Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  The new ship still smelled of wood shav­ings and tarred rope. Her decks were scarcely scarred, and the oars were clean their en­tire length. Soon the Rurisk would take on a char­ac­ter of its own; a bit of mar­lin­spike work to make it easier to grip an oar, a splice in a line, all the nicks and dings of a well-used ship. But for now, the Rurisk was as green as we were. When we took the ship out, it re­minded me of an in­ex­per­i­enced rider on a green-broke horse. She sidled about, shied and curt­sied amongst the waves, and then, as we all found a rhythm, stepped out and cut through the wa­ter like a greased knife.

  It was Ver­ity’s will that I im­merse my­self in these new skills. I was given a bunk in the ware­house with the rest of my ship­mates. I learned to be un­ob­trus­ive, but en­er­getic in jump­ing to any or­der. The mas­ter was Six Duch­ies through and through, but the mate was an Outis­lander, and he it was who really taught us to handle the Rurisk and just what the ship could do. There were two other Outis­lander im­mig­rants aboard, and when we weren’t clean­ing the ship or do­ing main­ten­ance and sleep­ing, they con­greg­ated and spoke quietly amongst them­selves. I wondered that they didn’t see how this set the Six Duch­ies folk to mut­ter­ing. My bunk was near to theirs, and of­ten­times as I lay try­ing to fall asleep, I was aware of Ver­ity ur­ging me to pay at­ten­tion to soft words spoken in a lan­guage I didn’t un­der­stand. So I did, know­ing that he made more sense of the sounds than I did. After a time I came to real­ize that it was not so very dif­fer­ent from the Duch­ies’ tongue, and that I could un­der­stand some of what was said for my­self. I found no talk of be­trayal or mutiny amongst them. Only soft, sad words of kin Forged away from them by their own coun­try­men, and harsh bit­ter vows of ven­geance to be car­ried out against their own kind. They were not so dif­fer­ent from the Six Duch­ies men and wo­men of the crew. Al­most every­one on board had lost someone to For­ging. Guiltily, I wondered how many of those lost souls I had sent into the ob­li­vion of death. It made a small bar­rier between me and the other crew mem­bers.

  Des­pite the fury of the winter storms, we took the ships out nearly every day. We fought mock battles against each other, prac­tising tech­niques for grap­pling or ram­ming an­other ship, and also gauging a leap so that one boarded the other ves­sel rather than end­ing up in the wa­ters between them. Our mas­ter was at pains to ex­plain all our ad­vant­ages to us. The en­emy we would en­counter would be far from home, and already worn from weeks at sea. They would have been liv­ing aboard their ves­sels, cramped and pun­ished by the weather, while we would be fresh each day and well fed. The rigours of their jour­ney would de­mand that every oars­man must also be a Raider, while we could carry ad­di­tional fight­ers who could use their bows or board an­other ves­sel while keep­ing our oars fully manned. Of­ten I saw the mate shak­ing his head over these words. Privately, he con­fided to his fel­lows that the rigours of a raid­ing jour­ney were what made a crew hard and fierce. How could soft, well-fed farm­ers hope to pre­vail against sea-honed Red Ship Raid­ers?

  One day out of ten I was al­lowed a day to my­self, and those days I spent at the keep. They were scarcely rest­ful. I re­por­ted to King Shrewd, de­tail­ing to him my ex­per­i­ences aboard the Rurisk, and tak­ing pleas­ure in the in­terest that awoke in his eyes at such times. He seemed bet­ter, but was still not the ro­bust king I re­membered from my youth. Pa­tience and Lacey like­wise de­man­ded a visit, and I made a du­ti­ful call on Kettricken as well. An hour or two for Nighteyes, a clandes­tine visit to Molly’s cham­bers, and then the ex­cuses to hurry back to my own cham­ber for the rest of the night, so that I might be there when Chade would sum­mon me for his quizz­ings. The fol­low­ing dawn, a brief re­port to Ver­ity, where with a touch he re­newed our Skill bond. Of­ten it was a re­lief to re­turn to the crew’s quar­ters to get a solid night of sleep.

