So I told him, about a vague sense of Verity during the battle, and the possibility that he had been under attack at the same time. Burrich nodded impatiently.
“But can’t you Skill out to him, now that things are calm? Renew the link?”
I took an instant, pushed down my own seething frustration. “No. I can’t. I don’t have the Skill that way.”
Burrich frowned. “Look. We know that messages have gone awry lately. How do we know that this one hasn’t been invented?”
“We don’t, I suppose. Though it is hard to believe that even Regal would be so bold as to say Verity was dead if he was not.”
“There is nothing I believe him incapable of,” Burrich said quietly.
I straightened up from cleaning the mud out of Sooty’s hooves. Burrich was leaning on the door of Ruddy’s stall, staring off into distance. The white streak in his hair was a vivid reminder of just how ruthless Regal could be. He had ordered Burrich killed as casually as one might swat an annoying fly. It had never seemed to give Regal a moment’s concern that he had not stayed dead. He had no fear of retribution from a stablemaster or a bastard.
“So. What would he say when Verity came back?” I asked quietly.
“Once he was king, he could see that Verity never came back. The man who sits on the throne of the Six Duchies can do away with people who are inconvenient.” Burrich did not look directly at me as he said this, and I tried to let the barb go by me. It was true. Once Regal was in power, I had no doubt there would be assassins ready to do his bidding. Perhaps there already were some. That thought put a queer chill up me.