Assassin's Apprentice (UK) Read online

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  First pub­lished in Great Bri­tain by Har­per­CollinsPub­lish­ers 1995

  Copy­right © Robin Hobb 1995

  Cover lay­out design © Har­per­CollinsPub­lish­ers Ltd 2014.

  Il­lus­tra­tion © Jackie Mor­ris. Cal­li­graphy by Stephen Raw.

  Cover pho­to­graph © Shut­ter­stock.com (back­ground).

  Robin Hobb as­serts the moral right to be iden­ti­fied as the au­thor of this work

  A cata­logue re­cord for this book is avail­able from the Brit­ish Lib­rary

  This novel is en­tirely a work of fic­tion. The names, char­ac­ters and in­cid­ents por­trayed in it are the work of the au­thor’s ima­gin­a­tion. Any re­semb­lance to ac­tual per­sons, liv­ing or dead, events or loc­al­it­ies is en­tirely co­in­cid­ental.

  All rights re­served un­der In­ter­na­tional and Pan-Amer­ican Copy­right Con­ven­tions. By pay­ment of the re­quired fees, you have been gran­ted the non-ex­clus­ive, non-trans­fer­able right to ac­cess and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be re­pro­duced, trans­mit­ted, down-loaded, de­com­piled, re­verse en­gin­eered, or stored in or in­tro­duced into any in­form­a­tion stor­age and re­trieval sys­tem, in any form or by any means, whether elec­tronic or mech­an­ical, now known or here­in­after in­ven­ted, without the ex­press writ­ten per­mis­sion of Har­per­Collins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007562251

  Ebook Edi­tion © 2014 ISBN: 9780007374038

  Ver­sion: 2014-08-29

  Ded­ic­a­tion

  Table of Con­tents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copy­right

  Ded­ic­a­tion

  Map

  Chapter One: The Earli­est His­tory

  Chapter Two: New­boy

  Chapter Three: Cov­en­ant

  Chapter Four: Ap­pren­tice­ship

  Chapter Five: Loy­al­ties

  Chapter Six: Chiv­alry’s Shadow

  Chapter Seven: An As­sign­ment

  Chapter Eight: Lady Thyme

  Chapter Nine: Fat Suf­fices

  Chapter Ten: The Pocked Man

  Chapter El­even: For­gings

  Chapter Twelve: Pa­tience

  Chapter Thir­teen: Smithy

  Chapter Four­teen: Ga­len

  Chapter Fif­teen: The Wit­ness Stones

  Chapter Six­teen: Les­sons

  Chapter Sev­en­teen: The Trial

  Chapter Eight­een: As­sas­sin­a­tions

  Chapter Nine­teen: Jour­ney

  Chapter Twenty: Jhaampe

  Chapter Twenty-One: Princes

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Di­lem­mas

  Chapter Twenty-Three: The Wed­ding

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Af­ter­math

  Epi­logue

  Ex­tract from Royal As­sas­sin

  Ex­tract from Fool’s As­sas­sin

  The Live­ship Traders

  The Rain Wild Chron­icles

  About the Au­thor

  By Robin Hobb

  About the Pub­lisher

  ONE

  The Earli­est His­tory

  A his­tory of the Six Duch­ies is of ne­ces­sity a his­tory of its rul­ing fam­ily, the Farseers. A com­plete telling would reach back bey­ond the found­ing of the First Duchy, and if such names were re­membered, would tell us of Outis­landers raid­ing from the Sea, vis­it­ing as pir­ates a shore more tem­per­ate and gentler than the icy beaches of the Out Is­lands. But we do not know the names of these earli­est fore­bears.

