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

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I was not expecting you. You startled me.’

‘I should have knocked, my prince,’ I replied, and then gave a quick nod to him that I could stand. ‘What’s out there, that you watch so intently?’

He glanced aside from me. ‘Not much. Some boys on the cliffs, watching a pod of whales sporting. Two of our own boats, fishing halibut. Even in this weather, though not enjoying it much.’

‘Then you are not Skilling for Outislanders …’

‘There are not any out there, this time of year. But I keep a watch.’ He glanced down at my forearm, the one he had just released, and changed the subject. ‘What happened to you?’

‘That’s what I came to see you about. Forged ones attacked me. Out on the face of the ridge, the one where the spruce hen hunting is good. Near the goatherd’s shed.’

He nodded quickly, his dark brows knitting. ‘I know the area. How many? Describe them.’

I sketched my attackers for him quickly and he nodded briefly, unsurprised. ‘I had a report of them, four days ago. They should not be this close to Buckkeep this soon; not unless they are consistently moving in this direction, every day. Are they finished?’

‘Yes. You expected this?’ I was aghast. ‘I thought we had wiped them out.’

‘We wiped out the ones who were here then. There are others, moving in this direction. I have been keeping track of them by the reports, but I had not expected them to be so close so soon.’

I struggled briefly, got my voice under control. ‘My prince, why do we simply keep track of them? Why do not we … take care of this problem?’

Verity made a small noise in his throat and turned back to his window. ‘Sometimes one has to wait, and let the enemy complete a move, in order to discover what the full strategy is. Do you understand me?’

‘The Forged ones have a strategy? I think not, my prince. They were …’

‘Report to me in full,’ Verity directed, without looking at me. I hesitated briefly, then launched into a complete retelling. Towards the end of the struggle, my account became a bit incoherent. I let the words die on my lips. ‘But I did manage to break his grip on me. And all three of them died there.’

He did not take his eyes from the sea. ‘You should avoid physical struggles, FitzChivalry. You always seem to get hurt in them.’

‘I know, my prince,’ I admitted humbly. ‘Hod did her best with me …’

‘But you were not really trained to be a fighter. You have other talents. And those are the ones you should be putting to use to preserve yourself. Oh, you’re a competent swordsman, but you’ve not the brawn and weight to be a brawler. At least, not yet. And that is what you always seem to revert to in a fight.’

‘I was not offered the selection of weapons,’ I said, a bit testily, and then added, ‘my prince.’

‘No. You won’t be.’ He seemed to speak from afar. A slight tension in the air told me that he Skilled out even as we spoke. ‘Yet I’m afraid I must send you out again. I think you are perhaps right. I have watched what is happening long enough. The Forged ones are converging on Buckkeep. I cannot fathom why, and yet perhaps knowing that is not as important as preventing them from attaining their goal. You will again undertake the removal of this problem, Fitz. Perhaps this time I can keep my own lady from becoming involved in it. I understand that if she wishes to go riding, she now has a guard of her own?’

‘As you have been told, sir,’ I told him, cursing myself for not coming to speak to him sooner of the Queen’s Guard.

He turned to regard me levelly. ‘The rumour I heard was that you had authorized the creation of such a guard. Not to steal your glory, but when such rumour reached me, I let it be supposed that I had requested it of you. As, I suppose, I did. Very indirectly.’

‘My prince,’ I said, and had the good sense to keep quiet.

‘Well. If she must ride, at least she is guarded now. Though I would greatly prefer she had no more encounters with Forged ones. Would I could think of something to busy her,’ he added wearily.

‘The Queen’s Garden,’ I suggested, recalling Patience’s account of them.

Verity cocked his eye at me.

‘The old ones, on top of the tower,’ I explained. ‘They have been unused for years. I saw what was left of them, before Galen ordered us to dismantle them to clear space for our Skill lessons. It must have been a charming place at one time. Tubs of earth and greenery, statuary, climbing vines.’

Verity smiled to himself. ‘And basins of water, too, with pond lilies in them, and fish, and even tiny frogs. The birds came there often in summer, to drink and to splash. Chivalry and I used to play up there. She had little charms hung on strings, made of glass and bright metal. And when the wind stirred them, they would chime together, or flash like jewels in the sun.’ I could feel myself warming with his memory of that place and time. ‘My mother kept a little hunting cat, and it would lounge on the warm stone when the sun struck it. Hisspit; that was her name. Spotted coat and tufted ears. And we would tease her with string and tufts of feathers, and she would stalk us among the pots of flowers. While we were supposed to be studying tablets on herbs. I never properly learned them. There was too much else to do there. Except for thyme. I knew every kind of thyme she had. My mother grew a lot of thyme. And catmint.’ He was smiling.

