Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  He smiled down on me. ‘Not in such a small quant­ity. Wal­lace has as­sured me it is good for my nerves, and for my ap­pet­ite as well.’

  ‘Yes, it does won­ders for the ap­pet­ite,’ the Fool chimed in. ‘For the more you have, the more you shall want. Drink yours quickly, Fitz, for no doubt you will have com­pany soon. The more you drink, the less you shall have to share.’ With a ges­ture like a petal un­furl­ing, the Fool waved to­ward the door at the pre­cise in­stant that it opened to ad­mit Regal.

  ‘Ah, more vis­it­ors,’ King Shrewd chuckled pleas­antly. ‘This shall be a merry even­ing in­deed. Sit down, my boy, sit down. The Fitz was just telling us he’d had a vex­a­tious day. So I offered him a mug of my tea to soothe him.’

  ‘No doubt it will do him good,’ Regal agreed pleas­antly. He turned his smile on me. ‘A vex­a­tious day, Fitz?’

  ‘A troub­ling one. First, there was the small mat­ter down at the stables. One of Duke Ram’s men was down there, claim­ing that the Duke had pur­chased four horses. One of them Cliff, the stud-horse we use for the cart-mares. I per­suaded him there must be some mis­take, for the pa­pers were not signed by the King.’

  ‘Oh, those!’ The King chuckled again. ‘Regal had to bring them back to me, I’d for­got­ten to sign them at all. But it is all taken care of now, and I am sure the horses will be on their way to Tilth by the mor­row. Good horses too, Duke Ram will find them. He made a wise bar­gain.’

  ‘I had never thought to see us sell our best stock away from Buck­keep.’ I spoke quietly, look­ing at Regal.

  ‘And neither did I. But with the treas­ury as de­pleted as it is, we have had to take hard meas­ures.’ He re­garded me coolly a mo­ment. ‘Sheep and cattle are to be sold as well. We have not the grain to winter them over any­way. Bet­ter to sell them now than to see them starve this winter.’

  I was out­raged. ‘Why have not we heard of these short­ages be­fore? I have heard noth­ing of a failed har­vest. Times are hard, it is true, but …’

  ‘You have heard noth­ing be­cause you have not been listen­ing. While you and my brother have im­mersed yourselves in the glor­ies of war, I have been deal­ing with the purse to pay for it. And it is well nigh empty. To­mor­row, I will have to tell the men work­ing on the new ships that they must either la­bour for the love of it, or leave off their work. There is no longer coin to pay them, nor to buy the ma­ter­i­als that would be needed to fin­ish the ships.’ He fin­ished his speech and leaned back, con­sid­er­ing me.

  Within me, Ver­ity roiled. I looked to King Shrewd. ‘This is true, my king?’ I asked.

  King Shrewd star­ted. He looked over at me, and blinked his eyes a few times. ‘I did sign those pa­pers, did I not?’ He seemed puzzled, and I think his mind had gone back to a pre­vi­ous con­ver­sa­tion. He had not fol­lowed our talk at all. At his feet, the Fool was strangely si­lent. ‘I thought I had signed the pa­pers. Well, bring them to me now, then. Let us get this done, and then get on with a pleas­ant even­ing.’

  ‘What is to be done about the situ­ation in Bearns? Is it true that the Raid­ers have taken parts of the Near Is­lands?’

  ‘The situ­ation in Bearns,’ he said. He paused, con­sid­er­ing. He took an­other sip of his tea.

  ‘Noth­ing can be done about the situ­ation in Bearns,’ Regal said sadly. Smoothly he ad­ded, ‘It is time Bearns took care of Bearns’ troubles. We can­not beg­gar all Six Duch­ies to pro­tect a bar­ren stretch of coast­line. So the Raid­ers have helped them­selves to a few frozen rocks. I wish them joy of them. We have folk of our own to care for, vil­lages of our own to re­build.’

  I waited in vain for Shrewd to rouse, to say some­thing in de­fence of Bearns. When he was si­lent, I asked quietly, ‘The town of Ferry is scarcely a frozen rock. At least, it wasn’t un­til the Red Ships called. And when did Bearns cease to be part of the Six Duch­ies?’ I looked to Shrewd, tried to make him meet my eyes. ‘My king, I beg you, or­der Se­rene to come. Have her Skill to Ver­ity, that you may coun­sel to­gether about this.’

