Royal Assassin

by Robin Hobb

  Rash, my boy. I very much fear that we have overplayed our hand.

  “Well, Bastard? What have you to say for yourself? Exactly what were your intentions?” Regal demanded when Wallace’s litany ran down. He actually added another log to the fire in the already stifling room, and took the half-eaten pastry from the King’s hand.

  “I came to report. And finding the King ill cared for, sought to remedy that situation first. ” I was sweating, more from pain than nervousness. I hated to see Regal smile at it.

  “Ill cared for? What exactly are you saying?” he accused me.

  I took a breath for courage. Truth. “I found his chamber untidy and musty. Dirty plates left about. The linens of his bed unchanged—”

  “Dare you to say such things?” Regal hissed.

  “I do. I speak the truth to my king, as I ever have. Let him look about with his own eyes and see if it is not so. ”

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  Something in the confrontation had stirred Shrewd to a shadow of his old self. He pushed himself up in bed and looked about himself. “The Fool has likewise made these complaints, in his own acid way—” he began.

  Wallace dared to interrupt him. “My lord, the state of your health has been tender. Sometimes uninterrupted rest is more important than rolling you out of your bed to fuss with a change of blankets or linen. And a dish or two stacked about is less annoyance than the rattle and prattle of a page come in to tidy. ”

  King Shrewd looked suddenly uncertain. My heart smote me. This was what the Fool had wished me to see, why he had so often urged me to visit the King. Why had not he spoken more plainly? But then, when did the Fool ever speak plainly? Shame rose in me. This was my king, the King I had sworn to. I loved Verity, and my loyalty to him was unquestioning. But I had abandoned my king at the very moment when he needed me most. Chade was gone, for how long I did not know. I had left King Shrewd with no more than the Fool to protect him. And yet when had King Shrewd ever needed anyone to shelter him before? Always that old man had been more than capable of guarding himself. I chided myself that I should have been more emphatic with Chade about the changes I noted when I first returned home. I should have been more watchful of my sovereign.

  “How did he get in here?” Regal suddenly demanded with a savage glare at me.

  “My prince, he had a token from the King himself, he claimed. He said the King had promised always to see him if he but showed that pin—”

  “What rot! You believed such nonsense—”

  “Prince Regal, you know it is true. You were witness when King Shrewd first gave it to me. ” I spoke quietly but clearly. Within me, Verity was silent, waiting and watching, and learning much. At my expense, I thought bitterly, and then strove to call back the thought.

  Moving calmly and unthreateningly, I pulled one wrist free of a bulldog’s grip. I turned back the collar of my jerkin and drew the pin out. I held it up for all to see.

  “I recall no such thing,” Regal snapped, but Shrewd sat up.

  “Come closer, boy,” he instructed me. Now I shrugged clear of my guards and tugged my clothing straight. Then I bore the pin up to the King’s bedside. Deliberately, King Shrewd reached out. He took the pin away from me. My heart sank inside me.

  “Father, this is—” Regal began annoyedly, but Shrewd interrupted him.

  “Regal. You were there. You do recall it, or you should. ” The King’s dark eyes were bright and alert as I remembered them, but also plain were the lines of pain about those eyes and the corner of his mouth. King Shrewd fought for this lucidity. He held the pin up and looked at Regal with a shadow of his old calculating glance. “I gave the boy this pin. And my word, in exchange for his. ”

  “Then I suggest you take them back again, pin and word both. You will never get well with this type of disruption going on in your rooms. ” Again, that edge of command in Regal’s voice. I waited, silent.

  The King lifted a hand to shakily rub his face and eyes. “I gave those things,” he said, and the words were firm, but the strength was fading from his voice. “Once given, a man’s word is no longer his to call back. Am I right about this, FitzChivalry? Do you agree that once a man has given his word, he may not take it back?” The old test was in that question.

