Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  It had been some time since I had last called upon her. But her sit­ting cham­ber never seemed to change, save in the up­per­most layer of lit­ter that re­flec­ted her cur­rent pas­sion. This day was no ex­cep­tion. Au­tumn-gathered herbs, bundled for dry­ing, were sus­pen­ded every­where, filling the room with their scents. I felt I was strolling through an in­ver­ted meadow as I ducked to avoid the dangling fo­liage.

  ‘You’ve hung these a bit low,’ I com­plained as Pa­tience entered.

  ‘No. You’ve man­aged to grow a bit too tall. Stand up straight and let me look at you now.’

  I obeyed, even though it left me with a bundle of cat­mint rest­ing on my head.

  ‘Well. At least row­ing about killing people all sum­mer has left you in good health. Much bet­ter than the sickly boy who came home to me last winter. I told you those ton­ics would work. As long as you’ve grown that tall, you may as well help me hang up these lot.’

  Without more ado, I was put to work string­ing lines from sconces to bed­posts to any­thing else that a string could be tied to, and then to fasten­ing bundles of herbs to them. She had me treed, up on a chair and ty­ing bundles of bal­sam, when she de­man­ded, ‘Why do you no longer whine to me about how much you miss Molly?’

  ‘Would it do me any good?’ I asked her quietly after a mo­ment. I did my best to sound resigned.

  ‘No.’ She paused a mo­ment as if think­ing. She handed me yet an­other bou­quet of leaves. ‘Those,’ she in­formed me as I fastened them up, ‘are stipple-leaf. Very bit­ter. Some say they will pre­vent a wo­man con­ceiv­ing. They don’t. At least, not de­pend­ably. But if a wo­man eats them for too long, she can be­come ill from them.’ She paused as if con­sid­er­ing. ‘Per­haps, if a wo­man is sick, she does not con­ceive as eas­ily. But I would not re­com­mend them to any­one, least of all any­one I cared about.’

  I found my tongue, sought a cas­ual air. ‘Why do you dry them, then?’

  ‘An in­fu­sion of them, gargled, will help a sore throat. So Molly Chand­ler told me, when I found her gath­er­ing them in the Wo­men’s Garden.’

  ‘I see.’ I fastened the leaves to the line, dangling them like a body from a noose. Even their odour was bit­ter. Had I wondered, earlier, how Ver­ity could be so un­aware of what was right be­fore him? Why had I never thought of this? How must it be for her, to dread what a right­fully-mar­ried wo­man would long for? What Pa­tience had longed for in vain?

  ‘… sea­weed, FitzChiv­alry?’

  I star­ted. ‘Beg par­don?’

  ‘I said, when you have an af­ter­noon free, would you gather sea­weed for me? The black, crinkly sort? It has the most fla­vour this time of year.’

  ‘I will try,’ I replied ab­sently. For how many years would Molly have to worry? How much bit­ter­ness must she swal­low?

  ‘What are you look­ing at?’ Pa­tience de­man­ded.

  ‘Noth­ing. Why?’

  ‘Be­cause I’ve asked you twice to get down so we can move the chair. We’ve all these other pack­ets to hang, you know.’

  ‘Beg par­don. I didn’t get much sleep last night; it’s left me dull-wit­ted today.’

  ‘I agree. You should start sleep­ing more at night.’ These words were uttered a bit heav­ily. ‘Now come down and move the chair so we can hang these mints.’

  I didn’t eat much at din­ner. Regal was alone on the high dais, look­ing sul­len. His usual circle of fawn­ers clustered at a table just be­low him. I did not un­der­stand why he chose to dine sep­ar­ately. Cer­tainly, he had the rank to, but why choose this isol­a­tion? He summoned one of the more flat­ter­ing of the min­strels he had re­cently im­por­ted to Buck­keep. Most of them were from Far­row. All of them af­fected the nasal in­ton­a­tions of that re­gion, and fa­voured the long, chant­ing styles of epics. This one sang a long telling of some ad­ven­ture of Regal’s ma­ter­nal grand­father. I listened as little as I was able; it seemed to have to do with rid­ing a horse to death in or­der to be the one to shoot a great stag that had eluded a gen­er­a­tion of hunters. It praised end­lessly the great-hearted horse who had gone to his death at his mas­ter’s bid­ding. It said noth­ing of the mas­ter’s stu­pid­ity in wast­ing such an an­imal to gain some tough meat and a rack of antlers.

  ‘You look half-sick,’ Burrich ob­served as he paused be­side me. I rose to leave table and walked through the hall with him.

  ‘Too much on my mind. Too many dir­ec­tions to think in all at once. I some­times feel that if I had time to fo­cus my mind on just one prob­lem, I could solve it. And then go on to solve the oth­ers.’