  Regal grew sud­denly weary of our cat-and-mouse. ‘When did the dog-boy come to be so con­cerned with polit­ics?’ he asked me sav­agely. ‘Why can­not you un­der­stand that the King can make de­cisions without the per­mis­sion of the King-in-Wait­ing? Do you quiz your king on his de­cisions, Fitz? Have you so far for­got­ten your place? I knew Ver­ity had made some­thing of a pet of you, and per­haps your ad­ven­tures with your axe have given you large ideas of your­self. But Prince Ver­ity has seen fit to go gal­li­vant­ing off after a chi­mera, and I am left to keep the Six Duch­ies rat­tling along as best I may.’

  ‘I was present when you en­dorsed King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity’s pro­posal to seek the Eld­er­lings,’ I poin­ted out. King Shrewd seemed to have gone off into an­other wak­ing dream. He stared into the fire.

  ‘And why that was so, I have no idea,’ Regal re­joined smoothly. ‘As I ob­served, you have come to have large ideas of your­self. You eat at the high table, and are clothed by the King’s lar­gesse, and some­how you have come to be­lieve this gives you priv­ileges rather than du­ties. Let me tell you who you really are, Fitz.’ Regal paused. To me it seemed he looked at the King, as if gauging how safe it was for him to speak.

  ‘You,’ he con­tin­ued in a lowered voice, tone as sweet as a min­strel’s, ‘are the mis­be­got­ten bas­tard of a princeling who had not even the cour­age to con­tinue as King-in-Wait­ing. You are the grand­son of a dead queen whose com­mon breed­ing showed in the com­mon wo­man her eld­est son bed­ded to con­ceive you. You who take the name to your­self of FitzChiv­alry Farseer need do no more than scratch your­self to find Name­less the dog-boy. Be grate­ful I do not send you back to the stables, but suf­fer to let you abide in the keep.’

  I do not know what I felt. Nighteyes was snarling at the venom in Regal’s words, while Ver­ity was cap­able of frat­ri­cide at that mo­ment. I glanced at King Shrewd. He cupped his mug of sweet tea in both hands and dreamed into the fire. From the corner of my eyes, I had a glimpse of the Fool. There was fear in his col­our­less eyes, fear as I had never seen there be­fore. And he was look­ing, not at Regal, but at me.

  I ab­ruptly real­ized that I had arisen and was stand­ing over Regal. He was look­ing up at me. Wait­ing. There was a glint of fear in his eyes, but also the shine of tri­umph. All I would have to do was strike at him, and he could call the guards. It would be treason. He would hang me for it. I felt how the fab­ric of my shirt was bind­ing on my shoulders and chest, so swollen with rage was I. I tried to ex­hale, willed the balled fists of my hands to loosen. It took a mo­ment. Hush, I told them, hush, or you’ll get me killed. When I had my voice un­der con­trol, I spoke.

  ‘Many things have been made clear to me this night,’ I said quietly. I turned to King Shrewd. ‘My lord king, I bid you good even­ing, and ask to be ex­cused from your pres­ence.’

  ‘Eh? So you … had an anxious day, lad?’

  ‘I did, my lord king,’ I said softly. His deep eyes looked up into mine as I stood be­fore him, wait­ing to be re­leased. I looked deep into their depths. He was not there. Not as he once had been. He looked at me puzzledly, blinked a few times.

  ‘Well. Per­haps you had best get some rest then. As should I. Fool? Fool, is my bed pre­pared? Warm it with the warm­ing pan. I grow so cold at night these days. Ha! At night these days! There’s a bit of non­sense for you, Fool. How would you say it, to get it aright?’

  The Fool sprang to his feet, bowed deeply be­fore the King. ‘I would say there’s the chill of death about the days these nights as well, your majesty. A cold fair to curl the bones, it is. A man could take his death to it. ’Twould warm me more to hide in your shade than to stand be­fore your sun’s heat.’

  King Shrewd chuckled. ‘You don’t make a bit of sense, Fool. But then you never did. Good night to all, and off to bed, lads, both of you. Good ni
ght, good night.’

  I slipped out while Regal was say­ing a more formal good night to his father. It was all I could do to walk past Wal­lace’s sim­per­ing smile without smash­ing it from his face. Once in the hall out­side, I swiftly sought my own room. I would take the Fool’s ad­vice, I thought, and hide my­self in Chade rather than stand be­fore the heat of the King’s son.

  I spent the rest of that even­ing in my room alone. I knew that as night deepened, Molly would won­der when I did not come tap­ping at her door. But I had no heart for it to­night. I could not sum­mon the en­ergy to slip out of my room and go creep­ing up the stairs and slink­ing down the cor­ridors, al­ways wor­ry­ing that someone might step out ab­ruptly and find me where I had no right to be. At one time, I would have sought out Molly’s warmth and af­fec­tion and found a meas­ure of peace there. That was no longer the case. Now I dreaded the stealth and anxi­ety of our meet­ings, and a guarded­ness that did not even end when her door closed be­hind me. For Ver­ity rode within me, and ever I must guard so that what I felt and thought with Molly did not spill over into the link I shared with Ver­ity.

