Assassin's Fate (The Fitz and the Fool #3)

by Robin Hobb

‘Remember, when he is the Prophet, I am the Catalyst. The Changer. I have no intention of dying, or letting anyone else die. Go back to sleep, Spark. Get rest while you can. What is to be, may be. Or may not!’

My mother put the sap of ferns and cool mud on the stings. And then took oil and a flame and killed them all, burning their nest and their unhatched children in vengeance for what they had done to her daughter. This was before I could speak clearly. I was astonished at her hatred of them; truly I had not known my mother capable of such cold anger. When I stared at her, as the nest burned, she nodded to me. ‘While I live, no one shall hurt you and go unpunished for it.’

My father may once have been an assassin. My mother remained one. Bee Farseer’s journal

‘Don’t you? He’s a prince, accustomed to getting anything he wants. And he’s the son of a rapist.’ ‘He isn’t his father,’ I said quietly, but could not deny the lurch of anxiety his words woke in me. I asked the next question carefully. ‘Is Spark worried by it? Did she ask you for protection?’

‘Once, a long time ago, I tried to walk away from everything. From my family, from my duty. For a time, it seemed to make me happy. But it didn’t, really.’ ‘You are referring to me restoring myself. To becoming the two dragons who have been trapped in this wood for six of your generations.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You think I will be unhappy?’ ‘I don’t know. I just think that you might want to reconsider. You have a family. You are loved. You are—’ ‘I am trapped.’ ‘I was, too. But—’ ‘I do not intend to remain a ship. Save your breath, human.’

‘I’ve never heard anyone deny what his father did to Althea. And the wizardwood charm he wears is filled with his father’s thoughts. Why should I not be concerned?’ ‘Because he is not his father! He does not carry his father’s memories.’ The ship paused and added ominously, ‘I carry them. I took them so that no one else would have to bear them.’

And then I was thrown face down on the rough wood of the deck. The skin was torn from my palms and knees by the impact. I tried to rise but a man’s weight was suddenly on my back, his thick forearm like a bar of iron against my throat. I struggled to rise but he was bigger than me, and heavier. His beard rasped against the side of my face and his voice was a growl as he said, ‘Such a tender little bit of manflesh you are. Buck as you will; I’ll tame you. I relish a lively ride.’ A hand gripped the hair on top of my head and pressed my face down against the wood. I tried to seize his arm and take it away from my throat, but the thick embroidered sleeves of his shirt slipped and slid in my grasp. I tried to scream but I could not get any air. I braced my palms on the deck and tried to throw his body off mine. I heard another man laugh as the man on top of me pressed himself against me.

I was furious and affronted and full of a black fear I could not vanquish. Never again! I vowed and then became completely myself. Not my pain. Not my fury and shame. ‘Kennitsson knows nothing of that,’ the ship went on softly, as if the storm of memories had never been. ‘Don’t leave, Buckman. Stay where you are, and I’ll share a bit more of Kennit’s youth with you. I’ve plenty of that. Plenty of hours of him crawling, torn and bleeding, to where Igrot could not reach him.

‘If he … if that was done to him, how could he bear to pass it on? How could he stand to become the same sort of monster?’ ‘Interesting that another human does not understand it any more than I do. Perhaps it was his only way to be rid of it. To not be the victim by becoming the … victor? You cannot imagine the ways he fought the monsters that assailed his dreams. How he struggled to become everything that Igrot was not. Igrot pretended the finesse of a gentleman, sometimes. It was a façade and I’ve no idea where it came from.

‘The things he forced that boy to do and be, Kennit never understood. To dress as a fine little man in a lace shirt and serve Igrot at table, just so the pirate could later batter him and rip the garments from his body. Kennit was the one who took a hatchet to my face. Did you know that? I held him in my hands as he did it. Igrot laughed as he chopped my eyes away. It was our bargain. Kennit would blind me and Igrot would not rape him again. But Igrot never kept his word to anyone about anything. But we did. Oh, how we kept the promises we made in the dark and bloody nights!’

