Royal Assassin

by Robin Hobb

  Charim told me Verity was not there. There was a worry deep in his eyes. I tried not to share it. “He can’t leave the boatbuilders to that work, can he?”

  Charim shook his head to my banter. “No. Up in his tower,” the old servant said shortly. I turned aside as he slowly shut the door.

  Well, Kettricken had told me as much. I had tried to forget that part of our conversation. Dread crept through me as I sought the tower stairs. Verity had no reason to be in this tower. This tower was where he Skilled from in summers, when the weather was fine and the Raiders harried our shores. There was no reason to be up there in winter, especially with the wind howling and the snow dropping as it was today. No reason save the terrible attraction of the Skill itself.

  I had felt that lure, I reminded myself as I gritted my teeth and began the long climb to the top. I had known, for a time, the heady exuberance of the Skill. Like the clotted memory of long-ago pain, Galen the Skill Master’s words came back to me. “If you are weak,” he had threatened us, “if you lack focus and discipline, if you are indulgent and inclined to pleasure, you will not master the Skill. Rather, the Skill will master you. Practice the denial of all pleasures to yourself; deny all weaknesses that tempt you. Then, when you are as steel, perhaps you will be ready to encounter the lure of the Skill and turn aside from it. If you give in to it, you will become as a great babe, mindless and drooling. ” Then he had schooled us, with privations and punishments that went far past any sane level. Yet when I had encountered the Skill joy, I had not found it the tawdry pleasure Galen had implied. Rather, it had been the same rush of blood and thunder of heart that sometimes music brought to me, or a sudden flight of bright pheasant in an autumn wood, or even the pleasure of taking a horse perfectly over a difficult jump. That instant when all things come into balance, and for a moment turn together as perfectly as birds wheeling in flight. The Skill gave that to one, but not for just a moment. Rather it lasted for as long as a man could sustain it, and became stronger and purer as one’s ability with the Skill refined. Or so I believed. My own abilities with the Skill had been permanently damaged in a battle of wills with Galen. The defensive mental walls I had erected were such that not even someone as strongly Skilled as Verity could always reach me. My own ability to reach out of myself had become an intermittent thing, skittish and flighty as a spooky horse.

  I paused outside Verity’s door. I took a very deep breath, then breathed it out slowly, refusing to let the blackness of spirit settle on me. Those things were done, that time was gone. No sense railing to myself about it. As was my old habit, I entered without knocking, lest the noise break Verity’s concentration.

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  He should not have been Skilling. He was. The shutters of the window were open and he leaned out on the sill. Wind and snow swirled throughout the room, speckling his dark hair and dark blue shirt and jerkin. He was breathing in deep, long steady breaths, a cadence somewhere between a very deep sleep and that of a runner at rest and catching his wind. He seemed oblivious of me. “Prince Verity?” I said softly.

  He turned to me, and his gaze was like heat, like light, like wind in my face. He Skilled into me with such force that I felt driven out of myself, his mind possessing mine so completely that there was no room left to be myself in it. For a moment I was drowning in Verity, and then he was gone, withdrawing so rapidly that I was left stumbling and gasping like a fish deserted by a high wave. In a step he was beside me, catching my elbow and steadying me on my feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was not expecting you. You startled me. ”

  “I should have knocked, my prince,” I replied, and then gave a quick nod to him that I could stand. “What’s out there, that you watch so intently?”

  He glanced aside from me. “Not much. Some boys on the cliffs, watching a pod of whales sporting. Two of our own boats, fishing halibut. Even in this weather, though not enjoying it much. ”

  “Then you are not Skilling for Outislanders…. ”

  “There are not any out there, this time of year. But I keep a watch. ” He glanced down at my forearm, the one he had just released, and changed the subject. “What happened to you?”

  “That’s what I came to see you about. Forged ones attacked me. Out on the face of the ridge, the one where the spruce-hen hunting is good. Near the goatherd’s shed. ”

  He nodded quickly, his dark brows knitting. “I know the area. How many? Describe them. ”

  I quickly sketched my attackers for him and he nodded briefly, unsurprised. “I had a report of them, four days ago. They should not be this close to Buckkeep this soon; not unless they are consistently moving in this direction, every day. Are they finished?”

  “Yes. You expected this?” I was aghast. “I thought we had wiped them out. ”

  “We wiped out the ones who were here then. There are others, moving in this direction. I have been keeping track of them by the reports, but I had not expected them to be so close so soon. ”

  I struggled briefly, got my voice under control. “My prince, why do we simply keep track of them? Why do not we … take care of this problem?”

  Verity made a small noise in his throat and turned back to his window. “Sometimes one has to wait, and let the enemy complete a move, in order to discover what the full strategy is. Do you understand me?”

