Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  He smiled, a brief show­ing of white teeth. ‘Bas­tard,’ he greeted me pleas­antly. His smile grew sharper. ‘Or, that is, Mas­ter Fits. A fit­ting name you’ve taken to your­self.’ His care­ful pro­nun­ci­ation left no room for doubt­ing his in­sult.

  ‘Prince Regal,’ I replied, and let my tone make the words mean the same as his. I waited with an icy pa­tience I had not known I owned. He had to strike me first.

  For a time we held our po­s­i­tions, eyes locked. Then he glanced down, to flick ima­gin­ary dust from his sleeve. He strode past me. I did not step aside for him. He did not jostle me as once he would have. I took a breath and walked on.

  I did not know the guards­man at the door, but he waved me into the King’s cham­ber. I sighed and set my­self an­other task. I would learn names and faces again. Now that the court was swell­ing with folk come to see the new queen, I found my­self be­ing re­cog­nized by people I didn’t know. ‘That’d be the Bas­tard, by the look of him,’ I’d heard a ba­con­mon­ger say to his ap­pren­tice the other day out­side the kit­chen doors. It made me feel vul­ner­able. Things were chan­ging too fast for me.

  King Shrewd’s cham­ber shocked me. I had ex­pec­ted to find the win­dows ajar to the brisk winter air, to find Shrewd up and dressed and alert at table, as keen as a cap­tain re­ceiv­ing re­ports from his lieu­ten­ants. Al­ways he had been so, a sharp old man, strict with him­self, an early riser, Shrewd as his name. But he was not in his sit­ting room at all. I ven­tured to the entry of his bed­cham­ber, peered within the open door.

  In­side, the room was half in shadow still. A ser­vant rattled cups and plates at a small table drawn up by the great cur­tained bed. He glanced at me, then away, evid­ently think­ing I was a serving-boy. The air was still and musty, as if the room were dis­used or had not been aired in a long time. I waited a time for the ser­vant to let King Shrewd know I had come. When he con­tin­ued to ig­nore me, I ad­vanced war­ily to the edge of the bed.

  ‘My king?’ I made bold to ad­dress him when he did not speak. ‘I have come as you bid me.’

  Shrewd was sit­ting up in the cur­tained shad­ows of his bed, well propped with cush­ions. He opened his eyes when I spoke. ‘Who … ah. Fitz. Sit, then. Wal­lace, bring him a chair. A cup and plate, too.’ As the ser­vant moved to his bid­ding, King Shrewd con­fided to me, ‘I do miss Chef­fers. With me for so many years, and I never had to tell him what I wanted done.’

  ‘I re­mem­ber him, my lord. Where is he, then?’

  ‘A cough took him. He caught it in the au­tumn, and it never left him. It slowly wore him away, un­til he couldn’t take a breath without wheez­ing.’

  I re­called the ser­vant. He had not been a young man, but not so old either. I was sur­prised to hear of his death. I stood si­lently, word­less, while Wal­lace brought the chair and a plate and cup for me. He frowned dis­ap­prov­ingly as I seated my­self, but I ig­nored it. He would soon enough learn that King Shrewd de­signed his own pro­tocol. ‘And you, my king? Are you well? I can­not re­call that I ever knew you to keep to your bed in the morn­ing.’

  King Shrewd made an im­pa­tient noise. ‘It is most an­noy­ing. Not a sick­ness really. Just a gid­di­ness, a sort of dizzi­ness that sweeps down upon me if I move swiftly. Every morn­ing I think it gone, but when I try to rise, the very stones of Buck­keep rock un­der me. So I keep to my bed, and eat and drink a bit, and then rise slowly. By mid­day I am my­self. I think it has some­thing to do with the winter cold, though the healer says it may be from an old sword cut, taken when I was not much older than you are now. See, I bear the scar still, though I thought the dam­age long healed.’ King Shrewd leaned for­ward in his cur­tained bed, lift­ing with one shaky hand a sheaf of his grey­ing hair from his left temple. I saw the pucker of the old scar and nod­ded.

  ‘But, enough. I did not sum­mon you for con­sulta­tions about my health. I sus­pect you guess why you are here?’

  ‘You would like a com­plete re­port of the events at Jhaampe?’ I guessed. I glanced about for the ser­vant, saw Wal­lace hov­er­ing near. Chef­fers would have de­par­ted to al­low Shrewd and me to talk freely. I wondered how plainly I dared speak be­fore his new man.

