Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘The King has little en­ergy. I try to see that he ex­pends it only where it is needed.’ He wasn’t mov­ing from the door. I found my­self siz­ing him up, won­der­ing if I could just shoulder past him. That would cre­ate a com­mo­tion, and if the King were ill, I did not wish that. Someone tapped on my shoulder, but when I turned to look, no one was there. Turn­ing back, I found the Fool in front of me, between Wal­lace and me.

  ‘Are you his phys­i­cian, then, to make such judge­ments?’ The Fool took up my con­ver­sa­tion for me. ‘For surely, you would be an ex­cel­lent one. You physick me merely with your looks, and your words dis­pel your wind as well as mine. How physicked then must our dear king be, who lan­guishes all day in your pres­ence?’

  The Fool bore a tray covered with a nap­kin. I smelled good beef broth and egg bread warm from the oven. His winter mot­ley of black and white he had made merry with enamelled bells and a gar­land of holly ban­ded his cap. His Fool’s sceptre was tucked up un­der his arm. A rat again. This one had been set atop the wand as if pran­cing. I had ob­served him hold­ing long con­ver­sa­tions with it in front of the Great Hearth, or on the steps be­fore the King’s throne.

  ‘Be­gone, Fool! You’ve been in here twice today already. The King has already gone to his bed. He has no need of you.’ The man spoke sternly. But Wal­lace was the one who re­treated, without in­tend­ing to. I saw he was one of those people who could not meet the Fool’s pale eyes, and quailed from the touch of his white hand.

  ‘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.’

  ‘Speak so? Speak, sow. I doubt not that he hears all that you do. Do not vent your wind at me, Wall Ass dear. Save that for your prince who de­lights in such puff­ing. He is at his smokes now, I be­lieve, and you might gust at him and he shall drowse and nod and think you speak wisely and your airs most sweet.’

  The Fool con­tin­ued his ad­vance as he nattered on, the laden tray like a shield be­fore him. Wal­lace gave ground read­ily, and the Fool forced him back, through the sit­ting room and into the King’s bed­cham­ber. There the Fool set the tray down at the King’s bed­side, while Wal­lace re­treated to the other door of the cham­ber. The Fool’s eyes grew brighter.

  ‘Ah, not abed at all, our king, un­less you’ve hid­den him un­der cov­er­lets, Wall Ass, my sweet. Come out, come out, my king, my Shrewd one. King Shrewd you are, not king of shrews to hide and creep about the walls and un­der the bed­ding.’ The Fool began to poke so as­sidu­ously about amongst the ob­vi­ously empty bed and cov­er­lets, and to send his rat sceptre peep­ing up amongst the bed cur­tains so that I could not con­tain my laughter.

  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!’

  Shrewd stood there, robed as for rest, a frown of vex­a­tion on his face. He looked down in puz­zle­ment at Wal­lace on the floor, and up at the Fool and me wait­ing for him, and then dis­missed whatever the situ­ation was. He spoke to Wal­lace as he scrabbled to his feet. ‘This steam does me no good at all, Wal­lace. It but makes my head ache all the more, and leaves a foul taste in my mouth as well. Take it away, and tell Regal I think his new herb might drive flies away, but not sick­ness. Take it away now, be­fore it stinks up this room as well. Ah, Fool, you are here. And Fitz, you have fi­nally come to re­port as well. Come in, sit down. Wal­lace, do you hear me? Re­move that wretched pot! No, do not bring it through here, take it out the other way.’ And with a wave of his hand, Shrewd swat­ted the man away as if he had been an an­noy­ing fly.

  Shrewd shut the door to his bathing room firmly, as if to keep the stink from spread­ing into his bed­cham­ber, and came to take a straight-backed chair by the fire. In a mo­ment the Fool had drawn a table up be­side it, the cloth cov­er­ing the food had be­come a table­cloth, and he had set out food for the King as pret­tily as any serving-maid could have done. Sil­ver­ware and a nap­kin ap­peared, a sleight of hand that had even Shrewd smil­ing, and then the Fool fol­ded him­self up on the hearth, knees nearly to his ears, chin cupped in his long-fingered hands, pale skin and hair pick­ing up red tones from the fire’s dan­cing flames. His every move was as grace­ful as a dan­cer’s and the pose he struck now was art­ful as well as com­ical. The King reached down to smooth his fly­ing hair as if the Fool were a kit­ten.