  “As ever I have, my king, I agree with you. Once a man has given his word, he may not call it back. He must abide by what he has promised. ”

  “Good, then. That’s settled. It’s all settled. ” He proffered the pin to me. I took it from him, relief so immense it was like vertigo. He leaned back into his pillows. I had another dizzying moment. I knew those pillows, this bed. I had lain there, and looked with the Fool down on the sack of Siltbay. I had burned my fingers in that fireplace….

  The King heaved a heavy sigh. There was exhaustion in it. In another moment he would be asleep.

  “Forbid him to come and disturb you again, unless you summon him,” Regal commanded.

  King Shrewd pried his eyes open one more time. “Fitz. Come here, boy. ”

  Like a dog, I came closer to him. I knelt by his bed. He lifted a thinned hand, patted me awkwardly. “You and I, boy. We have an understanding, don’t we?” A genuine question. I nodded. “Good lad. Good. I’ve kept my word. You see that you keep yours, now. But”—he glanced at Regal, and that pained me—“it were better if you came to see me in the afternoons. I am stronger in the afternoons. ” He was slipping away again.

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  “Shall I come back this afternoon, sire?” I asked quickly.

  He lifted a hand and waved it in a vaguely denying gesture. “Tomorrow. Or the next day. ” His eyes closed and he sighed out as heavily as if he would never breathe in again.

  “As you wish, my lord,” I concurred. I bowed deeply, formally. As I straightened I carefully returned the pin to my jerkin lapel. I let them all spend a moment or two watching me do that. Then: “If you will excuse me, my prince?” I requested formally.

  “Get out of here,” Regal growled.

  I bowed less formally to him, turned carefully, and left. His guards’ eyes watched me go. I was outside the room before I recalled that I had never brought up the subject of me marrying Molly. Now it seemed unlikely I would have an opportunity to for some time. I knew that afternoons would now find Regal or Wallace or some spy of theirs always at King Shrewd’s side. I had no wish to broach that topic before anyone save my king.

  Fitz?

  I’d like to be alone for a while just now, my prince. If you do not mind?

  He vanished from my mind like a bursting soap bubble. Slowly I made my way down the stairs.

  15

  Secrets

  PRINCE VERITY CHOSE to unveil his fleet of warships on the midday of Winterfest that decisive year. Tradition would have had him wait until the coming of better weather, to launch them on the first day of Springfest. That is considered a more auspicious time to launch a new ship. But Verity had pushed his shipwrights and their crews hard to have all four vessels ready for a midwinter launch. By choosing the midday of Winterfest, he ensured himself a large audience, both for the launch and for his words. Traditionally, a hunt is held that day, with the meat brought in seen as a harbinger of days to come. When he had the ships pushed out of the sheds on their rollers, he announced to the gathered folk that these were his hunters, and that the only prey that would slake them would be Red-Ships. The reaction to his announcement was muted, and clearly not what he had hoped for. It is my belief that the people wanted to put all thoughts of the Red-Ships from their minds, to hide themselves in winter and pretend that the spring would never come. But Verity refused to let them. The ships were launched that day, and the training of the crews begun.

  Nighteyes and I spent the early afternoon hunting. He grumbled about it, saying it was a ridiculous time of day to hunt, and why had I wasted the early dawn hours tussling with my litter mate? I told him that that was simply a thi
ng that had to be, and would continue to be for several days, and possibly longer. He was not pleased. But neither was I. It rattled me not a little that he could be so clearly aware of how I spent my hours even if I had no conscious sense of being in touch with him. Had Verity been able to sense him?

  He laughed at me. Hard enough to make you hear me sometimes. Should I batter through to you and then shout for him as well?

  Our hunting success was small. Two rabbits, neither with much fat. I promised to bring him kitchen scraps on the morrow. I had even less success at conveying to him my demand for privacy at certain times. He could not grasp why I set mating apart from other pack activities such as hunting or howling. Mating suggested offspring in the near future, and offspring were the care of the pack. Words cannot convey the difficulties of that discussion. We conversed in images, in shared thoughts, and such do not allow for much discretion. His candor horrified me. He assured me he shared my delight in my mate and my mating. I begged him not to. Confusion. I finally left him eating his rabbits. He seemed piqued that I would not accept a share of the meat. The best I had been able to get from him was his understanding that I did not want to be aware of him sharing my awareness of Molly. That was scarcely what I wanted, but it was the best I could convey it to him. The idea that at times I would want to sever my bond to him completely was not a thought he could comprehend. It made no sense, he argued. It was not pack. I left him wondering if I would ever again really and truly have a moment to myself.

