Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Ver­ity had not been gone more than two days be­fore I heard ru­mours that the true pur­pose of his quest was to seek the Eld­er­lings. I could not blame these on Regal. Those Ver­ity had hand-chosen had known of their true mis­sion. Burrich had fer­reted it out for him­self. If he could, so could an­other, and noise it about. But when I over­heard two pantry-boys laugh­ing about ‘King Wis­dom’s folly, and Prince Ver­ity’s myth’ I sus­pec­ted the ri­dicule was Regal’s do­ing. Ver­ity’s Skilling had made him too much the re­cluse. Folk wondered what he did so long alone in his tower. That is, they knew he Skilled, but that was too tame a topic for gos­sip. His pre­oc­cu­pied stare, his odd hours for eat­ing and rest, his si­lent ghost­ing through the castle while other folks were abed were all grist for this mill. Had he lost his mind, and set out on a mad­man’s er­rand? Spec­u­la­tion began to grow, and Regal gave it fer­tile ground. He found ex­cuses and reas­ons for all sorts of ban­quets and gath­er­ings of his nobles. King Shrewd was sel­dom well enough to be present and Kettricken did not en­joy the com­pany of the witty knaves that Regal cul­tiv­ated. I knew enough to stay away. I had only my­self and Chade to grumble to about the cost of these parties when Regal had in­sisted that there were scarcely funds for Ver­ity’s ex­ped­i­tion. Chade only shook his head.

  The old man had be­come more close-mouthed of late, even with me. I had the un­com­fort­able feel­ing that Chade kept a secret from me. Secrets in them­selves were noth­ing new. The old as­sas­sin was stuffed full of secrets. I simply could not be rid of the feel­ing that this secret some­how touched on me dir­ectly. I could not ask him out­right, but I watched him. His work table showed signs of heavy use when I was not about. Even stranger, all messes as­so­ci­ated with that work had been cleaned me­tic­u­lously whenever he summoned me. This was bizarre. For years I had ti­died up after him and his ‘cook­ing’. Now, for him to straighten up after him­self seemed either a sharp re­buke to me or a con­ceal­ment of whatever he had been do­ing.

  Un­able to res­ist, I watched him whenever I could. I learned noth­ing of his secret, but saw much that I had pre­vi­ously missed. Chade was get­ting old. Never tol­er­ant of cold, the stiff­ness it brought to his joints no longer yiel­ded to the cosy even­ings be­fore his hearth. He was Shrewd’s elder half-brother, bas­tard as I was, and des­pite his stiff­ness, he still seemed the younger of the two. But he held scrolls farther from his nose when he read now, and avoided reach­ing for any­thing over his head. To watch these changes in him was as pain­ful as to know he kept a secret from me.

  Twenty-three days after Ver­ity left, I came back from a dawn hunt with Nighteyes to find the keep abuzz. The feel­ing was that of a stirred ant-nest, but with none of their pur­pose­ful­ness. I went straight to Cook Sara and asked her what had happened. The kit­chen of any keep is the heart of the ru­mour-mill, second only to the guard-room. At Buck­keep, the kit­chen gos­sip was usu­ally more ac­cur­ate.

  ‘A rider come in, his horse near to dead. Said there’s been a raid up at Ferry. The whole city near gone from the fires they set. Sev­enty folk Forged. How many dead, there’s no telling yet. And more will die, made home­less in this cold. Three ship­loads of Raid­ers, the boy said. He went straight to Prince Regal, he did, and re­por­ted. Prince Regal sent him here to be fed; he’s in the guard-room now, asleep.’ She lowered her voice. ‘That boy came all this way on his own. Got fresh horses in towns he went through, com­ing down the coast road, but wouldn’t let no one else carry his mes­sage for him. He told me that every leg of the way, he kept ex­pect­ing to find help com­ing, to hear from someone that they already knew and that ships had been sent out. But there was noth­ing.’

  ‘From Ferry? Then it’s been at least five days since it happened. Why weren’t the sig­nal tower fires lit?’ I de­man­ded. ‘Or the mes­sage birds sent to Gulls and Seal­bay? King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity left a patrol ship in that area. The patrol ship should have been able to see the light from Gulls or Ferry. And there’s a co­terie mem­ber, Will, at Red Tower. He should have seen the sig­nal fires. He should have sent word back here, to Se­rene. How could it be that no word was re­ceived here; how could we know noth­ing at all of this?’

  Cook lowered her voice even more, gave the dough she was knead­ing a mean­ing­ful thump. ‘Boy said the sig­nal fires were lit, at Ferry and at Ice Town. He says the birds were sent to Gulls. The ship never came.’