  ‘I told you I was not hungry, Fool.’

  ‘That you did. But you did not tell me not to bring food.’

  ‘And if I had?’

  ‘Then I should tell you this is not food, but a steam­ing pot such as Wall Ass af­flicts you with, to fill your nos­trils with a scent at least more pleas­ing than his. And this be not bread, but a plaster for your tongue, which you should ap­ply at once.’

  ‘Ah.’ King Shrewd drew his table a bit closer, and took up a spoon­ful of the soup. Bar­ley shouldered against bits of car­rot and meat in it. Shrewd tasted, and then began to eat.

  ‘Am I not at least as good a phys­i­cian as Wall Ass?’ the Fool purred, well pleased with him­self.

  ‘Well you know Wal­lace is not a phys­i­cian, but simply my ser­vant.’

  ‘Well I know it, and well do you, but Wall Ass knows it not, and hence you are not well.’

  ‘Enough of your nat­ter­ing. Step up, Fitz, don’t stand there grin­ning like a sim­pleton. What have you to tell me?’

  I glanced at the Fool, and then de­cided I would in­sult neither King nor Fool by ask­ing if I could re­port freely in front of him. So I did, a simple re­port, with no men­tion of my more clandes­tine ac­tions other than their res­ults. Shrewd listened gravely, and at the end he had no com­ment, other than to re­buke me mildly for poor man­ners at the duke’s table. He then asked if Duke Brawndy of Bearns seemed well and con­tent with the peace in his duchy. I replied that he had when I left. Shrewd nod­ded. Then he re­ques­ted the scrolls I had copied. These I took out and dis­played for him, and was re­war­ded by a com­pli­ment on the grace­ful­ness of my handi­work. He told me to take them to Ver­ity’s map-room, and be sure Ver­ity knew of them. He asked if I had viewed the Eld­er­ling’s relic. I de­scribed it to him in de­tail. And all the while the Fool perched on the hearth­stones and watched us si­lent as an owl. King Shrewd ate his soup and bread un­der the Fool’s watch­ful eyes as I read the scroll aloud to him. When I was fin­ished, he sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘So, let’s see this scroll-work of yours,’ he com­manded and, puzzled, I sur­rendered it to him. Once more he looked it over care­fully, then re-rolled it. As he gave it back to me, he said, ‘You’ve a grace­ful way with a pen, boy. Well-lettered and well done. Take it to Ver­ity’s map-room, and see that he knows of it.’

  ‘Of course, my king,’ I faltered, con­fused. I did not un­der­stand his motive in re­peat­ing him­self, and was un­sure if he were wait­ing for some other re­sponse from me. But the Fool was rising, and I caught from him some­thing less than a glance; not quite the lift of an eye­brow, not quite the turn of a lip, but enough to bid me to si­lence. The Fool gathered up the dishes, all the while mak­ing merry talk with the King, and then both of us were dis­missed to­gether. As we left
, the King was star­ing into the flames.

  Out in the hall, we ex­changed glances more openly. I began to speak, but the Fool com­menced to whistle, and did not cease un­til we were halfway down the stairs. Then he paused, and caught at my sleeve, and we hal­ted on the stair­way, betwixt floors. I sensed he had chosen this spot care­fully. None could see or hear us speak here, save that we saw them also. Still, it was not even the Fool that spoke to me, but the rat upon the sceptre. He brought it up be­fore my nose, and squeaked in the rat’s voice, ‘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 nod­ded and re­solved to de­liver the scroll that very night to Ver­ity. ‘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,’ he replied sol­emnly. Ab­ruptly he bal­anced the tray on one long-fingered hand, lof­ted it high over his head, and went caper­ing off down the stairs be­fore me, leav­ing me alone to think.

