Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘Blade!’ I greeted him with de­light, think­ing him an ally. Then, as I no­ticed his de­fens­ive stance, I told him, ‘You know I would not draw blade against you!’

  ‘I know that well, lad,’ he told me sadly, and the old sol­dier flung him­self for­ward to trap me in a bear hug. I do not know who hit me on the back of the head, or with what.

  THIRTY

  Dun­geons

  If a hounds­man sus­pect that a dog-boy is us­ing the Wit to de­file and di­vert the hounds to his own ends, he should be watch­ful for these signs, if the boy speaks not over­much to his fel­lows, be wary. If the hounds perk up be­fore the boy is in sight, or whine be­fore he has left, be watch­ful. If a hound will leave off his snuff­ing for a bitch in sea­son, or turn aside from a bloodtrail and lie quiet at the boy’s word, be cer­tain. Let the boy be hung, over wa­ter if pos­sible, well away from the stables, and his body burned. Let every hound he has trained be drowned, as well as all sired by de­filed hounds. A hound who has known the Wit use will neither fear nor re­spect any other mas­ter, but is sure to turn vi­cious when de­prived of the Wit­ted one. A Wit­ted boy can­not be trus­ted to beat an un­ruly hound, nor will he suf­fer his Wit hound to be sold away, or used as bear-bait, no mat­ter how old the dog. A Wit-boy will turn his mas­ter’s hounds to his own pur­poses, and never has any true loy­alty to his mas­ter, but only to his Wit-hound.

  I woke up some­time. Of all the cruel jests fate had re­cently played on me, I de­cided that awaken­ing was the cruellest. I lay still and cata­logued my vari­ous dis­com­forts. The ex­haus­tion from my car­ris seed frenzy com­bined well with the ex­haus­tion from my Skill battle with Justin and Se­rene. I had taken some nasty sword cuts to my right fore­arm, and one to my left thigh that I re­called not at all. None of them had been dressed; my sleeve and trousers were mat­ted to my skin with dried blood. Who­ever had knocked me un­con­scious had made sure of his work with sev­eral more blows. Other than that, I was fine. I told my­self this a num­ber of times, ig­nor­ing the trem­bling in my left leg and arm. I opened my eyes.

  The room I was in was small and stone. There was a pot in the corner. When I fi­nally de­cided I could move, I craned my head enough to see that there was a door, with a small barred win­dow in it. This was the light source, fed by a torch some­where down a hall­way out­side. Oh. Yes. The dun­geons. My curi­os­ity sat­is­fied, I closed my eyes again and slept. Nose to tail, I res­ted safe in a deep den covered over by the blow­ing snow. The il­lu­sion of safety was as much as Nighteyes could of­fer me. So weak was I that even his thoughts to me seemed misty. Safe. That was as much as he could con­vey.

  I awoke again. I could tell time had passed by how much thirstier I was. Other than that, everything was re­mark­ably the same. This time I de­term­ined that the bench I was ly­ing on was also made of stone. There was noth­ing between me and the stone save the clothes I wore. ‘Hey!’ I called. ‘Guards!’ There was no an­swer. Everything seemed a bit vague. After a time, I could not re­call if I had already cried out, or if I were sum­mon­ing the strength to do so. After a bit more time, I de­cided I did not have the strength. I went back to sleep. I couldn’t ima­gine do­ing any­thing else.

  I awoke to Pa­tience’s voice ar­guing. Who­ever she was ar­guing with wasn’t an­swer­ing much, and wasn’t giv­ing in. ‘It’s ri­dicu­lous. What are you afraid I’ll do?’ A si­lence. ‘I’ve known him since he was a child.’ An­other si­lence. ‘He’s hurt. What pos­sible dam­age can it do for me to at least look at his in­jur­ies? You can hang him whole as eas­ily as you can wounded, can’t you?’ An­other si­lence.

  After a time, I de­cided I might be able to move. I had a lot of bruises and scrapes I couldn’t ac­count for, prob­ably gained on the jour­ney between the Great Hall and here. The worst part of mov­ing was that it tugged my cloth­ing against the scabbed-over cuts. I de­cided I could stand it. For such a small room, it was a very long way from the bed to the door. When I got there, I dis­covered I could just see out the little barred win­dow. What I could see was the stone wall on the op­pos­ite side of the nar­row cor­ridor. I gripped the bars with my good left hand.

  ‘Pa­tience?’ I croaked.

  ‘Fitz? Oh, Fitz, are you all right?’

