Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Even by the light of day, it was still dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand all that had happened. The earth around the blackened re­mains of the Queen’s shel­ter was trampled into mud. Here the fight­ing had been heav­iest. Here was where most of the en­emy had fallen. Some bod­ies had been dragged aside and tumbled into a heap. Oth­ers still lay where they had fallen. I avoided look­ing at them. It is one thing to kill in fear and an­ger. It is an­other thing to con­sider one’s handi­work by the chill grey light of morn­ing.

  That the Outis­landers had tried to break through our siege was un­der­stand­able. They had, per­haps, had a chance of mak­ing it as far as their ships and re­claim­ing one or two of them. That the at­tack seemed to fo­cus on the Queen’s tent was least com­pre­hens­ible. Once clear of the earth­works, why had not they seized their chance for sur­vival and headed for the beach?

  ‘Per­haps,’ ob­served Burrich, grit­ting his teeth as I probed the angry swell­ing on his leg, ‘they did not hope to es­cape at all. It is their Outis­lander way, to de­cide to die, and then to at­tempt to do as much dam­age be­fore do­ing so. So they at­tacked here, hop­ing to kill our queen.’

  I had dis­covered Burrich, limp­ing about the battle­ground. He did not say he had been look­ing for my body. His re­lief at see­ing me was evid­ence enough of that.

  ‘How did they know it was the Queen in that tent?’ I pondered. ‘We flew no ban­ners, we is­sued no chal­lenges. How did they know she was here? There. Is that any bet­ter?’ I checked the band­age for snug­ness.

  ‘It’s dry and it’s clean and the wrap­ping seems to help the pain. I don’t sup­pose we can do much more than that. I sus­pect that whenever I work that leg hard, I’m go­ing to have the swell­ing and heat in it.’ He spoke as dis­pas­sion­ately as if he dis­cussed a horse’s bad leg. ‘At least it stayed closed. They did seem to make straight for the Queen’s tent, didn’t they?’

  ‘Like bees to honey,’ I ob­served tiredly. ‘The Queen is in Bay­guard?’

  ‘Of course. Every­one is. You should have heard the cheer when they opened the gates to us. Queen Kettricken walked in, her skirts still bundled to one side, her drawn blade still drip­ping. Duke Kelvar went down on his knees to kiss her hand. But Lady Grace looked at her, and said, “Oh, my dear, I shall have a bath drawn for you at once”.’

  ‘Now there is the stuff they make songs of,’ I said, and we laughed. ‘But not all are up at the keep. I saw a girl just now, com­ing for wa­ter, down in the ru­ins.’

  ‘Well, up at the keep they are re­joicing. There will be some who will have small heart for that. Fox­glove was wrong. The folk of Neat­bay did not yield eas­ily be­fore the Red Ships. Many, many died be­fore the Neat­bay folk re­treated to the keep.’

  ‘Does any­thing strike you as odd about that?’

  ‘That folk should de­fend them­selves? No. It is …’

  ‘Does not it seem to you that there were too many Outis­landers here? More than five ships’ worth?’

  Burrich hal­ted. He looked back to the scattered bod­ies. ‘Per­haps those other ships had left them here, and then gone out on patrol …’

  ‘That is not their way. I sus­pect a lar­ger ship, trans­port­ing a size­able force of men.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Gone now. I think I glimpsed it, go­ing into that fog bank.’

  We fell si­lent. Burrich showed me to where he had tethered Ruddy and Sooty and we rode to­gether up to Bay­guard. The great doors of the keep stood wide open, and a com­bin­a­tion of Buck­keep sol­diers and Bay­guard folk mingled there. We were greeted with a shout of wel­come, and offered brim­ming cups of mead be­fore we were even dis­moun­ted. Boys begged to take our horses for us, and to my sur­prise, Burrich let them. Within the hall was genu­ine re­joicing that would have put any of Regal’s rev­els to shame. All of Bay­guard had been thrown open for us. Ewers and basins of warm, scen­ted wa­ter had been set out in the Great Hall for us to re­fresh ourselves, and tables were heavy with food, none of it hard bread or salt­fish.

