Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  She smiled up at me. ‘And I love you.’

  So, fi­nally, I kissed her. In the mo­ment of that kiss, some­where near Buck­keep a wolf lif­ted up his voice in a joy­ous ulu­la­tion that set every hound to bay­ing and every dog to bark­ing in a chorus that rang against the brittle night sky.

  NINE

  Guards and Bonds

  Of­ten­times I un­der­stand and com­mend Fed­wren’s stated dream. Had he his way, pa­per would he as com­mon as bread and every child would learn his let­ters be­fore he was thir­teen. But even were it so, I do not think this would bring to pass all he hopes. He mourns for all the know­ledge that goes into a grave each time a man dies, even the com­mon­est of men. He speaks of a time to come when a black­smith’s way of set­ting a shoe, or a ship­wright’s knack for pulling a drawknife would be set down in let­ters, that any who could read could learn to do as well. I do not be­lieve it is so, or ever will be. Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hand and heart, and later by his head. I have be­lieved this ever since I saw Mast­fish set the fish-shaped block of wood that he was named after into Ver­ity’s first ship. His eyes had seen that mast­fish be­fore it ex­is­ted, and he set his hands to shap­ing what his heart knew must be. This is not a thing that can be learned from words on a page. Per­haps it can­not be learned at all, but comes, as does the Skill or the Wit, from the blood of one’s fore­bears.

  I re­turned to my own cham­ber and sat watch­ing the dy­ing em­bers in my hearth, wait­ing for the rest of the keep to awaken. I should have been ex­hausted. In­stead, I al­most trembled with the en­ergy rush­ing through me. I fan­cied that if I sat very still, I could still feel the warmth of Molly’s arms around me. I knew pre­cisely where her cheek had touched mine. A very faint scent of her clung to my shirt from our brief em­brace, and I ag­on­ized over whether to wear the shirt that day, to carry that scent with me, or to set it aside care­fully in my cloth­ing chest, to pre­serve it. I did not think it a fool­ish thing at all to care so much about that. Look­ing back, I smile, but it is at my wis­dom, not my folly.

  Morn­ing brought storm winds and fall­ing snow to Buck­keep Castle, but to me it only made all in­side the co­sier. Per­haps it would give us all a chance to re­cover ourselves from yes­ter­day. I did not want to think about those poor ragged bod­ies, or bathing the still, cold faces. Nor of the roar­ing flames and heat that had con­sumed Kerry’s body. We could all use a quiet day in­side the keep. Per­haps the even­ing would find all gathered about the hearths, for storytelling, mu­sic and con­ver­sa­tion. I hoped so. I left my cham­bers to go to Pa­tience and Lacey.

  I tor­men­ted my­self, know­ing well the ex­act mo­ment when Molly would des­cend the stairs to fetch a break­fast tray for Pa­tience, and also when she would as­cend the stairs car­ry­ing it. I could be on the stairs or in the hall­way as she passed. It would be a minor thing, a co­in­cid­ence. But I had no ques­tion that there were those who had been set to watch­ing me, and they would make note of such ‘co­in­cid­ences’ if they oc­curred too of­ten. No. I had to heed the warn­ings that both the King and Chade had given me. I would show Molly I had a man’s self-con­trol and for­bear­ance. If I must wait be­fore I could court her, then I would.

  So I sat in my room and ag­on­ized un­til I was sure that she would have left Pa­tience’s cham­bers. Then I des­cen­ded, to tap upon the door. As I waited for Lacey to open it, I re­flec­ted that re­doub­ling my watch upon Pa­tience and Lacey was easier said than done. But I had a few ideas. I had be­gun last night, by ex­tract­ing a prom­ise from Molly that she would bring up no food she had not pre­pared her­self, or taken fresh from the com­mon serving pots. She had snorted at this, for it had come after a most ar­dent good­bye. ‘Now you sound just like Lacey,’ she had re­buked me, and gently closed the door in my face. She opened it a mo­ment later, to find me still star­ing at it. ‘Go to bed,’ she chided me. Blush­ing, she ad­ded, ‘And dream of me. I hope I have plagued your dreams lately as much as you have mine.’ Those words sent me flee­ing down to my room, and every time I thought of it, I blushed again.