  I de­livered the scroll that night, and in the days that fol­lowed, I took up the tasks Ver­ity had as­signed me earlier. I used fat saus­age and smoked fish as the vehicles for my pois­ons, wrapped in small bundles. These I might eas­ily scat­ter as I fled, in the hopes there would be suf­fi­cient for all who pur­sued me. Each morn­ing I stud­ied the map in Ver­ity’s map-room, and then saddled Sooty and took my­self and my pois­ons out where I thought it most likely I would be set upon by Forged ones. Re­mem­ber­ing my pre­vi­ous ex­per­i­ences, I car­ried a short sword on these rid­ing ex­ped­i­tions, some­thing that af­forded both Hands and Burrich some amuse­ment at first. I gave it out that I was scout­ing for game in case Ver­ity wished to plan a winter hunt. Hands ac­cep­ted it eas­ily, Burrich with a tightened mouth that showed he knew I lied, and knew also that I could not tell him the truth. He did not pry, but neither did he like it.

  Twice in ten days I was set upon by Forged ones, and twice fled eas­ily, let­ting my poisoned pro­vi­sions tumble from my saddle­bags as I went. They fell upon them greed­ily, scarcely un­wrap­ping the meat be­fore stuff­ing it into their mouths. I re­turned to each site the fol­low­ing day, to doc­u­ment for Ver­ity how many I had slain and the de­tails of their ap­pear­ances. The second group did not match any de­scrip­tion we had re­ceived. We both sus­pec­ted this meant there were more Forged ones than we had heard.

  I did my task, but I took no pride in it. Dead, they were even more pi­ti­ful than alive. Ragged, thin creatures, frost­bit­ten and battered by fights amongst them­selves they were, and the sav­agery of the quick, harsh pois­ons I used twis­ted their bod­ies into ca­ri­ca­tures of men. Ice glistened on their beards and eye­brows, and the blood from their mouths made red clumps like frozen ru­bies in the snow. Seven Forged ones I killed this way, and then heaped the frozen bod­ies with pitch­pine, and poured oil on them and set them aflame. I can­not say which I found most dis­taste­ful, the pois­on­ing, or the con­ceal­ing of my deed. Cub had ini­tially begged to go with me when he un­der­stood that I was rid­ing out each day after feed­ing him, but at one point, as I stood over the frozen stick-men I had slain, I heard, This is not hunt­ing, this. This is no pack’s do­ing. This is man’s do­ing. His pres­ence was gone be­fore I could re­buke him for in­trud­ing into my mind again.

  In the even­ings I re­turned to the keep, to hot, fresh food and warm fires, dry clothes and a soft bed, but the spectres of those Forged ones stood between me and these com­forts. I felt my­self a heart­less beast that I could en­joy such things after spread­ing death by day. My only ease­ment was a prickly one, that at night when I slept, I dreamed of Molly, and walked and talked with her, un­haunted by Forged ones or their frost-rimed bod­ies.

  Came a day I rode out later than I had in­ten­ded, for Ver­ity had been in his map-room and had kept me over­long in talk. A storm was com­ing up, but it did not seem too severe. I had not in­ten­ded to go far that day, but I found fresh sign in­stead of my prey, a lar­ger group of them than I had ex­pec­ted. The gath­er­ing clouds stole the light from the sky more swiftly than I had ex­pec­ted and the sign led me down game trails where Sooty and I found it slow go­ing. When I fi­nally glanced up from my track­ing, ad­mit­ting that they had eluded me this day, I found my­self much farther from Buck­keep than I had in­ten­ded and well off any trav­elled road.

  The wind began to blow, a nasty cold one that fore­told snow to fol­low. I wrapped my cloak more tightly about my­self and turned Sooty’s head to­ward home, re­ly­ing on her to pick her path and pace. Dark­ness fell be­fore we’d gone far, and snow with it. Had I not tra­versed this area so fre­quently of late, I would surely have been lost. But we pressed on, go­ing al­ways, it seemed, into the teeth of the wind. The cold soaked right through me, and I began to shiver. I feared the shiv­er­ing might ac­tu­ally be the be­gin­nings of trem­bling and a fit such as I had not suffered for a long time.

  I was grate­ful when the winds fi­nally tore a rent in the cloud cover, and moon­light and star­light leaked through to grey our way. We made a bet­ter pace then, des­pite the fresh snow that Sooty waded through. We broke out of a thin birch forest onto a hill­side that light­ning had burned off a few years ago. The wind was stronger here with noth­ing to op­pose it, and I gathered my cloak and turned up the col­lar again. I knew that once I cres­ted the hill, I would see the lights of Buck­keep, and that an­other hill away and a vale would find a well-used road to take me home. So I was of bet­ter cheer as we cut our way across the hill’s smooth flank.