  “The Forged ones have a strategy? I think not, my prince. They were—”

  “Report to me in full,” Verity directed me without looking at me. I hesitated briefly, then launched into a complete retelling. Toward the end of the struggle, my account became a bit incoherent. I let the words die on my lips. “But I did manage to break his grip on me. And all three of them died there. ”

  He did not take his eyes from the sea. “You should avoid physical struggles, FitzChivalry. You always seem to get hurt in them. ”

  “I know, my prince,” I admitted humbly. “Hod did her best with me—”

  “But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other talents. And those are the ones you should be putting to use to preserve yourself. Oh, you’re a competent swordsman; but you’ve not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you always seem to revert to in a fight. ”

  “I was not offered the selection of weapons,” I said, a bit testily, and then added, “my prince. ”

  “No. You won’t be. ” He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. “Yet I’m afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?”

  “As you have been told, sir,” I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen’s guard.

  He turned to regard me levelly. “The rumor I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumor reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly. ”

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  “My prince,” I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

  “Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more encounters with Forged ones. Would I could think of something to busy her,” he added wearily.

  “The Queen’s Garden,” I suggested, recalling Patience’s account of it.

  Verity cocked his eye at me.

  “The old ones, atop the tower,” I explained. “They have been unused for years. I saw what was left of them, before Galen ordered us to dismantle them to clear space for our Skill l
essons. It must have been a charming place at one time. Tubs of earth and greenery, statuary, climbing vines. ”

  Verity smiled to himself. “And basins of water, too, with pond lilies in them, and fish, and even tiny frogs. The birds came there often in summer, to drink and to splash. Chivalry and I used to play up there. She had little charms hung on strings, made of glass and bright metal. And when the wind stirred them, they would chime together, or flash like jewels in the sun. ” I could feel myself warming with his memory of that place and time. “My mother kept a little hunting cat, and it would lounge on the warm stone when the sun struck it. Hiss-pit; that was her name. Spotted coat and tufted ears. And we would tease her with string and tufts of feathers, and she would stalk us among the pots of flowers. While we were supposed to be studying tablets on herbs. I never properly learned them. There was too much else to do there. Except for thyme. I knew every kind of thyme she had. My mother grew a lot of thyme. And catmint. ” He was smiling.

  “Kettricken would love such a place,” I told him. “She gardened much in the Mountains. ”

  “Did she?” He looked surprised. “I would have thought her occupied with more … physical pastimes. ”

  I felt an instant of annoyance with him. No, of something more than annoyance. How could it be that I knew more of his wife than he did? “She kept gardens,” I said quietly. “Of many herbs, and knew all the uses of those that grew therein. I have told you of them myself. ”

  “Yes, I suppose you have. ” He sighed. “You are right, Fitz. Visit her for me, and tell her of the Queen’s Garden. It is winter now, and there is probably little she can do with it. But come spring, it would be a wondrous thing to see it restored…. ”

  “Perhaps, you yourself, my prince,” I ventured, but he shook his head.

  “I haven’t the time. But I trust it to you. And now, downstairs. To the maps. I have things I wish to discuss with you. ”

  I turned immediately toward the door. Verity followed more slowly. I held the door for him and on the threshold he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the open window. “It calls me,” he admitted to me, calmly, simply, as if observing that he enjoyed plums. “It calls to me, at any moment when I am not busied. And so I must be busy, Fitz. And too busy. ”

  “I see,” I said slowly, not at all sure that I did.

  “No. You don’t. ” Verity spoke with great certainty. “It is like a great loneliness, boy. I can reach out and touch others. Some, quite easily. But no one ever reaches back. When Chivalry was alive … I still miss him, boy. Sometimes I am so lonely for him; it is like being the only one of something in the world. Like the very last wolf, hunting alone. ”

  A shiver went down my spine. “What of King Shrewd?” I ventured to ask.

  He shook his head. “He Skills seldom now. His strength for it has dwindled, and it taxes his body as well as his mind. ” We went down a few more steps. “You and I are the only ones now to know that,” he added softly. I nodded.

  We went down the stairs slowly. “Has the healer looked at your arm?” he queried.

  I shook my head.

  “Nor Burrich. ”

  He was stating this as fact, already knowing it was true.

  I shook my head again. The marks of Nighteyes’ teeth were too plain upon my skin, although he had given those bites in play. I could not show Burrich the marks of the Forged ones without betraying my wolf to him.

  Verity sighed. “Well. Keep it clean. I suppose you know as well as any how to keep an injury clean. Next time you go out, remember this, and go prepared. Always. There may not always be one to step in and aid you. ”

  I came to a slow stop on the stairs. Verity continued down. I took a deep breath. “Verity,” I asked quietly. “How much do you know? About … this. ”

  “Less than you do,” he said jovially. “But more than you think I do. ”

  “You sound like the Fool,” I said bitterly.

