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

held in the belly of a ship, and that there had been little food and only enough water to go around. She had been fed nothing unusual that she recalled, nor had she been touched in any way that she remembered. Thus she could furnish to me no clue as to the mechanism of Forging itself. This was a great disappointment to me, for I had hoped that by learning how a thing was done, a man could discover how to undo it.

      ‘I endeavoured to bring human behaviour back to her by reasoning with her, but to no avail. She appeared to understand my words, but would not act on them. Even when given two loaves of bread, and warned that she must save one for the morrow or go hungry, she would let her second loaf fall to the floor, tread upon it, and on the morrow eat her own dropped leavings careless of what dirt clung to them. She evinced no interest in her needlework or in any other pastime, not even the bright toys of a child. If not eating or sleeping, she was content merely to sit or lie, her mind as idle as her body. Offered sweets or pastries, she would indulge until she vomited, and then eat more.

      ‘I treated her with sundry elixirs and herbal teas. I fasted her, I steamed her, I purged her body. Hot and cold dousings had no effect other than to make her angry. I caused her to sleep a full day and a night, to no change. I so charged her with elfbark that she could not sleep for two nights, but this only made her irritable. I spoiled her with kindnesses for a time, but as when I treated her with the harshest restrictions, it made no difference in how she regarded me. If hungry, she would make courtesies and smile pleasantly when commanded to, but as soon as food was furnished, all further commands and requests were ignored.

      ‘She was viciously jealous of territory and possessions. More than once she attempted to attack me, for no more reason than that I had ventured too close to food she was eating, and once because she suddenly decided she wished to have a ring I was wearing. She regularly killed the mice her untidiness attracted, snatching them up with amazing swiftness and dashing them against the wall. A cat that once ventured into her chambers met with a similar fate.

      ‘She seemed to have little sense of the time that had passed since her Forging. She could give good account of her earlier life, if commanded when hungry, but of the days since her Forging, all was as one long “yesterday” to her.

      ‘From Netta, I could not learn if something had been added to her or taken away to Forge her. I did not know if it was a thing consumed or smelled or heard or seen. I did not know if it was even the work of a man’s hand and art, or the work of a sea-demon such as some Farlanders claim to have power upon. From a long and weary experiment, I learned nothing.

      ‘To Netta I gave a triple sleeping-draught one evening with her water. I had her body bathed, her hair groomed, and sent her back to her village to be decently buried. At least one family could put finis to a tale of Forging. Most others must wonder, for months and years, what has become of the one they once held dear. Most are better off not knowing.’

      There were, at that time, over one thousand souls known to have been Forged.

      Burrich had meant what he said. He had nothing more to do with me. I was no longer welcome down at the stables and kennels. Cob especially took savage pleasure in this. Although he was often gone with Regal, when he was about the stables he would often step to block my entry. ‘Allow me to bring you your horse, Master,’ he would say obsequiously. ‘The stablemaster prefers that grooms handle animals within the stables.’ And so I must stand, like some incompetent lordling, while Sooty was saddled and brought for me. Cob himself mucked out her stall, brought her feed and groomed her, and it ate at me like acid to see how quickly she welcomed him back. She was only a horse, I told myself, and not to be blamed. But it was one more abandonment.

      I had too much time, suddenly. Mornings had always been spent working for Burrich. Now they were mine. Hod was busy training green men for defence. I was welcome to drill with them, but it was all lessons I had learned long ago. Fedwren was gone for the summer, as he was every summer. I could not think of a way to apologize to Patience, and I did not even think about Molly. Even my forays to the taverns in Buckkeep had become solitary ones. Kerry had apprenticed to a puppeteer, and Dirk gone for a sailor. I was idle and alone.

      It was a summer of misery, and not just for me. While I was lonely and bitter and out-growing all my clothes, while I snapped and snarled at any foolish enough to speak to me, and drank myself insensible several times a week, I was still aware of how the Six Duchies were racked. The Red Ship Raiders, bolder than ever before, harried our coastline. This summer, in addition to threats, they finally began to make demands. Grain, cattle, the right to take whatever they wished from our seaports, the right to beach their boats and live off our lands and people for the summer, their choice of our folk for slaves … each demand was more intolerable than the last, and the only things more intolerable than the demands were the Forgings that followed each refusal by the King.

      Common folk were abandoning the seaport and waterfront towns. One could not blame them, but it left our coastline even more vulnerable. More soldiers were hired, and more, and so the levies were raised to pay them, and folk grumbled under the burden of the taxes and their fear of the Red Ship Raiders. Even stranger were the Outislanders who came to our shore in their family ships, their raiding vessels left behind, to beg asylum of our people, and to tell wild tales of chaos and tyranny in the Out Islands where the Red Ships now ruled completely. They were a mixed blessing, perhaps. They were cheaply hired as soldiers, though few really trusted them. But at least their tales of the Out Islands under Red Ship domination were harrowing enough to keep anyone from thinking of giving in to the Raiders’ demands.

      About a month after my return, Chade opened his door to me. I was sullen over his neglect of me, and went more slowly up his stairs than ever I had before. But when I got there, he looked up from crushing seeds with a pestle with a face full of weariness. ‘I am glad to see you,’ he said, with nothing of gladness in his voice.

      ‘That’s why you were so swift to welcome me back,’ I observed sourly.

      He stopped his grinding. ‘I’m sorry. I thought perhaps you would need time alone, to recover yourself.’ He looked back to his seeds. ‘It has not been an easy winter and spring for me, either. Shall we try to put the time behind us, and go on?’

      It was a gentle, reasonable suggestion. I knew it was wise.

      ‘Have I any choice?’ I asked sarcastically.

      Chade finished grinding his seed. He scraped it into a finely-woven sieve and put it over a cup to drip. ‘No,’ he said at last, as if he had considered it well. ‘No, you haven’t, and neither have I. In many things, we have no choice.’ He looked at me, his eyes running up and down me, and then poked at his seed again. ‘You,’ he said, ‘will stop drinking anything but water or tea for the rest of the summer. Your sweat stinks of wine. And for one so young, your muscles are lax. A winter of Galen’s meditations has done your body no good at all. See that you exercise it. Take it upon yourself, as of today, to climb to Verity’s tower four times a day. You will take him food, and the teas I will show you how to prepare. You will never show him a sullen face, but will always be cheerful and friendly. Perhaps a while of waiting on Verity will convince you that I have had reasons for my attention not being centred on you. That is what you will do each day you are at Buckkeep. There will be some days when you will be fulfilling other assignments for me.’

      It had not taken many words from Chade to awaken shame in myself. My perception of my life crashed from high tragedy to juvenile self-pity in a matter of moments. ‘I have been idle,’ I admitted.

      ‘You have been stupid,’ Chade agreed. ‘You had a month in which to take charge of your own life. You behaved like … a spoiled brat. I have no wonder that Burrich is disgusted with you.’

      I had long ago stopped being surprised at what Chade knew. But this time, I was sure he did not know the real reason, and I had no desire to share it with him.

      ‘Have you discovered yet who tried to kill him?’

      ‘I haven’t … tried, really.’

      Now Chade looked disgusted, and then puzzled. ‘Boy, you are not yourself at all. Six months ago you would have torn the stables apart to know such