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

‘Lady Thyme? Are you comfortable?’ I inquired. A long interval passed with no response. Perhaps she was slightly deaf. ‘Are you comfortable?’ I asked more loudly.

‘Stop bothering me, young man!’ was the surprisingly vehement response. ‘If I want you, I’ll tell you.’

‘I beg pardon,’ I quickly apologized.

‘Stop bothering me, I said!’ she rasped indignantly. And added in an undertone, ‘Stupid churl.’

At this, I had the sense to be quiet, though my dismay increased tenfold. So much for a merry and companionable ride. Eventually I heard the horns cry out and saw Verity’s pennant lifted far ahead of us. Dust drifting back told me that our foreguard had begun the journey. Long minutes passed before the horses in front of us moved. Hands started the litter horses and I chirruped to Sooty. She stepped out eagerly and the mule followed resignedly.

I well recall that day. I remember the dust hanging thick in the air from all those who preceded us, and how Hands and I conversed in lowered voices, for the first time we laughed aloud, Lady Thyme scolded, ‘Stop that noise!’ I also remember bright blue skies arching from hill to hill as we followed the gentle undulations of the coast road. There were breathtaking views of the sea from the hilltops, and flower-scented air thick and drowsy in the vales. There were also the shepherdesses, all in a row on top of a stone wall to giggle and point and blush at us while we passed. Their fleecy charges dotted the hillside behind them, and Hands and I exclaimed softly at the way they had bundled their bright skirts to one side and knotted them up, leaving their knees and legs bare to the sun and wind. Sooty was restive and bored with our slow pace, while poor Hands was constantly nudging his old pony in the ribs to make it keep up.

We stopped twice during the day, to allow riders to dismount and stretch, and to let the horses water. Lady Thyme did not emerge from her litter, but one time tartly reminded me that I should have brought her water by now. I bit my tongue and fetched her a drink. It was as close as we came to conversation.

We halted when the sun was still above the horizon. Hands and I erected Lady Thyme’s small pavilion while she dined within her litter from a wicker basket of cold meat, cheese and wine that she had thoughtfully provided for herself. Hands and I fared more poorly, on soldier’s rations of hard bread and harder cheese and dried meat. In the midst of my meal, Lady Thyme demanded that I escort her from the litter to her pavilion. She emerged draped and veiled as if for a blizzard. Her finery was of varying colours and degrees of age, but all had been both expensive and well cut at one time. Now, as she leaned heavily on me and tottered along, I smelled a repulsive cacophony of dust and mildew and perfume, with an underlying scent of urine. She tartly dismissed me at the door, and warned me that she had a knife and would use it if I attempted to enter and bother her in any way. ‘And well do I know how to use it, young man!’ she threatened me.

Our sleeping accommodations were also the same as the soldiers’: the ground and our cloaks. But the night was fine and we made a small fire. Hands teased and giggled about my supposed lust for Lady Thyme and the knife that awaited me if I should attempt to satisfy it. That led to a wrestling match between us, until Lady Thyme shrilled threats at us for keeping her awake. Then we spoke softly as Hands told me that no one had envied my assignment to her; that anyone who had ever journeyed with her avoided her ever after. He warned me also that my worst task was yet to come, but adamantly refused, though his eyes brimmed with tears of laughter, to let me know what it was. I fell asleep easily, for boy-like, I had put my true mission out of my head until I should have to face it.

I awoke at dawn to the twittering of birds and the over-whelming stench of a brimming chamberpot outside Lady Thyme’s pavilion. Though my stomach had been hardened by cleaning stables and kennels, it was all I could force myself to do to dump it and cleanse it before returning it to her. By then she was harpying at me through the tent door that I had not yet brought her water, hot or cold, nor cooked her porridge whose ingredients she had set out. Hands had disappeared, to share the troop’s fire and rations, leaving me to deal with my tyrant. By the time I had served her on a tray that she assured me was slovenly arranged, and cleaned the dishes and pot and returned all to her, the rest of the procession was almost ready to leave. But she would not allow her pavilion to be struck until she was safely within her litter. We accomplished that packing in a frantic haste and I found myself finally on my horse without a crumb of breakfast inside me.

I was ravenous after my morning’s work. Hands regarded my glum face with some sympathy and motioned me to ride closer to him. He leaned over to speak to me.

