Assassin's Apprentice tft-1

by Robin Hobb

  I doubt if Kelvar's Lady Grace was much more than a hand of years older than I, and she was decked out like a magpie's nest. Never had I seen accoutrements before that spoke so garishly of expense and so little of taste. She took her seat in a flurry of flourishes and gestures that reminded me of a courting bird. Her scent rolled over me like a wave, and it, too, smelled of coin more than flowers. She had brought a little dog with her, a feist that was all silky hair and big eyes. She cooed over him as she settled him on her lap, and the little beast cuddled against her and set his chin on the edge of the table. And all the time her eyes were on Prince Verity, trying to see if he marked her and was impressed. For my part, I watched Kelvar watch her perform her flirtations for the Prince, and I thought to myself, There is more than half our problems with keeping the watchtowers manned.

  Dinner was a trial to me. I was ravenous, but manners forbade that I show it. I ate as I had been instructed, picking up my spoon when Verity did, and setting aside a course as soon as he showed disinterest in it. I longed for a good platter of hot meat with bread to sop up the juices, but what we were offered were tidbits of meat oddly spiced, exotic fruit compotes, pale breads, and vegetables cooked to pallor and then seasoned. It was an impressive display of good food abused in the name of fashionable cooking. I could see that Verity's appetite was as slack as mine and wondered if all could see that the Prince was not impressed.

  Chade had taught me better than I had known. I was able to nod politely to my dinner companion, a freckled young woman, and follow her conversation about the difficulty of getting good linen fabric in Rippon these days, while letting my ears stray enough to pick up key bits of talk about the table. None of it was about the business that had brought us here. Verity and Lord Kelvar would closet themselves tomorrow for the discussion of that. But much of what I overheard touched on the manning of Watch Island's tower and cast odd lights on it.

  I overheard grumblings that the roads were not as well maintained as previously. Someone commented she was glad to see that repair on Bayguard's fortifications had been resumed. Another man complained that inland robbers were so common, he could scarcely count on two thirds of his merchandise coming through from Farrow. This, too, seemed to be the basis of my dining companion's complaint about the lack of good fabric. I looked at Lord Kelvar, and how he doted upon his young wife's every gesture. As if Chade were whispering in my ear, I heard his judgment. "There is a duke whose mind is not upon the governing of his Duchy." I suspected Lady Grace was wearing the required road repairs and the wages of those soldiers who would have kept his trade routes policed against brigands. Perhaps the jewels that dangled from her ears should have gone to pay to man Watch Island's towers.

  Dinner finally ended. My stomach was full, but my hunger unabated, there had been so little substance to the meal. Afterward, two minstrels and a poet entertained us, but I tuned my ears to the casual talk of folk rather than to the fine phrasings of the poet or the ballads of the minstrels. Kelvar sat to the Prince's right, while his lady sat to the left, her lapdog sharing the chair.

  Grace sat basking in the Prince's presence. Her hands often strayed to touch first an earring, then a bracelet. She was not accustomed to wearing so much jewelry. My suspicion was that she had come of simple stock and was awed by her own position. One minstrel sang "Fair Rose Amidst the Clover," his eyes on her face, and was rewarded with her flushed cheeks. But as the evening wore on, and I grew weary, I could tell that Lady Grace was fading. She yawned once, lifting a hand too late to cover it. Her little dog had gone to sleep in her lap, and twitched and yipped occasionally in his small-brained dreams. As she grew sleepier she reminded me of a child; she cuddled her dog as if it were a doll, and leaned her head back into the corner of her chair. Twice she started to nod off. I saw her surreptitiously pinching the skin on her wrists in an effort to wake herself up. She was visibly relieved when Kelvar summoned the minstrels and poet forward to reward them for their evening. She took her lord's arm to follow him off to their bedchamber while never relinquishing the dog she snugged in her arm.

  I was relieved to make my way up to Verity's antechamber. Charim had found me a feather bed and some blankets. My pallet was fully as comfortable as my own bed. I longed to sleep, but Charim gestured me into Verity's bedchamber. Verity, ever the soldier, had no use for lackeys to stand about and tug his boots off for him. Charim and I alone attended him. Charim clucked and muttered as he followed Verity about, picking up and smoothing the garments the Prince so casually shed. Verity's boots he immediately took off into a corner and began working more wax into the leather. Verity dragged a nightshirt on over his head and then turned to me.

