Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
Despite the warmth of the fire, a shiver went up me, and if I had been a wolf, my hackles would have stood on end. The spark in me quickened. “I am no king. I am no prince. I am but a bastard, but one who loves Buck. I want no bloodshed with Regal, no confrontation. We have no time to waste, and I have no heart for the killing of Six Duchies folk. Let Regal flee inland. When he and the dogs that sniff after him are gone, I am yours. And as much of Buck as I can rally to follow me. ”
The words were spoken, the commitment made. Treason, traitor, whispered a small voice inside me. But in my heart I knew the rightness of what I did. Chade might not see it my way. But I felt in that moment that the only way to declare myself for Shrewd and Verity and Kettricken’s child was to declare myself with those who would not follow Regal. Yet I wanted to be sure they understood that loyalty clearly. I looked deep into Brawndy’s weary eyes. “This is my goal, Duke Brawndy of Bearns. I speak it plainly, and I will back no other. I will see a united Six Duchies, with her coastline freed of Raiders, place a crown upon the head of Kettricken’s and Verity’s child. I must hear you say that you share that goal. ”
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“I swear that I do, FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry. ” To my horror, the war-scarred old man took my hands in his and placed them on his forehead in the ancient sign of one who gives fealty. It was all I could do not to snatch them away. Loyalty to Verity, I told myself. This is how I have begun this, and I must see that this is how I go on.
“I will speak to the others,” Brawndy was going on quietly. “I will tell them that this is how you wish it. In truth, we have no wish for bloodshed. It is as you say. Let the whelp run inland with his tail between his legs. Here is where the wolves shall stand and fight. ”
My scalp prickled at his choice of words.
“We will attend his ceremony. We will even stand before him, and swear once more to be loyal to a King of the Farseer line. But he is not that King. Nor ever shall be. I understand he departs the very day after the ceremony. We shall let him go, though by tradition a new King-in-Waiting is bound to stand before his dukes and hear their counsels. It may be that we shall linger close, a day or so longer, after Regal has departed. Buckkeep at least shall be yours, ere we depart. We shall see to that. And there will be much to discuss. The placement of our ships. There are other ships, half-finished in the boat sheds, are there not?”
At my short nod, Brawndy grinned in wolfish satisfaction. “We shall see them launched, you and I. Regal has plundered Buckkeep of supplies; this is known to all. We will have to look into replenishing your warehouses. The farmers and shepherds of Buck will have to understand that they must find more, must give of what they held back, if their soldiers are to keep their coast free. It will be a hard winter for all of us, but lean wolves fight fiercest, or so they say. ”
And we are lean, my brother; oh, we are lean.
A terrible foreboding rose in me. I wondered what I had done. I would have to find a way to speak to Kettricken before she departed, to somehow assure her I had not turned on her. And I must Skill to Verity, as soon as I possibly could. Would he understand? He must. He had always been able to see into the depths of my heart. Surely he would see what my intentions were. And King Shrewd? Once, long ago, when he had first bought my loyalty, he had said to me, “If ever any man or woman seeks to turn you against me by offering you more than I do, then come to me, and tell me of the offer, and I shall meet it. ” Would you give Buckkeep into my hands, old King? I wondered.
I realized that Brawndy had fallen silent. “Do not fear, FitzChivalry,” he said quietly. “Do not doubt the rightness of what we do, or we are all undone. If yours was not the hand that reached forth to claim Buckkeep, another would have. We could not leave Buck with no one at the helm. Be glad it is yourself, as we are. Regal has gone where none of us may follow, fled inland to hide beneath his mother’s bed. We must stand on our own. All the omens and portents point us that way. They say the Pocked Man was seen drinking blood from a Buckkeep well, and that a serpent coiled on the main hearth in the Great Hall and dared to strike at a child. I myself, riding south to be here, witnessed a young eagle bedeviled by crows. But just as I thought she must plunge into the sea to avoid them, she turned and, in midair, seized a crow that had sought to dive on her from above. She clenched him and dropped him bloody to the water, and all the other crows fled squawking and flapping. These are signs, FitzChivalry. We’d be fools to ignore them. ”
Despite my skepticism for such signs, a shiver ran up me, setting the hair on my arms upright. Brawndy glanced away from me to the inner door of the chamber. I followed his eyes. Celerity stood there. The short dark hair framed her proud face and her eyes gleamed fierce blue. “Daughter, you have chosen well,” the old man told her. “I wondered, once, what you saw in a scriber. Perhaps now I see it as well. ”
He beckoned her into the room, and she came in a rustle of skirts. She stood by her father, looking boldly at me. For the first time I glimpsed the steel will that hid inside the shy child. It was unnerving.