  We re­mained three days at Neat­bay. Dur­ing this time, our dead were bur­ied, and the bod­ies of the Outis­landers burned. Buck­keep sol­diers and Queen’s Guard fell in along­side the people of Neat­bay to as­sist in the re­pairs to Bay­guard’s for­ti­fic­a­tions and in sal­va­ging what was left of Neat­bay town. I made a few quiet in­quir­ies. I found that the watchtower sig­nal had been lit as soon as the ships were sighted, but that the Red Ships had made ex­tin­guish­ing it one of their first goals. What of their co­terie mem­ber, I asked? Kelvar looked at me in sur­prise. Burl had been re­called weeks ago, for some es­sen­tial duty in­land. He had gone to Trade­ford, Kelvar be­lieved.

  The day after the battle, re­in­force­ments ar­rived from South Cove. They had not seen the sig­nal fire, but the mes­sen­gers sent out on horse had got through to them. I was present when Kettricken com­men­ded Duke Kelvar for his foresight in set­ting up a re­lay of horse for such mes­sages, and sent her thanks also to Duke Shem­shy of Shoaks for his re­sponse. She sug­ges­ted they di­vide the cap­tured ships, that they need no longer wait for war­ships to ar­rive, but could dis­patch their own, for mu­tual de­fence. This was a sump­tu­ous gift, and it was re­ceived in an awed si­lence. When Duke Kelvar re­covered him­self, he rose to of­fer a toast to his queen and to the un­born Farseer heir. So swiftly had the ru­mour be­come gen­eral know­ledge. Queen Kettricken col­oured pret­tily, but man­aged her thanks well.

  Those brief days of vic­tory were a heal­ing balm to us all. We had fought, and fought well. Neat­bay would re­build, and the Outis­landers had no hold in Bay­guard. For a brief time, it seemed pos­sible that we could win free of them en­tirely.

  Be­fore we had left Neat­bay, the songs were already be­ing sung, about a queen with her skirts bundled up stand­ing bold against the Red Ships, and of the child in her womb who was a war­rior be­fore birth. That the Queen would risk not only her­self but the heir to the throne for Rip­pon Duchy was not lost upon any of them. First Duke Brawndy of Bearns, and now Kelvar of Rip­pon, I thought to my­self. Kettricken was do­ing well at win­ning the duch­ies’ loy­alty.

  I had my mo­ments at Neat­bay, both warm­ing and chilling. For Lady Grace, on see­ing me in the Great Hall, re­cog­nized me and came to speak to me. ‘So,’ she had said after greet­ing me quietly, ‘my kit­chen dog-boy has the blood of kings in him. No won­der you ad­vised me so well, those years ago.’ She had grown well into be­ing a lady and a duch­ess. Her feist dog still went every­where with her, but now he ran about at her heels, and this change pleased me al­most as much as her easy car­riage of her title and her ob­vi­ous af­fec­tion for her duke.

  ‘We have both changed much, Lady Grace,’ I replied, and she ac­cep­ted the com­pli­ment I in­ten­ded. The last time I had seen her had been when I had trav­elled here with Ver­ity. She had not then been so com­fort­able be­ing a duch­ess. I had met her in the kit­chens, when her dog had been chok­ing on a bone. I had per­suaded her then that her duke’s coin was bet­ter spent on watch towers than jew­ellery for her. Back then, she had been very new to be­ing a duch­ess. Now she seemed to have never been any­thing else.

  ‘Not a dog-boy any more?’ she asked with a wry smile.

  ‘Dog-boy? Man-wolf!’ ob­served someone. I turned to see who had spoken, but the hall was crowded and no face seemed turned to watch us. I shrugged as if the re­mark were of no con­sequence, and Lady Grace ap­peared not to have even heard it. She presen­ted me with a token of her fa­vour be­fore I left. It still makes me smile to think on it: a tiny pin in the shape of a fish’s bones. ‘I had this made, to re­mind me … I should like you to have it now.’ She her­self sel­dom wore jew­ellery any more, she told me. She handed it to me on a bal­cony, on a dark even­ing when the lights of Duke Kelvar’s watchtowers glittered like dia­monds against the black sky.

&nbs
p; TWENTY-FIVE

  Buck­keep

  Trade­ford Castle on the Vin River was one of the tra­di­tional res­id­ences of the rul­ing fam­ily of Far­row. This was the place where Queen De­sire had spent her child­hood, and here she re­turned with her son Regal dur­ing the sum­mers of his child­hood. The town of Trade­ford is a lively place, a centre for com­merce in the heart of orch­ard and grain coun­try. The Vin River is a sleepily nav­ig­able wa­ter, mak­ing travel easy and pleas­ant. Queen De­sire had al­ways in­sisted it was su­per­ior to Buck­keep in every re­gard and would have served much bet­ter as a seat for the royal fam­ily.

