Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  He was mock­ing me. I was cer­tain of it now. ‘Once, in per­haps a thou­sand years, there may come a man cap­able of mak­ing such a great change in the world. A power­ful king, per­haps, or a philo­sopher, shap­ing the thoughts of thou­sands. But you and I, Fool? We are pawns. Ciphers.’

  He shook his head pity­ingly. ‘This, more than any­thing else, is what I have never un­der­stood about your people. You can roll dice, and un­der­stand that the whole game may hinge on one turn of a die. You deal out cards, and say that all a man’s for­tune for the night may turn upon one hand. But a man’s whole life, you sniff at, and say, what, this nought of a hu­man, this fish­er­man, this car­penter, this thief, this cook, why, what can they do in the great wide world? And so you putter and sput­ter your lives away, like candles burn­ing in a draught.’

  ‘Not all men are destined for great­ness,’ I re­minded him.

  ‘Are you sure, Fitz? Are you sure? What good is a life lived as if it made no dif­fer­ence at all to the great life of the world? A sad­der thing I can­not ima­gine. Why should not a mother say to her­self, if I raise this child aright, if I love and care for her, she shall live a life that brings joy to those about her, and thus I have changed the world? Why should not the farmer that plants a seed say to his neigh­bour, this seed I plant today will feed someone, and that is how I change the world today?’

  ‘This is philo­sophy, Fool. I have never had time to study such things.’

  ‘No, Fitz, this is life. And no one has time not to think of such things. Each creature in the world should con­sider this thing, every mo­ment of the heart’s beat­ing. Oth­er­wise, what is the point of arising each day?’

  ‘Fool, this is bey­ond me,’ I de­clared un­eas­ily. I had never seen him so im­pas­sioned, never heard him speak so plainly. It was as if I had stirred grey-coated em­bers and sud­denly found the cherry-red coal that glowed in their depths. He burned too brightly.

  ‘No, Fitz. I have come to be­lieve it is through you.’ He reached out and tapped me lightly with Ratsy. ‘Key­stone. Gate. Cross­roads. Cata­lyst. All these you have been, and con­tinue to be. Whenever I come to a cross­roads, whenever the scent is un­cer­tain, when I put my nose to the ground, and cast about and bay and snuffle, I find one scent. Yours. You cre­ate pos­sib­il­it­ies. While you ex­ist, the fu­ture can be steered. I came here for you, Fitz. You are the thread I tweak. One of them, any­way.’

  I felt a sud­den chill of fore­bod­ing. Whatever more he had to say, I did not wish to hear it. Some­where, far away, a thin howl arose. A wolf bay­ing at mid-day. A shiver ran up me, set­ting up every hair on my body. ‘You’ve had your joke,’ I said, laugh­ing nervously. ‘I should have known bet­ter than to ex­pect a real secret from you.’

  ‘You. Or not you. Linch­pin, an­chor, knot in the line. I have seen the end of the world, Fitz. Seen it woven as plainly as I’ve seen my birth. Oh, not in your life­time, nor even mine. But shall we be happy, to say that we live in the dusk rather than in the full night? Shall we re­joice that we shall only suf­fer, while your off­spring will be the ones to know the tor­ments of the damned? Shall this be why we do not act?’

  ‘Fool. I wish not to hear this.’

  ‘You had a chance to deny me. But thrice you de­man­ded it, and hear it you shall.’ He lif­ted his staff as if lead­ing a charge, and spoke as if he ad­dressed the full Coun­cil of the Six Duch­ies. ‘The fall of the King­dom of the Six Duch­ies was the pebble that star­ted the land­slide. The soul­less ones moved on from there, spread­ing like a blood­stain down the world’s best shirt. Dark­ness de­vours, and is never sa­ti­ated un­til it feeds upon it­self. And all be­cause the line of House Farseer failed. That is the fu­ture as it is woven. But wait! Farseer!’ He cocked his head and peered at me, con­sid­er­ing as a gore-crow. ‘Why do they call you that, Fitz? What have your an­cest­ors ever fore­seen afar to gain such a name? Shall I tell you how it comes about? The very name of your house is the fu­ture reach­ing back in time to you, and nam­ing you by the name that someday your house will de­serve. The Farseers. That was the clue I took to my heart. That the fu­ture reached back to you, to your house, to where your blood-lines in­ter­sec­ted with my life­time, and named you so. I came here, and what did I dis­cover? One Farseer, with no name at all. Un­named in any his­tory, past or fu­ture. But I have seen you take a name, FitzChiv­alry Farseer. And I shall see that you de­serve it.’ He ad­vanced on me, seized me by the shoulders. ‘We are here, Fitz, you and I, to change the fu­ture of the world. To reach out and hold in place the tiny pebble that could trig­ger the boulder’s tum­bling.’

