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

a bit dramatic to me,’ I objected. ‘And Forge is a bad word now. I don’t want to mark my pup with it. Just the other day, down in town, I heard a drunk yell at a cut-purse, “May your woman be Forged!” Everyone in the street stopped and stared.’

      The Fool shrugged. ‘Well they might.’ He followed me into my room. ‘Smith, then. Or Smithy. Let me see him?’

      Reluctantly I gave over my puppy. He stirred, awakened and then wiggled in the Fool’s hands. No smell, no smell. I was astonished to agree with the pup. Even with his little black nose working for me, the Fool had no detectable scent. ‘Careful. Don’t drop him.’

      ‘I’m a Fool, not a dolt,’ said the Fool, but he sat on my bed and put the pup beside him. Smithy instantly began snuffling and rucking my bed. I sat on the other side of him lest he venture too near the edge.

      ‘So,’ the Fool asked casually. ‘Are you going to let her buy you with gifts?’

      ‘Why not?’ I tried to be disdainful.

      ‘It would be a mistake, for both of you.’ The Fool tweaked Smithy’s tiny tail, and he spun round with a puppy growl. ‘She’s going to want to give you things. You’ll have to take them, for there’s no polite way to refuse. But you’ll have to decide whether they’ll make a bridge between you, or a wall.’

      ‘Do you know Chade?’ I asked abruptly, for the Fool sounded so like him I suddenly had to know. I had never mentioned Chade to anyone else, save Shrewd, or heard talk of him from anyone around the keep.

      ‘Shade or sunlight, I know when to keep a grip on my tongue. It would be a good thing for you to learn as well.’ The Fool rose suddenly and went to the door. He lingered there a moment. ‘She only hated you for the first few months. And it wasn’t truly hate of you; it was blind jealousy of your mother, that she could bear a babe to Chivalry, but Patience could not. After that, her heart softened. She wanted to send for you, to raise you as her own. Some might say she merely wanted to possess anything that touched Chivalry. But I don’t think so.’

      I was staring at the Fool.

      ‘You look like a fish, with your mouth open like that,’ he observed. ‘But of course, your father refused. He said it might appear he was formally acknowledging his bastard. But I don’t think that was it at all. I think it would have been dangerous for you.’ The Fool made an odd pass with his hand, and a stick of dried meat appeared in his fingers. I knew it had been up his sleeve, but I was unable to see how he accomplished his tricks. He flipped the meat onto my bed and the puppy sprang on it greedily.

      ‘You can hurt her, if you choose,’ he offered me. ‘She feels such guilt at how alone you have been. And you look so like Chivalry, anything you say will be as if it came from his lips. She’s like a gem with a flaw. One precise tap from you, and she will fly to pieces. She’s half-mad as she is, you know. They would never have been able to kill Chivalry if she hadn’t consented to his abdication. At least, not with such blithe dismissal of the consequences. She knows that.’

      ‘Who is “they”?’ I demanded.

      ‘Who “are” they?’ the Fool corrected me, and whisked out of sight. By the time I got to the door, he was gone. I quested after him, but got nothing. Almost as if he were Forged. I shivered at that thought, and went back to Smithy. He was chewing the meat to slimy bits all over my bed. I watched him. ‘The Fool’s gone,’ I told Smithy. He wagged a casual acknowledgement and went on worrying his meat.

      He was mine, given to me. Not a stable-dog I cared for, but mine, and beyond Burrich’s knowledge or authority. Other than my clothes and the copper bracelet that Chade had given me, I had few possessions. But he made up for all lack I might ever have had.

      He was a sleek and healthy pup. His coat was smooth now, but would grow bristly as he matured. When I held him up to the window, I could see faint mottlings of colour in his coat. He’d be a dark brindle, then. I discovered one white spot on his chin, and another on his left hind foot. He clamped his little jaws on my shirt-sleeve and shook it violently, uttering savage puppy growls. I tussled him on the bed until he fell into a deep, limp sleep. Then I moved him to his straw cushion and went reluctantly to my afternoon lessons and chores.

      That initial week with Patience was a trying time for both of us. I learned to keep a thread of my attention always with Smithy, so he never felt alone enough to howl when I left him. But that took practice, so I felt somewhat distracted. Burrich frowned about it, but I persuaded him it was due to my sessions with Patience. ‘I have no idea what that woman wants from me,’ I told him by the third day. ‘Yesterday it was music. In the space of two hours, she attempted to teach me to play the harp, the sea-pipes, and then the flute. Every time I came close to working out a few notes on one or the other of them, she snatched it away and commanded that I try a different one. She ended that session by saying that I had no aptitude for music. This morning it was poetry. She set herself to teaching me the one about Queen Healsall and her garden. It has a long bit, about all the herbs she grew and what each was for. And she kept getting it bungled, and got angry at me when I repeated it back to her that way, saying that I must know that catmint is not for poultices and that I was mocking her. It was almost a relief when she said I had given her such a headache that we must stop. And when I offered to bring her buds from the ladyshand bush for her headache, she sat right up and said, “There! I knew you were mocking me.” I don’t know how to please her, Burrich.’

      ‘Why would you want to?’ he growled, and I let the subject drop.

      That evening, Lacey came to my room. She tapped, then entered, wrinkling her nose. ‘You’d better bring up some strewing herbs if you’re going to keep that pup in here. And use some vinegar and water when you scrub up his messes. It smells like a stable in here.’

      ‘I suppose it does,’ I admitted. I looked at her curiously and waited.

      ‘I brought you this. You seemed to like it best.’ She held out the sea-pipes. I looked at the short, fat tubes bound together with strips of leather. I had liked it best of the three instruments. The harp had far too many strings, and the flute had seemed shrill to me even when Patience had played it.

      ‘Did Lady Patience send it to me?’ I asked, puzzled.

      ‘No. She doesn’t know I’ve taken it. She’ll assume it’s lost in her litter, as usual.’

      ‘Why did you bring it?’

      ‘For you to practise on. When you’ve a little skill with it, bring it back and show her.’

      ‘Why?’

      Lacey sighed. ‘Because it would make her feel better. And that would make my life much easier. There’s nothing worse than being maid to someone as heartsick as Lady Patience. She longs desperately for you to be good at something. She keeps trying you out, hoping that you’ll manifest some sudden talent, so that she can flout you about and tell folk, “There, I told you he had it in him.” Now I’ve had boys of my own, and I know boys aren’t that way. They don’t learn, or grow, or have manners when you’re looking at them. But turn away, and turn back, and there they are, smarter, taller, and charming everyone but their own mothers.’

      I was a little lost. ‘You want me to learn to play this, so that Patience will be happy?’

      ‘So that she can feel she’s given you something.’

      ‘She gave me Smithy. Nothing she can ever give me will be better than him.’

      Lacey looked surprised at my sudden sincerity. So was I. ‘Well. You might tell her that. But you might also try to learn to play the sea-pipes or recite a ballad or sing one of the old prayers. That she might understand better.’

      After Lacey left, I sat thinking, caught between anger and wistfulness. Patience wished me to be a success and felt she must discover something I could do. As if before her, I had never done or accomplished anything. But as I mulled over what I had done, and what she knew of me, I realized that her image of me must be a rather flat one. I could read and write, and take care of a horse or