‘Everyone but us had heard of her before.’ This with a furtive nod toward Lady Thyme’s litter. ‘The stench she makes every morning is a legend. Whitelock says she used to go along on a lot of Chivalry’s trips … She has relatives all over the Six Duchies, and not much to do except visit them. All the men in the troop say they learned a long time ago to stay out of her range or she puts them to a bunch of useless errands. Oh, and Whitelock sent you this. He says not to expect to sit down and eat as long as you’re tending her. But he’ll try to set aside a bit for you each morning.’

Hands passed me a wad of camp-bread with three rashers of bacon greasily cold inside it. It tasted wonderful. I wolfed down the first few bites greedily.

‘Churl!’ shrilled Lady Thyme from inside her pavilion. ‘What are you doing up there? Discussing your betters, I’ve no doubt. Get back to your position! How are you to see to my needs if you’re gallivanting ahead like that?’

I quickly reined Sooty in and dropped back to a position alongside the litter. I swallowed a great lump of bread and bacon and managed to ask, ‘Is there anything your ladyship requires?’

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ she snapped. ‘And stop bothering me. Stupid clod.’

And so it went. The road followed the coastline, and at our laden pace it took us a full five days to reach Neatbay. Other than two small villages, our scenery consisted of windswept cliffs, gulls, meadows and occasional stands of twisted and stunted trees. Yet to me it seemed full of beauties and wonders, for every bend in the road brought me to a place I had never seen before.

As our journey wore on, Lady Thyme became more tyrannical. By the fourth day she had a constant stream of complaints, few of which I could do anything about. Her litter swayed too much; it was making her ill. The water I brought from a stream was too cold, that from my own water bags too warm. The men and horses ahead of us were raising too much dust; they were doing it on purpose, she was sure. And tell them to stop singing those rude songs. With her to deal with I had no time to think about killing or not killing Lord Kelvar, even if I had wanted to.

Early on the fifth day we saw the rising smoke of Neatbay. By noon we could pick out the larger buildings and the Neatbay watchtower on the cliffs above the town. Neatbay was a much gentler piece of land than Buckkeep. Our road wound down through a wide valley. The blue waters of Neatbay itself opened wide before us. The beaches were sandy, and their fishing fleet was all shallow draught vessels with flat bottoms, or spunky little dories that rode the waves like gulls. Neatbay didn’t have the deep anchorage that Buckkeep did, so it was not the shipping and trading port that we were, but all the same it seemed to me it would have been a fine place to live.

Kelvar sent an honour guard to meet us, so there was a delay as they exchanged formalities with Verity’s troops. ‘Like two dogs sniffing each other’s bung-holes,’ Hands observed sourly. By standing in my stirrups, I was able to see far enough down the line to observe the official posturings, and grudgingly nodded my agreement. Eventually we got under way again, and were soon riding through the streets of Neatbay town itself.

Everyone else proceeded straight up to Kelvar’s keep, but Hands and I were obliged to escort Lady Thyme’s litter through several backstreets to reach the particular inn that she insisted on using. From the look on the chambermaid’s face, she had guested there before. Hands took the litter horses and litter to the stables, but I had to endure her leaning heavily on my arm as I escorted her to her chamber. I wondered what she had eaten that had been so foully spiced as to make her every breath a trial to me. She dismissed me at the door, warning myriad punishments if I didn’t return promptly in seven days. As I left, I felt sympathy for the chambermaid, for Lady Thyme’s voice was lifted in a loud tirade about thieving maids she had encountered in the past, and exactly how she wanted the bed linens arranged on the bed.

With a light heart I mounted Sooty and called to Hands to make haste. We cantered through the streets of Neatbay, and managed to rejoin the tail of Verity’s procession as they entered Kelvar’s keep. Bayguard was built on flat land that offered little natural defence, but was fortified by a series of walls and ditches that an enemy would have had to surmount before facing the stout stone walls of the keep. Hands told me that raiders had never got past the second ditch and I believed him. Workmen were doing maintenance on the walls and ditches as we passed, but they halted and watched in wonder as the King-in-Waiting came to Bayguard.

