Royal Assassin (The Farseer Trilogy, #2)

by Robin Hobb

The Hedge wizardries and legendary magics have never been mine. Have I any right to dig out their secrets and pin them to paper like so many butterflies or leaves collected for study?

My mission was to quietly cause the death of her older brother, Prince Rurisk, subtly of course, so that she would be left the sole heir to the Mountain throne. But what I found when I arrived there was a web of deceit and lies engineered by my youngest uncle, Prince Regal, who hoped to topple Verity from the line of succession and claim the Princess as his own bride. I was the pawn he would sacrifice for this goal; and I was the pawn who instead toppled the game pieces around him, bringing his wrath and vengeance down on myself, but saving the crown and the Princess for Prince Verity.

Neither Jonqui nor I really know what’s wrong with you. Is it the aftermath of the poison Kettricken fed you when she thought you had come to kill her brother? Is this the effects of the poisoned wine that Regal arranged for you? Or is it from the beating you took afterward? From being near drowned? Or did all those things combine to do this to you? We don’t know, and so we don’t know how to cure you. We just don’t know.”

“My life is pledged to the man who wears that earring. There’s a long story behind that, one that perhaps I’ll tell you someday. Patience had no right to give it to you. I thought it had gone with Prince Chivalry to his grave. She probably thought it just a simple piece of jewelry her husband had worn, hers to keep or to give. In any wise, you wear it now. Where you go, I follow.”

“The fight isn’t over until you win it, Fitz. That’s all you have to remember. No matter what the other man thinks. Or the horse.” I wondered if I were a fight he had to win. He’d often told me that I was the last task Chivalry had given him.

“If you’ve nothing to offer her, let her go. Are you crippled? Only if you decide so. But if you’re determined that you’re a cripple now, then perhaps you’ve no right to go and seek her out. I don’t think you’d want her pity. It’s a poor substitute for love.”

The Fool sighed heavily. “It is not a thing I can command, my king. You know that. Like your visions, mine rule me, not the reverse. I cannot pluck a thread from the tapestry, but must look where my eyes are pointed. The future, my king, is like a current in a channel. I cannot tell you where one drop of water goes, but I can tell you where the flow is strongest.”

That’s how it is in Six Duchies now. We kill our own so the Raiders can’t, and then we make victory songs about it. Amazing what folk will take comfort in when there’s nothing else to hold on to.”

The only times I felt strength surge through me were during my daydreams of battering Regal into ruin. I could not promise myself revenge. Revenge was the property of the crown. But if I could not have revenge, Regal would not have satisfaction.

Accept the discipline, live up to the task. So you cannot see her. If I know anything of women, it does not mean she does not see you. Keep that in mind.

Queen-in-Waiting.” “Waiting. Ah, I understand well now that part of my title.” A bitterness I had never heard from her before crept into her voice. “But Queen? In my land, as well you know, we do not say Queen. Were I there now, and ruling instead of my father, I would be called Sacrifice. More, I would be Sacrifice. To whatever was to the good of my land and my people.”

“I, too, know what I am. I am a King’s Man.” “You are no kind of a man at all,” she asserted calmly. She smiled up at me. “Someday everyone will know that.”

How did your mother’s people accept her whoredom?” I smiled pleasantly. I suddenly had fewer qualms about my task. “I do not recall much of my mother or her kin,” I offered conversationally. “But I imagine they believed as I do. Better to be a whore, or the child of a whore, than a traitor to one’s king.”

I spoke mildly. “Tell me. You teach the old ways, do you not? Do you not then hold to the one that forbids the shedding of blood in a house where you are a guest?”

I never had to fight my challenge, for before the week was out, Virago’s tongue and mouth had broken out in the boils and sores that were the legendary punishment for one who lied to arms companions and betrayed spoken vows. She scarce was able to drink, let alone eat, and so disfiguring was her affliction that all those close to her forsook her company for fear it might spread to them as well. Her pain was such that she could not go forth into the cold to fight, and there was no one willing to stand her challenge for her. I waited on the cliffs, for a challenger who never came.

Brawndy sat me at his left hand, and Celerity beside me. “You know,” he observed to me, toward the end of the meal. “Your likeness to your father becomes more remarkable every year.” All of the brandy in Bearns could not have defeated the chill his words sent through me.

It was not the first time I had performed such a task for my king, but I had never developed a relish for my work as an assassin. I was glad at how Virago had insulted me and baited me, for it had made my task bearable.

“Twice shall be thrice, Wall Ass, dear, and your presence replaced with my presents. Toddle off hence, and tell Regal all your tattling. If walls have ears, then so must you, for you’ve already the Wall’s Ass. Such ears are filled to overflowing with the King’s business. You might physick our dear prince while you enlighten him. For the darkness of his glance, methinks, betokens that his bowels have backed up so far as to blind him.” “Dare you speak so of the Prince?” Wallace sputtered. The Fool was already inside the door and I on his heels. “He shall hear of this.”