‘Oh, they guess and suspect, but they do not know all that happened on my decks. Neither are they privy to our conversation now. All those years, with my body trapped as a ship and my mind trapped as a battered boy! Until the day we killed them. He poisoned them all, with chips of my face ground and mixed into their soup. And when they were all sickened, all grovelling and clasping their bellies and too weak to stand, Kennit finished them. With the same hatchet he’d used to take my eyes, he took their lives, one by one and their blood and memories soaked into my decks. Every man who had watched him shamed and humiliated felt that hatchet. And Igrot, last of all. So lovingly he dismembered him.

‘Can you imagine, human? To have a young creature you love endure such things as you stand helplessly by? Unable to kill his tormentor without killing him? Over and over, I took his memories. Twice, I took his death, and held him safe until he could bear to return to his body again. I could dim those memories for him but I could not erase them.’

‘Nothing about what you dream. But he did share with me, in an impressively vivid manner, a bit of what shaped Kennit.’ I wedged my pack back under the bunk in an upright position and sat down beside the Fool. I had to bow my head to fit. ‘What monsters humans are! I’d rather be a wolf.’ He surprised me by suddenly leaning on me. ‘Me, too.’ After a moment, he added, ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been angry with you. That wasn’t fair. But it also wasn’t fair for you to doubt my dreams. Have you touched minds with Bee again?’

‘Fitz. They will know we are coming. They have Bee and they will know we are coming. This can’t end well for any of us.’ ‘So tell me. Don’t let me go into this blind.’ He choked out a laugh. ‘Oh, no. I’m the one who goes into it blind, Fitz. You die. You drown. In darkness, in cold seawater and in blood you drown.

‘I know you’ve dreamed her alive. Do we save her? Does she go home?’ He spoke hesitantly. ‘I think she is like you. She is a crossroads of many possible futures. I’ve seen her wearing a crown with alternating spires of flame and darkness. But she also appears as broken manacles. One who frees things. And as the shattered vessel.’

Broken beyond repair. Some part of me had known that her experience must do that to her. She would be as broken as the Fool and I were. Something inside my chest hurt at the thought. My voice creaked. ‘Well. Who wouldn’t break? I broke. You broke.’ ‘And we both emerged stronger.’ ‘We both emerged,’ I modified his words. I was never sure I understood what Regal’s torture had done to me. Part of me had died in that cell, both literally and figuratively. I was alive today. I’d never know if I’d lost more than what I had found.

‘I dream of a nut that is dangerous to crack. Sometimes I hear a nonsense ditty: “The trap is the trapper and the trapper is trapped.” But it isn’t always dreams. Sometimes I see … like a crossroads, but one with an infinite number of paths starring away from a centre.

‘Then what happened?’ I demanded in consternation. He gave a snort of laughter. ‘Then I believe you knifed me in the belly. A number of times, but I lost count after two.’

‘I wasn’t sure you recalled any of that.’ I felt the weight of his body against my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s too late for that.’ He patted me with his gloved hand and straightened up with a sigh. ‘I’ve already forgiven you.’

I moved with the Skill-current, letting it carry my thoughts and will toward Buckkeep and to my daughter Nettle. She was sleeping. I eased into her dream thoughts, woke her gently. How are you, and your child? Chade’s dead.

I blame myself. We gave him delvenbark to quench his Skill. He had grown so randomly strong with it. He would be calm, and then he was like a cold wind blasting. Two of the new apprentices decided to leave the training because his spells were so frightening. Even Shine had come to dread his moments of strength, for no matter how she deadened herself, he would seize her and tumble her into the Skill with him. She was terrified. As were we all!

After three days of it, it blocked his Skill, and he became … an old man. Kindly but fretful, and old. We let him have visits with Shine again; I’d had to keep her away from him. He … he didn’t seem to understand why we had kept his daughter away. He was so confused. He would talk to Shrewd’s portrait … Oh, Fitz, I fear he died thinking I was needlessly cruel, that I had taken his daughter and his magic from him, simply for meanness. Simply to control him.