  I returned to the Keep and sought the solitude of my own room. If only for a moment, I had to be where I could close the door behind me and be alone. Physically, anyway. As if to fuel my quest for quiet, the halls and stairways were full of hurrying folk. Servants were cleaning away old rushes and spreading new ones, fresh candles were being placed in holders, and boughs of evergreen were hung in festoons and swags everywhere. Winterfest. I didn’t much feel like it.

  I finally reached my own door and slipped inside. I shut it firmly behind me.

  “Back so soon?” The Fool looked up from the hearth, where he crouched in a semicircle of scrolls. He seemed to be sorting them into groups.

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  I stared at him with unconcealed dismay. In an instant it flashed into anger. “Why didn’t you tell me of the King’s condition?”

  He considered another scroll, after a moment set it in the pile to his right. “But I did. A question in exchange for yours: why didn’t you already know of it?”

  That set me back. “I admit I’ve been lax in calling upon him. But—”

  “None of my words could have had the impact of seeing for yourself. Nor do you pause to think what it would have been like had I not been there every single day, emptying chamber pots, sweeping, dusting, carrying out dishes, combing his hair and his beard…. ”

  Again he had shocked me into silence. I crossed the room, sat down heavily atop my clothing chest. “He’s not the King I remember,” I said bluntly. “It frightens me that he could sink so far, so fast. ”

  “Frightens you? Appalls me. At least you’ve another King when this one’s been played. ” The Fool flipped another scroll onto the pile.

  “We all do,” I pointed out carefully.

  “Some more than others,” the Fool said shortly.

  Without thinking, my hand rose to tuck the pin tighter in my jerkin. I’d almost lost it today. It had made me think of all it had symbolized all these years. The King’s protection, for a bastard grandson that a more ruthless man would have done away with quietly. And now that he needed protection? What did it symbolize to me now?

  “So. What do we do?”

  “You and I? Precious little. I’m but a Fool, and you are a bastard. ”

  I nodded grudgingly. “I wish Chade were here. I wish I knew when he was coming back. ” I looked to the Fool, wondering how much he knew.

  “Shade? Shade returns when the sun does, I’ve heard. ” Evasive as always. “Too late for the King, I imagine,” he added more quietly.

  “So we are powerless?”

  “You and I? Never. We’ve too much power to act here; that is all. In this area, the powerless ones are always the most powerful. Perhaps you are right; they are who we should consult in this. And now …” Here he rose and made a show of shaking all his joints loose as if he were a marionette with tangled strings. He set every bell he had to jingling. I could not help but smile. “My king will be coming into his best time of day. And I will be there, to do what little I can for him. ”

  He stepped carefully out of his ring of sorted scrolls and tablets. He yawned. “Farewell, Fitz. ”

  “Farewell. ”

  He halted, puzzled, by the door. “You have no objections to my going?”

  “I believe I objected first to your staying. ”

  “Never bandy words with a Fool. But do you forget? I offered you a bargain. A secret for a secret. ”

  I had not forgotten. But I was not sure, suddenly, that I wanted to know. “Whence comes the Fool, and why?” I asked softly.

  “Ah. ” He stood a moment, then asked gravely, “You are certain you wish the answers to these questions?”

  “Whence comes the Fool, and why?” I repeated slowly.

  For an instant he was dumb. I saw him then. Saw him as I had not in years, not as the Fool, glib-tongued and wits as cutting as any barnacle, but as a small and slender person, all so fragile, pale flesh, bird-boned, even his hair seemed less substantial than that of other mortals. His motley of black and white trimmed in silver bells, his ridiculous rat scepter were all the armor and sword he had in this court of intrigues and treachery. And his mystery. The invisible cloak of his mystery. I wished for an instant he had not offered the bargain, and that my curiosity had been less consuming.

