Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  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. His­spit; 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.

  ‘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 to 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 to­wards 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 trav­el­ling 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 to­wards 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 trav­el­ling 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 Skill­mas­ter. 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 fin­ger
s 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.

  ‘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 I dis­covered by talk­ing to some of the very old folk in the keep, ask­ing them to re­call what ru­mours 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.’

  For a time we sat in si­lence. He was let­ting me come to my own con­clu­sions. I was wise enough not to voice them aloud. ‘And Eld­er­lings?’ I asked at last.

  ‘A dif­fer­ent sort of riddle. At the time they were writ­ten about, all knew what they were. So I sur­mise. It would be the same if you went to find a scroll that ex­plained ex­actly what a horse was. You would find many passing men­tions of them, and a few that re­lated dir­ectly to shoe­ing one, or to one stal­lion’s blood-line. But who amongst us would see the need to de­vote the la­bour and time to writ­ing out ex­actly what a horse is?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So, again, it is a sift­ing out of de­tail. I have not had the time re­quired to de­vote my­self to such a task.’ For a mo­ment he sat look­ing at me. Then he opened a little stone box on his desk and took out a key. ‘There is a cab­inet in my bed­cham­ber,’ he said slowly. ‘I have gathered there what scrolls I could find that made even a passing men­tion of the Eld­er­lings. There are also some re­lated to the Skill. I give you leave to pore through them. Ask Fed­wren for good pa­per, and keep notes of what you dis­cover. Look for pat­terns among those notes. And bring them to me, every month or so.’

  I took the little brass key in my hand. It weighed strangely heavy, as if at­tached to the task the Fool had sug­ges­ted and Ver­ity had con­firmed. Look for pat­terns, Ver­ity had sug­ges­ted. I sud­denly saw one, a web woven from me to the Fool to Ver­ity and back again. Like Ver­ity’s other pat­terns, it did not seem to be an ac­ci­dent. I wondered who had ori­gin­ated the pat­tern. I glanced at Ver­ity, but his thoughts had gone afar. I rose quietly to go.

  As I touched the door, he spoke to me. ‘Come to me. Very early to­mor­row morn­ing. To my tower.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Per­haps we may yet dis­cover an­other Skilled one, un­sus­pec­ted in our midst.’

  TWELVE

  Tasks

  Per­haps the most dev­ast­at­ing part of our war with the Red Ships was the sense of help­less­ness that over­powered us. It was as if a ter­rible para­lysis lay over the land and its rulers. The tac­tics of the Raid­ers were so in­com­pre­hens­ible that for the first year we stood still as if dazed. The second year of raid­ing, we tried to de­fend ourselves. But our skills were rusty; for too long they had been em­ployed only against the chance Raid­ers, the op­por­tun­istic or the des­per­ate. Against or­gan­ized pir­ates who had stud­ied our sea-coasts, our watchtower po­s­i­tions, our tides and cur­rents, we were like chil­dren. Only Prince Ver­ity’s Skilling provided any pro­tec­tion for us. How many ships he turned aside, how many nav­ig­at­ors he muddled or pi­lots he con­fused, we will never know. Be­cause his people could not grasp what he did for them, it was as if the Farseers did noth­ing. Folk saw only the raids that were suc­cess­ful, never the ships that went onto the rocks or sailed too far south dur­ing a storm. The people lost heart. The In­land duch­ies bridled at taxes to pro­tect a coast­line they didn’t share; the Coastal duch­ies were la­boured un­der taxes that seemed to make no dif­fer­ence. So if the en­thu­si­asm for Ver­ity’s war­ships was a fickle thing, rising and fall­ing with the folk’s cur­rent as­sess­ment of him, we can­not really blame the people. It seemed the longest winter of my life.