  Sud­den as thun­der, I heard the hoof­beats of a horse strug­gling to make speed, but some­how en­cumbered. Sooty slowed, then threw back her head and whin­nied. At the same mo­ment I saw a horse and rider break out of the cover, down­hill of me and to the south. The horse car­ried a rider, and two other people clung to it, one to its breast strap and one to the rider’s leg. Light glin­ted on a blade that rose and fell, and with a cry the man clutch­ing at the rider’s leg fell away to wal­low and shriek in the snow. But the other fig­ure had caught the horse’s head­stall, and as he tried to drag the beast to a halt, two other pur­suers burst from the trees to con­verge on the strug­gling horse and rider.

  The mo­ment of re­cog­niz­ing Kettricken is in­sep­ar­able from the mo­ment I set heels to Sooty. What I saw made no sense to me, but that did not pre­vent my re­spond­ing. I did not ask my­self what my Queen-in-Wait­ing was do­ing out here, at night, un­ac­com­pan­ied and set upon by rob­bers. Rather, I found my­self ad­mir­ing how she kept her seat and set her horse to wheel­ing as she kicked and slashed at the men who tried to drag her down. I drew my sword as we closed on the struggle, but I do not re­call that I made any sound. 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 as one after an­other they fell.

  Kettricken had slashed one across the face, blind­ing him with blood, but still he clung to her and tried to drag her from the saddle. The other ig­nored the plight of his fel­lows, tug­ging in­stead at saddle­bags that prob­ably car­ried no more than a bit of food and brandy packed for a day’s ride.

  Sooty took me in close to the one grip­ping Soft­step’s head­stall. I saw it was a wo­man and then my sword was into her and out again, as soul­less an ex­er­cise as chop­ping wood. Such a pe­cu­liar struggle. I could sense Kettricken, the fright of her horse and Sooty’s battle-trained en­thu­si­asm, but from her at­tack­ers, noth­ing. Noth­ing at all. No an­ger throbbed, no pain of their wounds shrieked for at­ten­tion. To my Wit, they were not there at all, any more than the snow or the wind
that like­wise op­posed me.

  I watched as in a dream as Kettricken seized her at­tacker by the hair and leaned his head back that she might cut his throat. Blood spilled black in the moon­light, drench­ing her coat and leav­ing a sheen on the chest­nut’s neck and shoulder be­fore he fell back to spasm in the snow. I swung my short sword at the last one, but missed. Kettricken did not. Her short knife danced in, and punched through jer­kin and rib­cage and into his lung, and out again as swift. She kicked him away. ‘To me!’ she said simply into the night, and put heels to her chest­nut, driv­ing Soft­step straight up the hill. Sooty ran with her nose at Kettricken’s stir­rup, and so we cres­ted the hill to­gether, glimpsing the lights of Buck­keep briefly be­fore we plunged down the other side.

  There was brush at the bot­tom of the slope, and a creek hid­den by the snow, so I kicked Sooty into the lead and turned Soft­step be­fore she could blun­der into it and fall. Kettricken said noth­ing as I turned her horse, but let me take the lead as we entered the forest on the other side of the stream. I moved us as swiftly as I dared, ex­pect­ing al­ways fig­ures to shout and leap out at us. But we made the road at last, just as the clouds closed up again, steal­ing the moon­light from us. I slowed the horses and let them breathe. For some time we trav­elled in si­lence, both in­tently listen­ing for any sounds of pur­suit.

  After a time, we felt safer, and I heard Kettricken let out her pent breath in a long, shaky sigh. ‘Thank you, Fitz,’ she said simply, but could not keep her voice quite steady. I made no com­ment, half-ex­pect­ing that at any mo­ment she would burst into weep­ing. I would not have blamed her. In­stead she gradu­ally gathered her­self, tug­ging her clothes straight, wip­ing her blade on her trousers and then re-sheath­ing it at her waist. She leaned for­ward to pat Soft­step’s neck and mur­mur words of praise and com­fort to the horse. I felt Soft­step’s ten­sion ease and ad­mired Kettricken’s skill to have so swiftly gained the con­fid­ence of the tall horse.