  ‘Then why didn’t we know?’ I took a deep shud­der­ing breath, set aside by use­less an­ger. Within me, I felt a faint stir­ring of con­cern from Ver­ity. Too faint. The Skill bond was fad­ing, just when I wished it strong. ‘Well, I sup­pose it’s no good ask­ing that just now. What has Regal done? Sent out the Rurisk? I wish I’d been here to go with them.’

  Cook snorted and paused to throttle the dough a bit. ‘Go now, then, for you won’t be late. Noth­ing’s been done, no one sent that I’ve heard. No one sent, no one is be­ing sent. No one. You know I’ve no tongue For gos­sip, Fitz, but what was whispered was that Prince Regal did know of it. When the boy came in, oh, the Prince was so kind, so full of sym­pathy as to make the ladies’ hearts melt. A meal, a new coat, a small purse for his troubles. But he told the boy it was too late now. The Raid­ers would be long gone. No sense to send a ship out now, or sol­diers.’

  ‘Too late to fight Raid­ers, per­haps. But what of those burned out in Ferry? A con­tin­gent of work­ers to help re­pair houses, some wag­ons of food …’

  ‘Says there’s no coin for it,’ Cook bit each word off sep­ar­ately. She began to break her dough into rolls and to slap each one down to rise. ‘Says the treas­ury was drained to build ships and man them. Said Ver­ity took what little was left for this ex­ped­i­tion to find Eld­er­lings.’ A world of dis­dain on the last word. Cook paused to wipe her hands on her ap­ron. ‘Then he said he was very sorry. Very truly sorry.’

  A cold fury un­coiled in­side me. I pat­ted Cook’s shoulder and as­sured her that everything would be all right. Like a man in a daze, I left the kit­chen and went to Ver­ity’s study. Once in­side the study, I paused, grop­ing. One clear glimpse of Ver­ity’s in­tent. In the back of a drawer, I would find an an­tique em­er­ald neck­lace, the stones set in gold. It had been his mother’s mother’s. It would be enough to hire men, and buy grain to send with them. I pushed open the study door, and hal­ted.

  Ver­ity was an un­tidy man, and he had packed hast­ily. Charim had gone with him; he had not been here to clean up after him. But this was no act of either of them. To an­other man’s eyes, prob­ably little would have seemed amiss. But I saw the room both as my­self and as Ver­ity. It had been gone through. Who­ever had done it had either not cared if it was de­tec­ted, or had not known Ver­ity well. Every drawer was neatly shut, every cup­board closed. The chair was pushed up close to the table. It was all too tidy. Without much hope, I went to the drawer and opened it. I pulled it com­pletely open, and peered into the back corner. Per­haps Ver­ity’s own un­tidi­ness had saved it. I would not have looked for an em­er­ald neck­lace un­der a jumble that in­cluded an old spur, a broken belt-buckle and a piece of antler partly worked into a knife-haft. But it was there, wrapped up in a scrap of homespun. There were sev­eral other small but valu­able items to be re­moved from the room. As I gathered them, I was puzzled. If these had not been taken, what had been the goal of the search? If not minor valu­ables, then what?

  Meth­od­ic­ally, I sor­ted out a dozen vel­lum maps, and then began to re­move sev­eral oth­ers from the wall. As I was care­fully rolling one of them, Kettricken entered si­lently. My Wit had made me aware of her be­fore she had even touched the door, so I glanced up to meet her eyes without sur­prise. I stood firm be­fore the surge of Ver­ity’s emo­tion that rushed through me. The sight of her seemed to strengthen him within me. She was lovely, pale and slender in a robe of soft blue wool. I caught my breath and looked aside. She looked
at me quiz­zically.

  ‘Ver­ity wanted these put away while he was gone. Damp can harm them, and this room is sel­dom heated when he is not here,’ I ex­plained as I fin­ished rolling the map.

  She nod­ded. ‘It seems so empty and cold in here without him. Not just the cold hearth. There is no scent of him, none of his clut­ter …’

  ‘Then you ti­died in here?’ I tried to ask it cas­u­ally.

  ‘No!’ she laughed. ‘My tidy­ing only des­troys what little or­der he keeps here. No, I will leave it as he left it, un­til he re­turns. I want him to come home to his own things in their places.’ Her face grew grave. ‘But this room is the least of it. I sent a page to find you this morn­ing, but you were out. Have you heard the news about Ferry?’

  ‘Only the gos­sip,’ I replied.

  ‘Then you have heard as much as I. I was not summoned,’ she said coldly. Then she turned to me, and there was pain in her eyes. ‘I heard the most of it from Lady Mod­esty, who heard Regal’s serving-man talk­ing to her maid. The guards­men went to Regal, to tell him of the mes­sen­ger’s ar­rival. Surely, they should have sent to me? Do not they think of me as a queen at all?’