“I bade you wait, and you have,” Duke Brawndy said to me. “You have shown yourself a man of honor in this. I have given you my loyalty this day. Will you take my daughter’s pledge to be your wife as well?”
What a precipice I teetered on. I met Celerity’s eyes. She had no doubts. If I had never known Molly, I would have found her beautiful. But when I looked at her, all I could see was who she was not. I had no heart left to give to any woman, let alone at a time like this. I turned my eyes back to her father, determined to speak firmly.
“You do me more honor than I deserve, sir. But, Duke Brawndy, it is as you have said. These are evil times, and uncertain. With you, your daughter is safe. At my side, she could know only greater uncertainty. What we have discussed here, today, some would call treason. I will not have it said that I took your daughter to bind you to me in a questionable endeavor, nor that you gave your daughter for such a reason. ” I forced myself to look back at Celerity, to meet her eyes. “Brawndy’s daughter is safer than FitzChivalry’s wife. Until my position is more certain, I pledge no one to me in any way. My regard for you is great, Lady Celerity. I am not a Duke, nor even a lord. I am as I am named, an illegitimate son of a Prince. Until I can say I am more than that, I will seek no wife, nor court any woman. ”
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Celerity was clearly displeased. But her father nodded slowly to my words. “I see the wisdom of your words. My daughter, I fear, sees only the delay. ” He looked at Celerity’s pout, smiled fondly. “Someday she will understand that the people who seek to protect her are the people who care for her. ” He ran his eyes over me as if I were a horse. “I believe,” he said quietly, “that Buck will stand. And that Verity’s child shall inherit the throne. ”
I left him with those words echoing in my mind. Again and again, I told myself I had done nothing wrong. If I had not reached forth to claim Buckkeep, another would have.
“Who?” Chade demanded angrily of me some hours later.
I sat looking down at my feet. “I don’t know. But they would have found someone. And that person would have been far more likely to cause bloodshed. To act at the King-in-Waiting ceremony, and jeopardize our efforts to get Kettricken and Shrewd clear of this mess. ”
“If the Coastal Dukes are as close to rebellion as your report indicates, then perhaps we should reconsider that plan. ”
I sneezed. The room still smelled of bitterbark. I had used too much. “Brawndy did not come to me speaking of rebellion, but of loyalty to the true and rightful King. And that was the spirit in which I responded. I have no wish to overthrow the throne, Chade, only to secure it for its lawful heir. ”
“I know that,” he said briefly. “Otherwise I would go straight to King Shrewd with this … madness. I know not what to call it. It is not treason, quite, and yet …”
“I am no traitor to my king. ” I spo
“No? Let me ask you this, then. If, despite, or save us all, because of our efforts to save Shrewd and Kettricken, they both perish with the child unborn, and Verity never returns. What then? Will you still be so eager to cede the throne to the rightful King?”
“Regal?”
“By the line of succession, yes. ”
“He is no king, Chade. He’s an indulged Princeling, and always will be. I’ve as much Farseer blood as he does. ”
“And so you might say of Kettricken’s child, when the time came. Do you see what a dangerous path we set ourselves on when we set ourselves above our places? You and I, we swore to the Farseer line, of which we are but random shoots. Not to King Shrewd alone, or to a wise King alone, but to uphold the rightful King of the Farseer line. Even if he is Regal. ”
“You would serve Regal?”
