Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘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?’

  The Fool, of course. At my el­bow, com­pan­ion­ably pa­cing along­side me, his rat sceptre joun­cing lightly on his shoulder. I did not startle phys­ic­ally, but he knew that, once more, he had taken me by sur­prise. His amuse­ment shone in his eyes.

  ‘I think our Queen-in-Wait­ing might take it amiss if I so mis­in­formed her. Why do you not come with me in­stead, to brighten her spir­its a bit? I shall set aside the dice, and you can juggle for her,’ I sug­ges­ted.

  ‘Juggle for her? Why, Fitz, that is all I do, all day long, and you see it as but my fool­ery. You see my work and deem it play, while I see you work so earn­estly at play­ing games you have not your­self de­vised. Take a Fool’s ad­vice on this. Teach the lady not dice, but riddles, and you will both be the wiser.’

  ‘Riddles? That’s a Bing­town game, is it not?’

  ‘’Twere one played well at Buck­keep these days. An­swer me this one, if you can. How does one call a thing when one does not know how to call it?’

  ‘I have never been any good at this game, Fool.’

  ‘Nor any other of your blood-line, from what I have heard. So an­swer this. What has wings in Shrewd’s scroll, a tongue of flame in Ver­ity’s book, sil­ver eyes in the Rell­town Vel­lums, and gold-scaled skin in your room?’

  ‘That’s a riddle?’

  He looked at me pity­ingly. ‘No. A riddle is what I just asked you. That’s an Eld­er­ling. And the first riddle was, how do you sum­mon one?’

  My stride slowed. I looked at him more dir­ectly, but his eyes were al­ways dif­fi­cult to meet. ‘A riddle, or a ser­i­ous ques­tion?’

  ‘Is that a riddle? Or a ser­i­ous ques­tion?’

  ‘Yes.’ The Fool was grave.

  I stopped in mid-stride, com­pletely be­muddled. I glared at him. In an­swer, he went nose to nose with his rat sceptre. They simpered at one an­other. ‘You see, Ratsy, he knows no more than his uncle or his grand­father. None of them knows how to sum­mon an Eld­er­ling.’

  ‘By the Skill,’ I said im­petu­ously.

  The Fool looked at me strangely. ‘You know this?’

  ‘I sus­pect it is so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Now that I con­sider it, I do not think it likely. King Wis­dom made a long jour­ney to find the Eld­er­lings. If he could simply have Skilled to them, why didn’t he?’

  ‘In­deed. But some­times there is truth in im­petu­os­ity. So riddle me this, boy. A king is alive. Like­wise a prince. And both are Skilled. But where are those who trained along­side the King, or those who trained be­fore him? How come we to this, this paucity of Skilled ones at a time when they are so griev­ously needed?’

  ‘Few are trained in times of peace. Ga­len didn’t see fit to train any, up un­til his last year. And the co­terie he cre­ated …’ I paused sud­denly, and though the cor­ridor was empty, I sud­denly did not want to speak any more about it. I had al­ways kept whatever Ver­ity told me about the Skill in con­fid­ence.

  The Fool pranced in a sud­den circle about me. ‘If the shoe does not fit, one can­not wear it, no mat­ter who made it for you,’ he de­clared.

  I nod­ded grudgingly. ‘Ex­actly.’

  ‘And he who made it is gone. Sad. So sad. Sad­der than hot meat on the table and red wine in your glass. But he who is gone was made by someone in turn.’

  ‘So­li­city. But she is also gone.’

  ‘Ah. But Shrewd is not. Nor Ver­ity. It seems to me, that if there are two she cre­ated still breath­ing, there ought to be oth­ers. Where are they?’

  I shrugged. ‘Gone. Old. Dead. I don’t know.’ I forced my im­pa­tience down, tried to con­sider his ques­tion. ‘King Shrewd’s sis­ter, Merry. Au­gust’s mother. She would have been trained, per­haps, but she is long dead. Shrewd’s father, King Bounty was the last to have a co­terie, I be­lieve. But very few folk of that gen­er­a­tion are still alive.’ I hal­ted my tongue. Ver­ity had once told me that So­li­city had trained as many in the Skill as she could find the tal­ent in. Surely there must be some of them left alive; they would be no more than a dec­ade or so older than Ver­ity …

  ‘Dead, too many of them, if you ask me. I do know.’ The Fool in­ter­jec­ted an an­swer to my un­spoken ques­tion. I looked at him blankly. He stuck his tongue out at me, waltzed away from me a bit. He con­sidered his sceptre, chucked the rat lov­ingly un­der the chin. ‘You see, Ratsy, it is as I told you. None of them know. None of them are smart enough to ask.’