  I went from Ver­ity’s study to Queen Kettricken’s apart­ments. I knocked and was ad­mit­ted by the same little page girl as pre­vi­ously. With her merry little face and dark curly hair, Rose­mary re­minded me of some pool sprite. Within, the at­mo­sphere of the room seemed sub­dued. Sev­eral of Kettricken’s wo­men were there, and they all sat on stools around a frame hold­ing a white linen cloth. They were do­ing edge-work on it, flowers and green­ery done in bright threads. I had wit­nessed sim­ilar pro­jects in Mis­tress Hasty’s apart­ments. Usu­ally these activ­it­ies seemed merry, with tongues wag­ging and friendly banter, needles flash­ing as they dragged their tails of bright thread through the heavy cloth. But here, it was near si­lent. The wo­men worked with their heads bent, di­li­gently, skil­fully, but without gay talk. Scen­ted candles, pink and green, burned in each corner of the room. Their subtle fra­grances mingled scents over the frame.

  Kettricken presided over the work, her own hands as busy as any. She seemed the source of the still­ness. Her face was com­posed, even peace­ful. Her self-con­tain­ment was so evid­ent I could al­most see the walls around her. Her look was pleas­ant, her eyes kind, but I did not sense she was really there at all. She was like a con­tainer of cool, still wa­ter. She was dressed in a long simple robe of green, more of the Moun­tain style than of Buck­keep. She had set her jew­ellery aside. She looked up at me and smiled ques­tion­ingly. I felt like an in­truder, an in­ter­rup­tion to a group of study­ing pu­pils and their mas­ter. So in­stead of simply greet­ing her, I tried to jus­tify my pres­ence. I spoke form­ally, mind­ful of all the watch­ing wo­men.

  ‘Queen Kettricken. King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity has asked me to bring a mes­sage to you.’

  Some­thing seemed to flicker be­hind her eyes, and then was still again. ‘Yes,’ she said neut­rally. None of the needles paused in their jump­ing dance, but I was sure that every ear waited for whatever tid­ings I might be bring­ing.

  ‘Upon a tower there was once a garden, called the Queen’s Garden. Once, King Ver­ity said, it had pots of green­ery, and ponds of wa­ter. It was a place of flower­ing plants, and fish, and wind chimes. It was his mother’s. My queen, he wishes you to have it.
’

  The still­ness at the table grew pro­found. Kettricken’s eyes grew very wide. Care­fully, she asked, ‘Are you cer­tain of this mes­sage?’

  ‘Of course, my lady.’ I was puzzled by her re­ac­tion. ‘He said it would give him a great deal of pleas­ure to see it re­stored. He spoke of it with great fond­ness, es­pe­cially re­call­ing the beds of flower­ing thyme.’

  The joy in Kettricken’s face un­furled like the petals of a flower. She lif­ted a hand to her mouth, took a shiv­er­ing breath through her fin­gers. Blood flushed through her pale face, ros­ing her cheeks. Her eyes shone. ‘I must see it,’ she ex­claimed. ‘I must see it now!’ She stood ab­ruptly. ‘Rose­mary? My cloak and gloves, please.’ She beamed about at her ladies. ‘Will not you fetch your cloaks and gloves also, and ac­com­pany me?’

  ‘My queen, the storm is most fierce today …’ one began hes­it­antly.

  But an­other, an older wo­man with a moth­erly cast to her fea­tures, Lady Mod­esty, stood slowly. ‘I shall join you on the tower top. Pluck!’ A small boy who had been drows­ing in the corner leaped to his feet. ‘Dash off and fetch my cloak and gloves. And my hood.’ She turned back to Kettricken. ‘I re­call that garden well, from Queen Con­stance’s days. Many a pleas­ant hour I spent there in her com­pany. I will take joy in its res­tor­a­tion.’

  There was a heart­beat’s pause, and then the other ladies were tak­ing sim­ilar ac­tion. By the time I had re­turned with my own cloak, they were all ready to go. I felt dis­tinctly pe­cu­liar as I led this pro­ces­sion of ladies through the keep, and then up the long climb to the Queen’s Garden. By then, count­ing the pages and the curi­ous, there were nearly a score of people fol­low­ing Kettricken and me. As I led the way up the steep stone steps, Kettricken was right on my heels. The oth­ers trailed out in a long tail be­hind us. As I pushed on the heavy door, for­cing it open against the layer of snow out­side, Kettricken asked softly, ‘He’s for­given me, hasn’t he?’