“And she burst into tears and threw herself to the floor and clung to my skirts and said she had thought I didn’t like her anymore. She sobbed so hard that before I could calm her, the hair was plastered flat to her skull with sweat and she was shaking all over. Fitz, I was so ashamed to have been so cruel to a child, not by what I had done, but simply by ignoring her. Only Chade and I ever knew that we suspected her of trying to harm me. But my simple shunning of the child had given the lesser folk of the keep permission to be cruel and callous to her. Her little slippers were all gone to tatters . . .” Her voice trailed off, and despite myself, I felt a stab of pity for Rosemary. Kettricken took a deep breath and resumed her tale. “She begged to be allowed to serve me again, Fitz. She was not even seven years old when she did Regal’s bidding. She never hated me, or understood what she did. To her, I am sure it was a game, to listen in secret and repeat all that she heard.”

I tried to be pragmatic and hard. “And greasing the steps so you would fall?”

“Would she be told the why of it? Or simply told to put the grease on the steps after I had gone up to the roof garden? To a child, it might have been framed as a prank.”

“Did you ask her?”

A pause. “Some things are best left alone. Even if she knew the intent was to make me fall, I do not think she realized the full import of it. I think perhaps that I was two people to her, the woman that Regal wanted to bring down, and Kettricken whom she served every day. The one who should be blamed for her conduct is dead. And since I took her back to my side, she has never been anything but a loyal and diligent subject to me.” She sighed and stared past me at a wall as she spoke. “The past must be left in the past, Fitz. Especially this is true for those who rule. I must wed my son to a daughter of an Outislander. I must promote trade and alliance with the folk who doomed my king to death. Shall I quibble about taking a little spy under my wing and turning her into a lady of my court?”

I took a deep breath myself. If in fifteen years she had not regretted her decision, no words of mine would change it now. Nor should they, perhaps. “Well. I suppose I should have expected it. You did not quibble to take an assassin as your advisor when you came to court.”