The Farseer Series Books 2 and 3: Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

then take you to them for the hunting.

      It is scarcely hunting, Nighteyes.

      No. But it is a thing we do for our pack.

      I sat with him for a while in companionable silence, watching him gnaw on the bones I had brought him. He had grown well this winter. Given a good diet and freed from the confines of a cage, he had put on weight and muscle. Snow might fall on his coat, but the thicker black guard-hairs interspersed throughout his grey coat shed the snowflakes and kept any moisture from reaching his skin. He smelled healthy, too, not the rank dogginess of an overfed canine kept inside and unexercised, but a wild, clean scent. You saved my life, yesterday.

      You saved me from a death in a cage.

      I think that I had been alone so long, I had forgotten what it meant to have a friend.

      He stopped chewing his bone and looked up at me in mild amusement. A friend? Too small a word for it, brother. And in the wrong direction. So do not look at me like that. I will be to you what you are to me. Bond brother, and pack. But I am not all you will ever need. He went back to chewing his bone, and I sat chewing over what he had just advised.

      Sleep well, brother, I told him as I left.

      He snorted. Sleep? Hardly. The moon may yet break through this overcast and give me some hunting light. But if not, I may sleep.

      I nodded and left him to his bones. As I walked back to the castle I felt less dismal and alone than I had before. But I also had a twinge of guilt that Nighteyes would so adapt his life and will to mine. It did not seem a clean thing for him to do, this snuffing out of Forged ones.

      For the pack. This is for the good of the pack. The senseless ones are trying to come into our territory. We cannot allow it. He sounded comfortable with it, and surprised that it should bother me. I nodded to ourselves in the dark and pushed my way through the kitchen door, back into yellow light and warmth.

      I climbed the stairs to my room, thinking of what I had wrought over the past few days. I had resolved to set the cub free. Instead, we had become brothers. I was not sorry. I had gone to warn Verity of new Forged ones near Buckkeep. Instead, I had found he already knew about them, and had gained for myself the task of studying the Elderlings and trying to discover other Skilled ones. I had asked him to give the garden to Kettricken, to busy her mind away from her hurts. Instead, I had deceived her, and bound her more to her love for Verity. I paused to catch my breath on a landing. Perhaps, I reflected, we all danced to the Fool’s tune. Had not he suggested some of these very things to me?

      I felt again the brass key in my pocket. Now was as good a time as any. Verity was not in his bedchamber, but Charim was. He had no qualms about allowing me to come in and use the key. I took an armload of the scrolls I found there; there were more than I had expected. I bore them back to my room and set them down on my dressing chest. I built up the fire in the fireplace. I peeked at the dressing on the bite on my neck. It was an ugly wad of cloth, saturated with blood. I knew I should change it. I dreaded pulling it loose. In a while. I put more wood on my fire. I sorted through the scrolls. Spidery little writing, faded illustrations. Then I lifted my eyes and looked around my room.

      A bed. A chest. A small stand by the bed. An ewer and bowl for wash water. A truly ugly tapestry of King Wisdom conferring with a yellowish Elderling. A branch of candles on the mantel. It had scarcely changed in the years I had lived here from the first night I had moved into it. It was a bare and dreary room, devoid of imagination. Suddenly I was a bare and dreary person, devoid of imagination. I fetched and I hunted and I killed. I obeyed. More hound than man. And not even a favoured hound, to be petted and praised. One of the working pack. When was the last time I had heard from Shrewd? Or Chade? Even the Fool mocked me. What was I, any more, to anyone, except a tool? Was there anyone left who cared for me, myself? Suddenly I could no longer abide my own company. I set down the scroll I had picked up and left my room.

      When I knocked at the door of Patience’s room, there was a pause. ‘Who is it?’ came Lacey’s voice.

      ‘Only FitzChivalry.’

      ‘FitzChivalry!’ A bit of surprise in the tone. It was late for a visit from me. Usually I came during the day. Then I was comforted to hear the sound of a bar being removed, and a latch worked. She had paid attention to what I had told her, I thought. The door opened slowly and Lacey stepped back to admit me, smiling dubiously.

      I stepped in, greeting Lacey warmly, and then glanced about for Patience. She was in the other chamber, I surmised. But in a corner, eyes lowered over needlework, sat Molly. She did not look up at me or acknowledge my presence at all. Her hair was tidied back in a bun under a lacy little cap. On another woman, her blue dress might have been simple and modest. On Molly it was drab. Her eyes stayed down on her work. I glanced at Lacey to find her regarding me levelly. I looked at Molly again and something inside me gave way. It took me four steps to cross the room to her. I knelt beside her chair and as she drew back from me, I seized her hand and carried it to my lips.

      ‘FitzChivalry!’ Patience’s voice behind me was outraged. I glanced at her framed in the doorway. Her lips were set flat in anger. I turned away from her.

      Molly had turned her face aside from me. I held her hand and spoke quietly. ‘I cannot go on like this any more. No matter how foolish, no matter how dangerous, no matter what any other may think. I cannot be always apart from you.’

      She pulled her hand away from me, and I let it go not to hurt her fingers. But I grasped at her skirt and clutched a fold of it like a stubborn child. ‘At least speak to me,’ I begged her, but it was Patience who spoke.

      ‘FitzChivalry, this is not seemly. Stop it at once.’

      ‘It was not seemly, nor wise, nor appropriate for my father to court you as he did, either. But he did not hesitate. I suspect he felt much as I do right now.’ I did not look away from Molly.

      That won me a moment of startled silence from Patience. But it was Molly who set aside her needlework and rose. She stepped away and when it became clear that I must let go or tear the fabric of her skirt, I released it. She stepped clear of me. ‘If my Lady Patience will excuse me for the evening?’

      ‘Certainly,’ Patience replied, but her voice was not at all certain.

      ‘If you go away, there is nothing for me.’ I knew I sounded too dramatic. I was still on my knees by her chair.

      ‘If I stay, there is still nothing for you.’ Molly spoke levelly as she took off her apron and hung it on a hook. ‘I am a serving-girl. You are a young noble, of the royal family. There can never be anything between us. I’ve come to see that, over the last few weeks.’

      ‘No.’ I rose and stepped towards her, but forbore to touch her. ‘You are Molly and I am Newboy.’

      ‘Maybe. Once.’ Molly conceded. Then she sighed. ‘But not now. Do not make this harder for me than it is, sir. You must leave me in peace. I have no where else to go; I must stay here and work, at least until I earn enough …’ She shook her head suddenly. ‘Good evening, my lady. Lacey. Sir.’ She turned aside from me. Lacey stood silently. I noticed she did not open the door for Molly, but Molly did not pause there. The door shut very firmly behind her. A terrible silence welled up in the room.

      ‘Well,’ Patience breathed at last. ‘I am glad to see that at least one of you has some sense. What on earth were you thinking, FitzChivalry, to barge in here and all but attack my maid?’

      ‘I was thinking that I loved her,’ I said bluntly. I dropped into a chair and put my head into my hands. ‘I was thinking that I am very weary of being so alone.’

      ‘That is why you came here?’ Patience sounded almost offended.

      ‘No. I came here to see you. I did not know she would be here. But when I saw her, it just came over me. It’s true, Patience. I cannot go on like this.’

      ‘Well, you’d better, because you’re going to have to.’ The words were hard, but she sighed as she said them.

      ‘Does