Yes. Chade’s message from Lant was clutched in his hand. I don’t know how many times Shine read it aloud to him, Fitz. He was smiling when we found him. A calm, sweet smile. I realized abruptly, I have to tell Lant. Then, I can’t. Your first thought was correct. You must tell him. As I had to tell you.

Then my own news burst from me without warning. The Fool has dreamed that Bee is alive. And the last time I could reach you with the Skill, when Chade so abruptly parted us? I felt Bee. I knew her touch.

How are you? I asked her. Heavy. Tired. Happy. Sometimes. Sometimes. When she was thinking of her baby rather than the death of Chade or the torment of her small sister. I’m sorry I woke you. And sorry that Chade is gone. I will tell Lant. And you should rest now.

There was no one else in the room. Sitting on the floor, I pulled my knees up tight to my chest and bowed my head over them. Chade’s boy wept.

The Unexpected Son arrives cloaked in a power that none can see but all can feel. It shimmers and floats and confuses both eye and mind. In my dream, he is one, then two, then three creatures.

He opens his cloak and fury burns inside him, flames that make me fall back before their heat. He closes his cloak and he is gone.

Dwalia responded at last. ‘I shall be sad to leave him.’ Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. ‘But this is not my life. I do not depend on a man’s position and affection to claim what should be mine.’ She sounded almost angry that she had been well treated by him. She turned to Vindeliar. ‘You remember what you are to do, as we disembark?’ ‘Yes.’ His agreement was sullen.

‘Leave it. There is nothing in that trunk that I’ll ever wear again. Just leave it.’ She reached up and tore free the pins that had secured her hat, threw it to the ground and strode away. I was stunned. I’d heard tears in her voice.

I’d seen the paths with such clarity only once before in my life, on that fateful day in winter when the beggar had touched me and I’d seen how all futures began at my feet. Oh, the great good that I could do, now that I was here. My fate was here and only I could shape it. It stole my breath away. And as I gazed, I felt my heart lift, just as the minstrels described it could happen. I was here and the great work of my life was before me.

My marketplace beggar. The man who had touched me and shown me all the futures, the man my father had stabbed, the man he chose to help even though it meant abandoning me, was Beloved. He had been the Fool. The White Prophet. The oldest and truest friend my father had ever had.

I’d measured Beloved when first he was brought here. I knew what he was capable of, from the beginning, and I warned you, all of you! I kept him at my side, I watched him, I tried to change him. And when I knew he would not be changed, I warned all of you. We should have done away with him then, when he would not silence his own questions.

And when no pain tore any secret from him, when all you won from him was the name of his lover, you still refused to listen to me!

Where is Beloved?’ Dwalia lifted her head. She spoke with contained but unconcealed anger. ‘Dead. I am certain he is dead. Just as dead as you wished him to be. And he died the way I wished him to die, at his lover’s hands! Over and over FitzChivalry Farseer sank his knife into Beloved’s belly, for he did not even know him after all I had done to change him!

‘She does have the look of Beloved about her chin and the set of her ears. She could be his get.’ ‘SHE!’ Capra bellowed at him. ‘Do you know the word, Fellowdy? Do you hear it? Do you understand what it means? Often I have wondered if you know the difference between male and female, or if you care! This is not the Unexpected Son. The best she might be is a bastard daughter of a traitorous wretch. Even if she is Beloved’s get, who knows what other blood is mingled in her? She’s a mongrel. A mongrel from a tainted bloodline that has brought us nothing but disaster.’

We are inundated with nightmares about the wrath of the Unexpected Son. Terrifying visions of the vengeance of the Twice-lived Prophet make the young ones wake crying out in fear. Dreams of a Destroyer! Oh, yes, you have manipulated events, but your petty vengeance has cascaded us into a very dangerous place. “Blind he sees the way, and the wolf comes at his heels!” The prophecy of the Unexpected Son had been fulfilled, to our detriment.

There she was, the person who had ruined my life, the person I hated most in the whole world, being torn and slashed and ripped and tattered by whips of leather. They did to her what I had so longed to do to her, and it was disgusting and horrifying and unbearable.

