Standing in the door of the King’s bedchamber was the Pocked Man. Even knowing it was Chade, I still knew one moment of hair-raising terror. He was dressed in tattered grave clothes, smeared with earth and mildew. His long gray hair hung in filthy locks about his face, and he had smeared his skin with ash that the livid scars might stand out the better. He lifted a slow hand to point at Wallace. The man screamed, and then fled shrieking down the halls. His yammering for the guards echoed through the Keep.
“What goes on here?” Chade demanded as soon as Wallace had fled. He crossed to his brother in a single stride, laid long thin fingers across the King’s throat. I knew what he would find. I clambered painfully to my feet.
“He’s dead. I DID NOT KILL HIM!” My shout cut across the Fool’s rising wail. The Skill fingers plucked at me insistently. “I go to kill those who did. Take the Fool to safety. Have you the Queen?”
Chade’s eyes were very wide. He stared at me as if he had never seen me before. All the candles in the room went suddenly to sputtering blue. It seemed only fitting. “Get her to safety,” I ordered my master. “And see the Fool goes with her. If he stays here, he’s dead. Regal will let no one live who has been in this room tonight.”
“No! I will not leave him!” The Fool’s eyes were wide and empty as a mad thing.
“Take him however you can, Chade! His life depends on it!” I grabbed the Fool by the shoulders and shook him savagely. His head whipped back and forth on his thin neck. “Go with Chade and be silent. Be silent, if you want your king’s death avenged. For that is what I go to do.” A sudden tremor ran over me and the world rocked, black at the edges. “Elfbark!” I gasped. “I need elfbark from you. Then flee!” I thrust the Fool into Chade’s arms, and the old man took him in his ropy grasp. It was like watching him taken into the arms of death. They left the room, Chade propelling the weeping Fool along. After a moment I heard the barest grating of stone on stone. I knew they were gone.