  Fi­nally, as winter drew to a close, chance af­forded me an op­por­tun­ity to speak privately with Shrewd. I had gone to his cham­bers on one of my days away from the boat, to re­port to him on our train­ing pro­gress. Shrewd was in bet­ter health than usual, and was sit­ting up in his chair by the fire. Wal­lace was not about that day. In­stead, there was a young wo­man, os­tens­ibly tidy­ing the cham­ber, but al­most cer­tainly spy­ing for Regal. The Fool, too, was un­der­foot as al­ways, and tak­ing a keen pleas­ure in mak­ing her un­com­fort­able. I had grown up with the Fool, and had al­ways ac­cep­ted his white skin and col­our­less eyes as simply the way he was. The wo­man ob­vi­ously felt dif­fer­ently. She began it, it must be ad­mit­ted, peer­ing at the Fool whenever she thought he might not be pay­ing at­ten­tion. But as soon as he noted it, he began to peek back at her, and each time af­fected a more las­ci­vi­ous glance than the last. She be­came more and more nervous, and when fi­nally, she must pass by us with her bucket, and the Fool sent Ratsy on his sceptre to peek up un­der her skirts, she leaped back with a shriek, dous­ing her­self and the floor she had just scrubbed with dirty wa­ter. Shrewd re­buked the Fool, who grov­elled ex­tra­vag­antly and re­morse­lessly, and then dis­missed the wo­man to get dry clothes on. I sprang to my op­por­tun­ity.

  She was scarcely clear of the room be­fore I spoke. ‘My liege, there is some­thing I have been wish­ing to pe­ti­tion you about, for some time.’

  Some note in my voice must have aler­ted both Fool and King, for I in­stantly had their un­di­vided at­ten­tion. I glared at the Fool, and he knew plainly I wished him to with­draw, but in­stead he leaned closer, ac­tu­ally rest­ing his head against Shrewd’s knee as he simpered at me in­furi­at­ingly. I re­fused to let it rattle me. I looked at the King be­seech­ingly.

  ‘You may speak, FitzChiv­alry,’ he said form­ally.

  I drew a breath. ‘My liege, I would ask your per­mis­sion to marry.’

  The Fool’s eyes grew round with sur­prise. But my king smiled as in­dul­gently as if I were a child beg­ging a sweet­meat. ‘So. Fi­nally, it has come. But surely you mean to court her first?’

  My heart was thun­der­ing in my chest. My king looked en­tirely too know­ing. But pleased, very pleased. I dared to hope. ‘May it please my king, I fear I have already be­gun to court her. Yet know I did not in­tend to do so pre­sump­tu­ously. It just … came about.’

  He laughed good-naturedly. ‘Yes. Some things do. Though when you did not speak out sooner, I wondered what your in­ten­tions were, and if the lady had de­ceived her­self.’

  My mouth went dry. I could not breathe. How much did he know? He smiled at my ter­ror.

  ‘I have no ob­jec­tions. In fact, I am well pleased with your choice …’

  The smile that broke out on my face was amaz­ingly echoed by one on the Fool’s coun­ten­ance. I drew a trem­bling breath, un­til Shrewd con­tin­ued, ‘But her father has re­ser­va­tions. He has told me that he would like to delay this, at least un­til her older sis­ters are pledged.’

  ‘What?’ I could barely ut­ter the word. Con­fu­sion whirled in me. Shrewd smiled be­nignly.

  ‘Your lady, it seems, is as good as her name. Celer­ity asked her father for per­mis­sion to court you the very day you left for Buck­keep. I think you won her heart when you spoke so plainly to Virago. But Brawndy denied her, for the reason I have told you. I un­der­stand the lady raised quite a storm with her father, but Brawndy is a fine man. He did, how­ever, send word to us, lest we take of­fence. He wishes us to know he has no op­pos­i­tion to the match it­self, only to her pre­ced­ing her sis­ters in mar­riage. I ac­ceded in this. She is, I be­lieve, but four­teen?’

  I could not speak.

  ‘Do not look so dis­tressed, boy. You are both young and there is plenty of time. While he does not choose to al­low a formal court­ing to be­gin as yet, I am sure he does not in­tend that you shall not see each other.’ King Shrewd looked on me so tol­er­antly, with so much kind­li­ness in his eyes. The F
ool’s eyes flickered back and forth between us. I could not read his face.

  I was trem­bling, as I had not in months. I would not al­low this to con­tinue, to be­come any worse than it was already. I found my tongue, formed words in my dry throat. ‘My king, that is not the lady I was con­sid­er­ing.’

  Si­lence des­cen­ded. I met my king’s eyes, and saw his look change. Had I not been so des­per­ate, I know I would have looked aside from that dis­pleas­ure. In­stead I looked at him be­seech­ingly, pray­ing he might un­der­stand. When he did not speak fur­ther, I at­temp­ted to.

  ‘My king, the wo­man I speak of is presently a lady’s maid, but in her own right she is not a ser­vant. She is …’

  ‘Be si­lent.’

  It could not have been sharper if he had struck me. I was still.