  ‘Fool, can­not you ever speak plain?’ I cried out in frus­tra­tion.

  He hal­ted as sud­denly as if struck. In mid-pi­rou­ette, he lowered his heels to the floor and stood like a statue. ‘Would it help at all?’ he asked soberly. ‘Would you listen to me if I came to you and did not speak in riddles? Would that make you pause and think and hang upon every word, and pon­der those words later, in your cham­ber? Very well then. I shall try. Do you know the rhyme, Six Wise­men went to Jhaampe-town?’

  I nod­ded, as con­fused as ever.

  ‘Re­cite it for me.’

  ‘Six Wise­men went to Jhaampe-town, climbed a hill and never came down, turned to stone and flew away…’ The old nurs­ery rhyme eluded me sud­denly. ‘I don’t re­call it at all. It’s non­sense any­way, one of those rhym­ing things that sticks in your head but means noth­ing.’

  ‘That, of course, is why it is en­scrolled with the know­ledge verses,’ the Fool con­cluded.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I re­tor­ted. I sud­denly felt ir­rit­ated bey­ond en­dur­ance. ‘Fool, you are do­ing it again. All you speak is riddles, ever! You claim to speak plain, but your truth eludes me.’

  ‘Riddles, dear Fitzy-fitz, are sup­posed to make folk think. To find new truth in old saws. But, be that as it may … Your brain eludes me. How shall I reach it? Per­haps if I came to you, by dark of night, and sang un­der your win­dow:

  Bas­tard princeling, Fitz my sweet,

  You waste your hours to your own de­feat.

  You work to stop, you strive to re­frain,

  When all your ef­fort should go to a gain.’

  He had flung him­self to one knee, and plucked nonex­ist­ent strings on his sceptre. He sang quite lust­ily, and even well. The tune be­longed to a pop­u­lar love bal­lad. He looked at me, sighed the­at­ric­ally, wet his lips and con­tin­ued mourn­fully,

  ‘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!”

  Oh bas­tard princeling, gentle Fitz,

  Will you delay un­til chopped to bits?’

  A passing ser­vant girl paused to stand be­mused and listen. A page came to the door of one cham­ber and peeped out at us, grin­ning widely. A slow flush began to heat my cheeks, for the Fool’s ex­pres­sion was both tender and ar­dent as he looked up at me. I tried to walk cas­u­ally away from him, but he fol­lowed me on his knees, clutch­ing at my sleeve. I was forced to stand, or en­gage in a ri­dicu­lous struggle to free my­self. I stood, feel­ing fool­ish. He simpered a smile up at me. The page giggled, and down the hall I heard two voices con­fer­ring in amuse­ment. I re­fused to lift my eyes to see who was so en­joy­ing my dis­com­fort. The Fool mouthed a kiss up at me. He let his voice sink to a con­fid­en­tial whis­per as he sang on:

  ‘Will fate se­duce you to her will?

  Not if you struggle with all your Skill.

  Sum­mon your al­lies, loc­ate the trained,

  Con­sum­mate all from which
you’ve re­frained.

  There’s a fu­ture not yet fash­ioned

  Foun­ded by your fiery pas­sions.

  If you use your Wits to win

  You’ll save the duch­ies for your kin.

  Thus begs a Fool, on bended knee,

  Let not a dark­ness come to be.

  Let not our peoples go to dust

  When Life in you has placed this trust.’

  He paused, then sang loudly and jovi­ally:

  ‘And if you choose to let this pass

  Like so much fart­ing from your ass,

  Be­hold my rev­er­ence for thee,

  Feast eyes on what men sel­dom see!’

  He sud­denly re­leased my cuff, to tumble away from me in a somer­sault that some­how reached a fin­ish with his present­a­tion of his bare but­tocks to me. They were shock­ingly pale, and I could con­ceal neither my amazement nor af­front. The Fool vaul­ted to his feet, suit­ably clothed again, and Ratsy on his sceptre bowed most humbly to all who had paused to watch my hu­mi­li­ation. There was gen­eral laughter and a scat­ter­ing of ap­plause. His per­form­ance had left me speech­less. I looked aside and tried to walk past him, but with a bound the Fool blocked my pas­sage once again. The Fool ab­ruptly as­sumed a stern stance and ad­dressed all who still grinned.