  But Shrewd waved it aside. ‘It is done, boy,’ he said heav­ily. ‘Ver­ity and I have con­sul­ted. Now we let it go. I do not think there is much you could tell me that I do not know, or guess already. Ver­ity and I have spoken at length. I … re­gret … some things. But. Here we are, and here is al­ways the place we must start from. Eh?’

  Words swelled in my throat, nearly chok­ing me. Regal, I wanted to say to him. Your son who tried to kill me, your bas­tard grand­son. Did you speak at length with him, also? And was it be­fore or after you put me into his power? But, as clearly as if Chade or Ver­ity had spoken to me, I knew sud­denly I had no right to ques­tion my king. Not even to ask if he had given my life over to his young­est son. I clenched my jaws and held my words un­uttered.

  Shrewd met my eyes. His eyes flickered to Wal­lace. ‘Wal­lace. Take your­self to the kit­chens for a bit. Or wherever you wish that is not here.’ Wal­lace looked dis­pleased, but he turned with a sniff and de­par­ted. He left the door ajar be­hind him. At a sign from Shrewd, I arose and shut it. I re­turned to my seat.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry,’ he said gravely. ‘This will not do.’

  ‘Sir.’ I met his eyes for a mo­ment, then looked down.

  He spoke heav­ily. ‘Some­times, am­bi­tious young men do fool­ish things. When they are shown the er­ror of their ways, they apo­lo­gize.’ I looked up sud­denly, won­der­ing if he ex­pec­ted an apo­logy from me. But he went on, ‘I have been tendered such an apo­logy. I have ac­cep­ted it. Now we go on. In this, trust me,’ he said, and he spoke gently but it was not a re­quest. ‘Least said is soon­est men­ded.’

  I leaned back in my chair. I took a breath, sighed it care­fully out. In a mo­ment I had mastered my­self. I looked up at him with an open face. ‘May I ask why you have called me, my king?’

  ‘An un­pleas­ant­ness,’ he said dis­taste­fully. ‘Duke Brawndy of Bearns thinks I should re­solve it. He fears what may fol­low if I do not. He does not think it … polit­ical to take dir­ect ac­tion him­self. So I have gran­ted the re­quest, but grudgingly. Have not we enough to face with the Raid­ers at our door­step, without in­ternal strife? Still. They have the right to ask it of me, and I the duty to ob­lige any who asks. Once more you will bear the King’s Justice, Fitz.’

  He told me con­cisely of the situ­ation in Bearns. A young wo­man from Seal­bay had come to Ripple­keep to of­fer her­self to Brawndy as a war­rior. He had been pleased to ac­cept her, for she was both well-muscled and ad­ept, skilled at staves, bows and blades. She was beau­ti­ful as well as strong, small and dark and sleek as a sea ot­ter. She had been a wel­come ad­di­tion to his guard, and soon was a pop­u­lar fig­ure in his court as well. She had, not charm, but that cour­age and strength of will that draws oth­ers to fol­low. Brawndy him­self had grown fond of her. She en­livened his court and in­stilled new spirit in his guard.

  But lately she had be­gun to fancy her­self a proph­et­ess and sooth­sayer. She claimed to have been chosen by El the sea-god for a higher des­tiny. Her name had been Madja, her par­ent­age un­re­mark­able, but now she had re­named her­self, in a ce­re­mony of fire, wind and wa­ter, and called her­self Virago. She ate only meat she had taken her­self, and kept in her rooms noth­ing that she had not either made her­self or won by show of arms. Her fol­low­ing was swell­ing, and in­cluded some of the younger nobles as well as many of the sol­diers un­der her com­mand. To all she preached the need to re­turn to El’s wor­ship and hon­our. She es­poused the old ways, ad­voc­at­ing a rig­or­ous, simple life that glor­i­fied what a per­son could win by her own strength.