Wallace leaned back against the inner door, as if to guard it from us, but at that instant it opened from within, and he all but tumbled into the King’s arms. He sat down heavily on the floor. “Mind him!” the Fool observed to me. “See how he seeks to put himself in my place before the King’s feet, and to play the fool with his clumsy pratfalls. Such a man deserves the title Fool, but not the post!”

“Ah, but you and I, we must remember whatever he forgets, Fitz, and keep it safe for him. It costs him much to show as strong as he did tonight. Do not be deceived about that. What he said to you, twice, you must cherish and obey, for it means he held it twice as hard in his mind to be sure he would say it to you.”

“I do not much care for Wallace,” I commented to the Fool. “ ’Tis not Wall’s Ass you should have a care for, but Wall’s Ears,”

My recollection of the whole struggle is a strange one, a battle of silhouettes, done in black and white like a mountain shadow play, soundless save for the grunts and cries of the Forged ones as one after another they fell.

“Strange, Fitz, that you can block my Skilling so completely from your mind at times, but spill your most private desires out like a wolf howling into the night. I suppose it springs from what Galen did to you. Would we could undo that. But as we can’t, I shall teach you what I can, whenever I can.”

A small silence fell between us as we both reflected he had not scrupled to set me to that same task. Assassin. That was the word for what I was. I had no honor to preserve, I realized. “Not true, Fitz.” He answered my thought. “You preserve my honor. And I honor you for that, for doing what must be done. The ugly work, the hidden work. Do not be shamed that you work to preserve the Six Duchies. Do not think I do not appreciate such work simply because it must remain secret. Tonight, you saved my queen. I do not forget that either.”

Do not struggle to stop loving her. Only to stop Skilling it about at night. I am not the only one open to such Skilling, though I believe I am the only one who would recognize your signature on the dream so plain. Still, be cautious. Galen’s coterie is not without Skill, even if they use it clumsily and with little strength. A man can be undone when his enemies learn what is dearest to him from his Skill dreams.

Fury rode him. As I sought to pass him he seized me and jerked me to face him. That, at least, was his intention. I did not resist, but merely laxed my muscles. And found, to my delight and amazement, that he could not move me. He turned to face me, eyes blazing, and found out that he must look up, ever so slightly, to glare at me eye to eye. I had grown and put on weight. I had known that, but had never considered this delightful side effect.

The moment I entered the courtyard, the reason for Regal’s fury was made clear. Kettricken stood atop a wagon seat, and every head was turned up toward her. She wore the same clothes she had the night before. By daylight, I could see how a spray of blood had marked the sleeve of the white fur jacket, and how a heavier plume of it had soaked and stained her purple trousers. She was booted and hatted, ready to ride. A sword was buckled at her hip.

“We do not go to hunt,” she repeated. “But to claim our casualties. We go to lay to rest those the Red-Ships have stolen from us. The Red-Ships have taken the hearts of the Forged ones, and left their bodies to stalk us. Nonetheless, those we put down today are of the Six Duchies. Our own.

The mood of merriment and boasting had evaporated. She had stripped that protection away, forced all to consider truly what they were about to do. No one relished it. All were poised, waiting to hear what she would say next. Kettricken kept her absolute silence and stillness, so that each eye was perforce drawn back to her.

Tears ran unchecked, untouched down her cheeks. They glinted in the early-winter sunlight like diamonds. Her voice thickened as she turned to command another group. “My cooks and serving folk! Set all tables in the Great Hall and prepare a funeral feast. Set the Lesser Hall with water and herbs and clean garments that we may prepare the bodies of our folk for burning. All others, leave your ordinary duties. Fetch wood and build a pyre. We shall return, to burn our dead and mourn them.”

“How can you have allowed this to happen? Have you no control over that woman at all? She makes mockery of us! Who is she, to thus issue commands and take out an armed guard from the Keep! Who is she, to decree all this so highhandedly!” Regal’s voice cracked in his fury. “My wife,” Verity said mildly. “And your Queen-in-Waiting. The one you chose. Father assured me you would choose a woman worthy to be a Queen. I think you picked better than you knew.”

One great change I marked. Those women who had been most faithful to the Queen now found themselves attended, as if they were shadows of Kettricken. And these nobly born women suddenly did not scruple to come themselves to the Lesser Hall, to supervise the preparing of the herb-scented water and the laying out of towels and linens. I myself helped with the fetching of wood for the required pyre.

Fresh blood spattered her boots and Softstep’s shoulders. She had not ordered her soldiers to do that which she would not do herself. With a quiet command, Kettricken dismissed the guard to wash themselves, to comb hair and beards, and to return freshly clothed to the hall.

The pitiful bodies were carried in, a heartbreaking stream of them. I did not count how many. More than I had expected, more than Verity’s reports had led us to believe. I followed behind Kettricken, and carried the basin of warm scented water as she moved from body to body, and gently bathed each ravaged face and closed tormented eyes forever. Behind us came others, a snaking procession as each body was undressed gently, completely bathed, hair combed, and wound in clean cloth. At some point I became aware that Verity was there, a young scribe beside him, going from body to body, taking down the names of those few who were recognized, writing briefly of every other.

