Farseer 2 - Royal Assassin

by Robin Hobb

  "I see." I was beginning to get an uneasy feeling. "And what was the favor you wanted of me?"

  "Explain it to Verity. Tell the Queen she has a guard." She said the words simply and quietly.

  "This walks close to disloyalty," I said just as simply. "Soldiers of Verity's own guard, setting aside his colors to take on his queen's ..."

  "Some might see it that way. Some might speak it that way." Her eyes met mine squarely, and the smile was gone from her face. "But you know it is not. It's a needed thing. Your ... Chivalry would have seen it, would have had a guard for her before she even arrived here. But King-in-Waiting Verity ... well, this is no disloyalty to him. We've served him well, because we love him. Still do. This is those who've always watched his back, falling back and re-forming to watch his back even better. That's all. He's got a good Queen, is what we think. We don't want to see him lose her. That was all. We don't think any the less of our King-in-waiting. You know that."

  I did. But still. I looked away from her plea, shook my head, and tried to think. Why me? a part of me demanded angrily. Then I knew, that in the moment I'd lost my temper and berated the guard for not protecting their queen, I'd volunteered for this. Burrich had warned me about not remembering my place. "I will speak to King-in-Waiting Verity. And to the Queen, if he approves this."

  Whistle flashed her smile again. "We knew you'd do it for us. Thanks, Fitz."

  As quickly she was spinning away from me, stave at the ready as she danced threateningly toward her partner, who gave ground grudgingly. With a sigh, I turned away from the courtyard. I had thought Molly would be fetching water at this time. I'd hoped for a glimpse of her. But she was not, and I left feeling disappointed. I knew I should not play at such games, but some days I could not resist the temptation. I left the courtyard.

  The last few days had become a special sort of self-torture for me. I refused to allow myself to see Molly again, but could not resist shadowing her. So I was in the kitchen but a moment after she had left, fancying I could still catch the trace of her perfume in the air. Or I stationed. myself in the Great Hall of an evening, and tried to be where I could watch her without being noticed. No matter what amusement was offered, minstrel or poet or puppeteer, or just folk talking and working on their handicrafts, my eyes would be drawn always to wherever Molly might be. She looked so sober and demure in her dark blue skirts and blouse, and she had never a glance for me. Always she spoke with the other Keep women, or on the rare evenings when Patience chose to descend, she sat beside her and attended to her with a focus of attention that denied I even existed. Sometimes I thought my brief encounter with her had been a dream. But at night I could go back to my room and take out the shirt I had hidden in the bottom of my clothes chest, and if I held it close to my face, I fancied I could still smell the faint trace of her perfume upon it. And so I endured.

  A number of days had passed since we had burned the Forged ones on their funeral pyre. In addition to the formation of the Queen's guard, other changes were afoot within and without the Keep. Two other master boat builders, unsummoned, had come to volunteer their skills for the building of the ships. Verity had been delighted. But even more so had Queen Kettricken been approved, for it was to her that they presented themselves, saying that they desired to be of service. Their apprentices came with them, to swell the ranks of those working in the shipyards. Now the lamps burned both before dawn and after the sun's setting, and work proceeded at a breakneck pace. So Verity was away all the more, and Kettricken, when I called on her, was more subdued than ever. I tempted her with books or outings to no avail. She spent most of her time sitting near idly at her loom, growing more pale and listless with every passing day. Her dark mood infected those ladies who attended her, so that to visit her room was as cheery as keeping a deathwatch.

  I had not expected to find Verity in his study, and was not disappointed. He was down at the boat sheds, as always. I left word with Charim to ask that I be summoned whenever Verity might have the time to see me. Then, with a resolve to keep myself busy and to do as Chade had suggested, I returned to my room. I took both dice and tally sticks with me, and headed for the Queen's chambers.

  I had resolved to teach her some of the games of chance that the lords and ladies were fond of, in the hopes that she might expand her circle of entertainments. I also hoped, with less expectations, that such games might draw her to socialize more widely and to depend less on my companionship. Her bleak mood was beginning to burden me with its oppressiveness, so that I often heartily wished to be away from her.