  Such a ques­tion. I star­ted to laugh and coughed in­stead, fin­ish­ing with the taste of blood in my mouth. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t fine, but it wasn’t healthy for her to be too in­ter­ested in me. Even as fuddled as I was, I knew that. ‘I’m all right,’ I croaked at last.

  ‘Oh, Fitz, the King is dead!’ she called to me from down the hall. The words tumbled from her in her haste to tell me all. ‘And Queen Kettricken is miss­ing, and King-in-Wait­ing Regal says you are at the bot­tom of all of it. They say …’

  ‘Lady Pa­tience, you’ll have to leave now,’ the guard at­temp­ted to break in. She ig­nored him.

  ‘… you went crazy in grief over Ver­ity’s death, and killed the King and Se­rene and Justin, and they don’t know what you’ve done with the Queen, and no one can …’

  ‘You can­not speak to the pris­oner, madam!’ He spoke with con­vic­tion, but she paid no mind.

  ‘… find the Fool. Wal­lace, he’s the one, he said he saw you and the Fool quar­rel­ling over the King’s body, and then he saw the Pocked Man, come to carry his spirit away. The man is crazy! And Regal ac­cuses you, too, of the low ma­gic, of hav­ing the soul of a beast! That’s how he said you killed the King. And –’

  ‘Madam! You have to leave now, or I will have to have you taken away.’

  ‘Then do that,’ Pa­tience hissed at him. ‘I just dare you to try. Lacey, this man is both­er­ing me. Ah! You dare to think of touch­ing me! I, who was Chiv­alry’s Queen-in-Wait­ing! Now, Lacey, do not hurt him, he’s only a boy. A man­ner­less boy, but a boy non­ethe­less.’

  ‘Lady Pa­tience, I beg you …’ A change of tone from the guard.

  ‘You can’t very well drag me away from here without leav­ing your post. Do you think I’m so stu­pid I can’t see that? What will you do? At­tack two old wo­men with your sword?’

  ‘Chester! Chester, where are you?’ The guard on duty bel­lowed. ‘Damn you, Chester!’ I could hear frus­tra­tion in his voice as he yelled for his part­ner, who had taken a break. He was prob­ably up in the watch-room off the kit­chen. Drink­ing cold beer. Eat­ing hot stew. A wave of dizzi­ness passed over me.

  ‘Chester?’ The guard’s voice was fad­ing. He had ac­tu­ally been fool enough to leave Lady Pa­tience by his post, and go look­ing for his com­rade. In a mo­ment I heard the light pat­ter of her slip­pers out­side my door. I felt the touch of her fin­gers on my hand that gripped the bar. She was not tall enough to look in, and the cor­ridor was so nar­row she could not step back where I could see her. But the touch of her hand was as wel­come as sun­light.

  ‘Keep watch for him com­ing back, Lacey,’ she dir­ec­ted, then spoke to me. ‘How are you, really?’ She spoke low, pitch­ing her voice for my ears alone.

  ‘Thirsty. Hungry. Cold. In pain.’ I saw no point in ly­ing to her. ‘What is hap­pen­ing in the keep?’

  ‘Com­plete dis­order. The Buck­keep guards broke up the riot in the Great Hall, but then, out­side, there was a brawl between some of the In­land­ers that Regal brought in and the Buck­keep Guard. Queen Kettricken’s guard drove a wedge between them, and their of­ficers beat their troops back into line. Still, it’s tense. The fight­ers weren’t all sol­diers. Many a guest has a black eye or walks with a limp still. Luck­ily, no one amongst the guests took ser­i­ous harm. Blade took about the worst in­jur­ies, they say. He went down keep­ing the Far­row men off you. Cracked his ribs and blacked his eyes. But Burrich says he will be all right. The lines have been drawn, how­ever, and the dukes walk about brist­ling at one an­other like dogs.’

  ‘Burrich?’ I asked hoarsely.

  ‘Did not get in
­volved at all,’ she said re­as­sur­ingly. ‘He’s fine. If be­ing ill-tempered and surly to all is fine. Which, for him, I sup­pose is nor­mal.’

  My heart thundered in­side me. Burrich. Why wasn’t he gone? I dared ask no more about him. One ques­tion too many, and Pa­tience would get curi­ous. So. ‘And Regal?’ I asked.

  She snorted. ‘One gets the feel­ing that what really ir­rit­ates Regal is that he no longer has an ex­cuse to aban­don Buck­keep. Be­fore, you know, he was tak­ing King Shrewd and Kettricken in­land so they would be safe, and gut­ting the castle so they might have fa­mil­iar things about them. He has no such ex­cuse now, and the Coastal dukes have de­man­ded he stay and de­fend the keep, or at least put in that place a man of their choos­ing. He has offered his cousin Lord Bright of Far­row, but the Coastal dukes do not like him. Now that Regal finds him­self sud­denly a king, I do not think he is en­joy­ing it as much as he ex­pec­ted to.’

