On my earlier foray to Kettricken’s room, I had noticed that makeshift curtains had been tacked up over the splintered door frames of the King’s chambers. Most of the wreckage had been carried off, but bits of oaken door still littered the corridor. No workmen had been called in to do repairs. Another sign that Regal had no intention of ever returning to Buckkeep.
I tried to find some excuse to introduce myself into that room. The Keep downstairs was busier than ever, for today the Dukes of Beams, Rippon, and Shoaks Duchies were expected to arrive with their retinues to witness the King-in-Waiting ceremony for Regal. They were being put in the lesser guest rooms, across the Keep. I wondered how they would react to the sudden disappearance of the King and Queen. Would it be seen as treachery, or would Regal find some way to conceal it from them? What would it auger for his new reign to begin so? I put it from my mind; it wasn’t helping me get the King alone in his chamber.
I left my room and went pacing through Buckkeep, hoping for inspiration. Instead I found only confusion. Noble folk of every degree were arriving for Regal’s ceremony, and the influx of guests and their households and servants swept and eddied about the outflow of goods and folk that Regal was sending inland. My feet carried me unplanned to Verity’s study. The door was ajar and I went in. The hearth was cold, the room musty with disuse. There was a distinct odor of mouse in the air. I hoped whatever scrolls they were nesting in weren’t irreplaceable. I was fairly certain I had removed the ones Verity treasured to Chade’s rooms. I walked about the room, touching his things. I suddenly missed him acutely. His unyielding steadiness, his calmness, his strength; he would never have let things come to such a situation. I sat down in his work chair at his map table. Scuffs and scribbles of ink where he had tried colors on it marred the tabletop. Here were two badly cut quills, discarded with a brush worn hairless. In a box on the table were several little pots of color, cracked and dried now. They smelled like Verity to me, in the same way that leather and harness oil always smelled like Burrich. I leaned forward on the table and put my head in my hands. “Verity, we need you now.”