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

us. Her father’s drunken imprecations followed us, but she ignored them. Once outside in the brisk winter wind, I followed Molly as she walked quickly to the back of the shop. Motioning for my silence, she opened the back door and set all that she carried inside. My rack of candles, too, were unloaded there, and then we left.

      For a bit, we just wandered through the town, talking little. She commented on my bruised face; I said only that I had fallen. The wind was cold and relentless, so the market stalls were near-empty of both customers and vendors. She paid much attention to Smithy, and he revelled in it. On our walk back, we stopped at a tea shop, and she treated me to mulled wine and made so much of Smithy that he fell over on his back and all his thoughts turned into wallowing in her affection. I was struck suddenly by how clearly Smithy was aware of her feelings, and yet she did not sense his at all, except on the shallowest level. I quested gently toward her, but found her elusive and drifting, like a perfume that comes strong and then faint on the same breath of wind. I knew that I could have pushed more insistently against her, but somehow it seemed pointless. An aloneness settled on me, a deadly melancholy that she never had been and never would be any more aware of me than she was of Smithy. So I took her brief words to me as a bird pecks at dry breadcrumbs, and let alone the silences she curtained between us. Soon she said that she could not tarry long, or it would be the worse for her, for if her father no longer had the strength to strike her, he was still capable of smashing his beer mug on the floor or knocking over racks of things to show his displeasure at being neglected. She smiled an odd little smile as she told me this, as if it would be less appalling if somehow we thought of his behaviour as amusing. I couldn’t smile and she looked away from my face.

      I helped her with her cloak and we left, walking uphill and into the wind. And that suddenly seemed a metaphor for my whole life. At her door, she shocked me with a hug and a kiss on the corner of my jaw, the embrace so brief that it was almost like being bumped in the market. ‘Newboy …’ she said, and then, ‘Thank you. For understanding.’

      And then she whisked into her shop and shut the door behind her, leaving me chilled and bewildered. She thanked me for understanding her at a time when I had never felt more isolated from her, and everyone else. All the way up to the keep Smithy kept prattling to himself about all the perfumes he’d smelt on her and how she had scratched him just where he could never reach in front of his ears and of the sweet biscuit she’d fed him in the tea shop.

      It was mid-afternoon when we got back to the stables. I did a few chores, and then went back up to Burrich’s room, where Smithy and I fell asleep. I awoke to Burrich standing over me, a slight frown on his face.

      ‘Up, and let’s have a look at you,’ he commanded, and I arose wearily and stood quiet while he went over my injuries with deft hands. He was pleased with the condition of my hand, and told me that it might go unbandaged now, but to keep the wrapping about my ribs and to come back to have it adjusted each evening. ‘As for the rest of it, keep it clean and dry, and don’t pick at the scabs. If any of it starts to fester, come and see me.’ He filled a little pot with an unguent that eased sore muscles and gave it to me, by which I deduced that he expected me to leave.

      I stood holding the little pot of medicine. A terrible sadness welled up in me, and yet I could find no words to say. Burrich looked at me, scowled and turned away. ‘Now stop that,’ he commanded me angrily.

      ‘What?’ I asked.

      ‘You look at me sometimes with my lord’s eyes,’ he said quietly, and then as sharply as before, ‘Well, what did you think to do? Hide in the stables the rest of your life? No. You have to go back. You have to go back and hold up your head and eat your meals among the keep folk, and sleep in your own room, and live your own life. Yes, and go and finish those damn lessons in the Skill.’

      His first commands had sounded difficult, but the last, I knew, was impossible.

      ‘I can’t,’ I said, not believing how stupid he was. ‘Galen wouldn’t let me come back to the group. And even if he did, I’d never catch up on all I’d missed. I’ve already failed at it, Burrich. I failed and that’s done, and I need to find something else to do with myself. I’d like to learn the hawks, please.’ The last I heard myself say with some amazement, for in truth it had never crossed my mind before. Burrich’s reply was at least as strange.

      ‘You can’t, for the hawks don’t like you. You’re too warm and you don’t mind your own business enough. Now listen to me. You didn’t fail, you fool. Galen tried to drive you away. If you don’t go back, you’ll have let him win. You have to go back and you have to learn it. But,’ and here he turned on me, and the anger in his eyes was for me, ‘You don’t have to stand there like a carter’s mule while he beats you. You’ve a birthright to his time and his knowledge. Make him give you what is yours. Don’t run away. No one ever gained anything by running away.’ He paused, started to say more, and then stopped.

      ‘I’ve missed too many lessons. I’ll never …’

      ‘You haven’t missed anything,’ Burrich said stubbornly. He turned away from me, and I couldn’t read his tone as he added, ‘There have been no lessons since you left. You should be able to pick up just where you left off.’

      ‘I don’t want to go back.’

      ‘Don’t waste my time by arguing with me,’ he said tightly. ‘Don’t dare to try my patience that way. I’ve told you what you are to do. Do it.’

      Suddenly I was five years old again, and a man in a kitchen backed up a crowd with a look. I shivered, cowed. Abruptly, it was easier to face Galen than to defy Burrich. Even when he added, ‘And you’ll leave that pup with me until your lessons are done. Being shut up inside your room all day is no life for a dog. His coat will go bad and his muscles won’t grow properly. But you’d better be down here each evening to see to both him and Sooty or you’ll answer to me. And I don’t give a damn what Galen says about that, either.’

      And so I was dismissed. I conveyed to Smithy that he was to stay with Burrich, and he accepted it with an equanimity that surprised me as much as it hurt my feelings. Dispirited, I took my pot of unguent and plodded back up to the keep. I took food from the kitchen, for I had no heart to face anyone at table and went up to my room. It was cold and dark; no fire in the hearth, no candles in the sticks and the fouled reeds underfoot stank. I fetched candles and wood, set a fire, and while I was waiting for it to take some of the chill off the stone walls and floors, I busied myself with taking up the floor rushes. Then, as Lacey had advised me, I scrubbed the room well with hot water and vinegar. Somehow I got the vinegar that had been flavoured with tarragon, and so when I was finished, the room smelt fragrant. Exhausted, I flung myself down on my bed, and fell asleep wondering why I’d never discovered how to open whatever hidden door it was that led to Chade’s quarters. But I had no doubt that he would have simply dismissed me, for he was a man of his word and would not interfere until Galen had finished with me. Or until he discovered that I was finished with Galen.

      The Fool’s candles awoke me. I was completely disoriented, until he said, ‘You’ve just time to wash and eat and still be first on the tower top.’

      He’d brought warm water in an ewer, and warm rolls from the kitchen ovens.

      ‘I’m not going.’

      It was the first time I’d ever seen the Fool look surprised. ‘Why not?’

      ‘It’s pointless. I can’t succeed. I simply haven’t the aptitude and I’m tired of beating my head against the wall.’

      The Fool’s eyes widened further. ‘I thought you had been doing well, before …’

      It was my turn to be surprised. ‘Well? Why do you think he mocked me and struck me? As a reward for my success? No. I haven’t even been able to understand what it’s about. All the others had already surpassed me. Why should I go back? So Galen can prove even more thoroughly how right he was?’

      ‘Something,’ the Fool said carefully, ‘is not right here.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Before, I asked you to give up the lessons. You would not. Do you recall that?’

      I