Once keep gates closed behind us, there was another interminable welcoming ceremony. Men and horses and all, we were kept standing in the midday sun while Kelvar and Bayguard welcomed Verity. Horns sounded and then the mutter of official voicings muted by shifting horses and men. But at last it was over. This was signalled by a sudden general movement of men and beasts as the formations ahead of us broke up.

Men dismounted and Kelvar’s stable-folk were suddenly among us, directing us where to water our mounts, where we might rest for the night, and most important to any soldier, where we might ourselves wash and eat. I fell in beside Hands as we led Sooty and his pony toward the stables. I heard my name called and turned to see Sig from Buckkeep pointing me out to someone in Kelvar’s colours.

‘There he be: that’s the fitz. Ho, Fitz! Sitswell here says you’re summoned. Verity wants you in his chamber; Leon’s sick. Hands, you take Sooty for the fitz.’

I could almost feel the food being snatched from my jaws. But I took a breath and presented a cheerful countenance to Sitswell, as Burrich had counselled me. I doubt that dour man even noticed. To him I was just one more boy underfoot on a hectic day. He took me to Verity’s chamber and left me, obviously relieved to return to his stables. I tapped softly and Verity’s man opened the door at once.

‘Ah! Thank Eda it’s you. Come in, then, for the beast won’t eat and Verity’s sure it’s serious. Hurry up, Fitz.’

The man wore Verity’s badge, but was no one I remembered having met. Sometimes it was disconcerting how many folk knew who I was when I had no inkling who they were. In an adjoining chamber Verity was splashing and instructing someone loudly about what garments he wished for the evening. But he was not my concern. Leon was.

Leon was Verity’s wolfhound. I groped toward him, for I had no qualms about it when Burrich wasn’t about, Leon lifted his bony head and regarded me with martyred eyes. He was lying on Verity’s sweaty shirt in a corner by a cold hearth. He was too hot, he was bored, and if we weren’t going to hunt anything he wanted to go home.

I made a show of running my hands over him and lifting his lips to examine his gums and then pressing my hand down firmly on his belly. I finished all this by scratching behind his ears and then told Verity’s man, ‘There’s nothing wrong with him, he just isn’t hungry. Let’s give him a bowl of cold water and wait. When he wants to eat, he’ll let us know. And let’s take away all this, before it spoils in this heat and he eats it anyway and becomes really sick.’ I referred to a dish already overfilled with scraps of pastries from a tray that had been set for Verity. None of it was fit for the dog, but I was so hungry I wouldn’t have minded dining off the scraps myself; in fact my stomach growled at the sight of it. ‘I wonder if I found the kitchens, perhaps they would have a fresh, beef bone for him? Something that’s more toy than food is what he would welcome most now …’

‘Fitz? Is that you? In here, boy! What’s troubling my Leon?’

‘I’ll fetch the bone,’ the man assured me, and I rose and stepped to the entrance of the adjoining room.

Verity rose dripping from his bath and took the proffered towel from his serving-man. He towelled his hair briskly and then again demanded as he dried himself, ‘What’s the matter with Leon?’

That was Verity’s way. Months had passed since we had last spoken but he took no times for greetings. Chade said it was a lack in him, that he didn’t make his men feel their importance to him. I think he believed that if anything significant had happened to me, someone would have told him. He had a bluff heartiness to him that I enjoyed, an attitude that things must be going well unless someone had told him otherwise.

‘Not much is wrong with him, sir. He’s a bit out of sorts from the heat and from travelling. A night’s rest in a cool place will perk him up; but I’d not fill him full of pastry bits and suety things; not in this hot weather.’

‘Well.’ Verity bent down to dry his legs. ‘Like as not, you’re right, boy. Burrich says you’ve a way with the hounds, and I won’t ignore what you say. It’s just that he seemed so moony, and usually he has a good appetite for anything, but especially for anything from my plate.’ He seemed abashed, as if caught cooing at an infant. I didn’t know what to say.

‘If that’s all, sir, should I be returning to the stables?’

He glanced at me over his shoulder, puzzled. ‘Seems a bit of a waste of time to me. Hands will see to your mount, won’t he? You need to bathe and dress if you’re to be on time for dinner. Charim? Have you water for him?’

The serving-man straightened from arranging Verity’s garments on the bed. ‘Right away, sir. And I’ll lay out his clothes as well.’

