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

Put decent soldiers in that tower, 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, 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.

       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 colouring, 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 ageing 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 a racial or individual talent is 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 nauseous. I got up and felt my way to the table where Verity’s tray of pastries had been, but servants had cleared it away.

      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 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, tousle-headed lad any threat worth bothering with.

      I found the kitchens easily. It was a great open room, flagged and walled with stone as a defence against fires. There were three great hearths, fires well-banked for the night. Despite the lateness, or earliness, of the hour, the place was brightly 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, 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 soft-hearted as Buckkeep’s. But it was a serving-girl, a blanket thrown about her shoulders over her nightrobe 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 on top of the table, 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 manoeuvre 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 leapt 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 lap-dog 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 laboured 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 as if he’s got something lodged in his gullet, Could he have got into bones or feathers?’

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

      ‘Fish?