  "Well? What have you to tell me?"

  And so I reported to him as I did to Chade, recounting all I had overheard, in as close to the words as I could manage, and noting who had spoken and to whom. At the last I added my own suppositions about the significance of it all. "Kelvar is a man who has taken a young wife, one who is easily impressed with wealth and gifts," I summarized. "She has no idea of the responsibilities of her own position, let alone his. Kelvar diverts money, time, and thought from his duties to enthralling her. Were it not disrespectful to say so, I would imagine that his manhood is failing him, and he seeks to satisfy his young bride with gifts as a substitute."

  Verity sighed heavily. He had flung himself onto the bed during the latter half of my recitation. Now he prodded at a too soft pillow, folding it to give more support to his head. "Damn Chivalry," he said absently. "This is his kind of a knot, not mine. Fitz, you sound like your father. And were he here, he'd find some subtle way to handle this whole situation. Chiv would have had it solved by now, with one of his smiles and a kiss on someone's hand. But that's not my way, and I won't pretend to it." He shifted about in his bed uncomfortably, as if he expected me to raise some argument to him about his duty. "Kelvar's a man and a duke. And he has a duty. He's to man that tower properly. It's simple enough, and I intend to tell him that bluntly. Put decent soldiers in that tower and keep them there, and keep them happy enough to do a job. It seems simple to me. And I'm not going to make it into a diplomatic dance."

  He shifted heavily in the bed, then abruptly turned his back to me. "Put out the light, Charim." And Charim did, so promptly that I was left standing in the dark and had to blunder my way out of the chamber and back to my own pallet. As I lay down I pondered that Verity saw so little of the whole. He could force Kelvar to man the tower, yes. But he couldn't force him to man it well, or take pride in it. That was a matter for diplomacy. And had he no heed for the roadwork and maintenance on the fortifications and the highwaymen problem? All that needed to be remedied now. And in such a way that Kelvar's pride was kept intact, and that his position with Lord Shemshy was both corrected and affirmed. And someone had to undertake to teach Lady Grace her responsibilities. So many problems. But as soon as my head touched the pillow, I slept.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Fat Suffices

  THE FOOL CAME to Buckkeep in the seventeenth year of King Shrewd's reign. This is one of the few facts that are known about the Fool. Said to be a gift from the Bingtown traders, the origin of the Fool can only be surmised. Various stories have arisen. One is that the Fool was a captive of the Red-Ship Raiders, and that the Bingtown traders seized the Fool from them. Another is that the Fool was found as a babe, adrift in a small boat, shielded from the sun by a parasol of sharkskin and cushioned from the thwarts by a bed of heather and lavender. This can be dismissed as a creation of fancy. We have no real knowledge of the Fool's life before his arrival at King Shrewd's court.

  The Fool was almost certainly born of the human race, though not entirely of human parentage. Stories that he was born of the Other Folk are almost certainly false, for his fingers and toes are completely free of webbing and he has never shown the slightest fear of cats. The unusual physical characteristics of the Fool (lack of coloring, for instance) seem to be traits of his other parentage, rather than an individual
aberration, though in this I well may be mistaken.

  In the matter of the Fool, that which we do not know is almost more significant than that which we do. The age of the Fool at the time of his arrival at Buckkeep has been a matter for conjecture. From personal experience, I can vouch that the Fool appeared much younger, and in all ways more juvenile than at present. But as the Fool shows little sign of aging, it may be that he was not as young as he initially appeared, but rather was at the end of an extended childhood.

  The gender of the Fool has been disputed. When directly questioned on this matter by a younger and more forward person than I am now, the Fool replied that it was no one's business but his own. So I concede.

  In the matter of his prescience and the annoyingly vague forms that it takes, there is no consensus as to whether it is a racial or individual talent being manifested. Some believe he knows all in advance, and even that he will always know if anyone, anywhere, speaks about him. Others say it is only his great love of saying, "I warned you so!" and that he takes his most obscure sayings and twists them to have been prophecies. Perhaps sometimes this has been so, but in many well-witnessed cases, he has predicted, however obscurely, events that later came to pass.