  ‘No.’ A ter­rible cold was welling up in­side me. I shook with it. My teeth began to chat­ter, and the bright motes of light to sparkle at the edges of my vis­ion. A fit. I was go­ing to have an­other fit. Right here, in front of the Fool. ‘Leave!’ I cried out, un­able to abide the thought. ‘Go away. Now! Quickly. Quickly!’

  I had never seen the Fool as­ton­ished be­fore. His jaw ac­tu­ally dropped open, re­veal­ing his tiny white teeth and pale tongue. A mo­ment longer he gripped me, and then he let go. I did not stop to think of what he might feel at my ab­rupt dis­missal. I snatched the door open and poin­ted out of it, and he was gone. I shut it be­hind him, latched it, and then staggered to my bed as wave after wave of dark­ness surged through me. I fell face-down on the cov­er­lets. ‘Molly!’ I cried out, ‘Molly, save me!’ But I knew she could not hear me, and I sank alone into my black­ness.

  The bright­ness of a hun­dred candles, fes­toons of ever­green and swags of holly and bare, black winter branches hung with spark­ling sugar can­dies to de­light the eye and tongue. The clack­ing of the pup­pets’ wooden swords and the de­lighted ex­clam­a­tions of the chil­dren when the Piebald Prince’s head ac­tu­ally came fly­ing off and arced out over the crowd. Mel­low’s mouth wide in a bawdy song as his un­at­ten­ded fin­gers danced in­de­pend­ently over his harp strings. A blast of cold as the great doors of the hall were thrown open and yet an­other group of mer­ry­makers came into the Great Hall to join us. The slow know­ledge stole over me that this was no longer a dream, this was Win­ter­fest, and I was wan­der­ing be­nignly through the cel­eb­ra­tion, smil­ing blandly at every­one and see­ing no one. I blinked my eyes slowly. I could do noth­ing quickly. I was wrapped in soft wool, I was drift­ing like an un­manned sail­boat on a still day. A won­der­ful sleep­i­ness filled me. Someone touched my arm. I turned. Burrich frown­ing and ask­ing me some­thing. His voice, al­ways so deep, al­most a col­our wash­ing against me when he spoke. ‘It’s all good,’ I told him calmly. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all good.’ I floated away from him, waft­ing through the room with the milling of the crowd.

  King Shrewd sat on his throne, but I knew now that he was made of pa­per. The Fool sat on the step by his feet and clutched his rat sceptre like an in­fant clutches a rattle. His tongue was a sword, and as the King’s en­emies drew closer to the throne, the Fool slew them, slashed them to bits and turned them back from the pa­per man on the throne.

  And here were Ver­ity and Kettricken on an­other dais, pretty as the Fool’s doll, each of them. I looked and saw they were both made of hun­gers, like con­tain­ers made of empti­ness. I felt so sad, I’d never be able to fill either of them, for they were both so ter­ribly empty. Regal came to speak to them, and he was a big black bird, not a crow, no, not so merry as a crow, and not a raven, he hadn’t the cheery clev­erness of a raven, no, a miser­able eye-pecker of a bird, circ­ling, circ­ling, dream­ing of them as car­rion for him­self to feast on. He smelled the car­rion, and I covered my mouth and nose with a hand and walked away from them.

  I sat down on a hearth, next to a gig­gling girl, happy in her blue skirts. She chattered like a squir­rel and I smiled at her, and soon she leaned against me and began to sing a funny little song about three milk­maids. There were oth­ers sit­ting and st
and­ing about the hearth, and they joined in the song. We all laughed at the end, but I wasn’t sure why. And her hand was warm, rest­ing so cas­u­ally on my thigh.

  Brother, are you mad? Have you eaten fish­bones, are you burned by fever?

  ‘Huh?’

  Your mind is clouded. Your thoughts are blood­less and sickly. You move like prey.

  ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘Do you, sir? Then I do, too.’ She smiled up at me. Chubby little face, dark eyes, curly hair peek­ing out from un­der her cap. Ver­ity would like this one. She pat­ted my leg com­pan­ion­ably. A bit higher than she had touched me be­fore.

  ‘FitzChiv­alry!’