‘Kettricken would love such a place,’ I told him. ‘She gardened much in the mountains.’

‘Did she?’ He looked surprised. ‘I would have thought her occupied with more … physical pastimes.’

I felt an instant of annoyance with him. No, of something more than annoyance. How could it be that I knew more of his wife than he did? ‘She kept gardens,’ I said quietly. ‘Of many herbs, and knew all the uses of those that grew therein. I have told you of them myself.’

‘Yes, I suppose you have.’ He sighed. ‘You are right, Fitz. Visit her for me, and tell her of the Queen’s Garden. It is winter now, and there is probably little she can do with it. But come spring, it would be a wondrous thing to see it restored …’

‘Perhaps, you yourself, my prince,’ I ventured, but he shook his head.

‘I haven’t the time. But I trust it to you. And now, downstairs. To the maps. I have things I wish to discuss with you.’

I turned immediately toward the door. Verity followed more slowly. I held the door for him and on the threshold he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the open window. ‘It calls me,’ he admitted to me, calmly, simply, as if observing that he enjoyed plums. ‘It calls to me, at any moment when I am not busied. And so I must be busy, Fitz. And too busy.’

‘I see,’ I said slowly, not at all sure that I did.

‘No. You don’t.’ Verity spoke with great certainty. ‘It is like a great loneliness, boy. I can reach out and touch others. Some, quite easily. But no one ever reaches back. When Chivalry was alive … I still miss him, boy. Sometimes I am so lonely for him; it is like being the only one of something in the world. Like the very last wolf, hunting alone.’

A shiver went down my spine. ‘What of King Shrewd?’ I ventured to ask.

He shook his head. ‘He Skills seldom now. His strength for it has dwindled, and it taxes his body as well as his mind.’ We went down a few more steps. ‘You and I are the only ones now to know that,’ he added softly. I nodded.

We went down the stairs slowly. ‘Has the healer looked at your arm?’ he queried.

I shook my head.

‘Nor Burrich.’

He was stating this as fact, already knowing it was true.

I shook my head again. The marks of Nighteyes’ teeth were too plain upon my skin, although he had given those bites in play. I could not show Burrich the marks of the Forged Ones without betraying my wolf to him.

Verity sighed. ‘Well. Keep it clean. I suppose you know as well as any how to keep an injury clean. Next time you go out, remember this, and go prepared. Always. There may not always be one to step in and aid you.’

I came to a slow stop on the stairs. Verity continued down. I took a deep breath. ‘Verity,’ I asked quietly. ‘How much do you know? About … this.’

‘Less than you do,’ he said jovially. ‘But more than you think I do.’

‘You sound like the Fool,’ I said bitterly.

‘Yes. Sometimes. He is another one who has a great understanding of aloneness, and what it can drive a man to do.’ He took a breath, and almost I thought he might say that he knew what I was, and did not condemn me for it. Instead, he continued, ‘I believe the Fool had words with you, a few days ago.’

I followed him silently now, wondering how he knew so much about so many things. The Skilling, of course. We came to his study and I followed him in. Charim, as ever, was already waiting for us. Food was set out, and mulled wine. Verity set to upon it with a great appetite. I sat across from him, mostly watching him eat. I was not very hungry, but it built my appetite to watch how much he enjoyed this simple, robust meal. In this he was still a soldier, I thought. He would take this small pleasure, this good, well-served food when he was hungry, and relish it while he could. It gave me much satisfaction to see him with this much life and appetite to him. I wondered how he would be next summer, when he would have to Skill for hours every day, keeping watch for Raiders off our coast, and using the tricks of his mind to set them astray while giving our own folk early warning. I thought of Verity as he had been last summer by harvest time; worn to thinness, face lined, without the energy to eat save that he drank the stimulants that Chade put in his tea. His life had become the hours he spent Skilling. Come summer, his hunger for the Skilling would replace every other hunger in his life. How would Kettricken react to that, I wondered?

After we had eaten, Verity went over his maps with me. There was no longer any mistaking the pattern that emerged. Regardless of what obstacles, forest or river or frozen plains, the Forged ones were moving towards Buckkeep. It made no sense to me. The ones I had encountered seemed all but bereft of their senses. I found it difficult to believe that any one of them would conceive of travelling overland, despite hardships, simply to come to Buckkeep. ‘And these records you’ve kept indicate that all of them have. All of the Forged ones that you’ve identified seem to be moving towards Buckkeep.’