  Shrewd looked me up and down care­fully. When he spoke, it was with the force of all his majesty. I thought I felt even the pres­sure of the Skill in his voice. ‘Be en­tirely cer­tain of what I say to you, FitzChiv­alry. Brawndy is my friend, as well as my Duke. Neither he, nor his daugh­ter, shall be of­fen­ded or slighted by you. At this time, you shall court no one. No one. I sug­gest you con­sider well all you are offered when Brawndy con­siders you fa­vour­ably as a match for Celer­ity. He makes no mat­ter of your birth. Few oth­ers would do so. Celer­ity will have land and a title of her own. As will you, from me, if you have the wis­dom to bide your time and do well by the lady. You will come to find that it is the wise choice. I will tell you when you may be­gin court­ing her.’

  I summoned the last of my cour­age. ‘My king, please, I …’

  ‘Enough, Chiv­alry! You have heard my word on this sub­ject. There is no more to say!’

  A short time later, he dis­missed me, and I went shak­ing from his rooms. I do not know if fury or heart­break were the force be­hind my trem­bling. I thought again of how he had called me by my father’s name. Per­haps, I told my­self spite­fully, it was be­cause in his heart he knew I would do as my father had done. I would wed for love. Even, I thought sav­agely, if I had to wait un­til King Shrewd was in his grave, for Ver­ity to keep his word to me. I went back to my rooms. To have wept would have been a re­lief. I could not even find tears. In­stead I lay on my bed and stared at the hangings. I could not ima­gine telling Molly what had just tran­spired between my king and me. Telling my­self that not to speak was also a de­cep­tion, I re­solved to find a way to tell her. But not right away. A time would come, I prom­ised my­self, a time when I could ex­plain and she would un­der­stand. I would wait for it. Un­til then, I would not think about it. Nor, I re­solved coldly, would I go to my king un­less I were summoned.

  As spring drew closer, Ver­ity ar­ranged his ships and men as care­fully as tokens on a game­board. The watchtowers on the coast were al­ways manned, and their sig­nal fires kept ever ready for a torch. Such sig­nal fires were for the pur­pose of alert­ing local citzenry that Red Ships had been sighted. He took the re­main­ing mem­bers of the Skill co­terie Ga­len had fash­ioned, and dis­trib­uted them in the towers and on the ships. Se­rene, my nemesis and heart of Ga­len’s co­terie, re­mained at Buck­keep. Privately I wondered why Ver­ity used her there, as a centre for the co­terie, rather than hav­ing each mem­ber Skill in­di­vidu­ally to him. With Ga­len’s death, and Au­gust’s forced re­tire­ment from the co­terie, Se­rene had taken on Ga­len’s post, and seemed to con­sider her­self the Skill­mas­ter. In some ways, she al­most be­came him. It was not just that she stalked Buck­keep in aus­tere si­lence and wore al­ways a dis­ap­prov­ing frown. She seemed to have ac­quired his test­i­ness and foul hu­mour as well. The serving-folk now spoke of her with the same dread and dis­taste they had once re­served for Ga­len. I un­der­stood she had taken over Ga­len’s per­sonal quar­ters as well. I avoided her as­sidu­ously on the days I was at home. I would have been more re­lieved if Ver­ity had placed her else­where. But it was not up to me to ques­tion my King-in-Wait­ing’s de­cisions.

  Justin, a tall, gangly young man with two years on me, was as­signed as co­terie mem­ber to the Rurisk. He had des­pised me since we had stud­ied the Skill to­gether, and I had failed so spec­tac­u­larly at it. He snubbed me at every op­por­tun­ity. I bit my tongue and did my best not to en­counter him. The close quar­ters of the ship made that dif­fi­cult. It was not a com­fort­able situ­ation.

  After great de­bate, with him­self and me, Ver­ity placed Car­rod aboard the Con­stance, Burl at the Neat­bay tower, and sent Will far north, to the Red Tower up in Bearns that com­manded such a wide view of the sea as well as the sur­round­ing coun­tryside. Once he had ar­ranged their tokens on his maps, it made a real­ity of the pathetic thin­ness of our de­fences. ‘It re­minds me of the old folk tale, of the beg­gar who had but a hat to cover his na­ked­ness,’ I told Ver­ity. He smiled without hu­mour.

  ‘Would that I could move my ships as swiftly as he did his hat,’ he wished grimly.

  Two of the ships Ver­ity set to duty as rov­ing patrol ves­sels. Two he kept in re­serve, one docked at Buck­keep, and that was the Rurisk, while the Stag anchored in South Cove. It was a pi­ti­fully small fleet to pro­tect the Six Duch­ies’ strag­gling coast­line. A second set of ships was be­ing con­struc­ted, but it was not ex­pec­ted they would be fin­ished soon. The best of the seasoned wood had been used in the first four ves­sels, and his ship­wrights cau­tioned him he would be wiser to wait than to at­tempt to use green wood. It chafed him, but he listened to them.