  Now, as I entered Pa­tience’s room, I tried to put all such thoughts from my mind. I was here on busi­ness, even if Pa­tience and Lacey must be­lieve it a so­cial call. Keep my mind on my tasks. I cast my eyes over the latch that had se­cured the door, and found it well to my lik­ing. No one would be slip­ping that with a belt knife. As for the win­dow, even if any­one had scaled the outer wall to it, they must burst through not only stoutly-barred wooden shut­ters, but a tapestry, and then rank upon rank of pots of plants, sol­diered in rows be­fore the closed win­dow. It was a route no pro­fes­sional would will­ingly choose. Lacey re­settled her­self with a bit of mend­ing while Pa­tience greeted me. Lady Pa­tience her­self was seem­ingly idle, seated on the hearth be­fore the fire as if she were but a girl. She poked at the coals a bit. ‘Did you know,’ she asked me sud­denly, ‘that there is a sub­stan­tial his­tory of strong queens at Buck­keep? Not just those born as Farseers, either. Many a Farseer prince has mar­ried a wo­man whose name came to over­shadow his in the telling of deeds.’

  ‘Do you think Kettricken will be­come such a queen?’ I asked po­litely. I had no idea where this con­ver­sa­tion would lead.

  ‘I do not know,’ she said softly. She stirred the coals idly again. ‘I know only that I would not have been one.’ She sighed heav­ily, then lif­ted her eyes to say al­most apo­lo­get­ic­ally, ‘I am hav­ing one of those morn­ings, Fitz, when all that fills my head is what might have been and what could have been. I should never have al­lowed him to ab­dic­ate. I’d wager he’d be alive today, if he had not.’

  There seemed little reply I could make to such a state­ment. She sighed again, and drew on the hearth stones with the ash-coated poker. ‘I am a wo­man of long­ings today, Fitz. While every­one else yes­ter­day was stirred to amazement at what Kettricken did, it awakened in me the deep­est dis­con­tent with my­self. Had I been in her po­s­i­tion, I would have hid­den away in my cham­ber. Just as I do now. But your grand­mother would not have. Now there was a Queen. Like Kettricken in some ways. Con­stance was a wo­man who spurred oth­ers to ac­tion. Other wo­men es­pe­cially. When she was queen, over half our guard was fe­male. Did you know that? Ask Hod about her some time. I un­der­stand that Hod came with her when Con­stance came here to be Shrewd’s queen.’ Pa­tience fell si­lent. For a few mo­ments, she was so quiet I thought she had fin­ished speak­ing. Then she ad­ded softly, ‘She liked me, Queen Con­stance did.’ She smiled al­most shyly.

  ‘She knew I did not care for crowds. So, some­times, she would sum­mon me, and only me, to come and at­tend her in her garden. And we would not even speak much, but only work quietly in the soil and the sun­light. Some of my pleas­antest memor­ies of Buck­keep are of those times.’ She looked up at me sud­denly. ‘I was just a little girl then. And your father was just a boy, and we had not ever really met. My par­ents brought me to Buck­keep, the times they came to court, even though they knew I did not much care for all the fol­derol of court life. What a wo­man Queen Con­stance was, to no­tice a homely, quiet little girl, and give her of her time. But she was like that. Buck­keep was a dif­fer­ent place then, a much mer­rier court. Times were safer, and all was more stable. But then Con­stance died, and her in­fant daugh­ter with her, of a birth fever. And Shrewd re­mar­ried a few years later, and …’ She paused and sighed again sud­denly. Then her lips firmed. She pat­ted the hearth be­side her.

  ‘Come and sit here. There are things we must speak of.’

  I did as she bid me, like­wise sit­ting on the hearth­stones. I had never seen Pa­tience so ser­i­ous, nor so fo­cused. All of this, I felt, was lead­ing up to some­thing. It was so dif­fer­ent from her usual fey prattle that it al­most frightened me. Once I was seated, she mo­tioned me closer. I
scooted for­ward un­til I was nearly in her lap. She leaned for­ward and whispered, ‘Some things are best not spoken of. But there comes a time when they must be raised. FitzChiv­alry, my dear, do not think me mean-spir­ited. But I must warn you that your Uncle Regal is not as well dis­posed to­ward you as you might be­lieve.’