  The trip back to Buck­keep was event­ful only in small ways. Kettricken was worn and tired by the time we were to re­turn. Al­though she tried not to show it, it was evid­ent in the circles un­der her eyes and the set of her mouth. Duke Kelvar fur­nished her with a lit­ter for the trip home, but a brief ride in it showed her that its sway­ing only made her more naus­eous. She re­turned it with thanks, and rode home astride her mare.

  Dur­ing the second night on the road home, Fox­glove came to our fire and told Burrich she thought she had seen a wolf sev­eral times that day. Burrich shrugged in­dif­fer­ently and as­sured her it was prob­ably just curi­ous, and was no threat to us. After she left, Burrich turned to me and said, ‘That’s go­ing to hap­pen once too of­ten.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A wolf, seen in your vi­cin­ity. Fitz, have a care. There were ru­mours, back when you killed those Forged ones. There were tracks all about, and the marks on those men were never made by any blade. Someone told me they saw a wolf prowl­ing Neat­bay the night of the battle. I even heard a wild tale about a wolf who changed into a man when the battle was over. There were tracks in the mud out­side the Queen’s very tent from that night; as well for you that every­one was so tired, and in so much of a hurry to dis­pose of the dead. There were a few there that did not die at a man’s hand.’

  A few! Fa!

  Burrich’s face con­tor­ted in an­ger. ‘That will cease. Now.’

  You are strong, Heart of the Pack, but –

  The thought was broken and I heard a sud­den yelp of sur­prise from off in the brush. Sev­eral of the horses startled and looked in that dir­ec­tion. I my­self was star­ing at Burrich. He had re­pelled at Nighteyes, fiercely and from a dis­tance.

  Luck­ily for you, from a dis­tance, for the strength of that … I began to warn Nighteyes.

  Burrich’s gaze swung to me. ‘I said, that will cease! Now!’ He looked aside from me in dis­gust. ‘I’d rather you rode with your hand in your pants than that you did that con­stantly in my pres­ence. It of­fends me.’

  I could think of noth­ing to say. Years of liv­ing to­gether had taught me that he would not be ar­gued out of his feel­ings about the Wit. That he knew I was bon­ded to Nighteyes and would still tol­er­ate my pres­ence was as far as he could un­bend. I need not con­stantly re­mind him that the wolf and I shared minds. I bowed my head in as­sent. That night, for the first time in a long time, my dreams were my own.

  I dreamed of Molly. She wore red skirts again, and crouched on the beach, cut­ting sheel from the stones with her belt knife and eat­ing them raw. She looked up at me and smiled. I came closer. She leaped up and ran bare­foot down the beach in front of me. I chased her, but she was as fleet as she had ever been. Her hair blew back off her shoulders, and she only laughed when I called out to her to wait, wait. I awoke feel­ing strangely glad that she had out­run me, and with the dream scent of lav­ender still in my mind.

  We ex­pec­ted to be well greeted at Buck­keep. The ships, given the kinder weather, should have made land be­fore us, to give tid­ings of our suc­cess. So we were not sur­prised to see a con­tin­gent of Regal’s guard com­ing forth to meet us. What did seem strange was that after they sighted us, they con­tin­ued to walk their horses. Not a man yelled, or waved a greet­ing. In­stead they came to­ward us si­lent and sober as ghosts. I think Burrich and I saw at the same time the baton the lead man car­ried, the small pol­ished stick that be­tokened ser­i­ous tid­ings.

  He turned to me as we watched them ap­proach. Dread was writ­ten large on his face. ‘King Shrewd has died?’ he sug­ges­ted softly.

  I felt no sur­prise, only a gap­ing loss in me. A frightened boy in­side me gasped that now no one and noth­ing could stand between me and Regal. In an­other part, I wondered what it would have been like to call him grand­father in­stead of my king. But those selfish parts were small com­pared to what it meant to be this King’s Man. Shrewd had shaped me, made me what I was, for good or ill. He had picked up my life one day, a boy play­ing un­der a table in the Great Hall, and set his stamp upon it. His de­cision that I must read and write, must be able to wield a sword or dis­pense a poison. It seemed to me that with his passing, I must take re­spons­ib­il­ity for my own acts now. It was a strangely fright­en­ing thought.