  She saw the Raid­ers and For­ging as El’s pun­ish­ment for our soft ways, and blamed
the Farseer line for en­cour­aging that soft­ness. At first she had spoken cir­cum­spectly of such things. Of late, she had be­come more open, but never so bold as to voice out­right treason. Still, there had been bul­lock sac­ri­fices on the sea cliffs, and she had blood-painted a num­ber of young folk and sent them out on spirit-quests as in the very old days. Brawndy had heard ru­mours that she sought a man worthy of her­self, who would join her to throw down the Farseer throne. They would rule to­gether, to be­gin the time of the Fighter and put an end to the days of the Farmer. Ac­cord­ing to Bearns, quite a num­ber of young men were ready to vie for that hon­our. Brawndy wished her stopped, be­fore he him­self had to ac­cuse her of treason and force his men to choose between Virago and him­self. Shrewd offered the opin­ion that her fol­low­ing would prob­ably drop off drastic­ally were she to be bested at arms, or have a severe ac­ci­dent or be­come vic­tim to a wast­ing ill­ness that de­pleted her strength and beauty. I was forced to agree that was prob­ably so, but ob­served that there were many cases where folks who died be­came like gods af­ter­wards. Shrewd said cer­tainly, if the per­son died hon­our­ably.

  Then, ab­ruptly, he changed the topic. In Ripple­keep, on Seal Bay, there was an old scroll that Ver­ity wished copied, a list­ing of all those from Bearns who had served the King in the Skill, as co­terie mem­bers. It was also said that at Ripple­keep there was a relic from the days of the Eld­er­ling de­fence of that city. Shrewd wished me to leave on the mor­row, to go to Seal Bay and copy the scrolls and to view the relic and bring him a re­port of it. I would also con­vey to Brawndy the King’s best wishes and his cer­tainty that the Duke’s un­ease would soon be put to rest.

  I un­der­stood.

  As I stood to leave, Shrewd raised a fin­ger to bid me pause. I stood, wait­ing.

  ‘And do you feel I am keep­ing my bar­gain with you?’ he asked. It was the old ques­tion, the one he had al­ways asked me after our meet­ings when I was a boy. It made me smile.

  ‘Sir, I do,’ I said as I al­ways had.

  ‘Then see that you keep your end of it as well.’ He paused, then ad­ded, as he never had be­fore, ‘Re­mem­ber, FitzChiv­alry. Any in­jury done to one of my own is an in­jury to me.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘You would not in­jure one of mine, would you?’

  I drew my­self up. I knew what he asked for, and I ceded it to him. ‘Sir, I will not in­jure one of yours. I am sworn to the Farseer line.’

  He nod­ded slowly. He had wrung an apo­logy from Regal, and from me my word that I would not kill his son. He prob­ably be­lieved he had made peace between us. Out­side his door, I paused to push the hair back from my eyes. I had just made a prom­ise, I re­minded my­self. I con­sidered it care­fully and forced my­self to look at what it could cost me to keep it. Bit­ter­ness flooded me, un­til I com­pared what it would cost me should I break it. Then I found the re­ser­va­tions in my­self, crushed them firmly. I formed a re­solve, to keep my prom­ise cleanly to my king. I had no true peace with Regal, but at least I could have that much peace with my­self. The de­cision left me feel­ing bet­ter, and I strode pur­pose­fully down the hall.

  I had not re­plen­ished my stocks of pois­ons since I had re­turned from the moun­tains. Noth­ing green showed out­side now. I’d have to steal what I needed. The wool dyers would have some I might use, and the healer’s stock would yield me oth­ers. My mind was busy with this plan­ning as I star­ted down the stairs.

  Se­rene was com­ing up the stairs. When I saw her, I hal­ted where I was. The sight of her made me quail as Regal had not. It was an old re­flex. Of all Ga­len’s co­terie, she was now the strongest. Au­gust had re­tired from the field, gone far in­land to live in orch­ard coun­try and be a gen­tle­man there. His Skill had been en­tirely blas­ted out of him dur­ing the fi­nal en­counter that marked the end of Ga­len. Se­rene was now the key Skill-user of the co­terie. In sum­mers, she re­mained at Buck­keep, and all the other mem­bers of the co­terie, scattered to towers and keeps up and down our long coast, chan­nelled all their re­ports to the King through her. Dur­ing winter, the en­tire co­terie came to Buck­keep to re­new their bonds and fel­low­ship. In the ab­sence of a Skill­mas­ter, she had as­sumed much of Ga­len’s status at Buck­keep. She had also as­sumed, with great en­thu­si­asm, Ga­len’s pas­sion­ate hatred of me. She re­minded me too vividly of past ab­uses, and in­spired in me a dread that would not yield to lo­gic. I had avoided her since my re­turn but now her gaze pinned me.

