The Complete Farseer Trilogy: Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest

But as I darted away to the kitchen’s back door, Burrich’s hand fell on my shoulder.

‘No more of that for you,’ he told me firmly. ‘That’s fine for men-at-arms and gardeners and such. But there’s a hall where the high folk and their special servants eat. And that is where you eat now.’

And so saying, he propelled me into a dim room dominated by a long table, with another, higher table at the head of it. There were all manner of foods set out upon it, and folk busy at various stages of their meals. For when the King and Queen and Princes were absent from the high table, as was the case today, no one stood upon formalities.

Burrich nudged me to a place on the left side of the table, above the mid-point but not by much. He himself ate on the same side, but lower. I was hungry, and no one was staring hard enough to unnerve me, so I made short work of a largish meal. Food pilfered directly from the kitchen had been hotter and fresher. But such matters do not count to a growing boy, and I ate well after my empty morning.

My stomach full, I was thinking of a certain sandy embankment, warmed by the afternoon sun and replete with rabbit holes, where the hound pups and I often spent sleepy afternoons. I started to rise from the table, but immediately there was a boy behind me, saying, ‘Master?’

I looked around to see who he was speaking to, but everyone else was busy at trenchers. He was taller than I was, and older by several summers, so I stared up at him in amazement when he looked me in the eye and repeated, ‘Master? Have you finished eating?’

I bobbed my head in a nod, too surprised to speak.

‘Then you’re to come with me. Hod’s sent me. You’re expected for weapons practice on the court this afternoon. If Burrich is finished with you, that is.’

Burrich suddenly appeared by my side and astonished me by going down on one knee beside me. He tugged my jerkin straight and smoothed my hair back as he spoke.

‘As finished as I’m likely to be for a while. Well, don’t look so startled, fitz. Did you think the King was not a man of his word? Wipe your mouth and be on your way. Hod is a sterner master than I am; tardiness will not be tolerated on the weapons court. Hurry along with Brant, now.’

I obeyed him with a sinking heart. As I followed the boy from the hall, I tried to imagine a master stricter than Burrich. It was a frightening idea.

Once outside the hall, the boy quickly dropped his fine manners. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded as he led me down the gravelled pathway to the armoury and the practice courts that fronted it.

I shrugged and glanced aside, pretending a sudden interest in the shrubbery that bordered the path.

Brant snorted knowingly. ‘Well, they got to call you something. What’s old game-leg Burrich call you?’

The boy’s obvious disdain for Burrich so surprised me that I blurted out, ‘Fitz. He calls me fitz.’

‘Fitz?’ He snickered. ‘Yeah, he would. Direct spoken is the old gimper.’

‘A boar savaged his leg,’ I explained. This boy spoke as if Burrich’s limp were something foolish he did for show. For some reason, I felt stung by his mockery.

‘I know that!’ He snorted disdainfully. ‘Ripped him right down to the bone. Big old tusker, was going to take Chiv down, until Burrich got in the way. Got Burrich instead, and half a dozen of the hounds, is what I hear.’ We went through an opening in an ivy-covered wall, and the exercise courts suddenly spread out before us. ‘Chiv had gone in thinking he just had to finish the pig, when up it jumped and came after him. Snapped the Prince’s lance turning on him, too, is what I hear.’

I’d been following at the boy’s heels, hanging on his words when he suddenly rounded on me. I was so startled I all but fell, scrambling backwards. The older boy laughed at me. ‘Guess it must have been Burrich’s year for taking on Chivalry’s fortunes, hey? That’s what I hear the men saying. That Burrich took Chivalry’s death and changed it into a lame leg for himself, and that he took on Chiv’s bastard, and made a pet of him. What I’d like to know is, how come you’re to have arms training all of a sudden? Yes, and a horse too, from what I hear?’

There was something more than jealousy in his tone. I have since come to know that many men always see another’s good fortune as a slight to themselves. I felt his rising hostility as if I’d entered a dog’s territory unannounced. But a dog I could have touched minds with and reassured of my intentions. With Brant there was only the hostility, like a storm rising. I wondered if he were going to hit me, and if he expected me to fight back or retreat. I had nearly decided to run when a portly figure dressed all in grey appeared behind Brant and took a firm grip on the back of his neck.

‘I hear the King said he was to have training, yes, and a horse to learn horsemanship on. And that is enough for me, and it should be more than enough for you, Brant. And, from what I hear, you were told to fetch him here, and then to report to Master Tullume, who has errands for you. Isn’t that what you heard?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Brant’s pugnaciousness was suddenly transformed into bobbing agreement.

‘And while you’re “hearing” all this vital gossip, I might point out to you that no wise man tells all he knows. And that he who carries tales has little else in his head. Do you understand me, Brant?’

‘I think so, ma’am.’

‘You think so? Then I shall be plainer. Stop being a nosy little gossip and attend to your chores. Be diligent and willing, and perhaps folk will start gossiping that you are my “pet”. I could see that you are kept too busy for gossip.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘You, boy.’ Brant was already hurrying up the path as she rounded on me. ‘Follow me.’

