The Complete Farseer Trilogy: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

survived have neither the will nor the resources. They’ve moved on, some to family in other towns, others to be beggars in our cities. It’s a pattern we’re seeing too often.’

      He sighed, and then shook his head to clear it. When he looked up, he focused on me totally. It was a knack Chade had. He could set aside a problem so completely you would swear he had forgotten it. Now he announced, as if it were his only care, ‘You’ll be accompanying Verity when he goes to reason with Lord Kelvar at Neatbay.’

      ‘So Burrich told me. But he wondered, and so do I. Why?’

      Chade looked perplexed. ‘Didn’t you complain a few months ago that you had wearied of Buckkeep and wished to see more of the Six Duchies?’

      ‘Certainly. But I rather doubt that that is why Verity is taking me.’

      Chade snorted. ‘As if Verity paid any attention as to who makes up his retinue. He has no patience with the details; and hence none of Chivalry’s genius for handling people. Yet Verity is a good soldier, and in the long run, perhaps that will be what we need. No, you are right. Verity has no inkling as to why you’re going. But your King does. He and I have consulted together upon this. Are you ready to begin repaying all he has done for you? Are you ready to begin your service for the family?’

      He said it so calmly and looked at me so openly that it was almost easy to be calm as I asked, ‘Will I have to kill someone?’

      ‘Perhaps.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘You’ll have to decide that. Deciding and then doing it … it’s different from simply being told, “That is the man and it must be done.” It’s much harder, and I’m not all that sure you’re ready.’

      ‘Would I ever be ready?’ I tried to smile, and grinned like a muscle spasm. I tried to wipe it away, and couldn’t. A strange quiver passed through me.

      ‘Probably not.’ Chade fell silent, and then decided that I had accepted the mission. ‘You’ll go as an attendant for an elderly noblewoman who is also going along, to visit relatives in Neatbay. It will not be too heavy a task for you. She is very elderly and her health is not good. Lady Thyme travels in a closed litter. You will ride beside it, to see she is not jolted too much, to bring her water if she asks for it, and to see to any other such small requests.’

      ‘It doesn’t sound too different from caring for Verity’s wolfhound.’

      Chade paused, then smiled. ‘Excellent. That will fall to you as well. Become indispensable to everyone on this journey. Then you will have reasons to go everywhere and hear everything, and no one will question your presence.’

      ‘And my real task?’

      ‘To listen and learn. It seems to both Shrewd and me that these Red Ship Raiders are too well-acquainted with our strategies and strengths. Kelvar has recently begrudged the funds to staff the Watch Island tower properly. Twice he has neglected it, and twice have the coastal villages of Shoaks Duchy paid for his negligence. Has he gone beyond negligence to treachery? Does Kelvar confer with the enemy to his profit? We want you to sniff about and see what you can discover. If all you find is innocence, or if you have but strong suspicions, bring news back to us. But if you discover treachery, and you are certain of it, then we cannot be rid of him too soon.’

      ‘And the means?’ I was not sure that was my voice. It was so casual, so contained.

      ‘I have prepared a powder, tasteless in a dish, colourless in a wine. We trust to your ingenuity and discretion in applying it.’ He lifted a cover from an earthenware dish on the table. Within was a packet made of very fine paper, thinner and finer than anything Fedwren had ever shown me. Odd, how my first thought was how much my scribe master would love to work with paper like that. Inside the packet was the finest of white powders. It clung to the paper and floated in the air. Chade shielded his mouth and nose with a cloth as he tapped a careful measure of it into a twist of oiled paper. He held it out to me, and I took death upon my open palm.

      ‘And how does it work?’

      ‘Not too quickly. He will not fall dead at the table, if that is what you are asking. But if he lingers over his cup, he will feel ill. Knowing Kelvar, I suspect he will take his bubbling stomach to bed, and never awaken in the morning.’

      I slipped it into my pocket. ‘Does Verity know anything of this?’

      Chade considered. ‘Verity is as good as his name. He could not sit at table with a man he was poisoning and conceal it. No, in this endeavour, stealth will serve us better than truth.’ He looked me directly in the eyes. ‘You will work alone, with no counsel other than your own.’

      ‘I see.’ I shifted on my tall wooden stool. ‘Chade?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Is this how it was for you? Your first time?’

      He looked down at his hands, and for a moment he fingered the angry red scars that dotted the back of his left hand. The silence grew long, but I waited.

      ‘I was a year older than you are,’ he said at last. ‘And it was simply the doing of it, not the deciding if it should be done. Is that enough for you?’

      I was suddenly embarrassed without knowing why. ‘I suppose,’ I mumbled.

      ‘Good. I know you meant no harm by it, boy. But men don’t talk about times spent among the pillows with a lady. And assassins don’t talk about … our business.’

      ‘Not even teacher to pupil?’

      Chade looked away from me, to a dark corner of the ceiling. ‘No.’ After a moment more he added, ‘Two weeks from now, you’ll perhaps understand why.’

      And that was all we ever said about it.

      By my count, I was thirteen years old.

       EIGHT

       Lady Thyme

      A history of the duchies is a study of their geography. The Court Scribe of King Shrewd, one Fedwren, was very fond of this saying. I cannot say I have ever found it wrong. Perhaps all histories are recountings of natural boundaries. The seas and ice that stood between us and the Outislanders made us separate peoples and the rich grasslands and fertile meadows of the duchies created the riches that made us enemies; perhaps that would be the first chapter of a history of the duchies. The Bear and the Vin rivers are what created the rich vineyards and orchards of Tilth, as surely as the Painted Edges Mountains rising above Sandsedge both sheltered and isolated the folk there and left them vulnerable to our organized armies.

      I jerked awake before the moon had surrendered her reign over the sky, amazed that I had slept at all. Burrich had supervised my travel preparations so thoroughly the night before that, had it been left to me, I would have departed a minute after I had swallowed my morning porridge.

      But such is not the way when a group of folk set out together to do anything. The sun was well over the horizon before we were all assembled and ready. ‘Royalty,’ Chade had warned me, ‘never travels light. Verity goes on this journey with the weight of the King’s sword behind him. All folk who see him pass know that without being told. The news must run ahead to Kelvar, and to Shemshy. The imperial hand is about to reconcile their differences. They must both be left wishing they had never had any differences at all. That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.’

      So Verity travelled with a pomp that clearly irritated the soldier in him. His picked troop of men wore his colours as well as the Farseer buck badges, and rode ahead of the regular troops. To my young eyes, that was impressive enough. But to keep the impact from being too martial, Verity brought with him noble companions to provide conversation and diversion at the end of the day. Hawks and hounds with their handlers, musicians and bards, one puppeteer, those