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

plottings as if they were nasty boyish tricks, and I think that cowed Regal more than any public reprimand could have. The poisoning was eventually blamed on Rowd and Sevrens by those who knew of it. Sevrens had, after all, obtained the poison, and Rowd had delivered the gift of apple wine. Kettricken pretended to be convinced that it was a misplaced ambition by servants on behalf of an unknowing master. And Rurisk’s death was never openly spoken of as a poisoning. Nor did I become known as an assassin. Whatever was in Regal’s heart, his outward demeanour was that of a younger prince graciously escorting his brother’s bride home.

      I had a long convalescence. Jonqui treated me with herbs she said would rebuild what had been damaged. I should have tried to learn her herbs and techniques, but my mind could not seem to hold things any better than my hands could. I remember little of that time. My recovery from the poisoning was frustratingly slow. Jonqui sought to make it less tedious by arranging time for me in the Great Library, but my eyes wearied quickly and seemed as prone to trembling disorders as my hands. I spent most days lying in my bed, thinking. For a time I wondered if I wanted to return to Buckkeep. I wondered if I could still be Shrewd’s assassin. I knew that if I returned, I would have to sit down the table from Regal and look up to see him at my king’s left hand. I would have to treat him as if he had never tried to kill me, nor used me in the poisoning of a man I had admired. I spoke of it frankly one evening to Burrich. He sat and listened quietly. Then he said, I cannot imagine it will be easier for Kettricken than it would be for you. Nor for me, to look at a man who has tried to kill me twice, and call him “My prince”. You must decide. I should hate to have him think he had frightened us away. But if you decide we are going elsewhere, then we shall.’ I think I finally guessed then what the earring signified.

      Winter was no longer a threat, but a reality, when we left the mountains. Burrich, Hands and I returned much later to Buckkeep than the others, for we took our time on the journey. I tired easily, and my strength was still very unpredictable. I would crumple at odd moments, falling from the saddle like a sack of grain. Then they would stop to help me re-mount, and I would force myself to go on. Many nights I awoke shaking, without even the strength to call out. These lapses were slow to pass. Worst, I think, were the nights when I could not waken, but dreamed only of endlessly drowning. From one such dream I woke to Verity standing over me.

      You’re enough to wake the dead, he told me genially. We must find a master for you, to teach you some control if nothing else. Kettricken finds it a bit peculiar that I dream so often of drowning. I suppose I should be grateful you slept well on my wedding night at least.

      ‘Verity?’ I said groggily.

      Go back to sleep, he told me. Galen is dead, and I’ve put Regal on a shorter leash. You’ve nothing to fear. Go to sleep, and stop dreaming so loudly.

      Verity, wait! But my act of groping after him broke the tenuous Skill contact, and I had no choice but to do as he had advised.

      We travelled on, through increasingly unpleasant weather. We all looked forward to getting home long before we arrived there. Burrich had, I believe, overlooked Hands’ abilities until that trip. Hands had a quiet competence that inspired trust in horses as well as dogs. Eventually he easily replaced both Cob and me in the Buckkeep stables, and the friendship that grew between Burrich and Hands caused me to be more aware of my aloneness than I care to admit.

      Galen’s death was considered a tragic thing at Buckkeep court. Those who had known him least spoke mostly kindly about him. Obviously the man had overstrained himself, for his heart to fail him so young. There was some talk of naming a warship after him, as if he were a fallen hero, but Verity never recognized the idea and it never came to pass. His body was sent back to Farrow for burial, with all honour. If Shrewd suspected anything of what had gone on between Verity and Galen, he kept it well hidden. Neither he nor even Chade ever mentioned it to me. The loss of our Skillmaster, with not even an apprentice to replace him, was no trivial thing, especially with the Red Ships on our horizons. That was what was openly discussed, but Verity flatly refused to consider Serene or any of the others Galen had trained.

      I never found out if Shrewd had given me over to Regal. I never asked him, nor even mentioned my suspicions to Chade. I suppose I didn’t want to know. I tried not to let it affect my loyalties. But in my heart, when I said, My king, I meant Verity.

      The timbers Rurisk had promised came to Buckkeep even more slowly than I did, for they had to be dragged overland to the Vin River before they could be rafted down to Turlake, and thence down the Buck River to Buckkeep. They arrived by midwinter and were all Rurisk had said they would be. The first completed warship was named after him. I think he would have understood that, but not quite approved of it.

      King Shrewd’s plan had succeeded. It had been many years since Buckkeep had had a queen of any kind, and Kettricken’s arrival stirred interest in court life. The tragic death of her brother on her wedding eve, and the brave way she had continued despite it captured the imagination of the people. Her unmistakable admiration for her new husband made Verity a romantic hero even to his own folk. They were a striking couple; her youth and pale beauty setting off Verity’s quiet strength. Shrewd displayed them at balls that attracted every minor noble from every duchy, and Kettricken spoke with intense eloquence of the need for all to band together to defeat the Red Ship Raiders. So Shrewd raised his monies, and even in the storms of winter, the fortification of the Six Duchies began. More towers were constructed, and folk volunteered to man them. Shipwrights vied for the honour of working on the warships, and Buckkeep Town was swollen with volunteers to man the ships. For a brief time that winter, folk believed in the legends they created, and it seemed the Red Ships could be defeated by sheer will alone. I mistrusted that mood, but watched as Shrewd promoted it, and wondered how he would sustain it when the realities of the Forgings began again.

      Of one other I must speak, one dragged into that conflict and intrigue only by his loyalty to me. To the end of my days, I will bear the scars he gave me. His worn teeth sank deeply into my hand several times before he managed to drag me from that pool. How he did it, I will never know. But his head still rested on my chest when they found us; his mortal bonds to this world broken. Nosy was dead. I believe he gave his life freely, recalling that we had been good to one another, when we were puppies. Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But we grieve for many years.

       Epilogue

      ‘You are wearied,’ my boy says. He is standing at my elbow and I do not know how long he has been there. He reaches forward slowly, to lift the pen from my lax grip. Wearily I regard the faltering tail of ink it has tracked down my page. I have seen that shape before, I think, but it was not ink then. A trickle of drying blood on the deck of a Red Ship, and mine the hand that spilled it? Or was it a tendril of smoke rising black against a blue sky as I rode too late to warn a village of a Red Ship Raid? Or poison swirling and unfurling yellowly in a simple glass of water, poison I had handed someone, smiling all the while? The artless curl of a strand of woman’s hair left upon my pillow? Or the trail a man’s heels left in the sand as we dragged the bodies from the smouldering tower at Sealbay? The track of a tear down a mother’s cheek as she clutched her Forged infant to her despite his angry cries? Like Red Ships, the memories come without warning, without mercy. ‘You should rest,’ the boy says again, and I realize I am sitting, staring at a line of ink on a page. It makes no sense. Here is another sheet spoiled, another effort to set aside.

      ‘Put them away,’ I tell him, and do not object as he gathers all the sheets and stacks them haphazardly together. Herbery and history, maps and musings, all a hodge-podge in his hands as they are in my mind. I can no longer recall what it was I set out to do. The pain is back, and it would be so easy to quiet it. But that way lies madness, as has been proven so many times before me. So instead I send the boy to find two leaves of Carryme, and ginger root and peppermint to make a tea for me. I wonder if one day I will ask him to fetch three leaves of that Chyurdan herb.

      Somewhere, a friend says softly, ‘No.’