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

measure of comfort and dignity. These seemed by then not only great luxuries, but gifts from Galen to be grateful for. A bit of dried fruit with our meals, permission to wear shoes, brief conversation allowed at the table – that was all, and yet we were grovellingly grateful for it. But the changes were only beginning.

      It comes back in crystal glimpses. I remember the first time he touched me with the Skill. We were on the tower top, spaced even further now that there were fewer of us, and he went from one of us to the next, pausing a moment before each, while the rest of us waited in reverent silence. ‘Ready your minds for the touch. Be open to it, but do not indulge in the pleasure of it. The purpose of the Skill is not pleasure.’

      He wended his way among us, in no particular order. Spaced as we were, we could not see one another’s faces, nor did it ever please Galen that our eyes follow his movements. And so we heard only his brief, stern words, then heard the in-drawn gasp of each touched one. To Serene he said in disgust, ‘Be open to it, I said. Not cower like a beaten dog.’

      And last he came to me. I listened to his words, and as he had counselled us earlier, I tried to let go of every sensory awareness I had, and be open only to him. I felt the brush of his mind against mine, like a soft tickle on my forehead. I stood firm before it. It grew stronger, a warmth, a light, but I refused to be drawn into it. I felt Galen stood within my mind, sternly regarding me, and using the focusing techniques he had taught us (imagine a pail of purest white wood, and pour yourself into it) I was able to stand before him, waiting, aware of the Skill’s elation, but not giving in to it. Thrice the warmth rushed through me, and thrice I stood before it. And then he withdrew. He gave me a grudging nod, but in his eyes I saw not approval but a trace of fear.

      That first touch was like the spark that finally kindles the tinder. I grasped what it was. I could not do it yet; I could not send my thoughts out from me, but I had a knowledge that would not fit into words. I would be able to Skill. And with that knowing my resolve hardened, and there was nothing, nothing Galen could have done that would stop me learning it.

      I think he knew it, for he turned on me in the days that followed with a cruelty that I now find incredible. Hard words and blows he dealt me, but none could turn me aside. He struck me once in the face with his quirt. It left a visible welt, and it chanced that when I was coming into the dining hall, Burrich was also there. I saw his eyes widen. He started up from his place at table, his jaw clenched in a way I knew too well. But I looked aside from him and down. He stood a moment, glaring at Galen, who returned his look with a supercilious stare. Then, fists clenched, Burrich turned his back and left the room. I relaxed, relieved there would be no confrontation. But then Galen looked at me, and the triumph in his face made my heart cold. I was his now, and he knew it.

      Pain and victories mixed for me in the next week. He never lost an opportunity to belittle me. And yet, I knew I excelled at each exercise he gave us. I sensed the others groping after his touch of Skill, but for me it was as simple as opening my eyes. I knew one moment of intense fear. He had entered my mind with the Skill, and given me a sentence to repeat aloud. ‘I am a bastard, and I shame my father’s name,’ I said aloud, calmly. And then he spoke again within my mind. You draw strength from somewhere, bastard. This is not your Skill. Do you think I will not find the source? And then I quailed before him, and drew back from his touch, hiding Smithy within my mind. His smile showed all his teeth to me.

      In the days that followed, we played a game of hide and seek. I must let him into my mind, to learn the Skill. Once there, I danced on coals to keep my secrets from him. Not just Smithy, but Chade and the Fool did I hide, and Molly and Kerry and Dirk, and other, older secrets I would not reveal even to myself. He sought them all, and I juggled them desperately out of his reach. But despite all that, or perhaps because of it, I felt myself growing stronger in the Skill. ‘Don’t mock me!’ he roared after one session, and then grew infuriated as the other students exchanged shocked glances. ‘Attend to your own exercises!’ he roared at them. He paced away from me, then spun suddenly and flung himself at me. Fist and boot, he attacked me and, as Molly once had, I had no more thought than to shield my face and belly. The blows he rained on me were more like a child’s tantrum than a man’s attack. I felt their ineffectiveness and then realized with a chill that I was repelling at him. Not so much that he would sense it, just enough that not one of his blows fell exactly as he had intended. I knew, more, that he had no idea what I was doing. When at last he dropped his fists and I dared to lift my eyes, I felt momentarily that I had won, for all the others on the tower top were looking at him with gazes mingled of disgust and fear. He had gone too far for even Serene to stomach. White-faced, he turned aside from me. In that moment, I felt him reach a decision.

      That evening in my room, I was horribly tired, but too enervated to sleep. The Fool had left food for Smithy, and I was teasing him with a large beef knuckle. He had set his teeth in my sleeve and was worrying it while I held the bone just out of his reach. It was the sort of game he loved, and he snarled with mock ferocity as he shook my arm. He was near as big as he would get, and I felt with pride the muscles in his thick little neck. With my free hand, I pinched his tail and he spun snarling to this new attack. From hand to hand I juggled his bone, and his eyes darted back and forth as he snapped after it. ‘No brain,’ I teased him. ‘All you can think of is what you want. No brain, no brain.’

      ‘Just like his owner.’

      I startled, and in that second Smithy had his bone. He flopped down with it, giving the Fool no more than a perfunctory wag of his tail. I sat down, out of breath. ‘I never even heard the door open. Or shut.’

      He ignored that and went straight to his topic. ‘Do you think Galen will allow you to succeed?’

      I grinned smugly. ‘Do you think he can prevent it?’

      The Fool sat down beside me with a sigh. ‘I know he can. So does he. What I cannot decide is if he is ruthless enough. But I suspect he is.’

      ‘So let him try,’ I said flippantly.

      ‘I have no choice in that.’ The Fool was adamantly serious. ‘What I had hoped to do was dissuade you from trying.’

      ‘You’d ask me to give up? Now?’ I was incredulous.

      ‘I would.’

      ‘Why?’ I demanded.

      ‘Because,’ he began, and then stopped in frustration. ‘I don’t know. Too many things converge. Perhaps if I pluck one thread loose, the knot will not form.’

      I was suddenly tired, and the earlier elation of my triumph collapsed before his dour warnings. My irritability won and I snapped, ‘If you cannot speak clearly, why do you speak at all?’

      He was as silent as if I had struck him. ‘That’s another thing I don’t know,’ he said at last. He rose to go.

      ‘Fool,’ I began.

      ‘Yes. I am that,’ he said, and left.

      And so I persevered, growing stronger. I grew impatient with our slow pace of instruction. We went over the same practices each day, and gradually the others began to master what seemed so natural to me. How could they have been so closed off from the rest of the world, I wondered? How could it be so hard for them to open their minds to Galen’s Skill? My own task was not to open, but rather to keep closed to him what I did not wish to share. Often, as he gave me a perfunctory touch of the Skill, I sensed a tendril of seeking slinking into my mind. But I evaded it.

      ‘You are ready,’ he announced one chill day. It was afternoon, but the brightest stars were already showing in the blue darkness of the sky. I missed the clouds that had yesterday snowed upon us, but had at least kept this deeper cold at bay. I flexed my toes inside the leather shoes that Galen permitted us, trying to warm them to life again. ‘Before I have touched you with the Skill, to accustom you to it. Now, today, we will attempt a full joining. You will each reach out to me as I reach out to you. But beware! Most of you have coped with resisting the distractions of the Skill touch, but the power of what you felt was the lightest brush. Today will be stronger. Resist it, but stay open to the Skill.’

      And again he began his slow circuit amongst