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  “Yes. Sometimes. He is another one who has a great understanding of aloneness, and what it can drive a man to do. ” He took a breath, and almost I thought he might say that he knew what I was, and did not condemn me for it. Instead, he continued, “I believe the Fool had words with you, a few days ago. ”

  I followed him silently now, wondering how he knew so much about so many things. The Skilling, of course. We came to his study and I followed him in. Charim, as ever, was already waiting for us. Food was set out, and mulled wine. Verity set upon it with a great appetite. I sat across from him, mostly watching him eat. I was not very hungry, but it built my appetite to watch how much he enjoyed this simple, robust meal. In this he was still a soldier, I thought. He would take this small pleasure, this good, well-served food when he was hungry, and relish it while he could. It gave me much satisfaction to see him with this much life and appetite to him. I wondered how he would be next summer, when he would have to Skill for hours every day, keeping watch for Raiders off our coast, and using the tricks of his mind to set them astray while giving our own folk early warning. I thought of Verity as he had been last summer by harvest time: worn to thinness, face lined, without the energy to eat save that he drank the stimulants that Chade put in his tea. His life had become the hours he spent Skilling. Come summer, his hunger for the Skilling would replace every other hunger in his life. How would Kettricken react to that? I wondered.

  After we had eaten, Verity went over his maps with me. There was no longer any mistaking the pattern that emerged. Regardless of what obstacles, forest or river or frozen plains, the Forged ones were moving toward Buckkeep. It made no sense to me. The ones I had encountered seemed all but bereft of their senses. I found it difficult to believe that any one of them would conceive of traveling overland, despite hardships, simply to come to Buckkeep. “And these records you’ve kept indicate that all of them have. All of the Forged ones that you’ve identified seem to be moving toward Buckkeep. ”

  “Yet you have difficulty seeing it as a coordinated plan?” Verity asked quietly.

  “I fail to see how they could have any plan at all. How have they contacted each other? And it doesn’t seem a concerted effort. They aren’t meeting up and traveling here in bands. It simply seems that each and every one sets out this way, and some of them fall in together. ”

  “Like moths drawn to a candle flame,” Verity observed.

  “Or flies to carrion,” I added sourly.

  “The ones to fascination, the others to feed,” Verity mused. “I wish I knew which it is that draws the Forged ones to me. Perhaps another thing entirely. ”

  “Why do you think you must know why they come? Do you think you are their target?”

  “I do not know. But if I find out, I may understand my enemy. I do not think it chance that all the Forged ones make their way to Buckkeep. I think they move against me, Fitz. Perhaps not of their own will, but it is still a move against me. I need to understand why. ”

  “To understand them, you must become them. ”

  “Oh. ” He looked less than amused. “Now who sounds like the Fool?”

  The question made me uneasy and I let it slip by me. “My prince, when the Fool mocked me the other day …” I hesitated, still stung by the memory. I had always believed the Fool to be my friend. I tried to push the emotion aside. “He put ideas in my mind. In his teasing way. He said, if I understand his riddles aright, that I should be seeking for others who are Skilled. Men and women from your father’s generation, trained by Solicity before Galen became Skill Master. And he seemed also to say that I should be finding out more about the Elderlings. How are they summoned, what can they do? What are they?”

  Verity leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his chest. “Either of those quests might be enough for a dozen men. And yet, neither is even sufficient for one, for the answers to either question are so scarce. To the first, yes, there should yet be Skilled ones amongst us, folk
older than my father even, trained for the old wars against the Outislanders. It would not have been common folk knowledge as to who was trained. Training was done privately, and even those in a coterie might know of few outside their own circle. Still, there should have been records. I am sure there were, at one time. But what has become of them, no one can say. I imagine that they were passed from Solicity down to Galen. But they were not found in his room or among his things after he … died. ”

  It was Verity’s turn to pause. We both knew how Galen had died, in a sense had both been there, though we had never spoken much of it. Galen had died a traitor, in the act of trying to Skill-tap Verity’s strength and drain it off and kill him. Instead, Verity had borrowed my strength to aid him in draining Galen. It was not a thing either of us enjoyed recalling. But I spoke boldly, trying to keep all emotion from my voice.

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  “Do you think Regal would know where such records are?”

  “If he does, he has said nothing of it. ” Verity’s voice was as flat as my own, putting an end to that topic. “But I have had some small success in uncovering a few Skilled ones. The names, at least. In every case, those I have managed to discover have either already died or cannot be located now. ”

  “Um. ” I recalled hearing something of this from Chade some time ago. “How did you discover their names?”

  “Some my father could recall. The members of the last coterie, who served King Bounty. Others I knew vaguely, when I was very small. A few others I discovered by talking to some of the very old folk in the Keep, asking them to recall what rumors they could of who might have been trained in the Skill. Though of course I did not ask in so many words. I did not, and still do not, wish my quest to be known. ”

  “May I ask why?”

  He frowned and nodded toward his maps. “I am not as brilliant as your father was, my boy. Chivalry could make leaps of intuition that seemed nothing short of magical. What I discover are patterns. Does it seem likely to you that every Skilled one I can discover should be either dead, or unfindable? It seems to me that if I find one, and his name is known as a Skilled one, it might not be healthy for him. ”