Royal Assassin. Robin Hobb

voice dwindled away as I tried to recall why I had come here.

      ‘I Skilled you,’ he said simply.

      I stood silent and thought. ‘I felt nothing.’

      ‘I didn’t intend that you should. It is as I told you a long time ago. The Skill can be a soft whisper in a man’s ear. It doesn’t have to be a shout of command.’

      He turned slowly to face me, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, my heart leaped with joy at the change I saw in the man. When I had left Buckkeep at harvest time, he had been a withered shadow, worn thin by the weight of his duties and his constant watchfulness. His dark hair was still salted with grey, but there was muscle once more on his stocky frame, and vitality snapped in his dark eyes. He looked every bit a king.

      ‘Marriage seems to agree with you, my prince,’ I said inanely.

      That flustered him. ‘In some ways,’ he conceded, as a boyish flush rose on his cheeks. He turned back quickly to his window. ‘Come and see my ships,’ he commanded.

      It was my turn to be baffled. I stepped to the window beside him and looked out over the harbour, and then over the sea itself. ‘Where?’ I asked in bewilderment. He took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the shipyard. A long barn of a building of new yellow pine had been erected there. Men were coming and going from it as smoke rose from chimneys and forges there. Dark against the snow were several of the immense timbers that had been Kettricken’s bride-offering to him.

      ‘Sometimes, when I stand up here on a winter morning, I look out to sea and I can almost see the Red Ships. I know they must come. But sometimes, too, I can see the ships we shall have to meet them. They will not find their prey so helpless this spring, my boy. And by next winter I intend to teach them what it is to be raided.’ He spoke with a savage satisfaction that would have been frightening, had I not shared it. I felt my grin mirror his as our eyes met.

      And then his look changed. ‘You look terrible,’ he offered. ‘As bad as your clothes. Let’s go somewhere warmer and find you some mulled wine and something to eat.’

      ‘I’ve eaten,’ I told him. ‘And I’m much better than I was a few months ago, thank you.’

      ‘Don’t be prickly,’ he admonished me. ‘And don’t tell me what I already know. Nor lie to me. The climb up the stair has exhausted you, and you’re shivering as you stand there.’

      ‘You’re using the Skill on me,’ I accused him, and he nodded.

      ‘I’ve been aware of your approach for some days now. I tried several times to Skill to you, but could not make you aware of me. I was concerned when you left the road, but I understand Burrich’s concern. I am pleased that he has looked after you so well; not just in bringing you home safe, but in all that went on at Jhaampe. I am at a loss as to how to reward him. It would have to be subtle. Given who was involved, a public recognition would not do. Have you any suggestions?’

      ‘Your word of thanks would be all he would accept. He would bridle that you thought he needed more. My own feelings are that no object you gave him would be a match for what he did for me. The way to handle him is to tell him to take his pick of the likely two-year-olds, for his horse is growing old. He’d understand that.’ I considered it carefully. ‘Yes. You might do that.’

      ‘Might I?’ Verity asked me dryly. There was an acid edge to the amusement in his voice.

      I was suddenly amazed at my own boldness. ‘I forgot myself, my prince,’ I said humbly.

      A smile curved his lips and his hand fell on my shoulder in a heavy pat. ‘Well, I asked you, did I not? For a moment I would have sworn it was old Chivalry instructing me in handling my men, rather than my young nephew. Your trip to Jhaampe has quite changed you, boy. Come. I meant what I said about a warmer spot and a glass of something. Kettricken will be wanting to see you later in the day. And Patience, too, I imagine.’

      My heart sank as he heaped the tasks before me. Buckkeep Town pulled at me like a lodestone. But this was my King-in-Waiting. I bowed my head to his will.

      We left the tower and I followed him down the stairs, speaking of inconsequential things. He told me to tell Mistress Hasty I needed new clothes; I asked after Leon, his wolfhound. He stopped a lad in the corridor and asked him to bring wine and meat pies to his study. I followed him, not up to his chambers, but to a lower room at once familiar and strange. The last time I had been in it, Fedwren the scribe had been using it to sort and dry herbs and shells and roots for the making of his inks. All signs of that had been cleared from it. A fire burned low in the small hearth. Verity poked this up and added wood as I looked around. There was a large carved oak table and two smaller ones, a variety of chairs, a scroll rack, and a battered shelf littered with miscellaneous objects. Spread out on the table was the beginnings of a map of the Chalced States. The corners of it were weighted with a dagger and three stones. Various scraps of parchment that littered the table top were covered with Verity’s hand and preliminary sketches with notes scratched across them. The friendly litter that covered the two smaller tables and several of the chairs seemed familiar. After a moment I recognized it as the layer of Verity’s possessions that had previously been scattered about his bedchamber. Verity rose from awakening the fire and smiled ruefully at my raised eyebrows. ‘My Queen-in-Waiting has small patience with clutter. “How,” she asked me, “Can you hope to create precise lines in the midst of such disorder?” Her own chamber has the precision of a military encampment. So, I hide myself away down here, for I quickly found that in a clean and sparse chamber I could get no work done at all. Besides, it gives me a place for quiet talk, where not all know to seek me.’

      He had scarcely finished speaking before the door opened to admit Charim with a tray. I nodded to Verity’s serving-man who not only seemed unsurprised to see me, but had added to Verity’s request a certain type of spice bread that I had always enjoyed. He moved about the room briefly, making perfunctory tidying motions as he shifted a few books and scrolls to free a chair for me, and then vanished again. Verity was so accustomed to him he scarce seemed to notice him, save for the brief smile they exchanged as Charim left.

      ‘So,’ he said, as soon as the door was fairly shut. ‘Let’s have a full report. From the time you left Buckkeep.’

      This was not a simple recounting of my journey and the events of it. I had been trained by Chade to be a spy as well as an assassin. And since my earliest days, Burrich had always demanded that I be able to give a detailed account of anything that went on in the stables in his absence. So as we ate and drank, I gave Verity an accounting of all I had seen and done since I had left the keep. This was followed by my summation of what I had concluded from my experiences, and then by what I suspected from what I had learned. By then, Charim had returned with another meal. While we consumed this, Verity limited our talk to his warships. He could not conceal his enthusiasm for them. ‘Mastfish has come down to supervise the building. I went up to High-downs myself to fetch him. He claimed to be an old man now. “The cold would stiffen my bones; I can’t build a boat in winter any more,” that was the word he sent me. So I set the apprentices work, and I myself went to fetch him. He could not refuse me to my face. When he got here, I took him down to the shipyards. And I showed him the heated shed, big enough to house a warship, built so he might work and not be cold. But that was not what convinced him. It was the white oak that Kettricken brought me. When he saw the timber, he could not wait to put a drawknife to it. The grain is straight and true throughout. The planking is well begun already. They will be lovely ships, swan-necked, sinuous as snakes upon the water.’ Enthusiasm spilled from him. I could already imagine the rising and falling of the oars, the bellying of the square masts when they were underway.

      Then the dishes and oddments were pushed to one side, and he began to quiz me upon events in Jhaampe. He forced me to reconsider each separate incident from every possible perspective. By the time he was finished with me, I had relived the entire episode and my anger at my betrayal was fresh and vivid once more.

      Verity was not blind to it. He leaned back in his chair to reach for another log. He flipped it onto the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. ‘You have questions,’