  "Teach her to cheat first. Only, just tell her that's how the game is played. Tell her the rules permit deception. A bit of sleight of hand, easily taught, and she could clean Regal's pockets for him a time or two before he dared suspect her. And then what could he do? Accuse Buckkeep's lady of cheating at dice?"

  The Fool, of course. At my elbow, companionably pacing alongside me, his rat scepter jouncing lightly on his shoulder. I did not startle physically, but he knew that once more, he had taken me by surprise. His amusement shone in his eyes.

  "I think our queen-in-waiting might take it amiss if I so misinformed her. Why do you not come with me instead, to brighten her spirits a bit? I shall set aside the dice, and you can juggle for her," I suggested.

  "Juggle for her? Why, Fitz, that is all I do, all day long, and you see it as but my foolery. You see my work and deem it play, while I see you work so earnestly at playing games you have not yourself devised. Take a Fool's advice on this. Teach the lady not dice, but riddles, and you will both be the wiser."

  "Riddles? That's a Bingtown game, is it not?"

  "'Twere one played well at Buckkeep these days. Answer me this one, if you can. How does one call a thing when one does not know how to call it?"

  "I have never been any good at this game, Fool."

  "Nor any other of your bloodline, from what I have heard. So answer this. What has wings in Shrewd's scroll, a tongue of flame in Verity's book, silver eyes in the Relltown Vellums, and gold-scaled skin in your room?"

  "That's a riddle?"

  He looked at me pityingly. "No. A riddle is what I just asked you. That's an Elderling. And the first riddle was, how do you summon one?"

  My stride slowed. I looked at him more directly, but his eyes were always difficult to meet.

  "Is that a riddle? Or a serious question?"

  "Yes." The Fool was grave.

  I stopped in midstride, completely bemuddled. I glared at him. In answer, he went nose to nose with his rat scepter. They simpered at one another. "You see, Ratsy, he knows no more than his uncle or his grandfather. None of them know how to summon an Elderling."

  "By the Skill," I said impetuously.

  The Fool looked at me strangely. "You know this?"

  "I suspect it is so."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know. Now that I consider it, I do not think it likely. King Wisdom made a long journey to find the Elderlings. If he could simply have Skilled to them, why didn't he?

  "Indeed. But sometimes there is truth in impetuosity. So riddle me this, boy. A King is alive. Likewise a Prince. And both are Skilled. But where are those who trained alongside the King, or those who trained before him? How come we to this, this paucity of Skilled ones at a time when they are so grievously needed?"

  "Few are trained in times of peace. Galen didn't see fit to train any, up until his last year. And the coterie he created ..." I paused suddenly, and though the corridor was empty, I suddenly did not want to speak anymore about it. I had always kept whatever Verity told me about the Skill in confidence.

  The Fool pranced in a sudden circle about me. "If the shoe does not fit, one cannot wear it, no matter who made it for you," he declared.

  I nodded grudgingly. "Exactly."

  "And he who made it is gone. Sad. So sad. Sadder than hot meat on the table and red wine in your glass. But he who is gone was made by someone in turn."

  "Solicity. But she is also gone."<
br />
  "Ah. But Shrewd is not. Nor Verity. It seems to me that if there are two she created still breathing, there ought to be others. Where are they?"

  I shrugged. "Gone. Old. Dead. I don't know." I forced my impatience down, tried to consider his question.- "King Shrewd's sister, Merry. August's mother. She would have been trained, perhaps, but she is long dead. Shrewd's father, King Bounty, was the last to have a coterie, I believe. But very few folk of that generation are still alive." I halted my tongue. Verity had once told me that Solicity had trained as many in the Skill as she could find the talent in. Surely there must be some of them left alive; they would be no more than a decade or so older than Verity ....

  "Dead, too many of them, if you ask me. I do know." The Fool interjected an answer to my unspoken question. I looked at him blankly. He stuck his tongue out at me, waltzed away from me a bit. He considered his scepter, chucked the rat lovingly under the chin. "You see, Ratsy. It is as I told you. None of them know. None of them are smart enough to ask."

  "Fool, cannot you ever speak plain?" I cried out in frustration.

