Fool’s Assassin. Робин Хобб

a storm of despair. I battered my way through it, organized my thoughts and asked Steady a question.

      ‘We know what happened. You haven’t broken your promise not to tell. But this is a different question. If you helped a Skill-user block himself, do you know how to break through it?’

      He folded his lips tightly and shook his head.

      ‘The man who is strong enough to build a wall should be strong enough to break it,’ Dutiful suggested sternly.

      Steady shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was deep with pain. Now that we knew the secret, he felt he could speak the details. ‘Lord Chade read about it in one of the old scrolls. It was a defence suggested for the coterie closest to the king or queen, so that the coterie could never be corrupted. It makes a wall that only the Skill-user himself can open. Or the king or queen, or whoever knows the key word.’

      My gaze shot to Dutiful. He spoke immediately. ‘I don’t know it! Chade never spoke to me of such a thing!’ He set his elbow to his knee and his forehead to his hand, looking suddenly very much like an anxious boy again. It wasn’t reassuring.

      Nettle spoke. ‘If he didn’t tell Dutiful, then you have to know it, Fitz. You were always closest to him. It has to be one of you two. Who else would he entrust it to?’

      ‘Not me,’ I said brusquely. I didn’t add that we hadn’t spoken to one another in several months, not even via the Skill. It was not a rift of anger, but only time. We’d slowly grown apart over the last few years. Oh, in times of extreme turmoil, he would not hesitate to reach into my mind and demand my opinion or even my aid. But over the years, he’d had to accept that I would not be drawn back into the intricate dance that was life at Buckkeep Castle. Now I regretted our distance.

      I rubbed my brow and turned to Thick. ‘Did Lord Chade tell you a special word, Thick? One to remember?’ I focused on him, trying to smile reassuringly. Behind me, I heard the door to the room open but I kept my attention on Thick.

      He scratched one of his tiny ears. His tongue stuck out of his mouth as he pondered. I forced myself to be patient. Then he smiled and straightened up. He leaned forward and smiled at me. ‘Please. He told me to remember “please”. And “thank you”. Words to get what you want from people. You don’t just grab. Say “please” before you take something.’

      ‘Could it be that simple?’ Nettle asked in wonder.

      Kettricken spoke from behind me. ‘Does it involve Chade? Then simple? Absolutely not. That man never makes anything simple.’ I turned to regard my erstwhile queen and despite the gravity of our situation, I could not help but smile at her. She stood straight and regal as ever. As always, the king’s mother was dressed with a simplicity that would have looked more appropriate on a serving-girl, save that she wore it with such dignity. And power. Her fair hair, gone to early silver, flowed unbound down her back, past the shoulders of her Buckkeep-blue robe. Another anomaly. She had encouraged the Six Duchies to reach out in trade, and in my lifetime I had seen our kingdom embrace all that the wider world had to offer. Exotic foods and seasoning from the Spice Islands, peculiar styles of dress from Jamaillia and the lands beyond and foreign techniques for working with glass, iron and pottery had altered every aspect of life in Buckkeep Castle. The Six Duchies shipped out wheat and oats, iron ore and ingots, Sandsedge brandy and the fine wines from the inland duchies. Timber from the Mountain Kingdom became lumber that in turn we shipped to Jamaillia. We prospered and embraced change. Yet here was my former queen, immune to the changes she had encouraged, dressed as simply and old-fashioned as a servant from my childhood, without even a diadem in her hair to mark her rank as the king’s mother.

      She crossed to me and I rose to accept her firm embrace. ‘Fitz,’ she said by my ear. ‘Thank you. Thank you for coming, and for taking great risk by coming so swiftly. When I heard that Dutiful had conveyed to Nettle that you must come at once, I was horrified. And full of hope. How selfish we are, to tear you from your well-earned peace and demand that you once more come to our aid.’

      ‘You are always welcome to any help I can bring you.’ Any lingering irritation I had felt for how I had been pressed to use the stone pillar vanished at her words. It was her gift. Queen Kettricken had always acknowledged the sacrifices that people made in service to the Farseer throne. In exchange, she had always been willing to surrender her own comfort and safety for those loyal to her. In that moment, her gratitude seemed a fair exchange for the danger I had faced.

      She released me and stepped back. ‘So. Do you think you can help him?’

      I shook my head regretfully. ‘Chade has put a block on himself, similar to the way that Chivalry sealed Burrich off from the Skill. He drew on Steady’s Skill-strength to do it. If we could break through it, we might be able to use our joined Skill-magic to aid his body in healing itself. But he has locked us out, and lacks the awareness to either permit us in or to heal himself.’

      ‘I see. And how is he?’

      ‘Losing strength. I feel an ebbing in his vitality even in the short time I’ve been here.’

      She flinched at my words but I knew she prized honesty. She opened her hands and gestured to all of us. ‘What can we do?’

      King Dutiful spoke. ‘Little to nothing. We can call the healers back, but they only seem to squabble with one another. One says to cool him with wet cloths, another to light the hearth and cover him with blankets. One wanted to bleed him. I do not think any of them truly have a remedy for this type of injury. If we do nothing, I suspect he will die before two more nights go by.’ He lifted off his crown, ran his hands through his hair, and set it back on his head slightly ajar. ‘Oh, Chade,’ he said, a combination of rebuke and plea in his voice. He turned to me. ‘Fitz. Are you sure you’ve had no message from him, either on paper or by the Skill, that would hint to what key will open him to us?’

      ‘Nothing. Not for months.’

      Kettricken looked around the room. ‘One of us knows.’ She spoke slowly and precisely. She considered each of us with another slow sweeping gaze, and then said, ‘I think it is most likely you, Fitz.’

      She was probably right. I looked at Steady. ‘How does one use this key word, if one knows it?’

      The young man looked uncertain. ‘He didn’t instruct me in that, but I suspect it is something you Skill to him, and it is what permits you in.’

      My heart sank. Had Burrich had a key word, something that would have allowed me to reach him? A key that Chivalry had taken to his grave after his riding ‘accident’? I suddenly felt ill to know that I might have saved Burrich from death if I’d known his key. Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. Kettricken was correct. Chade was far too clever a man to have closed a lock without entrusting one of us with a key.

      I took Chade’s hand in both of mine. I looked at his sunken face, at his lips puffing slightly with every expelled breath. I focused on him and reached again with the Skill. My mental grip on him slid and slipped, as if I tried to grasp a glass orb with soapy hands. I set my teeth and did a thing he had always decried. I found him with my Wit, focused on the animal life that I felt ebbing through his body, and then I needled my Skilled at him. I began with a list of names. Chivalry. Verity. Shrewd. Fallstar. Farseer. Burrich. Kettricken. I went through everyone dear to us, hoping for a twitch of response. There was nothing. I finished with Lady Thyme. Lord Golden. Slink.

      I gave up on that list and opened my eyes. The room was quiet around me. King Dutiful still sat on the other side of the bed. In the window behind him, the sun was foundering on the horizon. ‘I sent the others away,’ he said quietly.

      ‘I had no luck.’

      ‘I know. I was listening.’

      I studied my king in that unguarded moment. He and Nettle were nearly of an age and resembled one another in small ways, if one knew to look for them. They had the dark curly hair typical of the Farseer line. She had a straight nose and a determined mouth, as did he. But Dutiful had grown taller than I had while Nettle was not much taller than her mother. Dutiful sat now, his hands steepled