  ‘My lady queen,’ I re­minded her gently, ‘by all rights, the mes­sage should have been taken dir­ectly to King Shrewd. I sus­pect it was, and Regal’s men, who mind the King’s door, sent for him in­stead of you.’

  Her head came up. ‘There is a thing that must be remedied, then. Two can play at that silly game.’

  ‘I won­der if other mes­sages have sim­il­arly gone astray,’ I spec­u­lated aloud.

  Her blue eyes turned grey with chill. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The mes­sage birds, the sig­nal fires. A Skill mes­sage, from Will in Red Tower to Se­rene. Surely at least one of these things should have brought us word that Ferry was at­tacked. One might go astray, but all three?’

  Her face paled, her mind made the leap. ‘The Duke of Bearns will be­lieve his call for aid went un­heeded.’ She lif­ted a hand to cover her mouth. She whispered through it, ‘This is treach­ery to de­fame Ver­ity!’ Her eyes grew very round and she hissed at me sud­denly, ‘It shall not be tol­er­ated!’

  She turned and rushed for the door, an­ger in her every mo­tion. I was barely able to leap in front of her. I put my back to it, held it closed. ‘Lady, my lady queen, I beg you, wait! Wait and con­sider!’

  ‘Con­sider what? How best to re­veal the depth of his per­fidy?’

  ‘We are not in the best po­s­i­tion of power in this. Please, wait. Think with me. You think, as I do, that Regal must have known some­thing of this and kept si­lent. But we have no proof. None at all. And per­haps we are wrong. We must go a step at a time, lest we bring dis­sen­sion when we want it least. The first per­son to speak to must be King Shrewd. To see if he has been aware of this at all, to see if he has sanc­tioned Regal to speak on his be­half.’

  ‘He would not!’ she de­clared an­grily.

  ‘He is of­ten not him­self,’ I re­minded her. ‘But he, not you, must be the one to re­buke Regal pub­licly, if it is to be pub­lic. If you speak out against him, and the King later sup­ports him, the nobles will see the Farseers as a house di­vided. Already, there has been too much doubt and dis­cord sown amongst them. This is not a time to set In­land duch­ies against Coastal ones, with Ver­ity not here.’

  She hal­ted. I could see that she still quivered with an­ger, but at least she was hear­ing me. She took a breath. I sensed her calm­ing her­self.

  ‘This was why he left you here, Fitz. To see these things for me.’

  ‘What?’ It was my turn to be jol­ted.

  ‘I thought you had known. You must have wondered why he did not ask you to ac­com­pany him. It was be­cause I asked him who I should trust, as an ad­visor. He said to rely on you.’

  Had he for­got­ten Chade’s ex­ist­ence, I wondered, and then real­ized that Kettricken knew noth­ing of Chade. He must have known I would func­tion as a go-between. In­side my­self, I felt Ver­ity’s agree­ment. Chade. In the shad­ows as al­ways.

  ‘Think with me again,’ she bade me. ‘What will hap­pen next?’

  She was right. This was not an isol­ated in­stance.

  ‘We will have vis­it­ors. The Duke of Bearns and his lesser nobles. Duke Brawndy is not a man to send emis­sar­ies on a mis­sion like that. He will come him­self and he will de­mand an­swers. And all the Coastal dukes will be listen­ing to what is said to him. His coast is the most ex­posed of all, save that of Buck it­self.’

  ‘Then we must have an­swers worth hear­ing,’ Kettricken de­clared. She closed her eyes. She set her hands to her fore­head for a mo­ment, then pressed her own cheeks. I real­ized how great a con­trol she was keep­ing. Dig­nity, she was telling her­self, calm and ra­tion­al­ity. She took a breath and looked at me again. ‘I go to see King Shrewd,’ she an­nounced. ‘I shall ask him about everything. This whole situ­ation. I shall ask him what he in­tends to do. He is the King. His po­s­i­tion must be af­firmed to him.’

  ‘I think that is a wise de­cision,’ I told her.

  ‘I must go alone. If you go with me, if you are al­ways at my side, it will make me ap­pear weak. It may give rise to ru­mours of a schism in the reign. You un­der­stand this?’

  ‘I do.’ Though I longed to hear for my­self what Shrewd might say to her.

  She ges­tured at the maps and items I had sor­ted onto a table. ‘You have a safe place for those?’

  Chade’s cham­bers. ‘I do.’

