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

Galen would have been able to teach you. No wonder he sent you to Forge.’ He paused. ‘Bastard or no, you could have been a fit son to Chivalry. But you threw it all away. For what? A dog. I know what a dog can be to a man, but you don’t throw your life over for a …’

      ‘Not just a dog,’ I cut in almost harshly. ‘Smithy. My friend. And it wasn’t only him. I gave up the wait and came back for you. Thinking you might need me. Smithy died days ago. I knew that. But I came back for you, thinking you might need me.’

      He was silent so long I thought he wasn’t going to speak to me. ‘You needn’t have,’ he said quietly. ‘I take care of myself.’ And harsher, ‘You know that. I always have.’

      ‘And me,’ I admitted to him. ‘And you’ve always taken care of me.’

      ‘And small damn good that did either of us,’ he said slowly. ‘Look what I’ve let you become. Now you’re just … Go away. Just go away.’ He turned away from me again, and I felt something go out of the man.

      I stood slowly. ‘I’ll make you a wash from helena leaves for your eye. I’ll bring it this afternoon.’

      ‘Bring me nothing. Do me no favours. Go your own way, and be whatever you will. I’m done with you.’ He spoke to the wall. In his voice was no mercy for either of us.

      I glanced back as I left the infirmary. He had not moved, but even his back looked older, and smaller.

      That was my return to Buckkeep. I was a different creature from the naïf who had left. Little fanfare was made over my not being dead as supposed. I made no opportunity for anyone to do so. From Burrich’s bed, I went straight to my room. I washed and changed my garments. I slept, but not well. For the rest of Springfest, I ate at night, alone in the kitchens. I penned one note to King Shrewd, suggesting that raiders might regularly be using the wells at Forge. He made no reply to me about it, and I was glad of it. I sought no contact with anyone.

      With much pomp and ceremony, Galen presented his finished coterie to the King. One other besides myself had failed to return. It shames me now that I cannot recall his name, and if I ever knew what became of him, I have forgotten it. Like Galen, I suppose I dismissed him as insignificant.

      Galen spoke to me only once the rest of that summer, and that was indirectly. We passed one another in the courtyard, not long after Springfest. He was walking and talking with Regal. As they passed me, he looked at me over Regal’s head and said sneeringly, ‘More lives than a cat.’

      I stopped and stared at them until both were forced to look at me. I made Galen meet my eyes; then I smiled and nodded. I never confronted Galen about his attempt to send me to my death. He never appeared to see me after that; his eyes would slide past me, or he would exit a room when I entered it.

      It seemed to me that I had lost everything when I lost Smithy. Or perhaps in my bitterness I set out to destroy what little was left to me. I sulked about the keep for weeks, cleverly insulting anyone foolish enough to speak to me. The Fool avoided me. Chade didn’t summon me. I saw Patience thrice. The first two times I went to answer her summons, I made only the barest efforts to be civil. The third time, bored by her chatter about rose cuttings, I simply stood up and left. She did not summon me again.

      But there came a time when I felt I had to reach out to someone. Smithy had left a great gap in my life. And I had not expected that my exile from the stables would be as devastating as it was. Chance encounters with Burrich were incredibly awkward as we both learned painfully to pretend not to see each other.

      I wanted, achingly, to go to Molly, to tell her everything that had befallen me, all that had happened to me since I first came to Buckkeep. I imagined in detail how we could sit on the beach while I talked, and that when I had finished, she would not judge me or try to offer advice, but would just take my hand and be still beside me. Finally, she would know everything, and I would not have to hide anything from her any more. I dared imagine no more beyond that. I longed desperately, and feared with the fear known only to a boy whose love is two years older than he is. If I took her all my woes, would she think me a hapless child and pity me? Would she hate me for all that I had never told her before? A dozen times that thought turned my feet away from Buckkeep Town.

      But some two months later, when I did venture into town, my traitorous feet took me to the chandlery. I happened to have a basket with me, and a bottle of cherry wine in it, and four or five brambly little yellow roses, obtained at great loss of skin from the Women’s Garden where their fragrance overpowered even the thyme beds. I told myself I had no plan. I did not have to tell her everything about myself. I did not even have to see her. I could decide as I went along. But in the end all decisions had already been made, and they had nothing to do with me.

      I arrived just in time to see Molly leaving with Jade. Their heads were close together, and she leaned toward him as they spoke in soft voices. Outside the door of the chandlery, he stooped to look into her face. She lifted her eyes to his. When the man reached a hesitant hand to gently touch her cheek, Molly was suddenly a woman, one I did not know. The two years’ age difference between us was a vast gulf I could never hope to bridge. I stepped around the corner before she could see me, and turned aside, my face down. They passed me as if I were a tree or a stone. Her head leaned on his shoulder, and they walked slowly. It took forever for them to be out of sight.

      That night I got drunker than I had ever been, and awoke the next day in some bushes halfway up the keep road.

       EIGHTEEN

       Assassinations

      Chade Fallstar, a personal adviser to King Shrewd, made an extensive study of Forging during the period just preceding the Red Ship wars. From his tablets, we have the following: ‘Netta, the daughter of the fisherman Gill and the farmer Ryda, was taken alive from her village Goodwater on the seventeenth day after Springfest. She was Forged by the Red Ship Raiders and returned to her village three days later. Her father was killed in the same raid, and her mother, having five younger children, was little able to deal with Netta. She was, at the time of her Forging, fourteen summers old. She came into my possession some six months after her Forging.

      ‘When first brought to me, she was dirty, ragged and greatly weakened owing to starvation and exposure. At my direction, she was washed, clothed and housed in chambers convenient to my own. I proceeded with her as I might have done with a wild animal. Each day I brought her food with my own hands, and stayed by her while she ate. I saw to it that her chambers were kept warm, her bedding clean, and that she was provided with the amenities a woman might expect; water for washing, brushes and combs, and all that is otherwise needful. In addition, I saw to it that she was furnished with sundry supplies for needlework, for I had discovered that prior to Forging, she had had a great fondness for doing such fancywork, and had created several artful pieces. My intention in all this was to see if, under gentle circumstances, a Forged one might not return to a semblance of the person she had formerly been.

      ‘Even a wild animal might have become a little tamer under these circumstances. But to all things Netta reacted with indifference. She had lost not only the habits of a woman, but even the good sense of an animal. She would eat to satiation, with her hands, and then let fall to the floor whatever was excess, to be trodden underfoot. She did not wash, nor care for herself in any way. Even most animals soil only one area of their dens, but Netta was like a mouse that lets her droppings fall everywhere, with no care for bedding.

      ‘She was able to speak, in a sensible way, if she chose to or wanted some item badly enough. When she spoke by her own choice, it was usually to accuse me of stealing from her, or to utter threats against me if I did not immediately give her some item she wanted. Her habitual attitude toward me was suspicious and hateful. She ignored my attempts at normal conversation, but by withholding food from her, I was able to elicit answers in exchange for food. She had clear memory of her family, but had no interest in what had become of them. Rather, she answered those questions