chance. Verity, Verity, I cried. I found him, flailed at him, but could find no purchase, no grip. He was elsewhere, open to someone else, closed to me. Verity! I wailed, drowning in despair. And suddenly it was as if strong hands gripped mine as I scrabbled up a slippery cliff. Gripped and held tight and drew me in when I would have slipped away.