  ‘Every man be­lieves that. It isn’t so. Slay the ones you can as they come to hand, and after a while, you get used to the ones you can do noth­ing about.’

  ‘Such as?’

  He shrugged and ges­tured down­ward. ‘Such as hav­ing a game leg. Or be­ing a bas­tard. We all get used to things we once swore we could never live with. But what’s eat­ing your liver this time?’

  ‘Noth­ing I can tell you about just yet. Not here, any­way.’

  ‘Oh. More of those, huh.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t envy you, Fitz. Some­times all a man needs is to growl about his prob­lems to an­other man. They’ve denied you even that. But take heart. I have faith you can handle them even if you think you can’t.’

  He clapped me on the shoulders, and then left in a blast of cold air from the outer doors. Ver­ity was right. The winter storms were rising, if to­night’s wind was any in­dic­ator. I was halfway up the stairs be­fore I re­flec­ted that Burrich now spoke to me straight across. He fi­nally be­lieved I was a man grown. Well, maybe I would do bet­ter if I be­lieved that about my­self. I squared my shoulders and went up to my room.

  I put more ef­fort into dress­ing than I had in a long time. As I did, I thought of Ver­ity hast­ily chan­ging his shirt for Kettricken. How had he ever man­aged to be so blind to her? And I to Molly? What other things did she do for our sake that I had never real­ized? My misery re­turned, stronger than ever. To­night. To­night after Shrewd was done with me. I could not let her con­tinue her sac­ri­fices. For now, I could do noth­ing save put it out of my mind. I pulled my hair back into the war­rior’s tail that I felt fully-earned now, and tugged the front of my blue jer­kin straight. It was a bit snug across the shoulders, but so was everything I owned lately. I left my room.

  In the hall­way out­side King Shrewd’s apart­ments I en­countered Ver­ity with Kettricken on his arm. Never had I seen them as they presen­ted them­selves now. Here, sud­denly, was the King-in-Wait­ing and his queen. Ver­ity was dressed in a long formal robe of deep forest green. An em­broidered band of styl­ized bucks graced the sleeves and hem. He wore on his brow the sil­ver circlet with the blue gem that was the mark of the King-in-Wait­ing. I had not seen him wear it in some time. Kettricken was dressed in the purple and white that she so of­ten chose. Her gown of purple was very simple, the sleeves cut short and wide to re­veal nar­rower and longer sleeves of white be­neath them. She wore the jew­ellery that Ver­ity had gif­ted her with, and her long blonde hair had been in­tric­ately dressed with a net of sil­ver chain junc­tured with amethysts. I hal­ted at the sight of them. Their faces were grave. They could be go­ing nowhere ex­cept to see King Shrewd.

  I presen­ted my­self form­ally, and care­fully let Ver­ity know that King Shrewd had summoned me.

  ‘No,’ he told me gently. ‘I summoned you to present your­self to King Shrewd. Along with Kettricken and me. I wished you wit­ness for this.’

  Re­lief flooded me. This was not about Celer­ity then. ‘Wit­ness for what, my prince?’ I man­aged to ask.

  He looked at me as if I were daft. ‘I ask the King’s per­mis­sion to leave on a quest. To seek out the Eld­er­lings and bring back the aid we so des­per­ately need.’

  ‘Oh.’ I should have no­ticed the quiet page, all in black, bear­ing
an arm­ful of scrolls and tab­lets. The boy’s face was white and stiff. I would wager he had never be­fore done any­thing more formal for Ver­ity than wax his boots. Rose­mary, freshly-washed and clothed in Kettricken’s col­ours, re­minded me of a scrubbed purple and white turnip. I smiled at the chubby child, but she re­turned my look gravely.

  Without pre­amble, Ver­ity rapped once on King Shrewd’s door. ‘A mo­ment!’ called a voice. Wal­lace’s. He opened the door a crack, glared out, then real­ized that this was Ver­ity he was keep­ing out. He had a mo­ment of too ob­vi­ous hes­it­a­tion be­fore he swung the door wide.

  ‘Sir,’ he quavered. ‘I did not ex­pect you. That is, I was not in­formed that the King was to have …’

  ‘You are not needed for this. You may go, now.’ Usu­ally Ver­ity did not dis­miss even a page so coldly.

  ‘But … the King may have need of me …’ The man’s eyes shif­ted wildly about. He feared some­thing.

  Ver­ity’s eyes nar­rowed. ‘If he does, I will see you are summoned. In fact, you may wait. Just out­side the door. Be there if I call for you.’