  He halted as suddenly as if struck. In mid-pirouette, he lowered his heels to the floor and stood like a statue. "Would it help any?" he asked soberly. "Would you listen to me if I came to you and did not speak in riddles? Would that make you pause and think and hang upon every word, and ponder those words later, in your chamber? Very well then. I shall try. Do you know the rhyme `Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe town'?"

  I nodded, as confused as ever.

  "Recite it for me."

  "`Six Wisemen went to Jhaampe-town, climbed a hill and never came down, turned to stone and flew away ....' " The old nursery rhyme eluded me suddenly. "I don't recall it all. It's nonsense anyway, one of those rhyming things that sticks in your head but means nothing."

  "That, of course, is why it is enscrolled with the knowledge verses," the Fool concluded.

  "I don't know!" I retorted. I suddenly felt irritated beyond endurance. "Fool, you are doing it again. All you speak is riddles, ever! You claim to speak plain, but your truth eludes me. "

  "Riddles, dear Fitzy-fitz, are supposed to make folk. think. To find new truth in old saws. But, be that as it may .... Your brain eludes me. How shall I reach it? Perhaps if I came to you, by dark of night, and sang under your window:

  "`Bastard Princeling, Fitz my sweet,

  You waste your hours to your own defeat.

  You work to stop, you strive to refrain,

  When all your effort should go to a gain.

  He had flung himself to one knee, and plucked nonexistent strings on his scepter. He sang quite lustily, and even well. The tune belonged to a popular love ballad. He looked at me, sighed theatrically, wet his lips, and continued mournfully:

  "`Why does a Farseer look never afar,

  Why dwells he completely in things as they are?

  Your coasts are besieged, your people beset.

  I warn and I urge, but they all say, "not yet!"

  O Bastard Princeling, gentle Fitz,

  Will you delay until chopped to bits?' "

  A passing servant girl paused to stand bemused and listen. A page came to the door of one chamber and peeped out at us, grinning widely. A slow flush began to heat my cheeks, for the Fool's expression was both tender and ardent as he looked up at me. I tried to walk casually away from him, but he followed me on his knees, clutching at my sleeve. I was forced to stand, or engage in a ridiculous struggle to free myself. I stood, feeling foolish. He simpered a smile up at me. The page giggled, and down the hall I heard two voices conferring in amusement. I refused to lift my eyes to see who was so enjoying my discomfort. The Fool mouthed a kiss up at me. He let his voice sink to a confidential whisper as he sang on:

  "'Will fate seduce you to her will?

  Not if you struggle with all your Skill.

  Summon your allies, locate the trained,

  Consummate all from which you've refrained.

  There's a future not yet fashioned,

  Founded by your fiery passions.

  If you use your Wits to win,

  You'll save the Duchies for your kin.

  Thus begs a Fool, on bended knee,

  Let not a darkness come to be.

  Let not our peoples go to dust

  When Life in you has placed this trust.'"

  He paused, then sang loudly and jovially:

  "And if you choose to let this pass

  Like so much farting from your ass,

  Behold my reverence for thee,

  Feast. eyes on what men seldom see!'"

  He suddenly released my cuff, to tumble away from me in a somersault that somehow reached a finish with his presentation of his bare buttocks to me. They were shockingly pale, and I could conceal neither my amazement nor affront. The Fool vaulted to his feet, suitably clothed again, and Ratsy on his scepter bowed most humbly to all who had paused to watch my humiliation. There was general laughter and a scattering of applause. His performance had left me speechless. I looked aside and tried to walk past him, but with a bound the Fool blocked my passage once again. The Fool abruptly assumed a stern stance and addressed all who still grinned.

  "Fie and shame upon you all, to be so merry! To giggle and point at a boy's broken heart! Do not you know the Fitz has lost one most dear to him? Ah, he hides his grief beneath his blushes, but she has gone to her grave and left his passion unslaked. That most stubbornly chaste and virulently flatulent of maidens, dear Lady Thyme, has perished. Of her own stench, I doubt it not, though some say it came of eating spoiled meat. But spoiled meat, you say, has a most foul odor, to warn off any from consuming it. Such we can say of Lady Thyme also, and so perhaps she smelled it not, or deemed it but the perfume of her fingers. Mourn not, poor Fitz, another shall be found for you. To this I shall devote myself, this very day! I swear it, by Sir Ratsy's skull. And now I bid you hasten on your tasks, for in truth I have delayed mine much too long. Farewell, poor Fitz. Brave, sad heart! To put so bold a face on your desolation! Poor disconsolate youth! Ah, Fitz, poor poor Fitz ..."