  He sighed. He glanced about my room, then walked over to stand before the tapestry of King Wisdom greeting the Elderling. He glanced up at it, then smiled sourly, finding some humor there I had never seen. He assumed the stance of a poet about to recite. Then he halted, looked at me squarely once more. “You are certain you wish to know, Fitzy-fitz?”

  Like a liturgy, I repeated the question. “Whence comes the Fool and why?”

  “Whence? Ah, whence?” He went nose to nose with Ratsy for a moment, formulating a reply to his own question. Then he met my eyes. “Go south, Fitz. To lands past the edges of every map that Verity has ever seen. And past the edges of the maps made in those countries as well. Go south, and then east across a sea you have no name for. Eventually, you would come to a long peninsula, and on its snaking tip you would find the village where a Fool was born. You might even find, still, a mother who recalled her wormy-white babe, and how she cradled me against her warm breast and sang. ” He glanced up at my incredulous, enraptured face and gave a short laugh. “You cannot even picture it, can you? Let me make it harder for you. Her hair was long and dark and curling, and her eyes were green. Fancy that! Of such rich colors was this transparency made. And the fathers of the colorless child? Two cousins, for that was the custom of that land. One broad and swarthy and full of laughter, ruddy-lipped and brown-eyed, a farmer smelling of rich earth and open air. The other as narrow as the one was wide, and gold to his bronze, a poet and songster, blue-eyed. And, oh, how they loved me and rejoiced in me! All the three of them, and the village as well. I was so loved. ” His voice grew soft, and for a moment he fell silent. I knew with great certainty that I was hearing what no other had ever heard from him. I remembered the time I had ventured into his room, and the exquisite little doll in its cradle that I had found there. Cherished as the Fool had once been cherished. I waited.

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  “When I was … old enough, I bade them all farewell. I set off to find my place in history, and choose where I would thwart it. This was the place I selected; the time had been destined by the hour of my birth. I came here, and became Shrewd’s. I gathered up whatever threads the fates put i
nto my hands, and I began to twist them and color them as I could, in the hopes of affecting what was woven after me. ”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand a thing you just said. ”

  “Ah. ” He shook his head, setting his bells to jingling. “I offered to tell you my secret. I didn’t promise to make you understand it. ”

  “A message is not delivered until it is understood,” I countered. This was a direct quote from Chade.

  The Fool teetered on accepting it. “You do understand what I said,” he compromised. “You simply do not accept it. Never before have I spoken so plainly to you. Perhaps that is what confuses you. ”

  He was serious. I shook my head again. “You make no sense! You went somewhere to discover your place in history? How can that be? History is what is done and behind us. ”

  He shook his head, slowly this time. “History is what we do in our lives. We create it as we go along. ” He smiled enigmatically. “The future is another kind of history. ”

  “No man can know the future,” I agreed.

  His smile widened. “Cannot they?” he asked in a whisper. “Perhaps, Fitz, somewhere, there is written down all that is the future. Not written down by one person, know, but if the hints and visions and premonitions and foreseeings of an entire race were written down, and cross-referenced and related to one another, might not such a people create a loom to hold the weaving of the future?”

  “Preposterous,” I objected. “How would anyone know if any of it were true?”

  “If such a loom were made, and such a tapestry of predictions woven, not for a few years, but for tens of hundreds of years, after a time it could be shown that it presented a surprisingly accurate foretelling. Bear in mind that those who keep these records are another race, an exceedingly long-lived one. A pale lovely race, that occasionally mingled its bloodlines with that of men. And then!” He spun in a circle, suddenly fey, pleased insufferably with himself. “And then, when certain ones were born, ones marked so clearly that history must recall them, they are called to step forward, to find their places in that future history. And they might further be exhorted to examine that place, that juncture of a hundred threads, and say, these threads, here, these are the ones I shall tweak, and in the tweaking, I shall change the tapestry, I shall warp the weft, alter the color of what is to come. I shall change the destiny of the world. ”