  ‘Fie and shame upon you all, to be so merry! To giggle and point at a boy’s broken heart! Do not you know the Fitz has lost one most dear to him? Ah, he hides his grief be­neath his blushes, but she has gone to her grave and left his pas­sion un­slaked. That most stub­bornly chaste and vir­u­lently flat­u­lent of maid­ens, dear Lady Thyme, has per­ished. Of her own stench, I doubt it not, though some say it came of eat­ing spoiled meat. But spoiled meat, you say, has a most foul odour, to warn off any from con­sum­ing it. Such we can say of Lady Thyme also, and so per­haps she smelt it not, or deemed it but the per­fume of her fin­gers. Mourn not, poor Fitz, an­other shall be found for you. To this I shall de­vote my­self, this very day! I swear it, by Sir Ratsy’s skull. And now, I bid you hasten on your tasks, for in truth I have delayed mine much too long. Fare well, poor Fitz. Brave, sad heart! To put so bold a face on your des­ol­a­tion! Poor dis­con­sol­ate youth! Ah, Fitz, poor poor Fitz …’

  And he wandered off down the hall from me, shak­ing his head woe­fully, and con­fer­ring with Ratsy as to which eld­erly dow­ager he should court on my be­half. I stared in dis­be­lief after him. I felt be­trayed, that he could make so pub­lic a spec­tacle of me. Sharp-tongued and flighty as the Fool could be, I had never ex­pec­ted to be the pub­lic butt of one of his jokes. I kept wait­ing for him to turn around, and say some last thing that would make me un­der­stand what had just happened. He did not. When he turned a corner, I per­ceived that my or­deal was fi­nally at an end. I pro­ceeded down the hall­way, fum­ing with em­bar­rass­ment and dazed with puz­zle­ment at the same time. The doggerel of his rhymes had stored his words in my head, and I knew that I would pon­der his love song much in days to come, to try and worry out the mean­ings hid­den there. But Lady Thyme? Surely he would not say such a thing, were it not ‘true’. But why would Chade al­low his pub­lic per­son­age to die in such a way? What poor wo­man’s body would be car­ried out as Lady Thyme, no doubt to be car­ted off to dis­tant re­l­at­ives for burial? Was this his method of be­gin­ning his jour­ney, a way to leave the keep un­seen? But again, why let her be dead? So that Regal might be­lieve he had suc­ceeded in his pois­on­ing? To what end?

  Thus be­mused, I fi­nally came to the doors of Kettricken’s cham­ber. I stood in the hall a mo­ment, to re­cover my aplomb and com­pose my face. Sud­denly the door across the hall flung open and Regal strode into me. His mo­mentum jostled me aside, and be­fore I could re­cover my­self, he grandly offered, ‘It’s all right, Fitz. I scarcely ex­pect an apo­logy from one so be­reaved as your­self.’ He stood in the hall­way, straight­en­ing his jer­kin as the young men fol­low­ing him emerged from his cham­ber, tit­ter­ing in amuse­ment. He smiled round at them, and then leaned close to me to ask, in a quietly venom­ous voice, ‘Where will you suckle up now that the old whore Thyme is dead? Ah, well. I am sure you will find some other old wo­man to coddle you. Or are you come to wheedle up to a younger one, now?’ He dared to smile at me, be­fore he spun on his heel and strode off in a fine flut­ter of sleeves, trailed by his three sy­co­phants.

  The in­sult to the Queen poisoned me into rage. It came with a sud­den­ness such as I had never ex­per­i­enced. I felt my chest and throat swell with it. A ter­rible strength rushed through me; I know my up­per lip lif­ted in a snarl. From afar I sensed, What? What is it? Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! I took a step, the next would have been a spring, and I know my teeth would have sunk into the place where throat meets shoulder.

  But, ‘FitzChiv­alry,’ said a voice, full of sur­prise.

  Molly’s voice! I turned to her, my emo­tions wrench­ing from rage to de­light at see­ing her. But as swiftly she was turn­ing aside, say­ing, ‘Beg par­don, my lord,’ and brush­ing past me. Her eyes were down, her man­ner that of a ser­vant.

  ‘Molly?’ I called, step­ping after her. She paused. When she looked back at me, her face was empty of emo­tion, her voice neut­ral.

  ‘Sir? Had you an er­rand for me?