  And he wandered off down the hall from me, shaking his head woefully, and conferring with Ratsy as to which elderly dowager he should court on my behalf. I stared in disbelief after him. I felt betrayed, that he could make so public a spectacle of me. Sharp-tongued and flighty as the Fool could be, I had never expected to be the public butt of one of his jokes. I kept waiting for him to turn around and say some last thing that would make me understand what had just happened. He did not. When he turned a corner, I perceived that my ordeal was finally at an end. I proceeded down the hallway, fuming with embarrassment and dazed with puzzlement at the same time. The doggerel of his rhymes had stored his words in my head, and I knew that I would ponder his love song much in days to come, to try to worry out the meanings hidden there. But Lady Thyme? Surely he would not say such a thing, were it not "true." But why would Chade allow his public persona to die in such a way? What poor woman's body would be carried out as Lady Thyme, no doubt to be carted off to distant relatives for burial? Was this his method of beginning his journey, a way to leave the Keep unseen? But again, why let her be dead? So that Regal might believe he had succeeded in his poisoning? To what end?

  Thus bemused, I finally came to the doors of Kettricken's chamber. I stood in the hall a moment, to recover my aplomb and compose my face. Suddenly the door across the hall flung open and Regal strode into me. His momentum jostled me aside, and before I could recover myself, he grandly offered, "It's all right, Fitz. I scarcely expect an apology from one so bereaved as yourself." He stood in the hallway, straightening his jerkin as the young men following him emerged from his chamber, tittering in amusement. He smiled 'round at them, and then leaned close to me to ask, in a quietly venomous voice, "Where will you suckle up now that the old whore Thyme is dead? Ah, well. I am sure you will find some other old woman to coddle you. Or are you come to wheedle up to a younger one now?" He dared to smile at me, before he wheeled on his he
el and strode off in a fine flutter of sleeves, trailed by his three sycophants.

  The insult to the Queen poisoned me into rage. It came with a suddenness such as I had never experienced. I felt my chest and throat swell with it. A terrible strength rushed through me; I know my upper lip lifted in a snarl. From afar I sensed, What? What is it? Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! I took a step, the next would have been a spring, and I know my teeth would have sunk into the place where throat meets shoulder.

  But: "FitzChivalry," said a voice, full of surprise.

  Molly's voice! I turned to her, my emotions wrenching from rage to delight at seeing her. But as swiftly she was turning aside, saying, "Beg pardon, my lord," and brushing past me. Her eyes were down, her manner that of a servant.

  "Molly?" I called, stepping after her. She paused. When she looked back at me, her face was empty of emotion, her voice neutral.

  "Sir? Had you an errand for me?"

  "An errand?" Of course. I glanced about us, but the corridor was empty. I took a step toward her, pitched my voice low for her ears only. "No. I've just missed you so. Molly, I-"

  "This is not seemly, sir. I beg you to excuse me." She turned, proudly, calmly, and walked away from me.

  "What did I do?" I demanded, in angry consternation. I did not really expect an answer. But she paused. Her blue clothed back was straight, her head erect under her tatted haircloth. She did not turn back to me, but said quietly, to the corridor, "Nothing. You did nothing at all, my lord. Absolutely nothing."

  "Molly!" I protested, but she turned the corner and was gone. I stood staring after her. After a moment I realized I was making a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl.

  Let us go hunting instead.

  Perhaps, I found myself agreeing, that would be the best thing. To go hunting, to kill, to eat, to sleep. And to do no more than that.

  Why not now?

  I don't really know.

  I composed myself and knocked at Kettricken's door. It was opened by little Rosemary, who dimpled a smile at me as she invited me in. Once within, Molly's errand here was evident. Kettricken was holding a fat green candle under her nose. On the table were several others. "Bayberry," I observed.