In the space of the next hour, my place in the world seemed to shift topsy-turvy. I had known this was coming. Both Burrich and Chade had tried to prepare me for it. But to go suddenly from an insignificant hanger-on at Buckkeep to part of Verity’s formal entourage was unnerving. Everyone else assumed I knew what was going on.

Verity was dressed and out of the room before I was into the tub. Charim informed me that he had gone to confer with his captain of guards. I was grateful that Charim was such a gossip. He did not consider my rank so lofty as to forbear from chatting and complaining in front of me.

‘I’ll make you up a pallet in here for the night. I doubt you’ll be chill. Verity said he wanted you housed close by him, and not just to tend the hound. He has other chores for you as well?’

Charim paused hopefully. I covered my silence by ducking my head into the lukewarm water and soaping the sweat and dust from my hair. I came up for air.

He sighed. ‘I’ll lay out your clothes for you. Leave me those dirty ones. I’ll wash them out for you.’

It seemed very strange to have someone waiting on me while I washed, and stranger still to have someone supervise my dressing. Charim insisted on straightening the seams on my jerkin and seeing the oversized sleeves on my new best shirt hung to their fullest and most annoying length. My hair had regrown long enough to have snarls in it and these he tugged out quickly and painfully. To a boy accustomed to dressing himself the primping and inspection seemed endless.

‘Blood will tell,’ said an awed voice from the entry. I turned to find Verity beholding me with a mixture of pain and amusement on his face.

‘He’s the image of Chivalry at that age, is he not, my lord?’ Charim sounded immensely pleased with himself.

‘He is.’ Verity paused to clear his throat. ‘No man can doubt who fathered you, Fitz. I wonder what my father was thinking when he told me to show you well? Shrewd he is called and shrewd he is; I wonder what he expects to gain. Ah, well.’ He sighed. ‘That is his kind of kingship, and I leave it to him. Mine is simply to ask a foppish old man why he cannot keep his watch towers properly manned. Come, boy. It’s time we went down.’

He turned and left without waiting for me. As I hastened after him, Charim caught at my arm. ‘Three steps behind him and on his left. Remember.’ And that is where I fell in behind him. As he moved down the hallway, others of our entourage stepped out from their chambers and followed their prince. All were decked in their most elaborate finery, to maximize this chance to be seen and envied outside Buckkeep. The fullness of my sleeves was quite reasonable compared to what some were sporting. At least my shoes were not hung with tiny chiming bells or gently rattling amber beads.

Verity paused at the top of a stairway, and a hush fell over the folk gathered below. I looked out over the faces turned up to their prince, and had time to read on them every emotion known to mankind. Some women simpered while others appeared to sneer. Some young men struck poses that displayed their clothes; others, dressed more simply, straightened as if to be on guard. I read envy and love, disdain, fear, and on a few faces, hatred. But Verity gave none of them more than a passing glance before he descended. The crowd parted before us, to reveal Lord Kelvar himself waiting to conduct us into the dining hall.

Kelvar was not what I expected. Verity had called him foppish, but what I saw was a rapidly ageing man, thin and harried, who wore his extravagant clothes as if they were armour against time. His greying hair was pulled back in a thin tail as if he were still a man-at-arms, and he walked with that peculiar gait of the very good swordsman.

I saw him as Chade had taught me to see folk, and thought I understood him well enough even before we were seated. But it was after we had taken our places at table (and mine, to my surprise, was not so far down from the high folk) that I got my deepest glance into the man’s soul. And this not by any act of his, but in the bearing of his lady as she arrived to join us.

I doubt if Kelvar’s Lady Grace was much more than a hand of years older than I, and she was decked out like a magpie’s nest. Never had I seen accoutrements before that spoke so garishly of expense and so little of taste. She took her seat in a flurry of flourishes and gestures that reminded me of a courting bird. Her scent rolled over me like a wave, and it too smelled of coin more than flowers. She had brought a little dog with her, a feist that was all silky hair and big eyes. She cooed over him as she settled him on her lap, and the little beast cuddled against her and set his chin on the edge of the table. And all the time, her eyes were on Prince Verity, trying to see if he marked her and was impressed. For my part, I watched Kelvar watch her perform her flirtations for the prince, and I thought to myself, there is more than half our problems with keeping Watch Island tower manned.