“I have seen more foolish Princes than he become wise as they aged. What you contemplate will bring us civil war. Farrow and Tilth—”
“Have no interest in any kind of a war. They will say good riddance to us and let the Coastal Duchies go. Regal has always said as much. ”
“And he probably thinks he believes it. But when he finds that he cannot buy fine silk, and that the wines of Bingtown and beyond no longer flow up the Buck River to his palate, he will think better. He needs his port cities, and he will come back for them. ”
“So what are we to do? What should I have done?”
Chade sat down across from me, clasped his mottled hands between his bony old knees. “I do not know. Brawndy is desperate indeed. If you had loftily refused him and rebuked him with treason, well … I don’t say he’d have done away with you. But remember he had no hesitation about dealing quickly with Virago when she represented a threat to him. This is all too much for one old assassin. We need a King. ”
“Aye. ”
“Could you Skill again to Verity?”
“I fear to try. I do not know how to guard against Justin and Serene. Or Will. ” I sighed. “Still, I will try. Surely Verity will know if they ride with my Skilling. ” Another thought intruded. “Chade, tomorrow night, when you lead Kettricken to escape, you must find a moment or two, to tell her of what has transpired, and assure her of my loyalty. ”
“Oh, those will be reassuring tidings to give her as she flees back to the Mountains. No. Not tomorrow night. I will see that word reaches her, when she is safe. And you must continue to try to reach Verity, but beware of having your Skilling spied upon. Are you sure our plans are unknown to them?”
I had to shake my head. “But I believe they are safe. I had told all to Verity when first I Skilled him. It was not until the end that he said someone tried to spy upon us. ”
“You probably should have killed Justin,” Chade grumbled to himself. Then he laughed at my outraged look. “No, no, calm yourself. I will not rebuke you that you refrained from it. Would that you had been so circumspect with the scheme that Brawndy brought you. Even a breath of this would be sufficient for Regal to have your neck stretched. And were he ruthless and foolish, he could try to hang his dukes as well. No. Let us not even think of that! The halls of Buckkeep would run blood before that was done. Would you had found a way to turn the conversation, before ever he made you such an offer. Save, as you say, that they might have found another. Ah, well. We cannot put old heads on young shoulders. Unfortunately, Regal could remove your young head from your young shoulders all too easily. ” He knelt and put another piece of wood on the fire. He took a breath and sighed it out. “Have you got all other things in readiness?” he asked abruptly.
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I was only too glad to change the topic. “As much as I could. Burrich will be in place and waiting, in the alder copse where the dog fox used to den. ”
Chade rolled his eyes. “How do I find that? Ask a passing dog fox?”
I smiled inadvertently. “Close. Where will you emerge from Buck Castle?”
He was stubbornly silent for a moment. Still, that old fox hated to reveal his back door. Finally he said, “We will come out of the grain shed, the one third back from the stables. ”
I nodded slowly. “A gray wolf will meet you. Follow him silently, and he will show you a way out of the walls of Buck that does not take you through the gates. ”
For a long moment Chade just looked at me. I waited. For condemnation, for a look of disgust, even for curiosity. But the old assassin had studied too long how to mask his feelings. He said at last, “We are fools if we do not use every weapon that comes to hand. Is he any … danger to us?”
“No more than I am. You need not wear wolfsbane, nor offer him mutton to be allowed to pass. ” I was as familiar with the old folklore as Chade was. “Simply show yourself, and he will appear to guide you. He will take you through the walls, and out to the copse where Burrich waits with the horses. ”
“Is it a long walk?”
I knew he was thinking of the King. “It is not overly long, but it is not short, and the snow is deep and unpacked. It will not be easy to scrabble through the gap in the wall, but it can be done. I could ask Burrich to meet you at the wall instead, but I do not wish to draw attention to it. Perhaps the Fool could help you manage?”
“He will have to, from the sound of things. I am not willing to bring any others in on this plot. Our position seems only to become more and more untenable. ”
I bowed my head to the truth of that. “And you?” I ventured to ask.
