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

become so despised of her? Have I not done all you demanded of me? I have waited, Patience. I have avoided her, I have taken care not to cause talk. But when is an end to it? Or is this your plan? To keep us apart until we forget each other? It cannot work. I am not a babe, and this is not some bauble you hide from me, to distract me with other toys. This is Molly. And she is my heart and I will not let her go.’

      ‘I am afraid you must.’ Patience said the words heavily.

      ‘Why? Has she chosen another?’

      Patience batted my words away as if they were flies. ‘No. She is not fickle, not that one. She is smart and diligent and full of wit and spirit. I can see how you lost your heart to her. But she also has pride. She has come to see what you refuse. That you come, each of you, from places so far apart that there can be no meeting in the middle. Even were Shrewd to consent to a marriage, which I very much doubt, how would you live? You cannot leave the keep, to go down to Buckkeep Town and work in a candle shop. You know you cannot. And what status would she enjoy if you kept her here? Despite her goodness, people who did not know her well would see only the differences in your rank. She would be seen as a low appetite you had indulged. “Oh, the Bastard, he had an eye for his step-mother’s maid. I fancy he caught her around the corner one time too many, and now he has to pay the piper.” You know the kind of talk I mean.’

      I did. ‘I don’t care what folk would say.’

      ‘Perhaps you could endure it. But what of Molly? What of your children?’

      I was silent. Patience looked down at her hands idle in her lap. ‘You are young, FitzChivalry.’ She spoke very quietly, very soothingly. ‘I know you do not believe it now. But, you may meet another. One closer to your station. And she may also. Maybe she deserves that chance of happiness. Perhaps you should draw back. Give yourself a year or so. And if your heart has not changed by then, well …’

      ‘My heart will not change.’

      ‘Nor will hers, I fear.’ Patience spoke bluntly. ‘She cared for you, Fitz. Not knowing who you really were, she gave her heart to you. She has said as much. I do not wish to betray her confidences to me, but if you do as she asks and leave her alone, she can never tell you herself. So I will speak, and hope you hold me harmless for the pain I must give you. She knows this can never be. She does not want to be a servant marrying a noble. She does not want her children to be the daughters and sons of a keep servant. So she saves the little I am able to pay her. She buys, her wax and her scents, and works still at her trade, as best as she is able. She means to save enough, somehow, to begin again, with her own chandlery. It will not be soon. But that is her goal.’ Patience paused. ‘She sees no place in that life for you.’

      I sat a long time, thinking. Neither Lacey nor Patience spoke. Lacey moved slowly through our stillness, brewing tea. She pushed a cup of it into my hand. I lifted my eyes and tried to smile at her. I set the tea carefully aside. ‘Did you know, from the beginning, that it would come to this’ I asked.

      ‘I feared it,’ Patience said simply. ‘But I also knew there was nothing I could do about it. Nor can you.’

      I sat still, not even thinking. Under the old hut, in a scratched out hollow, Nighteyes was dozing with his nose over a bone. I touched him softly, not even waking him. His calm breathing was an anchor. I steadied myself against him.

      ‘Fitz? What will you do?

      Tears stung my eyes. I blinked, and it passed. ‘What I am told,’ I said heavily. ‘When have I ever done otherwise?’

      Patience was silent as I got slowly to my feet. The wound on my neck was throbbing. I suddenly wanted only to sleep. She nodded to me as I excused myself. At the door I paused. ‘Why I came this evening. Besides to see you. Queen Kettricken will be restoring the Queen’s Garden. The one on top of the tower. She mentioned she would like to know how the garden was originally arranged. In Queen Constance’s time. I thought perhaps you could recall it for her.’

      Patience hesitated. ‘I do recall it. Very well.’ She was quiet for a moment, then brightened. ‘I will draw it out for you, and explain it. Then you could go to the Queen.’

      I met her eyes. ‘I think you should go to her. I think it would please her very much.’

      ‘Fitz, I have never been good with people.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I am sure she would find me odd. Boring. I could not –’ Her voice stuttered to a halt.

      ‘Queen Kettricken is very alone,’ I said quietly. ‘There are ladies around her, but I do not think she has real friends. Once, you were Queen-in-Waiting. Cannot you recall what it was like?’

      ‘Very different for her than it was for me, I should think.’

      ‘Probably,’ I agreed. I turned to go. ‘For one thing, you had an attentive and loving husband.’ Behind me Patience made a small shocked sound. ‘And I do not think Prince Regal was as … clever then as he is now. And you had Lacey to support you. Yes, Lady Patience. I am sure it is very different for her. Much harder.’

      ‘FitzChivalry!’

      ‘I paused at the door. ‘Yes, my lady?’

      ‘Turn about when I speak to you!’

      I turned slowly and she actually stamped the floor at me. ‘This ill becomes you. You seek to shame me! Think you that I do not do my duty? That I do not know my duty?

      ‘My lady?’

      ‘I shall go to her, tomorrow. And she will think me odd and awkward and flighty. She will be bored with me and wish I had never come. And then you shall apologize to me for making me do it.’

      ‘I am sure you know best, my lady.’

      ‘Take your courtier’s manners and go. Insufferable boy.’ She stamped her foot again, then whirled and fled back into her bedchamber. Lacey held the door for me as I left. Her lips were folded in a flat line, her demeanour subdued.

      ‘Well?’ I asked her as I left, knowing she had words left to say to me.

      ‘I was thinking that you are very like your father,’ Lacey observed tartly. ‘Except not quite as stubborn. He did not give up as easily as you have.’ She shut the door firmly behind me.

      I looked at the closed door for a while, then headed back to my room. I knew I had to change the dressing on my neck wound. I climbed the flight of stairs, my arm throbbing at every step. I halted on the landing. For a time I watched the candles burning in their holders. I climbed the next flight of stairs.

      I knocked steadily for several minutes. A yellow candle light had been coming out the crack under her door, but as I knocked, it suddenly winked out. I took out my knife and experimented, loudly, with the latch on her door. She’d changed it. There seemed to be a bar as well, a heavier one than the tip of my blade would lift. I gave it up and left.

      Down is always easier than up. In fact, it can be too much easier, when one arm is already injured. I looked down at the waves breaking like white lace on the rocks far away. Nighteyes had been right. The moon had managed to come out for a bit. The rope slipped a bit through my gloved hand and I grunted as my injured arm had to take my weight. Only a little more, I promised myself. I let myself down another two steps.

      The ledge of Molly’s window was narrower than I had hoped it would be. I kept the rope in a wrap around my arm as I perched there. My knife blade slipped easily into the crack between the shutters; they were very poorly fitted. The upper catch had yielded and I was working on the lower one when I heard her voice from inside.

      ‘If you come in, I shall scream. The guards will come.’

      ‘Then you’d best put on tea for them,’ I replied grimly and went back to wriggling at the lower catch.

      In a moment, Molly snatched the shutters open. She stood framed in the window, the dancing light of the fire on the hearth illuminating her from behind. She was in her nightdress, but she hadn’t braided her hair back yet. It was loose and gleaming from brushing. She had thrown