Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3)

by Robin Hobb

Yet I possess, perhaps, a greater share of dark memories than most men; few men have known death in a dungeon, or can recall the inside of a coffin buried beneath the snow.

It is one thing to recall that Regal killed me. It is another to focus on the details of the days and nights endured as he starved me and then had me beaten to death.

When Regal killed me, I died. I was never again commonly known as FitzChivalry, I never renewed bonds to the Buckkeep folk who had known me since I was a child of six. I never lived in Buckkeep Castle again, never more waited on the Lady Patience, never sat on the hearthstones at Chade’s feet again.

Patience came to lay claim to my body. My father’s wife, once so distressed to discover he had sired a bastard before they were wed, was the one who took me from that cell. Hers the hands that washed my body for burial, that straightened my limbs and wrapped me in a grave cloth. Awkward, eccentric Lady Patience, for whatever reason, cleansed my wounds and bound them as carefully as if I still lived. She alone ordered the digging of my grave and saw to the burying of my coffin. She and Lacey, her woman, mourned me, when all others, out of fear or disgust at my crime, abandoned me.

One such tale I have preserved has to do with a girl who was Vecci, or what we would call Witted. She wished to leave her parents’ home, to follow a man she loved and be his wife.

She lay down on her bed and died of sorrow. Her parents buried her with great mourning and much self-reproach that they had not allowed her to follow her heart. But unbeknownst to them, she was Wit-bonded to a she-bear. And when the girl died, the she-bear took her spirit into her keeping, so it might not flee the world. Three nights after the girl had been buried, the she-bear dug up the grave, and restored the girl’s spirit to her body. The girl’s gravebirth made her a new person,

picked up the cup and drank from it. He smiled at me. ‘Good, Fitz. Good boy.’ I smiled back,

Nighteyes is as afraid of Heart of the Pack as I am. Once I attacked Heart of the Pack. I had been sick for a long time, but then I was better. I wished to go out to hunt and he would not let me. He stood before the door and I sprang on him. He hit me with his fist, and then held me down. He is not bigger than I. But he is meaner, and more clever. He knows many ways to hold and most of them hurt. He held me on the floor, on my back, with my throat bared and waiting for his teeth, for a long, long time.

The grey one had heard something about a woman. It might be crucial, a rallying point for the Duchies. Heart of the Pack said, ‘I won’t talk about it in front of Fitz. I promised.’ The grey one asked him if he thought I understood, and Heart of the Pack said that that didn’t matter, he had given his word.

The grey one just smiled. ‘I have my ways, Burrich,’ he said. I smiled too, remembering that he had always been proud of his secrets.

If you go out of the door or the window, if you even open the door or the window, I will know it. And I will beat you to death. Do you understand that?’

When he did there was a smell on him. A female’s smell. Not strong, and mixed with the smells of a meadow. But it was a good smell that made me want something, something that was not food or water or hunting.

There had been a female who smelled like Burrich’s coat, and I had not wanted her to go. She was my female, but when she left, I did not follow. That was all I could remember. Remembering it was not good, in the same way that being hungry or thirsty was not good.

‘Bastard!’ he said harshly, and when I cowered, he said, ‘Not you.’ He shook his head slowly. He patted me on the shoulder.

‘He has to come back,’ Chade said quietly. ‘We need him.’

‘Verity’s alive,’ I said. ‘He’s cold, but he’s alive. And that’s all I have to say.’ I went to the door and worked the latch and went out into the night. They didn’t try to stop me.

‘Regal never needed a reason to kill his father. He needed only to run out of reasons to keep him alive.

But the night fear was an unmanning terror, a hope that death would come and end it, because I was broken and knew I would give them anything rather than face more pain.

That debilitating fear was a cowering presence inside me. I knew, with a sick certainty, that if I were pressed I would become it. I was no longer FitzChivalry. I was what was left after fear had driven him from his body.

‘Boy?’ he asked cautiously when I was near. I managed a nod and a smile. The answering smile that broke forth on his face humbled me. He dropped his staff to hug me, and then pressed his cheek to mine as if I were a child. ‘Oh, Fitz, Fitz, my boy,’ he said in a voice full of relief. ‘I thought we had lost you. I thought we’d done something worse than let you die.’ His old arms were tight and strong about me. I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him that they had.