  I gave up on the scroll I had been try­ing to read. What use now to learn of Eld­er­lings, any­way? Ver­ity would find whatever Ver­ity found. I flung my­self back on my bed and stared up at the ceil­ing. Even still and si­lent, there was no peace in me. My link to Ver­ity was like a hook in my flesh; so must a snagged fish feel when it fights the line. My ties to Nighteyes were on a deeper, more subtle level, but ever he was there as well, green eyes lam­bent in a dark corner of my­self. These parts of me never slept, never res­ted, were never qui­es­cent at all. And that con­stant strain was be­gin­ning to tell on me.

  Hours later, the candles were gut­ter­ing and the fire burned low. A change in the air of my room let me know that Chade had opened his sound­less door to me. I arose and went to him. But with every step I took up that draughty stair­case, my an­ger grew. It was not the kind of an­ger that led to rant­ing and blows between men. This was an an­ger born as much from wear­i­ness and frus­tra­tion as from any hurt. This was the sort of an­ger that led a man to stop everything, to say simply, ‘I can­not bear this any more.’

  ‘Can­not bear what?’ Chade asked me. He looked up from where he hunched over some con­coc­tion he was grind­ing on his stained stone table. There was genu­ine con­cern in his voice. It made me really stop and look at the man I ad­dressed. A tall, skinny old as­sas­sin. Pox-scarred. Hair gone al­most en­tirely white now. Wear­ing the fa­mil­iar grey wool robe, al­ways with stains or the tiny burns he in­flic­ted on his clothes while he worked. I wondered how many men he had killed for his king, killed simply at a word or nod from Shrewd. Killed without ques­tion, true to his oath. For all those deaths, he was a gentle man. Sud­denly I had a ques­tion, a ques­tion more press­ing than an­swer­ing his ques­tion.

  ‘Chade,’ I asked, ‘have you ever killed a man for your own sake?’

  He looked startled. ‘For my own sake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To pro­tect my own life?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t mean when on the King’s busi­ness. I mean killed a man to … make your life sim­pler.’

  He snorted. ‘Of course not.’ He looked at me strangely.

  ‘Why not?’ I pressed.

  He looked in­cred­u­lous. ‘One simply does not go about killing people for con­veni­ence. It’s wrong. It’s called murder, boy.’

  ‘Un­less you do it for your king.’

  ‘Un­less you do it for your king,’ he agreed eas­ily.

  ‘Chade. What’s the dif­fer­ence? If you do it for your­self, or if you do it for Shrewd?’

  He sighed and gave up on the mix­ture he was mak­ing. He moved around the end of the table, sat on a tall stool there, ‘I re­mem­ber ask­ing these ques­tions. But of my­self, as my mentor was gone by the time I was your age.’ He met my eyes firmly. ‘It comes down to faith, boy. Do you be­lieve in your king? And your king has to be more to you than your half-brother, or your grand­father. He has to be more than good old Shrewd, or fine hon­est Ver­ity. He has to be the King. The heart of the king­dom, the centre of the wheel. If he is that, and if you have faith that the Six Duch­ies are worth pre­serving, that the good of all our people is furthered by dis­pens­ing the King’s Justice, then, well.’

  ‘Then you can kill for him.’

  ‘Ex­actly.’

  ‘Have you ever killed against your own judge­ment?’

  ‘You have many ques­tions this night,’ he warned me quietly.

  ‘Per­haps you have left me alone too long to think of them all. When we met near nightly, and talked of­ten and I was busy all the time, I did not think so much. But now I do.’

  He nod­ded slowly. ‘Think­ing is not al­ways … com­fort­ing. It is al­ways good, but not al­ways com­fort­ing. Yes. I’ve killed against my own judge­ment. Again, it came down to faith. I had to be­lieve that the folk who gave the or­der knew more than I did, and were wiser in the ways of the wider world.’

  I was si­lent for a long mo­ment. Chade star­ted to re­lax. ‘Come in. Don’t stand there in the draught. Let’s have a glass of wine to­gether, and then I need to talk to you about …’

  ‘Have you ever killed solely on the basis of your own judge­ment? For the good of the king­dom?’

  For a time Chade looked at me, troubled. I did not look away. He did, fi­nally, star­ing down at his old hands, rub­bing their pa­pery white skin against each other as he fingered the bril­liant red pocks. ‘I do not make those judge­ments.’ He looked up at me sud­denly. ‘I never ac­cep­ted that bur­den, nor wished to. It is not our place, boy. Those de­cisions are for the King.’