We listened to the litany of those we had lost, and if any did not weep, they had hearts of stone. As a people, we lifted our dead and carried them to the funeral pyre, to set them carefully atop this last bed. Verity himself brought the torch for the kindling, but he handed it off to the Queen, who waited beside the pyre. As she set flame to the pitch-laden boughs, she cried out to the dark skies, “You shall not be forgotten!” All echoed her with a shout.

There followed a night such as I had never known. Most of Buckkeep Town came to the Keep that night, and were admitted without question. All followed the Queen’s example and kept a watching fast until the pyre had burned itself to ash and bone.

Kegs of drink were rolled out, and such a setting out of bread and roasted meat and other viands as I had not even imagined that Buckkeep possessed. Later I was to learn that much of it had simply come up from the town, unsought but offered freely. The King descended, as he had not for some weeks, to sit in his throne at the high table and preside over the gathering.

I can tell you how many Forged ones fell, and within a day or so, I expect to know most of their names. Names already listed by me, included in the tallies of all the Red-Ships have done to us. It will be I, boy, who sees that the purses of blood gold are paid to surviving kin. Those families will be told the King regards their fallen as the equals of any of his soldiers who fall in battle with the Red-Ships. And entreats their aid in taking vengeance for them. They will not be pleasant letters to pen, Fitz. But pen them I shall, in Verity’s own hand, for Shrewd’s signature. Or did you think I did naught but kill for my king?”

We have been rudderless and drifted, pounded by the waves and pushed by every wind. And now, comes a woman, to take the tiller and cry the course. I find it a course full to my liking! As shall everyone in the kingdom who has sickened these past years from being always on our knees. We rise, boy, we rise to fight!”

“Stop teasing the child,” Patience rebuked her gently. “Yes, Fitz, Lacey. The most apt pupil that Hod ever had, even if she did come to Hod as a grown woman.” As Patience spoke Lacey took her weapons away from my body. She reseated herself, and deftly rethreaded her needles into her work. I swear she didn’t even drop a stitch.

To finally confront the worst there is, to look it squarely in the face and say, “I know you. You have hurt me, almost to death, but still I live. And I will go on living.”

I awoke knowing that when I blocked from Verity and hence myself my dreams of Molly, I left myself wide to the wolf’s night thoughts. Here was a whole realm where not Verity nor any Skilled one could follow me. It was a world bereft of court intrigues or plotting, of worries and plans. My wolf lived in the present.

“Teach her to cheat first. Only, just tell her that’s how the game is played. Tell her the rules permit deception. A bit of sleight of hand, easily taught, and she could clean Regal’s pockets for him a time or two before he dared suspect her. And then what could he do? Accuse Buckkeep’s lady of cheating at dice?”

‘Why does a Farseer look never afar, Why dwells he completely in things as they are? Your coasts are besieged, your people beset. I warn and I urge, but they all say, “not yet!” O Bastard Princeling, gentle Fitz, Will you delay until chopped to bits?’ ”

In the stables, Burrich straightened from cleaning a hoof, to frown at no one. Sooty stamped in her stall. Molly shrugged away and shook out her hair. Across from me, Kettricken started and looked at me as if I had spoken aloud. A moment more I was held, seized from a thousand sides, stretched and expanded, illuminated pitilessly. I felt it all, not just the human folk with their comings and goings, but every pigeon that fluttered in the eaves, every mouse that crept unnoticed behind the wine kegs, every speck of life, that was not and never had been a speck, but had always been a node on the web of life.

I glanced at his body, looked away. His throat was torn out. For a terrible instant I could recall how I had chewed down, the tendons of his throat taut against my teeth. I shut my eyes tight. I sat very still. Cold nose against my cheek. I opened my eyes. He sat beside me, regarding me. Cub. Nighteyes, he corrected me. My mother named me Nighteyes. I was the last of my litter to get my eyes open.

Do you need to see your ear to know it is part of you? As useless to deny that part of my flesh was mine as to deny Nighteyes. We are brothers. We are pack, I conceded. Are we? I felt a reaching, a groping, a tugging for my attention. I let myself recall that I had felt this before and denied it. Now I did not.

“No man can know the future,” I agreed. His smile widened. “Cannot they?” he asked in a whisper. “Perhaps, Fitz, somewhere, there is written down all that is the future. Not written down by one person, know, but if the hints and visions and premonitions and foreseeings of an entire race were written down, and cross-referenced and related to one another, might not such a people create a loom to hold the weaving of the future?”

“If such a loom were made, and such a tapestry of predictions woven, not for a few years, but for tens of hundreds of years, after a time it could be shown that it presented a surprisingly accurate foretelling. Bear in mind that those who keep these records are another race, an exceedingly long-lived one. A pale lovely race, that occasionally mingled its bloodlines with that of men.

“And then, when certain ones were born, ones marked so clearly that history must recall them, they are called to step forward, to find their places in that future history. And they might further be exhorted to examine that place, that juncture of a hundred threads, and say, these threads, here, these are the ones I shall tweak, and in the tweaking, I shall change the tapestry, I shall warp the weft, alter the color of what is to come. I shall change the destiny of the world.”