“My tasks are done as completely as they could be, ahead of time. The Fool has assisted me. He has spirited away both clothing and coin for his king’s journey. Shrewd has reluctantly agreed to our plan. He knows it is wise, but every part of it chafes him. Despite all, Fitz, Regal is his son, his favored youngest. Even having felt Regal’s ruthlessness, it is still hard for him to say the Prince threatens his life. You see how he is bound: to admit that Regal would turn on him is to admit he was wrong about his son. To flee Buckkeep is even worse, for that is admitting not only that Regal would turn on him, but that flight is his only option. Our king has never been a coward. It galls him now to run from one who should be most loyal of all to him. Yet he must. Of that I have convinced him; mostly, I’ll admit, by saying that without his acknowledgment, Kettricken’s child will have a poor claim on the throne. ” Chade sighed. “All is as ready as I can make it. I have prepared the medicines, and all is well packed. ”
“The Fool understands he cannot go with his king?”
Chade rubbed his forehead. “He intends to follow, a few days behind. He would not be dissuaded entirely. The best I could do was to get him to travel separately. ”
“Then it but depends on me to find a way to empty the King’s room of witnesses, and for you to spirit him away. ”
“Ah, yes,” Chade observed mirthlessly. “All is well planned and ready to carry out, save for the actual deed. ”
We stared together into the fire.
29
Escapes and Captures
THE OUTBREAK OF strife between the coastal and Inland Duchies at the end of King Shrewd’s reign was not a new sundering, but rather a resumption of old differences. The four Coastal Duchies, Bearns, Buck, Rippon, and Shoaks, were a kingdom long before the Six Duchies came to be. When the unified battle tactics of the Chalced States convinced King Wielder that their conquest would be unprofitable, he turned his ambitions inland. The Farrow region, with its scattered nomadic tribal populations, fell easily to the organized armies he led. The more populous and settled Tilth grudgingly surrendered to him when the erstwhile King of that region found his territory surrounded and his trade routes severed.
Both the old kingdom of Tilth and the region that would come to be known as Farrow were held as conquered territory for over a generation. The wealth of their granaries, orchards, and herds were exploited lavishly for the benefit of the Coastal Duchies. Queen Munificence, granddaughter of Wielder, was wi
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During Shrewd’s reign, the differing interests of the two regions were exacerbated by the offspring of his two queens. His elder sons, Verity and Chivalry, were the sons of Queen Constance, a noblewoman of Shoaks with relatives among the nobility of Bearns as well. She was very much of the coastal folk. Shrewd’s second queen, Desire, was from Farrow, but traced her family lineage back to the long-foundered royalty of Tilth as well as to distant Farseer connections. Hence came her oft-repeated claim that her son Regal was more royal than either of his half brothers, and hence had more right to the throne.
With the disappearance of King-in-Waiting Verity and rumors of his death, and the obvious failing of King Shrewd, it appeared to the Coastal Dukes that power and title would be passed on to Prince Regal, born of inland lineage. They preferred to align with the unborn child of Verity, a coastal Prince, and predictably did all they could to retain and consolidate power in the coastal bloodlines. Threatened as the Coastal Duchies were by Raiders and Forgings, it was really the only rational choice they could make.
The King-in-Waiting ceremony was too long. Folk were assembled well ahead of time, to allow Regal to make a stately entrance through our ranks and ascend to the high seat, where a drowsing King Shrewd awaited him. Queen Kettricken, pale as a wax taper, stood behind Shrewd at his left shoulder. Shrewd was bedecked in robes and fur collars and the full regalia of the royal jewels, but Kettricken had resisted Regal’s suggestions and enticements. She stood very tall and straight in a plain robe of purple, belted above her rounding belly. A simple circlet of gold confined the cropped remnants of her hair. Other than that band of metal at her temples, she might have been a servant standing ready to attend Shrewd. I knew she saw herself still as Sacrifice rather than queen. She could not see that the starkness of her attire made her look dramatically foreign to the court.