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

  Pa­tience was in­stantly in­dig­nant. ‘You must at­tend me!’ she whispered more ur­gently. ‘Oh, I know he is gay and charm­ing and witty. I know what a flat­terer he can be, and I have marked well how all the young wo­men of the court flut­ter their fans at him, and how all the young men mimic his clothes and man­ner­isms. But un­der­neath those fine feath­ers there is much am­bi­tion. And I am afraid there is sus­pi­cion there, and jeal­ousy, also. I have never told you this. But he was totally op­posed to my un­der­tak­ing your school­ing, as well as to your learn­ing to Skill. Some­times I think it is as well that you failed at that, for had you suc­ceeded, his jeal­ousy would have known no bounds.’ She paused, and find­ing that I was listen­ing with a sober face, she went on, ‘These are un­settled times, Fitz. Not just be­cause of the Red Ships that harry our shores. It is a time when any b … born as you were should be care­ful. There are those who smile fairly at you, but may be your en­emy. When your father was alive, we re­lied that his in­flu­ence would be enough to shel­ter you. But after he was … he died, I real­ized that as you grew, you would be more and more at risk, the closer you came to man­hood. So, when I de­cently could, I forced my­self to come back to court, to see if there truly was need. I found there was, and I found you worthy of my help. So I vowed to do all I could to edu­cate and pro­tect you.’ She al­lowed her­self a brief smile of sat­is­fac­tion.

  ‘I would say I had done fairly well by you so far. But,’ and she leaned closer, ‘comes a time when even I will not be able to pro­tect you. You must be­gin to take care of your­self. You must re­call your les­sons from Hod, and re­view them with her of­ten. You must be cau­tious of what you eat and drink, and be wary of vis­it­ing isol­ated places alone. I hate to put these fears into you, FitzChiv­alry. But you are al­most a man now, and must be­gin to think of such things.’

  Laugh­able. Al­most a farce. So I could have seen it, to have this sheltered, re­clus­ive wo­man speak­ing to me so earn­estly of the real­it­ies of the world I had sur­vived in since I was six. In­stead, I found tears sting­ing the corners of my eyes. I had al­ways been mys­ti­fied as to why Pa­tience had come back to Buck­keep, to live a her­mit’s life in the midst of a so­ci­ety she ob­vi­ously did not care for. Now I knew. She had come for me, for my sake. To pro­tect me.

  Burrich had sheltered me. So had Chade, and even Ver­ity in his way. And of course Shrewd had claimed me as his own, very early. But all of them, in one way and an­other, had stood to gain by my sur­vival. Even Burrich would have seen it as a great loss of pride if someone had man­aged to murder me while I was un­der his pro­tec­tion. Only this wo­man, who by all rights should have ab­horred me, had come to shel­ter me for my sake alone. She was so of­ten fool­ish and meddle­some and some­times most an­noy­ing. But as our eyes met, I knew she had breached the fi­nal wall I had kept between us. I greatly doubted that her pres­ence had done any­thing to de­ter bad will to­ward me; if any­thing, her in­terest in me must have been a con­stant re­minder to Regal of who had fathered me. But it was not the deed, but the in­ten­tion that moved me. She had given up her quiet life, her orch­ards and gar­dens and woods, to come here, to a damp castle of stone on the sea-cliffs, to a court full of folk she cared noth­ing about, to watch over her hus­band’s bas­tard.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said quietly. And meant it with all my heart.

  ‘Well,’ she turned aside from my look quickly. ‘Well. You are wel­come, you know.’

  ‘I know. But the truth was, I came here this morn­ing think­ing that per­haps someone should warn you and Lacey to be care­ful of yourselves. Times are un­stable here, and you might be seen as an … obstacle.’

  Now Pa­tience laughed aloud. ‘I! I? Funny, dowdy, fool­ish old Pa­tience? Pa­tience, who can­not keep an idea fixed in her head for more than ten minutes? Pa­tience, all but made mad by her hus­band’s death? My boy, I know how they talk of me. No one per­ceives of me as a threat to any­one. Why, I am but an­other fool here at the court, a thing to be made sport of. I am quite safe, I as­sure you. But, even if I were not, I have the habits of a life­time to pro­tect me. And Lacey.’

  ‘Lacey?’ I could not keep in­credu­lity from my voice nor a grin from my face. I turned to ex­change a wink with Lacey. Lacey glared at me as if af­fron­ted by my smile. Be­fore I could even un­fold from the hearth, she sprang up from her rock­ing chair. A long needle, stripped of its eternal yarn, prod­ded my jug­u­lar vein, while the other probed a cer­tain space between my ribs. I very nearly wet my­self. I looked up at a wo­man I sud­denly knew not at all, and dared not make a word.

  ‘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 re-threaded her needles into her work. I swear she didn’t even drop a stitch. When she was fin­ished, she looked up at me. She winked. And went back to her knit­ting. I re­membered to start breath­ing again.