  I looked up slowly. Pa­tience was stand­ing over me, with Lacey at her el­bow. I smiled to see her there. She so sel­dom came out of her rooms to so­cial­ize. Es­pe­cially in winter. Winter was a hard time for her. ‘I shall be so glad when sum­mer re­turns, and we can walk in the gar­dens to­gether,’ I told her.

  She looked at me si­lently for a mo­ment. ‘I have some­thing heavy I wish car­ried up to my rooms. Will you bring it for me?’

  ‘Cer­tainly.’ I stood care­fully. ‘I have to go,’ I told the little ser­vant girl. ‘My mother needs me. I liked your song.’

  ‘Good­bye sir!’ she chirped at me, and Lacey glared at her. Pa­tience’s cheeks were very rosy. I fol­lowed her through the ebb and press of folk. We came to the foot of the stairs.

  ‘I for­get how to do these,’ I told her. ‘And where is the heavy thing you wish car­ried?’

  ‘That was an ex­cuse to get you away from there be­fore you com­pletely dis­graced your­self!’ she hissed at me. ‘What is the mat­ter with you? How could you be­have so badly? Are you drunk?’

  I thought about it. ‘Nighteyes said I was poisoned by fish­bones. But I feel fine.’

  Lacey and Pa­tience looked at me very care­fully. Then they each took an arm, and guided me up­stairs. Pa­tience made tea. I talked to Lacey. I told her how much I loved Molly and that I was go­ing to marry her as soon as the King said I could. She pat­ted my hand and felt my fore­head and asked what I’d eaten today and where. I couldn’t re­mem­ber. Pa­tience gave me tea. Very soon I puked. Lacey gave me cold wa­ter. Pa­tience gave me more tea. I puked again. I said I didn’t want any more tea. Pa­tience and Lacey ar­gued. Lacey said she thought I’d be all right after I slept. She took me back to my room.

  I woke up with no clear idea of what had been dream and what had been real, if any­thing. My en­tire re­call of the even­ing’s events had the same dis­tance as events that had happened years ago. This was com­poun­ded by the open stair­case with its beck­on­ing yel­low light and the draught from it chilling my room. I scrabbled out of bed, swayed for a mo­ment as a wave of dizzi­ness over­took me and then slowly moun­ted the stairs, one hand al­ways touch­ing the cold stone wall to re­as­sure my­self that it was real. About mid­way up the steps, Chade came down to meet me. ‘Here, take my arm,’ he com­manded, and I did.

  He put his free arm around me and we went up the stairs to­gether. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I told him. With my next breath, I told him, ‘King Shrewd is in danger.’

  ‘I know. King Shrewd is al­ways in danger.’

  We gained the top of the stair­well. There was a fire in his hearth, and a meal set out next to it on a tray. He guided me to­ward both.

  ‘I think I might have been poisoned today.’ A sud­den shiv­er­ing ran up me and I shuddered all over. When it passed, I felt more alert. ‘I seem to be wak­ing up in stages. I keep think­ing I’m awake, and then sud­denly everything is clearer.’

  Chade nod­ded gravely. ‘I sus­pect it was the ash residue. You weren’t think­ing when you ti­died King Shrewd’s room for him. Many times the burned residue of a herb con­cen­trates the po­tency of the herb. You got it all over your hands and then sat there eat­ing pastries. There was little I could do. I thought you would sleep it off. What pos­sessed you to go down­stairs?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Then, ‘How do you al­ways know so much?’ I asked peev­ishly as he pushed me down into his old chair. He took my usual perch on the hearth­stones. Even in my fuddled state, I no­ticed how flu­idly he moved, as if he had some­where aban­doned the cramps and aches of an old man’s body. There was wind-burnt col­our to his face and arms as well, the tan fad­ing the pocks’ stigma. I had once no­ticed his re­semb­lance to Shrewd. Now I saw Ver­ity in his face as well.

  ‘I have my little ways of find­ing things out.’ He grinned at me wolfishly. ‘How much do you re­mem­ber of Win­ter­fest to­night?’

  I winced as I con­sidered it. ‘Enough to know that to­mor­row is go­ing to be a dif­fi­cult day.’ The little ser­vant girl sud­denly popped up in my memory. Lean­ing on my shoulder, her hand on my thigh. Molly. I had to get to Molly to­night and some­how ex­plain things to her. If she came to my room to­night, and I wasn’t there to an­swer her knock … I star­ted up in my chair, but then an­other shiver ran up over me. It felt al­most like a skin be­ing peeled off me.