  ‘Has he crowned him­self then?’ A roar­ing threatened my ears. I stood by grip­ping the bars. Must not faint, I told my­self. The guard would be back soon. I had only this time to hear what was go­ing on.

  ‘We have all been much too busy bury­ing the King, and then search­ing for the Queen. When the King was found dead, we were sent to wake her, but found her doors locked and no an­swer to our knock­ing. Fi­nally Regal re­sor­ted to his men and axes again. The in­ner cham­ber door was closed and locked as well. But the Queen was gone. It is a great mys­tery to all of us.’

  ‘What does Regal say of it?’ My head was clear­ing of cob­webs. Oh, how I hurt.

  ‘Little, save that she and her child are surely dead, and you have brought it about some­how. He speaks wild charges of beast ma­gic, say­ing you have slain the King with your Wit. All de­mand proof for his claims, and he keeps say­ing, soon, soon.’

  No men­tion of search­ing the roads and by­ways for Kettricken then. I had gambled that his Skill spies had not found out the whole of our plot. But, I cau­tioned my­self, if he had sent out search­ers, I doubted they were ordered to bring her back alive and safe.

  ‘What does Will do?’ I asked.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘Will, Host­ler’s son. A mem­ber of the co­terie.’

  ‘Oh. Him. I have not seen him about, that I re­call.’

  ‘Ah.’ An­other wave of dizzi­ness threatened me. Sud­denly lo­gic eluded me. I knew I should ask more ques­tions, but I could not think of what they should be. Burrich was still here, but the Queen and the Fool were gone. What had gone wrong? There was no safe way to ask Pa­tience. ‘Does any­one else know you are here?’ I man­aged to ask. Surely, if Burrich had known she were com­ing, he would have sent a mes­sage.

  ‘Of course not! This was not an easy thing to plan, Fitz. Lacey had to get an emetic into the one guard’s food, so he would leave only one on watch. Then we had to watch for him to leave … Oh. Lacey said to bring you these. She is wise, that one.’ Her hand went away, and then came back, to fumble one, and then two small apples through the bars. They hit the floor be­fore I could catch them. I res­isted the urge to pounce on them im­me­di­ately.

  ‘What do they say of me?’ I asked quietly.

  She was si­lent a mo­ment. ‘Mostly, folk say that you are crazy. Some, that you were witched by the Pocked Man to bring death amongst us that night. There is some gos­sip that you had planned to lead a re­bel­lion, and killed Se­rene and Justin be­cause they found out about it. Oth­ers, not many, agree with Regal, say­ing you have the beast ma­gic. Wal­lace, mostly, says such things. He de­clares the candles did not burn blue in the King’s cham­ber un­til you entered it. And he says the Fool was shout­ing that you had killed the King. But the Fool is gone, too. There have been so many omens of evil, and so many fear now …’ Her voice dwindled away.

  ‘I did not kill the King,’ I said quietly. ‘Justin and Se­rene did. That was why I killed them, with the King’s own knife.’

  ‘The guards are com­ing back!’ A hiss from Lacey. Pa­tience ig­nored it.

  ‘But Justin and Se­rene weren’t even …’

  ‘I don’t have time to ex­plain. It was done with Skill. But they did, Pa­tience. I swear it.’ I paused. ‘What do they plan to do with me?’

  ‘It isn’t de­cided, really.’

  ‘We’ve no time for po­lite lies.’

  I ac­tu­ally heard her swal­low. ‘Regal wants to hang you. He’d have had you killed right there that night, in the Great Hall, save that Blade held off his guards un­til the riot was quelled. Then the Coastal dukes stood up for you. Lady Grace of Rip­pon re­minded Regal that no car­rier of the Farseer blood can be put to death by sword or hanging. He did not wish to con­cede you were of royal blood, but too many raised a shout when he denied it. Now he swears he can show you have the Wit, and hanging is what must be done for one that uses beast ma­gic.’

  ‘Lady Pa­tience! You must leave now, you must, or I’m the one that will be hanging!’ The guard was back, with Chester evid­ently, for there were more than one set of foot­steps. They were hur­ry­ing down to the cell. Pa­tience let go of my fin­gers.

  ‘I will do what I can for you,’ she whispered. She had tried so hard not to let any fear come into her voice, but now it broke on those words.