  Hunger woke me shortly after midnight. I lay awake, listening to my belly growl. I closed my eyes, but my hunger was enough to make me nauseated. I got up and felt my way to the table where Verity's tray of pastries had been, but servants had cleared it away. I debated with myself, but my stomach won out over my head.

  Easing open the chamber door, I stepped out into the dimly lit hall. The two men Verity had posted there looked at me questioningly. "Starving," I told them. "Did you notice where the kitchens were?"

  I have never known a soldier who didn't know where the kitchens were. I thanked them and promised to bring back some of whatever I found. I slipped off down the shadowy hall. As I descended the steps it felt odd to have wood underfoot rather than stone. I walked as Chade had taught me, placing my feet silently, moving within the shadowiest parts of the passageways, walking to the sides where floorboards were less likely to creak. And it all felt as natural.

  The rest of the keep seemed well asleep. The few guards I passed were mostly dozing; none challenged me. At the time I put it down to my stealth; now I wonder if they considered a skinny, tousleheaded lad any threat worth bothering with.

  I found the kitchens easily. It was a great open room, flagged and walled with stone as a defense against fires. There were three great hearths, fires well banked for the night. Despite the lateness, or earliness, of the hour, the place was well lit. A keep's kitchen is never completely asleep.

  I saw the covered pans and smelled the rising bread. A large pot of stew was being kept warm at the edge of one hearth. When I peeked under the lid, I saw it would not miss a bowl or two. I rummaged about and helped myself. Wrapped loaves on a shelf supplied me with an end crust and in another corner was a tub of butter kept cool inside a large keg of water. Not fancy. Thank all, it was not fancy, but the plain simple food I had been craving all day.

  I was halfway through my second bowl when I heard the light scuff of footsteps. I looked up with my most disarming smile, hoping that this cook would prove as softhearted as Buckkeep's. But it was a serving girl, a blanket thrown about her shoulders over her night robe and her baby in her arms. She was weeping. I turned my eyes away in discomfort.

  She scarcely gave me a glance anyway. She set her bundled baby down atop the table and fetched a bowl and dipped it full of cool water, muttering all the time. She bent over the babe. "Here, my sweet, my lamb. Here, my darling. This will help. Take a little. Oh, sweetie, can't you even lap? Open your mouth, then. Come now, open your mouth."

  I couldn't help but watch. She held the bowl awkwardly and tried to maneuver it to the baby's mouth. She was using her other hand to force the child's mouth open, and using a deal more force than I'd ever seen any other mother use on a child. She tipped the bowl, and the water slopped. I heard a strangled gurgle and then a gagging sound. As I leaped up to protest, the head of a small dog emerged from the bundle.

  "Oh, he's choking again! He's dying! My little Feisty is dying and no one but me cares. He just goes on snoring, and I don't know what to do and my darling is dying."

  She clutched the lapdog to her as it gagged and strangled. It shook its little head wildly and then seemed to grow calmer. If I hadn't been able to hear its labored breathing, I'd have sworn it had died in her arms. Its dark and bulgy eyes met mine, and I felt the force of the panic and pain in the little beast.

  Easy. "Here, now," I heard myself saying. "You're not helping him by holding him that tight. He can scarce breathe. Set him down. Unwrap him. Let him decide how he is most comfortable. All wrapped up like that, he's too hot, so he's trying to pant and choke all at once. Set him down."

  She was a head taller than I, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to struggle with her. But she let me take the bundled dog from her arms and unwrap him from several layers of cloth. I set him on the table.

  The little beast was in total misery. He stood with his head drooping between his front legs. His muzzle and chest were slick with saliva, his belly distended and hard. He began to retch and gag again. His small jaws opened wide; his lips writhed back from his tiny pointed teeth. The redness of his tongue attested to the violence of his efforts. The girl squeaked and sprang forward, trying to snatch him up again, but I pushed her roughly back. "Don't grab him," I told her impatiently. "He's trying to get something up, and he can't do it with you squeezing his guts."

