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

wet blanket stank as only wool can and bled red dye onto my hands. I went up to my room and dried off, then amused myself by carefully preparing the perfect poison for Wallace. One that would rack his bowels before he died. When the powder was mixed fine and put in a twist of paper, I set it down and looked at it. For a while I considered taking it myself. Instead, I took up needle and thread, to devise a pocket inside my cuff where I could carry it. I wondered if I would ever use it. The wondering made me feel more a coward than ever.

      I did not go down to dinner. I did not go up to Molly. I opened my shutters and let the storm spill rain across my floor. I let the hearth fire go out and refused to light any candles. It seemed a time for gestures like those. When Chade opened his passage to me, I ignored it. I sat on the foot of my bed, staring out into the rain.

      After a time I heard hesitant footsteps come down the stairs. Chade appeared in my darkened room like a wraith. He glared at me, then crossed to the shutters and slammed them shut. As he hooked them, he asked me angrily, ‘Have you any idea of the kind of draught that creates in my rooms?’ When I didn’t reply, he lifted his head and snuffed, for all the world like a wolf. ‘Have you been working with baneleaf in here?’ he asked suddenly. He came to stand before me. ‘Fitz, you’ve not done anything stupid, have you?’

      ‘Stupid? Me?’ I choked on a laugh.

      Chade stooped to peer into my face. ‘Come up to my chamber,’ he said, in an almost kindly voice. He took my arm and I went with him.

      The cheery room, the crackling fire, the autumn fruit ripe in a bowl; all of it clashed so badly with what I felt that I wanted to smash things. Instead I asked Chade, ‘Does anything feel worse than being angry with people you love?’

      After a bit he spoke. ‘Watching someone you love die. And being angry, but not knowing where to direct it. I think that’s worse.’

      I flung myself onto a side chair, kicked my feet out in front of me. ‘Shrewd has taken up Regal’s habits. Smoke. Mirthweed. El only knows what else in his wine. This morning, without his drugs, he began to shake, and then he drank them mixed with his wine, took a chestful of Smoke and went to sleep in my face. After telling me, again, that I must court and marry Celerity, for my own good.’ The words spilled from me. I had no doubt that Chade already knew of everything I told him.

      I pinned Chade with my eyes. ‘I love Molly,’ I told him bluntly. ‘I have told Shrewd that I love another. Yet he insists that I will be paired with Celerity. He asks how I cannot understand he means the best for me. How can he not understand that I wish to wed whom I love?’

      Chade looked considering. ‘Have you discussed this with Verity?’

      ‘What good would that do? He could not even save himself from being wed off to a woman he did not desire.’ I felt disloyal to Kettricken as I said this. But I knew it was true.

      ‘Would you care for wine?’ Chade asked me mildly. ‘It might calm you.’

      ‘No.’

      He raised his eyebrows at me.

      ‘No. Thank you. After watching Shrewd “calm” himself with wine this morning …’ I let my complaint trail away. ‘Was that man never young?’

      ‘Once he was very young.’ Chade permitted himself a small smile. ‘Perhaps he remembers that Constance was a woman chosen for him by his parents. He did not court her willingly, nor wed her gladly. It took her death to make him know how deeply he had come to love her. Desire, on the other hand, he chose for himself, in a passion that fevered him.’ He paused. ‘I will not speak ill of the dead.’

      ‘This is different,’ I said.

      ‘How?’

      ‘I am not to be king. Whom I wed affects no one but me.’

      ‘Would it were that simple,’ Chade said softly. ‘Can you believe you can refuse Celerity’s courtship without offending Brawndy? At a time when the Six Duchies needs every bond of unity?’

      ‘I am convinced I can make her decide she does not want me.’

      ‘How? By being an oaf? And shaming Shrewd?’

      I felt caged. I tried to think of solutions, but found only one answer in me. ‘I will marry no one except Molly.’ I felt better simply by saying it aloud. I met Chade’s eyes.

      He shook his head. ‘Then you will marry no one,’ he pointed out.

      ‘Perhaps not,’ I acceded. ‘Perhaps we shall never be married in name. But we shall have a life together …’

      ‘And little bastards of your own.’

      I stood convulsively, my fists knotting of their own accord. ‘Don’t say that,’ I warned Chade. I turned away from him to glare into his fire.

      ‘I wouldn’t. But everyone else will.’ He sighed. ‘Fitz, Fitz, Fitz.’ He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. Very, very gently, he said, ‘It might be best to let her go.’

      The touch and the gentleness had disarmed me of my anger. I lifted my hands to cover my face. ‘I cannot,’ I said through my fingers. ‘I need her.’

      ‘What does Molly need?’

      A little chandlery with bee hives in the back yard. Children. A legitimate husband. ‘You are doing this for Shrewd. To make me do as he wishes,’ I accused Chade.

      He lifted his hands from my shoulders. I listened to him walk away, to wine being poured into a single cup. He brought his wine with him to his chair and sat down before his fire.

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      He looked at me. ‘Someday, FitzChivalry,’ he warned me, ‘those words will not be enough. Sometimes it is easier to pull a knife out of a man than to ask him to forget words you have uttered. Even words uttered in anger.’

      ‘I am sorry,’ I repeated.

      ‘So am I,’ he said shortly.

      After a time, I asked humbly, ‘Why did you wish to see me tonight?’

      He sighed. ‘Forged ones. Southwest of Buckkeep.’

      I felt ill. ‘I had thought I would not have to do that any more,’ I said quietly. ‘When Verity put me on a ship to Skill for him, he said that perhaps …’

      ‘This does not come from Verity. It was reported to Shrewd, and he wishes it taken care of. Verity is already … overtaxed. We do not wish to trouble him with anything else just now.’

      I put my head back into my hands. ‘Is there no one else who can do this?’ I begged him.

      ‘Only you and I are trained for this.’

      ‘I did not mean you,’ I said wearily. ‘I do not expect you to do that sort of work any more.’

      ‘Don’t you?’ I looked up to find the anger back in his eyes. ‘You arrogant pup! Who do you think kept them from Buckkeep all summer, Fitz, while you were out on the Rurisk? Did you think that because you wished to avoid a task, the need for such work ceased?’

      I was as shamed then as I have ever been. I looked aside from his anger. ‘Oh, Chade. I am sorry.’

      ‘Sorry that you avoided it? Or sorry that you thought me incapable of doing it any more?’

      ‘Both. Everything,’ I conceded it all suddenly. ‘Please, Chade, if one more person I care about becomes angry with me, I don’t think I shall be able to bear it.’ I lifted my head and looked at him steadily until he was forced to meet my eyes.

      He lifted a hand to scratch at his beard. ‘It has been a long summer for both of us. Pray El for storms to drive the Red Ships away forever.’

      We sat a time in silence.

      ‘Sometimes,’ Chade observed, ‘it would be much easier to die for one’s king than to give one’s life for him.’