  ‘I am not “boy”,’ I poin­ted out, sur­pris­ing my­self. ‘I am FitzChiv­alry.’

  ‘With an em­phasis on the Fitz,’ Chade poin­ted out hast­ily. ‘You are the il­le­git­im­ate get of a man who did not step up to be­come king. He ab­dic­ated. And in that ab­dic­a­tion, he set aside from him­self the mak­ing of judge­ments. You are not king, Fitz, nor even the son of a true king. We are as­sas­sins.’

  ‘Why do we stand by while the true king is poisoned?’ I asked bluntly then. ‘I see it, you see it. He is lured into us­ing herbs that steal his mind, and while he can­not think well, lured to use ones that make him even more fool­ish. We know its im­me­di­ate source, and I sus­pect its true source. And yet we watch him dwindle and grow feeble. Why? Where is the faith in that?’

  His words cut me like knives. ‘I do not know where your faith is. I had thought per­haps it would be in me. That I knew more about it than you did, and that I was loyal to my king.’

  It was my turn to drop my eyes. After a mo­ment, I crossed the room slowly, to the cab­inet where Chade kept the wine and the glasses. I took down a tray, and poured two care­ful glasses from the glass-stoppered bottle. I took the tray to the small table by the hearth. As I had for so many years, I seated my­self on the hearth­stones. After a mo­ment, my mas­ter came and took his place in his well-cush­ioned chair. He lif­ted his wine glass from the tray and sipped.

  ‘This last year has not been an easy time for either of us.’

  ‘You have so sel­dom called me. And when you do, you are full of secrets.’ I tried to keep the ac­cus­a­tion from my voice, but couldn’t quite.

  Chade gave a short bark of laughter. ‘And you be­ing such an open spon­tan­eous fel­low, that an­noys you?’ He laughed again, ig­nor­ing my of­fen­ded look. When he had fin­ished, he wet his mouth with wine again, then looked at me. Amuse­ment still danced in his dark eyes.

  ‘Do not glower at me, boy,’ he told me. ‘I have not ex­pec­ted any­thing from you that you have not de­man­ded from me two-fold. And more. For I have it in my mind that a mas­ter has some right to ex­pect faith and trust from his stu­dent.’

  ‘You do,’ I said after some mo­ments. ‘And you are right. I
have my secrets as well, and I have ex­pec­ted you to trust that they are hon­our­able ones. But my secrets do not con­strain you as yours do me. Every time I visit the King’s cham­bers, I see what Wal­lace’s Smokes and po­tions are do­ing to him. I want to kill Wal­lace, and re­store my king to his wits. And after that, I want to … fin­ish the task. I want to elim­in­ate the source of the pois­ons.’

  ‘You wish to kill me then?’

  It was like be­ing doused with cold wa­ter. ‘You are the source of the pois­ons Wal­lace gives to the King?’ I was sure I had mis­un­der­stood.

  He nod­ded slowly. ‘Some of them. Prob­ably the ones you most ob­ject to.’

  My heart was cold and still in­side me. ‘But, Chade, why?’

  He looked at me, his lips fol­ded tight. After a mo­ment, he opened his mouth and spoke softly. ‘A king’s secrets be­long to a king only. They are not mine to give away, no mat­ter if I think the re­ceiver would keep them safe or not. But if you would only use your mind as I have trained you, you would know my secrets. For I have not hid­den them from you. And from my secret, you could de­duce much on your own.’

  I turned to poke at the fire be­hind me. ‘Chade. I am so weary. Too weary to play at games. Can­not you simply tell me?’

  ‘Of course I could. But it would com­prom­ise my prom­ise to my king. What I do is bad enough.’

  ‘You are split­ting hairs over this!’ I ex­claimed an­grily.

  ‘Per­haps, but they are mine to split,’ he replied with equan­im­ity.

  His very calmness in­furi­ated me. I shook my head vi­ol­ently, put the whole puzzle away from my­self for a bit. ‘Why did you sum­mon me to­night?’ I asked flatly.

  There was a shadow of hurt be­hind the calm in his eyes now. ‘Per­haps just to see you. Per­haps to fore­stall your do­ing some­thing fool­ish and per­man­ent. I know that much of what is go­ing on right now dis­tresses you greatly. I as­sure you, I share your fears. But for now, we must con­tinue on our al­lot­ted paths. With faith. Surely you be­lieve that Ver­ity will re­turn be­fore spring, and put all to rights?’