I summoned the last of my courage. “My king, please,
“Enough, Chivalry! You have heard my word on this subject. There is no more to say!”
A short time later he dismissed me, and I went shaking from his rooms. I do not know if fury or heartbreak were the force behind my trembling. I thought again of how he had called me by my father’s name. Perhaps, I told myself spitefully, it was because in his heart he knew I would do as my father had done. I would wed for love. Even, I thought savagely, if I had to wait until King Shrewd was in his grave, for Verity to keep his word to me. I went back to my rooms. To have wept would have been a relief. I could not even find tears. Instead I lay on my bed and stared at the hangings. I could not imagine telling Molly what had just transpired between my king and me. Telling myself that not to speak was also a deception, I resolved to find a way to tell her. But not right away. A time would come, I promised myself, a time when I could explain and she would understand. I would wait for it. Until then, I would not think about it. Nor, I resolved coldly, would I go to my king unless I were summoned.
As spring drew closer Verity arranged his ships and men as carefully as tokens on a game board. The watchtowers on the coast were always manned, and their signal fires kept ever ready for a torch. Such signal fires were for the purpose of alerting local citizenry that Red-Ships had been sighted. He took the remaining members of the Skill coterie Galen had fashioned and distributed them in the towers and on the ships. Serene, my nemesis and heart of Galen’s coterie, remained at Buckkeep. Privately I wondered why Verity used her there, as a center for the coterie, rather than having each member Skill individually to him. With Galen’s death, and August’s forced retirement from the coterie, Serene had taken on Galen’s post, and seemed to consider herself the Skill Master. In some ways, she almost became him. It was not just that she stalked Buckkeep in austere silence and wore always a disapproving frown. She seemed to have acquired his testiness and foul humor as well. The serving folk now spoke of her with the same dread and distaste they had once reserved for Galen. I understood she had taken over Galen’s personal quarters as well. I avoided her assiduously on the days I was home. I would have been more relieved if Verity had placed her elsewhere.