  ‘An er­rand?’ Of course. I glanced about us, but the cor­ridor was empty. I took a step to­ward her, pitched my voice low for her ears only. ‘No. I’ve just missed you so, Molly, I…’

  ‘This is not seemly, sir. I beg you to ex­cuse me.’ She turned, proudly, calmly, and walked away from me.

  ‘What did I do?’ I de­man­ded, in angry con­sterna­tion. I did not really ex­pect an an­swer. But she paused. Her blue-clothed back was straight, her head erect un­der her tat­ted hair-cloth. She did not turn back to me, but said quietly, to the cor­ridor. ‘Noth­ing. You did noth­ing at all, my lord. Ab­so­lutely noth­ing.’

  ‘Molly!’ I pro­tested, but she turned the corner and was gone. I stood star­ing after her. After a mo­ment, I real­ized I was mak­ing a sound some­where between a whine and a growl.

  Let us go hunt­ing in­stead.

  Per­haps, I found my­self agree­ing. That would be the best thing. To go hunt­ing, to kill, to eat, to sleep. And to do no more than that.

  Why not now?

  I don’t really know.

  I com­posed my­self and knocked at Kettricken’s door. It was opened by little Rose­mary who dimpled a smile at me as she in­vited me in. Once within, Molly’s er­rand here was evid­ent. Kettricken was hold­ing a fat green candle un­der her nose. On the table were sev­eral oth­ers. ‘Bay­berry,’ I ob­served.

  Kettricken looked up with a smile. ‘FitzChiv­alry. Wel­come. Come in and be seated. May I of­fer you food? Wine?’

  I stood look­ing at her. A sea change. I felt her strength, knew she stood in the centre of her­self. She was dressed in a soft grey tu­nic and leg­gings. Her hair was dressed in her cus­tom­ary way. Her jew­ellery was simple, a single neck­lace of green and blue stone beads. But this was not the wo­man I had brought back to the keep a few days ago. That wo­man had been dis­tressed, angry, hurt and con­fused. This Kettricken welled serenity.

  ‘My queen,’ I began, hes­it­antly.

  ‘Kettricken,’ she cor­rec­ted me calmly. She moved about the room, set­ting some of the candles on shelves. It was al­most a chal­lenge in that she did not say more.

  I came fur­ther into her sit­ting room. She and Rose­mary were the only oc­cu­pants. Ver­ity had once com­plained to me that her cham­bers had the pre­ci­sion of a mil­it­ary en­camp­ment. It had not been an ex­ag­ger­a­tion. The simple fur­nish­ings were spot­lessly clean. The heavy tapestries and rugs that fur­nished most of Buck­keep were miss­ing here. Simple mats of straw were on the floor, and frames sup­por­ted parch­ment screens painted with del­ic­ate sprays of flowers and trees. There was no clut­ter at all.
In this room, all was fin­ished and put away, or not yet be­gun. That is the only way I can de­scribe the still­ness I felt there.

  I had come in a roil of con­flict­ing emo­tions. Now I stood still and si­lent, my breath­ing steady­ing and my heart calm­ing. One corner of the cham­ber had been turned into an al­cove walled with the parch­ment screens. Here there was a rug of green wool on the floor, and low pad­ded benches such as I had seen in the moun­tains. Kettricken placed the green bay­berry candle be­hind one of the screens. She kindled it with a flame from the hearth. The dan­cing candle­light be­hind the screen gave the life and warmth of a sun­rise to the painted scene. Kettricken walked around to sit on one of the low benches within the al­cove. She in­dic­ated the bench op­pos­ite hers. ‘Will you join me?’

  I did. The gently-lit screen, the il­lu­sion of a small private room and the sweet scent of bay­berry sur­roun­ded me. The low bench was oddly com­fort­able. It took me a mo­ment to re­call the pur­pose of my visit. ‘My queen, I thought you might like to learn some of the games of chance we play at Buck­keep. So you could join in when the other folk are amus­ing them­selves.’

  ‘Per­haps an­other time,’ she said kindly. ‘If you and I wish to amuse ourselves, and if it would please you to teach me the game. But for those reas­ons only. I have found the old ad­ages to be true. One can only walk so far from one’s true self be­fore the bond either snaps, or pulls one back. I am for­tu­nate. I have been pulled back. I walk once more in true­ness to my­self, FitzChiv­alry. That is what you sense today.’

  ‘I don’t un­der­stand.’