In that horrifying recognition I suddenly saw how each action we had taken had moved us forward to this place and time and to this event. As late as this morning, there had been a thousand opportunities to choose a different path that would not have led us to this bloody resolution. Dwalia could have chosen to remain Lady Aubretia and gone to the inn to wait for her captain.

‘“Never do that which you can’t undo, until you’ve perceived what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” That is among our oldest teachings, you idiot! We need to summon collators and search for any possible references to her.’ Symphe spoke smoothly. ‘That will take days!’ Coultrie objected. ‘As you are not the one who will be doing the work, why should you care?’ Fellowdy replied. In a quieter voice, he added, ‘As if you could understand the dreams, having never had any of your own.’

Capra’s look was deadly. ‘A ruse can be used more than once, dear girl. Dwalia claims Beloved is dead. She said nothing of FitzChivalry, his Catalyst. If this child is his or has value to him we may find that once more we deal with the Unexpected Son. The real one. The one who aided Beloved to thwart us. So, she needs to be confined until we determine if there is any truth at all to Dwalia’s tale. Until we have wrung the full truth from both Dwalia and that monster she has cultivated.’

As I stepped through the door, I heard a deep soft voice from the next cell. ‘What, Symphe? Not even a hello? Coultrie, you should wash your face. You look ridiculous. Fellowdy, have you no youngster to bugger today? Ah, and here is Capra. I see you have washed the blood off your hands for this visit. How formal of you.’

I woke up with tears on my cheeks and my throat tight. I felt my father’s hand on my head and I reached up to seize it. ‘Da! Why did it take so long for you to find me? I want to go home!’ He didn’t answer but gently pulled his fingers through my tangled curls. Then the deep, rich voice spoke again. ‘So. Little one. What did you do?’

‘My name is Prilkop. I was the White Prophet of my time, but that was many, many years ago. I’ve been through many, many skin changes in my life.’ A dim memory stirred. Had Dwalia said that name? Had I read it in my father’s papers?

‘Poor little thing. You are not the Unexpected Son. I know, for I have met him—and his prophet.’ I grew very still. Was it a trick? But what he said next was even more frightening. ‘I dreamed you. You become possible the day the Beloved was pulled back from death, undoing so many, many dream prophecies. On that day, I knew something had torn through all the futures and replaced them with new possibilities. It terrified me. I had believed my days as a dream-prophet were well and truly spent. That my time was over, and I could return home. Then the dream of you came. Oh, I did not know it would be you, then. But I was shocked. And afraid of your coming.

‘You dreamed of me?’ I wiped my wet face with my shirtfront. ‘I did.’ ‘What did you dream?’ His hand went lax under my feet. I didn’t move them. His words came as slow as dripping honey. ‘I dreamed many dreams. Not always about you but futures that became possible when you existed. I dreamed of a wolf that unmasked a puppeteer. I dreamed of a scroll that unwrote itself. I dreamed of a man who shook planks off himself and became two dragons. I dreamed—’ ‘I dreamed that one, too!’ I spoke before I considered if I should. Silence, save for two other prisoners whispering down the corridor. ‘I’m not surprised. Though I am frightened.’ ‘But why are those dreams me?’ He laughed softly. ‘I dreamed a whirlwind of fire, come to change everything. I reached out to take its hand. Do you know what happened?’ ‘It burned you?’ ‘No. It offered me its foot, instead. Its little bare foot.’

‘If you dreamed about me, can you tell me what is going to happen to me?’ His stillness was like a curtain. The lamp in the corridor outside my cell was running out of oil. I did not have to see it to know how the flame danced on the end of the wick, sucking up the last of it. Finally, the dark rich voice spoke again. ‘Bee. Nothing happens to you. You happen to everything.’

She was like the beggar, who was also the Fool. My father’s Beloved.

‘I am Bee Badgerlock, of Withywoods. My mother was Lady Molly Chandler, wed to Tom Badgerlock. We are landed gentry. My mother died recently. I lived with my father and our servants. I led a pleasant, peaceful life.’

Dwalia came and turned it all to blood and screaming. They killed Revel. I loved Revel. I didn’t even know how much I loved him until he came with a blade stuck in him to warn us. His last thought was to warn me to flee!