  After an in­stant’s pause, Wal­lace stepped out­side the door and stood be­side it. We entered the King’s cham­bers. Ver­ity him­self set hand to the door and shut it. ‘I do not like that man,’ he ob­served, more than loudly enough to be heard through the door. ‘He is of­fi­ciously sub­ser­vi­ent, and greas­ily ob­sequious. A very poor com­bin­a­tion.’

  The King was not in his sit­ting room. As Ver­ity crossed it the Fool sud­denly ap­peared in Shrewd’s bed­room door­way. He goggled at us, grinned in a sud­den lift of joy, and then made a floor-sweep­ing bow to all of us. ‘Sire! Awaken! It is as I have fore­told, the min­strels have ar­rived!’

  ‘Fool,’ Ver­ity growled, but it was good-natured. He brushed past him, fend­ing off the Fool’s mock­ing at­tempts to kiss the hem of his robe. Kettricken lif­ted a hand to smother a smile and fol­lowed Ver­ity. The Fool all but suc­ceeded in trip­ping me with a sud­denly stretched forth foot. I avoided it, but made a clumsy en­trance, nearly col­lid­ing with Kettricken. The Fool grinned and simpered at me, then capered over to Shrewd’s bed­side. He lif­ted the old man’s hand, pat­ted it with true gen­tle­ness. ‘Your majesty? Your majesty? You have callers.’

  In the bed, Shrewd stirred and took a sud­den deep breath. ‘What’s this? Who’s here? Ver­ity? Pull back the cur­tains, Fool, I can scarcely see who’s here. Queen Kettricken? What’s all this? The Fitz! What is this about?’ His voice was not strong, and there was a quer­ulous note to it, but for all that he was bet­ter than I had ex­pec­ted. As the Fool drew back the bed-cur­tains and propped pil­lows be­hind him, I found my­self fa­cing a man who looked older than Chade. The re­semb­lance between the two seemed to be­come more marked as Shrewd aged. The flesh of the King’s face had fallen, to re­veal the same brow-line and cheekbones as his bas­tard brother. The eyes be­neath those brows were alert, but weary. He seemed bet­ter than the last time I had seen him. He pushed him­self more up­right to con­front us. ‘Well, what is this about?’ he de­man­ded, his eyes scan­ning our circle.

  Ver­ity bowed deeply, form­ally, and Kettricken echoed it with her curt­sey. I did as I knew was re­quired: went down on one knee and stayed there, head bowed. I still man­aged to peek up when Ver­ity spoke. ‘King Shrewd. My father. I come to ask your per­mis­sion for an un­der­tak­ing.’

  ‘Which is?’ the King asked testily.

  Ver­ity lif­ted his eyes to meet his father’s. ‘I wish to leave Buck­keep, and with a picked band of men, at­tempt to fol­low the same path King Wis­dom took so long ago. I wish to jour­ney this winter to the Rain Wilds bey­ond the Moun­tain King­dom, to find the Eld­er­lings and ask them to keep the pledge they made to our an­cestor.’

  An in­cred­u­lous look passed briefly over Shrewd’s face. He pushed him­self up­right in bed, swung his thin legs over the side. ‘Fool. Bring wine. Fitz, get up and help him. Kettricken, dear, your arm if you will to help me to that chair by the fire. Ver­ity, fetch the small table by the win­dow. Please.’

  With this hand­ful of re­quests, Shrewd popped the bubble of form­al­ity. Kettricken helped him with a fa­mili­ar­ity that showed me she had a genu­ine bond with the old man. The Fool pranced off to the cup­board in the sit­ting room for wine glasses, leav­ing me to se­lect a bottle of wine from the small store that Shrewd kept in his rooms. The bottles were covered in dust, as if he had not tasted these wines for a long time. I wondered sus­pi­ciously what was the source of what Wal­lace gave him. At least the rest of the room, I noted, was in good or­der. Much bet­ter than it had been be­fore Win­ter­fest. The Smoke censers that had so dis­tressed me stood cold in the corner. And to­night the King seemed to have his wits still.

  The Fool helped the King into a thick wool­len robe and knelt to slip­per his feet. Shrewd settled into his chair by the fire, and set his wine glass on the table at his el­bow. Older. Much older. But the king I had re­por­ted to so of­ten in my youth once more held coun­cil be­fore me. Sud­denly I wished I could be the one speak­ing to him to­night. This sharp-eyed old man might ac­tu­ally hear out my reas­ons for wish­ing to wed Molly. I felt a new roil­ing of an­ger at Wal­lace for the habits he had led my king into.

  But this was not my time. Des­pite the King’s in­form­al­ity, Ver­ity and Kettricken were strung tight as bow­strings. The Fool and I brought chairs that they might be seated to either side of Shrewd. I stood be­hind Ver­ity and waited.