  And then she was gone, scold­ing at the guard like a jay bird all the way as Chester or who­ever es­cor­ted her from the cells. The mo­ment she was gone, I la­bor­i­ously stooped down to gather up my apples. They were not large, and they were withered from be­ing winter-stored, but I found them de­li­cious. I ate even the stems. The little mois­ture they con­tained did noth­ing to quench my thirst. I sat on my bench for a bit, hold­ing my head in my hands, for­cing my­self to stay alert. I knew I had to think, but it was ter­ribly hard. My mind would not fo­cus. I was temp­ted to pick my shirt free of the cuts on my arm, but forced my­self to leave it alone. As long as they were not fes­ter­ing, I would not bother them. I could not af­ford to bleed. It took all my strength to hobble back to my door. ‘Guards!’ I croaked.

  They ig­nored me.

  ‘I want wa­ter. And food.’

  Where are you? An­other answered my re­quest.

  Bey­ond your reach, my friend. How are you?

  Fine. But I have missed you. You slept so deep, al­most I thought you dead.

  Al­most I thought my­self dead. That night. Did you guide them to the horses?

  I did. And they left. Heart of the Pack told them I was a half-breed you had tamed. Like I was a cur, do­ing tricks.

  He sought to pro­tect me, not to in­sult you. Why did not Heart of the Pack go with them?

  I do not know. What shall we do now?

  Wait.

  ‘Guards!’ I called again, as loudly as I was able. It wasn’t very loud.

  ‘Get back from the door.’ The man’s voice was right out­side my cell. I had been so oc­cu­pied with Nighteyes I had not heard him ap­proach. I was not my­self at all.

  A small panel at the bot­tom of the door slid open. A pot of wa­ter and a half a loaf were set in­side. The panel closed again.

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was no reply. I picked them up, ex­amined both care­fully. The wa­ter smelled as if it had been stand­ing for some time, but neither smell nor a cau­tious sip re­vealed any trace of poison. I broke the loaf into smal­ler pieces, look­ing for flecks in the dough or any dis­col­or­a­tion. It was not fresh, but it was not poisoned in any way I could de­tect. And someone had eaten the other half of it. In a very short time, they were gone. I went and lay on my stone bench again, and tried to find the least un­com­fort­able po­s­i­tion.

  The cell was dry, but cold, in the way that any un­used cham­ber in Buck­keep was cold dur­ing the winter. I knew ex­actly where I was. The cells were not far from the wine cel­lars. I knew I could scream my lungs bloody and no one but my guards would hear. I had ex­plored down here as a boy. I had sel­dom found oc­cu­pants
in the cells, and even more rarely guards upon them. The swift­ness of justice at Buck­keep meant there was sel­dom a reason to hold a pris­oner for more than a few hours. Trans­gres­sions of the law usu­ally de­man­ded you pay with your life, or with the work of your hands. I sus­pec­ted these cells would see a deal more use, now that Regal claimed to be king.

  I tried to sleep, but in­sens­ib­il­ity had deser­ted me. In­stead, I shif­ted about on the cold, hard stone and thought. I tried for a while to con­vince my­self that if the Queen had es­caped, I had won. After all, win­ning was get­ting what you wanted, wasn’t it? In­stead, I found my­self think­ing of how quickly King Shrewd had gone. Like a bubble pop­ping. If they hung me, would it be that swift for me? Or would I strangle and dangle a long time? To di­vert my­self from those pleas­ant thoughts, I wondered how long a civil war Ver­ity would have to fight with Regal be­fore he could put the Six Duch­ies on a map once more as the Six Duch­ies. As­sum­ing, of course, that Ver­ity re­turned and was able to rid the coast of Red Ships. When Regal aban­doned Buck­keep, as I was sure he would, I wondered who would step for­ward to take it. Pa­tience had said the Coastal dukes wanted noth­ing of Lord Bright. Buck had a few lesser nobles, but none of them so bold as to claim Buck­keep, I thought. Per­haps one of the three Coastal dukes would reach out a hand and claim it. No. None of them had the might right now to care for any­thing bey­ond their own bor­ders. It would be each for his own now. Un­less Regal stayed at Buck­keep. With the Queen miss­ing and Shrewd dead, he was, after all, the right­ful king. Un­less one knew that Ver­ity was alive. But few did. Would the Coastal duch­ies ac­cept Regal as king now? Would the Coastal duch­ies ac­cept Ver­ity as their king when he re­turned? Or would they scorn the man who had left them on a fool­ish quest?