Assassin’s Apprentice. Робин Хобб

I want to learn any more from you. I think I’m going to go to Shrewd and tell him to find someone else to kill people for him.’

      ‘That is your decision to make. But I advise you against it, for now.’

      His calmness caught me off-guard. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because it would negate all Chivalry tried to do for you. It would draw attention to you. And right now, that is not a good idea.’ His words came ponderously slow, freighted with truth.

      ‘Why?’ I found I was whispering.

      ‘Because some will be wanting to write finis to Chivalry’s story completely. And that would be best done by eliminating you. Those ones will be watching how you react to your father’s death. Does it give you ideas and make you restless? Will you become a problem now, the way he was?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘My boy,’ he said, and pulled me close against his side. For the first time I heard the possession in his words. ‘It is a time for you to be quiet and careful. I understand why Burrich cut your hair, but in truth I wish he had not. I wish no one had been reminded that Chivalry was your father. You are such a hatchling yet … but listen to me. For now, change nothing that you do. Wait six months, or a year. Then decide. But for now …’

      ‘How did my father die?’

      Chade’s eyes searched my face. ‘Did you not hear that he fell from a horse?’

      ‘Yes. And I heard Burrich curse the man who told it, saying that Chivalry would not fall, nor would that horse throw him.’

      ‘Burrich needs to guard his tongue.’

      ‘Then how did my father die?’

      ‘I don’t know. But like Burrich, I do not believe he fell from a horse.’ Chade fell silent. I sank down to sit by his bony bare feet and stare into his fire.

      ‘Are they going to kill me, too?’

      He was silent a long while. ‘I don’t know. Not if I can help it. I think they must first convince King Shrewd it is necessary. And if they do that, I shall know of it.’

      ‘Then you think it comes from within the keep.’

      ‘I do.’ Chade waited long but I was silent, refusing to ask. He answered anyway. ‘I knew nothing of it before it happened. I had no hand in it in any way. They didn’t even approach me about it. Probably because they know I would have done more than just refused. I would have seen to it that it never happened.’

      ‘Oh.’ I relaxed a little. But already he had trained me too well in the ways of court thinking. ‘Then they probably won’t come to you if they decide they want me done. They’d be afraid of your warning me as well.’

      He took my chin in his hand and turned my face so that I looked into his eyes. ‘Your father’s death should be all the warning you need, now or ever. You’re a bastard, Fitz. We’re always a risk and a vulnerability. We’re always expendable. Except when we are an absolute necessity to their own security. I’ve taught you quite a bit, these last few years. But hold this lesson closest and keep it always before you. If ever you make it so they don’t need you, they will kill you.’

      I looked at him wide-eyed. ‘They don’t need me now.’

      ‘Don’t they? I grow old. You are young, and tractable, with the face and bearing of the royal family. As long as you don’t show any inappropriate ambitions, you’ll be fine.’ He paused, then carefully emphasized, ‘We are the King’s, boy. His exclusively, in a way perhaps you have not thought about. No one knows what I do and most have forgotten who I am. Or was. If any know of us, it is from the King.’

      I sat putting it cautiously together. ‘Then … you said it came from within the keep. But if you were not used, then it was not from the King … the Queen!’ I said it with sudden certainty.

      Chade’s eyes guarded his thoughts. ‘That’s a dangerous assumption to make. Even more dangerous if you think you must act on it in some way.’

      ‘Why?’

      Chade sighed. ‘When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider them all, boy. Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps Chivalry was killed by someone he had offended at Withywoods. Perhaps it had nothing to do with him being a prince. Or, perhaps the King has another assassin, one I know nothing about, and it was the King’s own hand against his son.’

      ‘You don’t believe any of those,’ I said with certainty.

      ‘No. I don’t. Because I have no evidence to declare them truth. Just as I have no evidence to say your father’s death was the Queen’s hand striking.’

      That is all I remember of our conversation then. But I am sure that Chade had deliberately led me to consider who might have acted against my father, to instil in me a greater wariness of the Queen. I held the thought close to me, and not just in the days that immediately followed. I kept myself to my chores, and slowly my hair grew, and by the beginning of real summer all seemed to have returned to normal. Once every few weeks, I would find myself sent off to town on errands. I soon came to see that no matter who sent me, one or two items on the list wound up in Chade’s quarters, so I guessed who was behind my little bouts of freedom. I did not manage to spend time with Molly every time I went to town, but it was enough for me that I would stand outside the window of her shop until she noticed me, and at least exchanged a nod. Once I heard someone in the market talking about the quality of her scented candles, and how no one had made such a pleasant and healthful taper since her mother’s day, and I smiled for her and was glad.

      Summer came, bringing warmer weather to our coasts, and with it the Outislanders. Some came as honest traders, with cold-land goods to trade – furs and amber and ivory and kegs of oil – and tall tales to share, ones that still could prickle my neck just as they had when I was small. Our sailors did not trust them, and called them spies and worse. But their goods were rich, and the gold they brought to purchase our wines and grains was solid and heavy, and our merchants took it.

      Other Outislanders also visited our shores, though not too close to Buckkeep Hold. They came with knives and torches, with bows and rams, to plunder and rape the same villages they had been plundering and raping for years. Sometimes it seemed an elaborate and bloody contest: for them to find villages unaware or underarmed and for us to lure them in with seemingly vulnerable targets and then to slaughter and plunder the pirates themselves. But if it were a contest, it went very badly for us that summer. My every visit to town was heavy with the news of destruction and the mutterings of the people.

      Up at the keep, among the men-at-arms, there was a collective feeling of doltishness that I shared. The Outislanders eluded our warships with ease, and never fell into our traps. They struck where we were undermanned and least expecting it. Most discomfited of all was Verity, for to him had fallen the task of defending the kingdom once Chivalry had abdicated. I heard it muttered in the taverns that since he had lost his elder brother’s good counsel, all had gone sour. No one spoke against Verity yet; but it was unsettling that no one spoke out strongly for him either.

      Boyishly, I viewed the raids as a thing impersonal to me. Certainly they were bad things, and I felt sorry in a vague way for those villagers whose homes were torched or plundered. But secure at Buckkeep, I had very little feeling for the constant fear and vigilance that other seaports endured, or for the agonies of villagers who rebuilt each year, only to see their efforts torched the next. I was not to keep my ignorant innocence long.

      I went down to Burrich for my ‘lesson’ one morning; though I spent as much time doctoring animals and teaching young colts and fillies as I did in being taught. I had very much taken over Cob’s place in the stables, while he had gone on to being Regal’s groom and dog man. But that day, to my surprise, Burrich took me upstairs to his room and sat me down at his table. I dreaded spending a tedious morning repairing tack.

      ‘I’m going to teach you manners today,’ Burrich announced suddenly.