  All had be­come aware of the lead man’s bur­den. We hal­ted on the road. Like a cur­tain part­ing, Kettricken’s guard opened to al­low him to ap­proach her. A ter­rible si­lence held as he handed her the baton, and then the small scroll. The red seal­ing wax flaked away from her nail. I watched it fall to the muddy road. Slowly she opened the scroll, and read it. Some­thing went out of her in that read­ing. Her hand fell to her side. She let the scroll fol­low the wax to the mud, a thing done with, a thing she never wished to per­use again. She did not faint, nor cry out. Her eyes looked afar, and she set her hand gently upon her belly. And in that mo­tion, I knew it was not Shrewd who was dead, but Ver­ity.

  I reached for him. Some­where, surely some­where, coiled small in­side me, a spark of a link, the ti­ni­est thread of a con­nec­tion … no. I did not even know when it had van­ished. I re­called that whenever I fought, I was likely to break my link with him. It did not help. I re­called now what had seemed just an oddity on the night of the battle. I had thought I had heard Ver­ity’s voice, cry­ing out, is­su­ing or­ders that made no sense. I could not re­call one in­di­vidual word of what he might have shouted. But now it seemed to me that they had been battle or­ders, or­ders to scat­ter, to seek cover per­haps, or … but I could not re­call any­thing with cer­tainty. I looked over at Burrich, to find the ques­tion in his eyes. I had to shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly. His brow fur­rowed as he con­sidered this.

  Queen-in-Wait­ing Kettricken sat very still on her horse. No one moved to touch her, no one spoke a word. I glanced at Burrich, met his eyes. I saw fa­tal­istic resig­na­tion there. This was the second time he had seen a King-in-Wait­ing fall be­fore as­cend­ing the throne. After a long si­lence, Kettricken turned in her saddle. She sur­veyed her guard, and the moun­ted sol­diers who fol­lowed her. ‘Prince Regal has had tid­ings that King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity is dead.’ She did not raise her voice, but her clear words car­ried. Mer­ri­ment faded, and the tri­umph went out of every eye. She gave it a few mo­ments to settle in. Then she nudged her horse to a walk, and we fol­lowed her back to Buck­keep.

  We ap­proached the gate un­chal­lenged. The sol­diers on watch looked up at us as we passed. One made a sketchy sa­lute to the Queen. She did not no­tice it. Burrich’s scowl deepened, but he said noth­ing.

  Within the castle court­yard, it seemed an or­din­ary day. Stable-help came to take the horses while other ser­vants and folk moved about on the or­din­ary busi­ness of the keep. Some­how the very fa­mili­ar­ity of it rattled against my nerves like stones. Ver­ity was dead. It did not seem right that life should go on in such a work­aday fash­ion.

  Burrich had helped Kettricken to dis­mount into a cluster of her ladies. A part of me noted the look on Fox­glove’s face as Kettricken was hustled away by court ladies who were ex­claim­ing over how worn she looked, was she well, amid ex­clam­a­tions of sym­pathy, re­gret and sor­row: a twinge of jeal­ousy passed over the face of the cap­tain of the Queen’s Guard. Fox­
glove was but a sol­dier, sworn to pro­tect her queen. She could not, at this time, fol­low her into the keep, no mat­ter how much she cared about her. Kettricken was in the care of her court ladies now. But I knew Burrich would not stand guard alone be­fore Kettricken’s door to­night.

  The so­li­cit­ous mur­mur­ing of her ladies on Kettricken’s be­half was enough to let me know that the ru­mour of her preg­nancy had been spread. I won­der if it had yet been shared with Regal. I was well aware that some gos­sip cir­cu­lated al­most en­tirely through the wo­men be­fore be­com­ing com­mon know­ledge. I sud­denly wanted very badly to know if Regal knew that Kettricken car­ried the heir to the throne. I handed Sooty’s reins to Hands, thanked him, and prom­ised to tell him all later. But as I headed for the keep, Burrich’s hand fell on my shoulder.

  ‘A word with you. Now.’

  Some­times he treated me al­most as if I were a prince, some­times as less than a stable-boy. These words now were no re­quest. Hands gave me Sooty’s reins back with a wry smile, and van­ished to see to other an­im­als. I fol­lowed Burrich as he led Ruddy into the stables. He had no prob­lem find­ing an empty stall for Ruddy near Sooty’s reg­u­lar stall. There were only too many stalls avail­able. We both began mat­ter-of-factly to work on the horses. The old fa­mili­ar­ity of that routine, see­ing to a horse while Burrich worked near by, was com­fort­ing. Our end of the stable was re­l­at­ively quiet, but he waited un­til no one was about be­fore ask­ing, ‘Is it true?’