‘If Verity lives still, then a pretender has claimed his throne. I am sworn to come to my king’s aid. As is Chade. As are you.’

But a living is not a life,’ Burrich pointed out.

Can’t you see there’s more to being alive than giving it all up for someone else?’

them. Over and over and over again, you forget your place. You are not a prince, you are an assassin. You are not the player, you are the game-piece. And when you make your own moves, you set every other strategy awry and endanger every piece on the board!’

Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another’s words.

When he spoke again, it was not as my master, but as Chade. He looked at the wall as he spoke. ‘I love you, boy. I don’t withdraw that from you. But you’re dangerous. And what we must attempt is dangerous enough without you going berserk in the middle of it.’

He showed them to me as a man’s values, not just manners for inside a woman’s house. He taught me to be a man, not a beast in a man’s shape. He made me see it was more than rules, it was a way of being. A life, rather than a living.’

He cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. ‘I’ve a friend. She’s alone. She could use a man’s strength about her place. Her roof needs mending, and there’s planting to do. I’ll go there, for a time.’ ‘She?’ I dared to ask, raising an eyebrow. His voice was flat. ‘Nothing like that. A friend. You would probably say that I’ve found someone else to look after. Perhaps I have. Perhaps it’s time to give that where it is truly needed.’

When I was sure of my voice, I said quietly, ‘I will never regret loving her. Only that I could not make her my wife in all eyes as she was in my heart.’

Free to go to Tradeford and kill Regal.

The Skill is the traditional magic of the Farseer royalty.

If I kept to my plan, it might be years before I saw him again. If I saw him again. Since I was six years old, he had always been a factor in my life.

I would kill Regal. It only seemed fair. He had killed me first.

I cannot leave this alone, Nighteyes. I understand. I am the same about porcupines. And so he perceived my vendetta with Regal as equivalent to his weakness for porcupines.

When his curiosity was mostly satisfied, he came to sit beside me. After a few moments, he stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes. Keep watch? ‘I’ll watch over you,’ I assured him. His ears twitched at my spoken words. Then he sank into a sun-soaked sleep.

did not let him gorge, but jerked some of the meat, and smoked some of it.

It was still not easy to will my walls down. Far easier to unsquint my eyes on a day of bright sunlight on the water, or to stand unflinching before a coming blow.

More softly, then, Be careful of yourself, boy. Be very careful. They are ruthless.

Surely an animal never had to feel these things. Out in the night, a single wolf lifted his nose and howled suddenly up to the sky, piercing the night with his loneliness and despair.

The Wit seems to be a form of mind linking, usually with a particular animal, which opens a way for the understanding of that animal’s thoughts and feelings.

The killer gave a snort of disdain, and replied something to the effect that he had been too young, not enough of a life behind him to be worth the Masters’ time.

‘But I’ve wanted to know you since I saw you blush in the inn. Nothing challenges my curiosity quite as much as a man who blushes.

My body lost its easy ready stance, and all I could think of was the pain defeat would bring me. I felt sick and shaky and wanted more than anything to simply turn and run, with no thought

It was odd to realize I had an emotional attachment to my own flesh. My deep desire to keep it functioning well surpassed simple avoidance of pain. A man takes pride in his body. When it is damaged, it is more than a physical thing.

Forged ones seemed not to have that fear; perhaps when they lost their attachment to everything else, they lost all affection for their own bodies.

Desperation to avoid injury is not the same as determination to win.

As it was, I reached out, in a way I cannot describe. Not the Wit, not the Skill, but some unholy blending of the two, a terrible questing for someone, anywhere, who might care to know I was alive. Almost, I felt something.

Come to me. The command still echoed through my mind. ‘I am, I am,’ I muttered to myself. ‘After I hunt for something to eat and get some sleep. But I’m coming.’

Chalced constantly brings complaint that the folk of Shoaks not only shelter runaway slaves, but encourage others to escape. No Six Duchies monarch has ever denied the truth of this.

‘I can see the workmanship is superior. Such is the reputation of the Butran Clan. There is also the rarity of it. The Butran Clan grants freedom to a slave but rarely. Even this far from Chalced, that is known. Once a man or woman wears the Butran tattoos, well …’