  ‘Here. Eat some­thing. Puk­ing your guts out wasn’t the best thing for you, but I’m sure Pa­tience meant well. And un­der other cir­cum­stances, it could have been a life-saver. No, you idiot, wash your hands first. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?’

  I no­ticed then the vin­egar-wa­ter set out be­side the food. I washed my hands care­fully to re­move every trace of whatever had clung to them, and then my face, amazed as how much more alert I sud­denly felt. ‘It’s been like an ex­ten­ded dream, all day … is this what Shrewd has been feel­ing?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Per­haps not all those burn­ing herbs down there are what I think they are. It was one of the things I wanted to dis­cuss with you to­night. How has Shrewd been? Has this come on him sud­denly? How long has Wal­lace been call­ing him­self a healer?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I hung my head in shame. I forced my­self to re­port to Chade just how lax I had been in his ab­sence. And how stu­pid. When I was fin­ished, he did not dis­agree with me.

  ‘Well,’ he said heav­ily. ‘We can’t undo, we can only sal­vage. Too much is hap­pen­ing here to sort at one sit­ting.’ He looked at me con­sid­er­ingly. ‘Much of what you tell me does not sur­prise me. Forged ones con­ver­ging still on Buck­keep, the King’s ill­ness linger­ing. But King Shrewd’s health has de­clined much more swiftly than I can ac­count for, and the squalor in his rooms makes no sense to me. Un­less …’ He did not fin­ish the thought. ‘Per­haps they be­lieve that Lady Thyme was his only de­fender. Per­haps they think we no longer care; per­haps they be­lieve him an isol­ated old man, an obstacle to be re­moved. Your care­less­ness has drawn them out, at least. And hav­ing drawn them out, per­haps we can cut them off.’ He sighed. ‘I thought I could use Wal­lace as a tool, lead him subtly through the ad­vice of oth­ers. He has little know­ledge of herbs of his own; the man is a dab­bler. But the tool I left care­lessly ly­ing about, per­haps an­other em­ploys now. We shall have to see. Still. There are ways to stop this.’

  I bit my tongue be­fore I could ut­ter Regal’s name. ‘How?’ I asked in­stead.

  Chade smiled. ‘How were you rendered in­ef­fect­ive as an as­sas­sin in the Moun­tain King­dom?’

  I winced at the memory. ‘Regal re­vealed my pur­pose to Kettricken.’

  ‘Ex­actly. We shall shine a bit of day­light on what goes on in the King’s cham­bers. Eat while I talk.’

  And so I did, listen­ing to him as he out­lined my as­sign­ments for the next day, but also not­ing what he chose to feed me. The fla­vour of gar­lic pre­dom­in­ated, and I knew his con­fid­ence in its puri­fy­ing abil­it­ies. I wondered just what I had in­ges­ted, and also how much it col­oured my re­col­lec­tion of my con­ver­sa­tion with the Fool. I flinched as I re­called my brusque dis­missal of him. He would be an­other I would have to seek out to­mor­row. Chade no­ticed my pre­oc­
cu­pa­tion. ‘Some­times,’ he ob­served ob­liquely, ‘you have to trust people to un­der­stand you are not per­fect.’

  I nod­ded, then sud­denly yawned im­mensely. ‘Beg par­don,’ I muttered. My eye­lids were sud­denly so heavy I could barely keep my head up. ‘You were say­ing?’

  ‘No, no. Go to bed. Rest. It’s the real healer.’

  ‘But I haven’t even asked you where you’ve been. Or what you’ve been do­ing. You move and act as if you’d lost ten years of age.’

  Chade puckered his mouth. ‘Is that a com­pli­ment? Never mind. Such ques­tions would be use­less any­way, so you may save them for an­other time, and be frus­trated then when I re­fuse to an­swer them. As to my con­di­tion … well, the more one forces one’s body to do, the more it can do. It was not an easy jour­ney. Yet I be­lieve it was worth the hard­ship.’ He held up a halt­ing hand as I opened my mouth. ‘And that is all I am go­ing to say. To bed, now, Fitz. To bed.’

  I yawned again as I rose, and stretched un­til my joints popped. ‘You’ve grown again,’ Chade com­plained ad­mir­ingly. ‘At this rate, you’ll even top your father’s height.’

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ I mumbled as I headed to­ward the stair.

  ‘And I you. But we shall have to­mor­row night for catch­ing up. For now, bed for you.’