Dinner was a trial to me. I was ravenous, but manners forbade that I show it. I ate as I had been instructed, picking up my spoon when Verity did, and setting aside a course as soon as he showed disinterest in it. I longed for a good platter of hot meat with bread to sop up the juices, but what we were offered were tidbits of meat oddly spiced, exotic fruit compotes, pale breads, and vegetables cooked to pallor and then seasoned. It was an impressive display of good food abused in the name of fashionable cooking. I could see that Verity’s appetite was as slack as mine, and wondered if all could see that the prince was not impressed.

Chade had taught me better than I had known. I was able to nod politely to my dinner companion, a freckled young woman, and follow her conversation about the difficulty of getting good linen fabric in Rippon these days, while letting my ears stray enough to pick up key bits of talk about the table. None of it was about the business that had brought us here. Verity and Lord Kelvar would closet themselves tomorrow for the discussion of that. But much of what I overheard touched on the manning of Watch Island’s tower, and cast odd lights on it.

I overheard grumblings that the roads were not as well maintained as previously. Someone commented she was glad to see that repair on Bayguard’s fortifications had been resumed. Another man complained that inland robbers were so common, he could scarcely count on two-thirds of his merchandise coming through from Farrow. This, too, seemed to be the basis of my dining companion’s complaint about the lack of good fabric. I looked at Lord Kelvar, and how he doted upon his young wife’s every gesture. As if Chade were whispering in my ear, I heard his judgement. ‘There is a duke whose mind is not upon the governing of his duchy.’ I suspected Lady Grace was wearing the required road repairs and the wages of those soldiers who would have kept his trade routes policed against brigands. Perhaps the jewels that dangled from her ears should have gone for pay to man Watch Island’s towers.

Dinner finally ended. My stomach was full, but my hunger unabated, there had been so little substance to the meal. Afterwards, two minstrels and a poet entertained us, but I tuned my ears to the casual talk of folk rather than to the fine phrasings of the poet or the ballads of the musicians. Kelvar sat to the prince’s right, while his lady sat to the left, her lap-dog sharing the chair.

Grace sat basking in the prince’s presence. Her hands often strayed to touch first an earring, then a bracelet. She was not accustomed to wearing so much jewellery. My suspicion was that she had come of simple stock, and was awed by her own position. One minstrel sang ‘Fair Rose amidst the Clover’, his eyes on her face, and was rewarded with her flushed cheeks. But as the evening wore on and I grew weary, I could tell that Lady Grace was fading. She yawned once, lifting a hand too late to cover it. Her little dog had gone to sleep in her lap, and twitched and yipped occasionally in his small-brained dreams. As she grew sleepier, she reminded me of a child; she cuddled her dog as if it were a doll, and leaned her head back into the corner of her chair. Twice she started to nod off. I saw her surreptitiously pinching the skin on her wrists in an effort to wake herself up. She was visibly relieved when Kelvar summoned the minstrels and poet forward to reward them for their evening. She took her lord’s arm to follow him off to their bedchamber while never relinquishing the dog she snuggled in her arm.

I was relieved to make my way up to Verity’s antechamber. Charim had found me a featherbed and some blankets. My pallet was fully as comfortable as my own bed. I longed to sleep, but Charim gestured me into Verity’s bedchamber. Verity, ever the soldier, had no use for lackeys to stand about and tug his boots off for him. Charim and I alone attended him. Charim clucked and muttered as he followed Verity about, picking up and smoothing the garments the Prince so casually shed. Verity’s boots he immediately took off into a corner and began working more wax into the leather. Verity dragged a nightshirt on over his head and then turned to me.

‘Well? What have you to tell me?’

And so I reported to him as I did to Chade, recounting all I had overheard, in as close to the words as I could manage, and noting who had spoken and to whom. At the last I added my own suppositions about the significance of it all. ‘Kelvar is a man who has taken a young wife, one who is easily impressed with wealth and gifts,’ I summarized. ‘She has no idea of the responsibilities of her own position, let alone his. Kelvar diverts money, time and thought from his duties to enthralling her. Were it not disrespectful to say so, I would imagine that his manhood is failing him, and he seeks to satisfy his young bride with gifts as a substitute.’