  ‘Good.’ She ges­tured with a hand, and I real­ized I was still block­ing her from the door. I stepped aside. As she swept past me, her moun­tain­sweet scent en­gulfed me for a mo­ment. My knees went weak, and I cursed the fate that sent em­er­alds to re­build houses when they should have girdled that grace­ful throat. But I knew, too, with a fierce pride, that if I set them in her hands this mo­ment, she would in­sist they be spent for Ferry. I slipped them into a pocket. Per­haps she would be able to rouse King Shrewd’s wrath, and he would rattle the coin loose from Regal’s pocket. Per­haps, when I re­turned, these em­er­alds could still clasp that warm skin.

  If Kettricken had looked back, she would have seen the Fitz blush­ing with her hus­band’s thoughts.

  I went down to the stables. It had al­ways been a sooth­ing place for me, and with Burrich gone I felt a cer­tain ob­lig­a­tion to look in on it from time to time. Not that Hands had shown any signs of need­ing my help. But this time as I ap­proached the stable doors, there was a knot of men out­side them, and voices raised in an­ger. A young stable-boy hung onto the head­stall of an im­mense draught-horse. An older boy was tug­ging at a lead at­tached to the horse’s hal­ter, at­tempt­ing to take the horse from the boy, as a man in Tilth col­ours looked on. The usu­ally pla­cid an­imal was be­com­ing dis­tressed at the tug­ging. In a mo­ment, someone was go­ing to get hurt.

  I stepped boldly into the midst of it, pluck­ing the lead from the startled boy’s hand even as I ques­ted sooth­ingly to­ward the horse. He did not know me as well as he once had, but he calmed at the touch. ‘What goes on here?’ I asked the stable-boy.

  ‘They came and took Cliff out of his stall. Without even ask­ing. He’s my horse to take care of each day. But they didn’t even tell me what they were do­ing.’

  ‘I have or­ders …’ began the man who had been stand­ing by.

  ‘I am speak­ing to someone,’ I in­formed him, and turned back to the boy. ‘Has Hands left or­ders with you about this horse?’

  ‘Only the usual ones.’ The boy had been close to tears when I first came on the struggle. Now that he had a po­ten­tial ally, his voice was firm­ing. He stood up straighter and met my eyes.

  ‘Then it’s simple. We take the horse back to his stall un­til we have other or­ders from Hands. No horse moves from the Buck­keep stable without the know­ledge of the act­ing Sta­ble­mas­ter.’ The bo
y had never let go his grip on Cliff’s head­stall. Now I placed the lead rope in his hands.

  ‘Ex­actly what I thought, sir,’ he told me chirpily. He turned on his heel. ‘Thank you, sir. Come on, Clif­fie.’ The boy marched off with the big horse lum­ber­ing pla­cidly after him.

  ‘I have or­ders to take that an­imal. Duke Ram of Tilth wishes him sent up the river im­me­di­ately.’ The man in Tilth col­ours was breath­ing through his nose at me.

  ‘He does, does he? And has he cleared that with our Sta­ble­mas­ter?’ I was sure he had not.

  ‘What goes on here?’ This was Hands come run­ning, very pink about the ears and cheeks. On an­other man it might have looked funny. I knew it meant he was angry.

  The Tilth man drew him­self up straight. ‘This man, and one of your stable-hands in­terfered when we came to get our stock from the stables!’ he de­clared haught­ily.

  ‘Cliff isn’t Tilth stock. He was foaled right here at Buck­keep. Six years ago. I was present at the time,’ I poin­ted out.

  The man gave me a con­des­cend­ing look. ‘I was not speak­ing to you. I was speak­ing to him.’ He jerked a thumb at Hands.

  ‘I have a name, sir,’ Hands poin­ted out coldly. ‘Hands. I’m act­ing as Sta­ble­mas­ter while Burrich is gone with King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity. He has a name, too. FitzChiv­alry. He as­sists me from time to time. He be­longs to my stable. As does my stable-boy, and my horse. As to you, if you have a name, I haven’t been told it. I know of no reason why you should be in my stable.’

  Burrich had taught Hands well. We ex­changed a glance. In ac­cord, we turned our backs and began to go back into the stables.

  ‘I am Lance, a sta­ble­man for Duke Ram. That horse was sold to my duke. And not just him. Two spot­ted mares, and a geld­ing as well. I have the pa­pers here.’

  As we turned back slowly, the Tilth man proffered a scroll. My heart lurched at the sight of a blob of red wax with the buck sign mashed into it. It looked real. Hands took it slowly. He gave me a side­ways glance, and I moved to stand be­side him. He had some let­ters, but read­ing was usu­ally a lengthy busi­ness for him. Burrich had been work­ing on it with him, but let­ters did not come eas­ily to him. I looked over his shoulder as he un­rolled the scroll and began to study it.