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

      ‘You thought to deceive me. You thought I would never know if Cook saved her precious pet a plate of tidbits, didn’t you? But I know all that happens in Buckkeep. Don’t deceive yourself about that.’

      It dawned on me that he was speaking of the meat scraps I’d taken up to Smithy.

      ‘That food wasn’t for me,’ I protested, and then could have bitten my tongue out.

      His eyes glittered coldly. ‘You’d lie to save yourself a little just pain. You’ll never master the Skill. You’ll never be worthy of it. But the King has commanded that I try to teach, and so I will try. Despite you or your low birth.’

      In humiliation I took the welts he dealt me. He berated me as each fell, telling the others that the old rules against teaching the Skill to a bastard had been to prevent just such a thing as this.

      Afterwards, I stood, silent and shamed, as he went down the rows, dealing a perfunctory swat with the quirt to each of my fellows, explaining as he did so that we all must pay for the failures of the individuals. It did not matter that this statement made no sense, or that the whip fell lightly compared to what Galen had just inflicted on me. It was the idea that they were all paying for my transgression. I had never felt so shamed in my life.

      Then he released us, to go down to another cheerless meal, much the same as yesterday’s. This time no one spoke on the stairs or at the meal. And afterwards, I went straight up to my room.

      Meat soon, I promised the hungry pup that waited for me. Despite my aching back and muscles, I forced myself to clean up the room, scrubbing up Smithy’s messes, and then making a trip for fresh strewing reeds. Smithy was a bit sulky at being left alone all day, and I was troubled when I realized I had no idea how long this miserable training would last.

      I waited until late, when all ordinary folk of the keep were in their beds, before venturing down to get Smithy’s food for him. I dreaded that Galen would find out, but what else was I to do? I was halfway down the big staircase when I saw the glimmering of a single candle being borne toward me. I shrank against the wall, suddenly sure it was Galen. But it was the Fool who came toward me, glowing as white and pale as the wax candle he carried. In his other hand was a pail of food and a beaker of water balanced on top of it. Soundlessly he waved me back to my room.

      Once inside, the door shut, he turned on me. ‘I can take care of the pup for you,’ he told me dryly. ‘But I can’t take care of you. Use your head, boy. What can you possibly learn from what he’s doing to you?’

      I shrugged, then winced. ‘It’s just to toughen us. I don’t think it will go on much longer before he gets down to actually teaching us. I can take it.’ Then, ‘Wait,’ I said, as he fed bits of meat to Smithy from the pail. ‘How do you know what Galen’s been putting us through?’

      ‘Ah, that would be telling,’ he said blithely. ‘And I can’t do that. Tell, that is.’ He dumped the rest of the pail out for Smithy, replenished his water, and stood.

      ‘I’ll feed the puppy,’ he told me. ‘I’ll even try to take him outside for a bit each day. But I won’t clean up his messes.’ He paused at the door. ‘That’s where I draw the line. You’d better decide where you will draw the line. And soon. Very soon. The danger is greater than you know.’

      And then he was gone, taking his candle and warnings with him. I lay down and fell asleep to the sounds of Smithy worrying a bone and making puppy growls to himself.

       FIFTEEN

       The Witness Stones

      The Skill, at its simplest, is the bridging of thought from person to person. It can be used a number of ways. During battle, for instance, a commander can relay simple information and commands directly to those officers under him, if those officers have been trained to receive it. One powerfully Skilled can use his talent to influence even untrained minds or the minds of his enemies, inspiring them with fear or confusion or doubt. Men so talented are rare. But, if incredibly gifted with the Skill, a man can aspire to speak directly to the Elderlings, those who are below only the gods themselves. Few have ever dared to do so, and of those who did, even fewer attained what they asked. For it is said, one may ask of the Elderlings, but the answer they give may not be to the question you ask, but to the one you should have asked. And the answer to that question may be one a man cannot hear and live. For when one speaks to the Elderlings, then is the sweetness of using the Skill strongest and most perilous. And this is the thing that every practitioner of the Skill, weak or strong, must always guard against. For in using the Skill, the user feels a keenness of life, an uplifting of being, that can distract a man from taking his next breath. Compelling is this feeling, even in the common uses of the Skill, and addictive to any not hardened of purpose. But the intensity of this exultation when speaking to the Elderlings is a thing for which we have no comparison. Both senses and sense may be blasted forever from a man who uses the Skill to speak to an Elderling. Such a man dies raving, but it is also true he dies raving of his joy.

      The Fool was right. I had no idea of the peril I faced. I plunged on doggedly. I have no heart to detail the weeks that followed. Suffice to say that with each day Galen had us more under his sway, and that he also became more cruel and manipulative. Some few pupils disappeared early on. Merry was one. She stopped coming after the fourth day. I saw her only once after that, creeping about the keep with a face both woebegone and shamed. I learned later that Serene and the other women had shunned her after she had dropped the training, and when they later spoke of her, it was not as if she had failed at a test, but rather had committed some low and loathsome act for which she could never be forgiven. I know not where she went, only that she left Buckkeep and never returned.

      As the ocean sorts pebbles from sand on a beach and stratifies them at the tide mark, so did the poundings and caressings of Galen separate his students. Initially, all of us strove to be his best. It was not because we liked or admired him. I do not know what the others felt, but there was nothing in my heart but hate for him, a hatred so strong that it spawned a resolution not to be broken by such a man. After days of his abuse, to wring a single grudging word of acknowledgement from him was like a torrent of praise from any other master. Days of his belittling should have made me numb to his mockery. Instead, I came to believe much of what he said, and tried futilely to change.

      We vied constantly with one another to come to his attention. Some emerged clearly as his favourites. August was one, and we were often urged to imitate him. I was clearly his most despised. And yet this did not stop me from burning to distinguish myself before him. After the first time, I was never last on the tower top. I never wavered from his blows. Nor did Serene, who shared my distinction of being despised. Serene became Galen’s grovelling follower, never breathing a word of criticism about him after that first lashing. Yet he constantly found fault with her, berated and reviled her, and struck her far more often than he struck any of the other women. This, however, made her only more determined to prove she could withstand his abuse, and she, after Galen, was the most intolerant of any who wavered or doubted in our teaching.

      Winter deepened. It was cold and dark on the tower top, save for what light came from the stairwell. It was the most isolated place in the world, and Galen was its god. He forged us into a unit. We believed ourselves élite, superior and privileged to be instructed in the Skill. Even I, who endured mockery and beatings, believed this to be so. Those of us he broke, we despised. We saw only one another for this time, we heard only Galen. At first I missed Chade. I wondered what Burrich and Lady Patience were doing. But as months went by, such lesser occupations no longer seemed interesting. Even the Fool and Smithy came to be almost annoyances to me, so single-mindedly did I pursue Galen’s approval. The Fool came and went silently then. There were times, though, when I was sorest and weariest, when the touch of Smithy’s nose against my cheek was the only comfort I had, and times when I felt shamed by how little time I was giving to my growing puppy.

      After three months of cold