  A very chastened as­sas­sin left their apart­ments some­time later. As I made my way down the hall, I re­flec­ted that Chade had warned me I was un­der­es­tim­at­ing Lacey. I wondered wryly if this was his idea of hu­mour, or of teach­ing me greater re­spect for seem­ingly mild folk.

  Thoughts of Molly pushed their way into my mind. I res­ol­utely re­fused to give into them, but could not res­ist lower­ing my face to catch that faint scent of her on the shoulder of my shirt. I took the fool­ish smile from my face and set off to loc­ate Kettricken. I had du­ties.

  I’m hungry.

  The thought in­truded without warn­ing. Shame flooded me. I had taken Cub noth­ing yes­ter­day. I had all but for­got­ten him in the sweep of the day’s events.

  A day’s fast is noth­ing. Be­sides, I found a nest of mice be­neath a corner of the cot­tage. Do you think I can­not care for my­self at all? But some­thing more sub­stan­tial would be pleas­ing.

  Soon, I prom­ised him. There is a thing I must do first.

  In Kettricken’s sit­ting cham­ber, I found only two young pages, os­tens­ibly tidy­ing, but gig­gling as I came in. Neither of them knew any­thing. I next tried Mis­tress Hasty’s weav­ing room, as it was a warm and friendly cham­ber where many of the keep wo­men gathered. No Kettricken, but Lady Mod­esty was there. She told me that her mis­tress had said she needed to speak with Prince Ver­ity this morn­ing. Per­haps she was with him.

  But Ver­ity was not in his cham­bers, nor his map-room. Charim was there, how­ever, sort­ing through sheets of vel­lum and sep­ar­at­ing them by qual­ity. Ver­ity, he told me, had arisen very early and im­me­di­ately set out for his boat-shed. Yes, Kettricken had been there this morn­ing, but it had been after Ver­ity left, and once Charim had told her he was gone, she too had de­par­ted. Where? He was not cer­tain.

  By this time I was starving, and I ex­cused my trip to the kit­chen on the grounds that gos­sip al­ways grew thick­est there. Per­haps someone there would know where our Queen-in-Wait­ing had gone. I was not wor­ried, I told my­self. Not yet.

  The kit­chens of Buck­keep were at their best on a cold and blustery day. Steam from bub­bling stews mingled with the nour­ish­ing aroma of bak­ing bread and roast­ing meat. Chilled stable-boys loitered there, chat­ting with the kit­chen help and pil­fer­ing fresh baked rolls and the ends of cheeses, tast­ing stews and dis­ap­pear­ing like mist if Burrich ap­peared in the door. I cut my­self a slab of cold meal pud­ding from the morn­ing’s cook­
ing, and re­in­forced it with honey and some ba­con ends that Cook was ren­der­ing down for crack­ling. As I ate, I listened to the talk.

  Oddly enough, few people spoke dir­ectly of the pre­vi­ous day’s events. I grasped it would take a while for the keep to come to terms with all that had happened. But there was some­thing there, a feel­ing al­most of re­lief. I had seen that be­fore, in a man who had had his maimed foot re­moved, or the fam­ily that fi­nally finds their drowned child’s body. To con­front fi­nally 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.’ That was the feel­ing I got from the folk of the keep. All had fi­nally ac­know­ledged the sever­ity of our in­jur­ies from the Red Ships. Now there was a sense that we might be­gin to heal, and to fight back.

  I did not wish to make dir­ect in­quir­ies down here as to where the Queen might be. As luck would have it, one of the stable-boys was speak­ing of Soft­step. Some of the blood I had seen on the horse’s shoulder the pre­vi­ous day had been her own, and the boys were talk­ing of how the horse had snapped at Burrich when he tried to work on her shoulder, and how it had taken two of them to hold her head. I wangled my way into the con­ver­sa­tion. ‘Per­haps a horse of less tem­pera­ment would be a bet­ter mount for the Queen? I sug­ges­ted.

  ‘Ah, no. Our queen likes Soft­step’s pride and spirit. She said so her­self, to me, when she was down in the stables this morn­ing. She came her­self, to see the horse, and to ask when she might be rid­den again. She spoke dir­ectly to me, she did. So I told her, no horse wanted to be rid­den on a day such as this, let alone with a gashed shoulder. And Queen Kettricken nod­ded, and we stood talk­ing there, and she asked how I had lost my tooth.’

  ‘And you told her a horse had thrown his head back when you were ex­er­cising him! Be­cause you didn’t want Burrich to know we’d been wrest­ling up in the hayloft and you’d fallen into the grey colt’s stall!’