  She stopped. "Get something up?"

  "He looks and acts like he's got something lodged in his gullet. Could he have gotten into bones or feathers?"

  She looked stricken. "There were bones in the fish. But only tiny ones."

  "Fish? What idiot let him get into fish? Was it fresh or rotten?" I'd seen how sick a dog could get when it got into rotten, spawned-out salmon on a riverbank. If that's what this little beast had gobbled, he didn't have a chance.

  "It was fresh, and well cooked. The same trout I had at dinner."

  "Well, at least it's not likely to be poisonous to him. Right now, it's just the bone. But if he gets it down, it's still likely to kill him."

  She gasped. "No, it can't! He mustn't die. He'll be fine. He just has an upset stomach. I just fed him too much. He'll be fine! What do you know about it anyway, kitchen boy?"

  I watched the feist go through another round of almost convulsive retching. Nothing came up but yellow bile. "I'm not a kitchen boy. I'm a dog boy. Verity's own dog boy, if you must know. And if we don't help this little mutt, he's going to die. Very soon."

  She watched, her face a mixture of awe and horror, as I gripped her little pet firmly. I'm trying to help. He didn't believe me. I prized his jaws open and forced my two fingers down his gullet. The feist gagged even more fiercely and pawed at me frantically with his front paws. His claws needed cutting, too. With the tips of my fingers I could feel the bone. I twiddled my fingers against it and felt it move. But it was wedged sideways in the little beast's throat. The dog gave a strangled howl and struggled frantically in my arms. I let him go. "Well. He's not going to get rid of that without some help," I observed.

  I left her wailing and sniveling over him. At least she didn't snatch him up and squeeze him. I got myself a handful of butter from the keg and plopped it into my stew bowl. Now I needed something hooked, or sharply curved, but not too large. I rattled through bins and finally came up with a curved hook of metal with a handle on it. Possibly it was used to lift hot pots off the fire.

  "Sit down," I told the maid.

  She gaped at me, and then sat obediently on the bench I'd pointed to.

  "Now hold him firmly, between your knees. And don't let him go, no matter how he claws and wiggles or yelps. And hold on to his front feet so he doesn't claw me to ribbons while I'm doing this. Understand?"

  She took a deep breath, then gulped and nodded. Tears were st
reaming down her face. I set the dog on her lap and put her hands on him.

  "Hold tight," I told her. I scooped up a gobbet of butter. "I'm going to use the fat to grease things up. Then I've got to force his jaws open, and hook the bone and jerk it out. Are you ready?"

  She nodded. The tears had stopped flowing and her lips were set. I was glad to see she had some strength to her. I nodded back.

  Getting the butter down was the easy part. It blocked his throat, though, and his panic increased, pounding at my self-control with his waves of terror. I had no time to be gentle as I forced his jaws open and then put the hook down his throat. I hoped I wouldn't snag his flesh. But if I did, well, he would die anyway. I turned the tool in his throat as he wiggled and yelped and pissed all over his mistress. The hook caught on the bone and I pulled, evenly and firmly.

  It came up in a welter of froth and bile and blood. A nasty little bone, not a fishbone at all, but the partial breastbone of a small bird. I flipped it onto the table. "And he shouldn't have poultry bones either," I told her severely.

  I don't think she even heard me. Doggy was wheezing gratefully on her lap. I picked up the dish of water and held it out to him. He sniffed it, lapped a bit, and then curled up, exhausted. She picked him up and cradled him in her arms, her head bent over his.

  "There's something I want from you," I began.

  "Anything." She spoke into his fur. "Ask, and it's yours."

  "First, stop giving him your food. Give him only red meat and boiled grain for a while. And for a dog that size, no more than you can cup in your hand. And don't carry him everywhere. Make him run about, to give him some muscle and wear down his nails. And wash him. He smells foul, coat and breath, from too rich food. Or he won't live but another year or two."

  She looked up, stricken. Her hand went up to her mouth. And something in her motion, so like her self-conscious touching of her jewelry at dinner, suddenly made me realize who I was scolding. Lady Grace. And I had made her dog piss on her night robe.