Chade rolled his eyes. “How do I find that? Ask a passing dog fox?”
I smiled inadvertently. “Close. Where will you emerge from Buck Castle?”
He was stubbornly silent for a moment. Still, that old fox hated to reveal his back door. Finally he said, “We will come out of the grain shed, the one third back from the stables.”
I nodded slowly. “A gray wolf will meet you. Follow him silently, and he will show you a way out of the walls of Buck that does not take you through the gates.”
For a long moment Chade just looked at me. I waited. For condemnation, for a look of disgust, even for curiosity. But the old assassin had studied too long how to mask his feelings. He said at last, “We are fools if we do not use every weapon that comes to hand. Is he any … danger to us?”
“No more than I am. You need not wear wolfsbane, nor offer him mutton to be allowed to pass.” I was as familiar with the old folklore as Chade was. “Simply show yourself, and he will appear to guide you. He will take you through the walls, and out to the copse where Burrich waits with the horses.”
“Is it a long walk?”
I knew he was thinking of the King. “It is not overly long, but it is not short, and the snow is deep and unpacked. It will not be easy to scrabble through the gap in the wall, but it can be done. I could ask Burrich to meet you at the wall instead, but I do not wish to draw attention to it. Perhaps the Fool could help you manage?”
“He will have to, from the sound of things. I am not willing to bring any others in on this plot. Our position seems only to become more and more untenable.”