  The stair­case was more than suf­fi­ciently wide to al­low two people to pass, un­less one per­son de­lib­er­ately planted her­self in the middle of a step. Even look­ing up at me, I felt she had the ad­vant­age. Her bear­ing had changed since we had been Ga­len’s stu­dents to­gether. Her whole phys­ical ap­pear­ance re­flec­ted her new po­s­i­tion. Her mid­night blue robe was richly em­broidered. Her long mid­night hair was bound back in­tric­ately with burn­ished wire strung with ivory or­na­ments. Sil­ver graced her throat and ringed her fin­gers. But her fem­in­in­ity was gone. She had ad­op­ted Ga­len’s as­cetic val­ues, for her face was thinned to bone, her hands to claws. As he had, she burned with self-right­eous­ness. It was the first time she had ac­cos­ted me dir­ectly since Ga­len’s death. I hal­ted above her, with no idea of what she wanted from me.

  ‘Bas­tard,’ she said flatly. It was a nam­ing, not a greet­ing. I wondered if that word would ever lose its sting with me.

  ‘Se­rene,’ I said, as tone­lessly as I could man­age.

  ‘You did not die in the moun­tains.’

  ‘No. I did not.’

  Still she stood there, block­ing my way. Very quietly she said, ‘I know what you did. I know what you are.’

  In­side, I was quiv­er­ing like a rab­bit. I told my­self it was prob­ably tak­ing every bit of Skill strength she had to im­pose this fear on me. I told my­self that it was not my true emo­tion, but only what her Skill sug­ges­ted I should feel. I forced words from my throat.

  ‘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. ‘Some day every­one will know that.’

  Fear feels re­mark­ably like fear, re­gard­less of the source. I stood, mak­ing no re­sponse. Even­tu­ally, she stepped aside to al­low me to pass. I made a small vic­tory of that, though in ret­ro­spect there was little else she could have done. I went to ready things for my trip to Bearns, sud­denly glad to leave the keep for a few days.

  I have no good memor­ies of that er­rand. I met Virago, for she was her­self a guest at Ripple­keep while I was there do­ing my scribe tasks. She was as Shrewd had de­scribed her, a hand­some wo­man, well-muscled, who moved lithe as a little hunt­ing cat. She wore the vi­tal­ity of her health like a glam­our. All eyes fol­lowed her when she was in a room. Her chastity chal­lenged every male who fol­lowed her. Even I felt my­self drawn to her, and ag­on­ized about my task.

  Our very first even­ing at table to­gether, she was seated across from me. Duke Brawndy had made me very wel­come in­deed, even to hav­ing his cook pre­pare a cer­tain spicy meat dish I was fond of. His lib­rar­ies were at my dis­posal, as were the ser­vices of his lesser scribe. His young­est daugh­ter had even ex­ten­ded her shy com­pan­ion­ship to me. I was dis­cuss­ing my scroll er­rand with Celer­ity, who sur­prised me with her soft-spoken in­tel­li­gence. Mid­way through the meal, Virago re­marked quite clearly to her din­ing com­pan­ion that at one time bas­tards were drowned at birth. The old ways of El de­man­ded it, she said. I could have ig­nored the re­mark, had she not leaned across the table to smil­ingly ask me, ‘Have you never heard of that cus­tom, Bas­tard?’

  I looked up to Duke Brawndy’s seat at the head of the table, but he was en­gaged in a lively dis­cus­sion with his eld­est daugh­ter. He didn’t even glance my way. ‘I
be­lieve it is as old as the cus­tom of one guest’s cour­tesy to an­other at their host’s table,’ I replied. I tried to keep my eyes and voice steady. Bait. Brawndy had seated me across the table from her as bait. Never be­fore had I been so blatantly used. I steeled my­self to it, tried to set per­sonal feel­ings aside. At least I was ready.

  ‘Some would say it was a sign of the de­gen­er­acy of the Farseer line, that your father came un­chaste to his wed­ding bed. I, of course, would not speak against my king’s fam­ily. But tell me. 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 lif­ted my wine glass and turned my eyes back to Celer­ity. Her dark blue eyes widened and she gasped as Virago’s belt knife plunged into Brawndy’s table but inches from my el­bow. I had ex­pec­ted it and did not flinch. In­stead, I turned to meet her eyes. Virago stood in her table place, eyes blaz­ing and nos­trils flared. Her heightened col­our en­flamed her beauty.

  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 in which you are a guest?’

  ‘Are you not un­blood­ied?’ she asked by way of reply.

  ‘As are you. I would not shame my duke’s table, by let­ting it be said that he had al­lowed guests to kill one an­other over his bread. Or do you care as little for your cour­tesy to your duke as you do your loy­alty to your king?’