  ‘Tell it simply,’ Shrewd re­ques­ted of Ver­ity, and he did. Kettricken’s scrolls were un­furled one at a time, and Ver­ity read aloud the per­tin­ent pas­sages. The old map was stud­ied at length. Shrewd did noth­ing but ask ques­tions at first, mak­ing no com­ments or judge­ments un­til he was sure he had from them every scrap of in­form­a­tion. The Fool stood at his el­bow, al­tern­ately beam­ing at me, and mak­ing ter­rible faces at Ver­ity’s page in an at­tempt to make the pet­ri­fied boy at least smile. I think it more likely he frightened the lad. Rose­mary for­got en­tirely where she was and wandered off to toy with the tas­sels on the bed-cur­tains.

  When Ver­ity had fin­ished speak­ing, and Kettricken had ad­ded her com­ments, the King leaned back in his chair. He drained the bit of wine that was still in his glass, then held it out to the Fool to re­fill. He took a sip, sighed, then shook his head. ‘No. There is too much of peck­sies and nurs­ery tales to this for you to un­der­take it right now, Ver­ity. You have shown me enough to make me be­lieve it worth our while to send an emis­sary there. A man of your choos­ing, with a fit­ting en­tour­age, gifts and let­ters from you and I to con­firm he is there at our be­hest. But your­self, the King-in-Wait­ing? No. We have not the re­sources to spare just now. Regal was at me earlier today, go­ing over the costs of the new ships be­ing built, and the for­ti­fy­ing of the towers on Antler Is­land. Money is be­com­ing scarce. And it might not make the folk feel safe, to have you leave the city.’

  ‘I do not flee, I leave on a quest. A quest with their be­ne­fit as my goal. And I leave be­hind my Queen-in-Wait­ing, to rep­res­ent me to them while I am gone. I did not have in mind a cara­van with min­strels and cooks and em­broidered tents, sir. We would be trav­el­ling on snowy roads, go­ing into the heart of winter it­self. I would take a mil­it­ary con­tin­gent, and travel as sol­diers do. As I al­ways have.’

  ‘And you think this would im­press the Eld­er­lings? If you find them? If they ever ex­is­ted at all?’

  ‘Le­gend has it that King Wis­dom went on his own. I be­lieve the Eld­er­lings ex­is­ted, and that he found them. If I fail, I will re­turn, to take up again with my Skilling and my war­ships. What will we have lost? If I suc­ceed, I bring back a power­ful ally.’

  ‘And if you die in the seek­ing?’ Shrewd asked heav­ily.

  Ver­ity opened his mouth to reply. But be­fore he
could speak, the sit­ting-room door was flung open and Regal boiled into the room. His face was flushed. ‘What goes on here? Why was I not in­formed of this coun­cil?’ He shot me a venom­ous look. Be­hind him, Wal­lace peeped in at the door.

  Ver­ity per­mit­ted him­self a small smile. ‘If you were not in­formed by your spies, why are you here now? Re­buke them that you did not know sooner, not me.’ Wal­lace’s head jerked back out of sight.

  ‘Father, I de­mand to know what goes on here!’ Regal very nearly stamped his foot. Be­hind Shrewd, the Fool mim­icked Regal’s fa­cial ex­pres­sion. At this, Ver­ity’s page fi­nally smiled, but then his eyes widened and he straightened his face.

  King Shrewd ad­dressed Ver­ity in­stead. ‘Is there a reason that you wished Prince Regal ex­cluded from this dis­cus­sion?’

  ‘I did not see that it con­cerned him.’ He paused. ‘And I wished to be sure the de­cision reached was ex­clus­ively your own.’ Ver­ity, faith­ful to his name.

  Regal hackled, his nos­trils pinch­ing white, but Shrewd held up a hand to quell him. Again he spoke only to Ver­ity. ‘Does not con­cern him? But on whom would fall the mantle of au­thor­ity while you were gone?’

  Ver­ity’s eyes went icy. ‘My Queen-in-Wait­ing would rep­res­ent my reign, of course. You wear the mantle of au­thor­ity still, my king.’

  ‘But if you did not re­turn … ?’

  ‘I am sure my brother could ad­apt to that situ­ation at a mo­ment’s no­tice.’ Ver­ity did not bother to mask the dis­like in his voice. I knew then how deep the poison of Regal’s treacher­ies had worked into him. Whatever bond they had ever shared as broth­ers was eaten away by it. Solely rivals, now. Shrewd heard it too, I did not doubt. I wondered if he was at all sur­prised by it. If he was, he covered it well.