The old woman didn’t wait to see if I obeyed or not. She simply set out at a businesslike walk across the open practice fields that had me trotting to keep up. The packed earth of the field was baked hard and the sun beat down on my shoulders. Almost instantly, I was sweating. But the woman appeared to find no discomfort in her rapid pace.

She was dressed all in grey: a long, dark grey over-tunic, lighter grey leggings, and over all a grey apron of leather that came nearly to her knees. A gardener of some sort, I surmised, though I wondered at the soft grey boots she wore.

‘I’ve been sent for lessons … with Hod,’ I managed to pant out.

She nodded curtly. We reached the shade of the armoury and my eyes widened gratefully after the glare of the open courts.

‘I’m to be taught arms and weaponry,’ I told her, just in case she had mistaken my original words.

She nodded again and pushed open a door in the barn-like structure that was the outer armoury. Here, I knew, the practice weapons were kept. The good iron and steel were up in the keep itself. Within the armoury was a gentle half-light, and a slight coolness, along with a smell of wood and sweat and fresh strewn reeds. She did not hesitate, and I followed her to a rack that supported a supply of peeled poles.

‘Choose one,’ she told me, the first words she’d spoken since directing me to follow her.

‘Hadn’t I better wait for Hod?’ I asked timidly.

‘I am Hod,’ she replied impatiently. ‘Now pick yourself a stave, boy. I want a bit of time alone with you, before the others come. To see what you’re made of and what you know.’

It did not take her long to establish that I knew next to nothing, and was easily daunted. After but a few knocks and parries with her own brown rod, she easily caught mine a clip that sent it spinning from my stung hands.

‘Hm,’ she said, not harshly nor kindly. The same sort of noise a gardener might make over a seed potato that had a bit of blight on it. I quested out toward her, and found the same sort of quietness I’d encountered in the mare. She had none of Burrich’s guardedness toward me. I think it was the first time I realized that some people, like some animals, were totally unaware of my reaching out toward them. I might have quested further into her mind, except that I was so relieved at not finding any hostility that I feared to stir any. So I stood small and still before her inspection.

‘Boy, what are you called?’ she demanded suddenly.

Again. ‘Fitz.’

She frowned at my soft words. I drew myself up straighter and spoke louder. ‘Fitz is what Burrich calls me.’

She flinched slightly. ‘He would. Calls a bitch a bitch, and a bastard a bastard, does Burrich. Well … I suppose I see his reasons. Fitz you are, and Fitz you’ll be called by me as well. Now. I shall show you why the pole you selected was too long for you, and too thick. And then you shall select another.’

And she did, and I did, and she took me slowly through an exercise that seemed infinitely complex then, but by the end of the week was no more difficult than braiding my horse’s mane. We finished just as the rest of her students came trooping in. There were four of them, all within a year or two of my age, but all more experienced than I. It made for an awkwardness, as there were now an odd number of students, and no one particularly wanted the new one as a sparring partner.

Somehow I survived the day, though the memory of how fades into a blessedly vague haze. I remember how sore I was when she finally dismissed us; how the others raced up the path and back to the keep while I trailed dismally behind them, berating myself for ever coming to the King’s attention. It was a long climb to the keep, and the hall was crowded and noisy. I was too weary to eat much. Stew and bread, I think, were all I had, and I had left the table and was limping toward the door, thinking only of the warmth and quiet of the stables, when Brant again accosted me.

‘Your chamber is ready,’ was all he said.

I shot a desperate look at Burrich, but he was engaged in conversation with the man next to him. He didn’t notice my plea at all. So once more I found myself following Brant, this time up a wide flight of stone steps, into a part of the keep I had never explored.

We paused on a landing, and he took up a candelabrum from a table there and kindled its tapers. ‘Royal family lives down this wing,’ he casually informed me. ‘The King has a bedroom big as the stable down at the end of this hallway.’

I nodded, blindly believing all he told me, though I later discovered that an errand boy such as Brant would never have penetrated the royal wing. That would be for more important lackeys. Up another flight he took me, and again paused. ‘Visitors get rooms here,’ he said, gesturing with the light so that the wind of his motion set the flames to streaming. ‘Important ones, that is.’

And up another flight we went, the steps perceptibly narrowing from the first two. At the next landing we paused again, and I looked with dread up an even narrower and steeper flight of steps. But Brant did not take me that way. Instead we went down this new wing, three doors down, and then he slid a latch on a plank door and shouldered it open. It swung heavily and not smoothly. ‘Room hasn’t been used in a while,’ he observed cheerily. ‘But now it’s yours and you’re welcome to it.’ And with that he set the candelabrum down on a chest, plucked one candle from it and left. He pulled the heavy door closed behind him as he went, leaving me in the semi-darkness of a large and unfamiliar room.

Somehow I refrained from running after him or opening the door. Instead, I took up the candelabrum and lit the wall sconces. Two other sets of candles set the shadows writhing back into the corners. There was a fireplace with a pitiful effort at a fire in it. I poked it up a bit, more for light than for heat, and set to exploring my new quarters.