  Early spring saw us prac­tising drills. The co­terie mem­bers, Ver­ity privately told me, func­tioned al­most as well as car­rier pi­geons at re­lay­ing simple mes­sages. His situ­ation with me was a more frus­trat­ing one. For his own reas­ons, he had chosen not to dis­close to any­one his train­ing of me in the Skill. I be­lieve he was en­joy­ing the ad­vant­ages of be­ing able to go with me and ob­serve and listen un­detec­ted to the every­day life of Buck­keep Town. I un­der­stood that the Rurisk’s mas­ter had been given word that I was to be heeded if I re­ques­ted a sud­den change in course or an­nounced that we were re­quired at a cer­tain loc­a­tion im­me­di­ately. I fear he saw this mostly as Ver­ity’s in­dul­gence of his bas­tard nephew, but in this he fol­lowed his or­ders.

  Then, one early spring morn­ing, we re­por­ted to our ship for yet an­other prac­tice. We func­tioned well as a crew now in man­oeuv­ring our ship. This ex­er­cise was to have us ren­dez­vous with the Con­stance at an un­dis­closed loc­a­tion. It was a Skill ex­er­cise that so far we had not suc­ceeded at. We were resigned to a frus­trat­ing day, save for Justin, who was stonily in­tent on suc­ceed­ing. Arms crossed on his chest, dressed all in dark blue (I be­lieve he thought the blue robe made him ap­pear more Skilled) he stood on the dock and stared out into the thick fog that blanketed the ocean. I was forced to pass him as I put a keg of wa­ter aboard.

  ‘To you, Bas­tard, it’s an opaque blanket. But to me, all is as clear as a mir­ror.’

  ‘How un­for­tu­nate for you,’ I said kindly, ig­nor­ing his use of the word bas­tard. I had all but for­got­ten how much sting could be put into a word. ‘I’d rather see the fog than your face of a morn­ing.’ Petty, but sat­is­fy­ing. I had the ad­di­tional sat­is­fac­tion of watch­ing his robe bind about his legs as he boarded. I was sens­ibly dressed, in snug leg­gings, an un­der­shirt of soft cot­ton, and a leather jer­kin over that. I had con­sidered some sort of mail, but Burrich had shook his head over it. ‘Bet­ter to die cleanly from a weapon’s wound than to fall over­board and drown,’ he’d ad­vised me.

  Ver­ity had quirked a smile at that. ‘Let’s not bur­den him with too much over­con­fid­ence,’ he sug­ges­ted wryly, and even Burrich had smiled. After a mo­ment.

  So I had aban­doned any thought of mail or ar­mour. At any rate, today would be a row­ing day, and what I wore was com­fort­able for that. N
o shoulder seams to strain against, no sleeves to catch on my fore­arms. I was in­or­din­ately proud of the chest and shoulders I was de­vel­op­ing. Even Molly had ex­pressed an as­ton­ished ap­proval. I settled into my seat, and rolled my shoulders, smil­ing as I thought of her. I’d had far too little time with her lately. Well, only time would cure that. Sum­mer brought the Raid­ers. As the long fair days came on, I’d have even less time with her. Au­tumn could not come too soon for me.

  We settled in, a full com­ple­ment of row­ers and war­ri­ors. At some mo­ment, as ropes were cast off and the steers­man took his post and the oars began their steady beat, we be­came one an­imal. It was a phe­nomenon I had noted be­fore. Per­haps I was more sens­it­ized to it, nerves ab­raded clean by my Skill-shar­ing with Ver­ity. Per­haps it was that all the men and wo­men on board shared a single pur­pose, and that for most of them it was ven­geance. Whatever it was, it lent a unity to us that I had never sensed be­fore in a group of folk. Per­haps, I thought, this was a shadow of what it was to be­long to a co­terie. I felt a pang of re­gret, of op­por­tun­it­ies lost.

  You are my co­terie. Ver­ity, like a whis­per be­hind me. And some­where, from the dis­tant hills, some­thing less than a sigh. Are we not pack?

  I do have you, I thought back to them. Then I settled in and paid at­ten­tion to what I was do­ing. Oars and backs dipped and rose in uni­son and the Rurisk went nos­ing boldly out into the fog. Our sail hung limp. In a mo­ment, we were a world unto ourselves. Sounds of wa­ter, of the rhythmic unity of our breath­ing as we rowed. A few of the fight­ers spoke softly amongst them­selves, their words and thoughts muffled by the mist. Up in the bow, Justin stood be­side the mas­ter, star­ing out into the fog. His brow was lined, his eyes dis­tant, and I knew he reached for Car­rod aboard the Con­stance. Al­most idly, I reached out too, to see if I could sense what he Skilled.