  And of the first real king, little more than his name and some ex­tra­vag­ant le­gends re­main. Taker his name was, quite simply, and per­haps with that nam­ing began the tra­di­tion that daugh­ters and sons of his lin­eage would be given names that would shape their lives and be­ings. Folk be­liefs claim that such names were sealed to the new­born babes by ma­gic, and that these royal off­spring were in­cap­able of be­tray­ing the vir­tues whose names they bore. Passed through fire and plunged through salt wa­ter and offered to the winds of the air; thus were names sealed to these chosen chil­dren. So we are told. A pretty fancy, and per­haps once there was such a ritual, but his­tory shows us this was not al­ways suf­fi­cient to bind a child to the vir­tue that named it …

  My pen fal­ters, then falls from my knuckly grip, leav­ing a worm’s trail of ink across Fed­wren’s pa­per. I have spoiled an­other leaf of the fine stuff, in what I sus­pect is a fu­tile en­deav­our. I won­der if I can write this his­tory, or if on every page there will be some sneak­ing show of a bit­ter­ness I thought long dead. I think my­self cured of all spite, but when I touch pen to pa­per, the hurt of a boy bleeds out with the sea-spawned ink, un­til I sus­pect each care­fully formed black let­ter scabs over some an­cient scar­let wound.

  Both Fed­wren and Pa­tience were so filled with en­thu­si­asm whenever a writ­ten ac­count of the his­tory of the Six Duch­ies was dis­cussed that I per­suaded my­self the writ­ing of it was a worth­while ef­fort. I con­vinced my­self that the ex­er­cise would turn my thoughts aside from my pain and help the time to pass. But each his­tor­ical event I con­sider only awakens my own per­sonal shades of loneli­ness and loss. I fear I will have to set this work aside en­tirely, or else give in to re­con­sid­er­ing all that has shaped what I have be­come. And so I be­gin again, and again, but al­ways find that I am writ­ing of my own be­gin­nings rather than the be­gin­nings of this land. I do not even know to whom I try to ex­plain my­self. My life has been a web of secrets, secrets that even now are un­safe to share. Shall I set them all down on fine pa­per, only to cre­ate from them flame and ash? Per­haps.

  My memor­ies reach back to when I was six years old. Be­fore that, there is noth­ing, only a blank gulf no ex­er­cise of my mind has ever been able to pierce. Prior to that day at Moon­seye, there is noth­ing. But on that day they sud­denly be­gin, with a bright­ness and de­tail that over­whelms me. Some­times it seems too com­plete, and I won­der if it is truly mine. Am I re­call­ing it from my own mind, or from dozens of re­tell­ings by le­gions of kit­chen maids and ranks of scul­lions and herds of stable-boys as they ex­plained my pres­ence to each other? Per­haps I have heard the story so many times, from so many sources, that I now re­call it as an ac­tual memory of my own. Is the de­tail the res­ult of a six-year-old’s open ab­sorp­tion of all that goes on around him? Or could the com­plete­ness of the memory be the bright over­lay of the Skill, and the later drugs a man takes to con­trol his ad­dic­tion to it, the drugs that bring on pains and crav­ings of their own? The last is most pos­sible. Per­haps it is even prob­able. One hopes it is not the case.

  The re­mem­brance is al­most phys­ical; the chill grey­ness of the fad­ing day, the re­morse­less rain that soaked me, the icy cobbles of the strange town’s streets, even the cal­lused rough­ness of the huge hand that gripped my small one. Some­times I won­der about that grip. The hand was hard and rough, trap­ping mine within it. And yet it was warm, and not un­kind, as it held mine. Only firm. It did not let me slip on the icy streets, but it did not let me es­cape my fate, either. It was as im­plac­able as the freez­ing grey rain that glazed the trampled snow and ice of the grav­elled path­way out­side the huge wooden doors of the for­ti­fied build­ing that stood like a fort­ress within the town it­self.

  The doors were tall, not just to a six-year-old boy,
but tall enough to ad­mit gi­ants, to dwarf even the rangy old man who towered over me. And they looked strange to me, al­though I can­not sum­mon up what type of door or dwell­ing would have looked fa­mil­iar. Only that these, carved and bound with black iron hinges, dec­or­ated with a buck’s head and knocker of gleam­ing brass, were bey­ond my ex­per­i­ence. I re­call that slush had soaked through my clothes, so that my feet and legs were wet and cold. And yet, again, I can­not re­call that I had walked far through winter’s last curses, nor that I had been car­ried. No, it all starts there, right out­side the doors of the strong­house, with my small hand trapped in­side the tall man’s.

  Al­most, it is like a pup­pet show be­gin­ning. Yes, I can see it thus. The cur­tains par­ted, and there we stood be­fore that great door. The old man lif­ted the brass knocker and banged it down, once, twice, thrice, on the plate that re­soun­ded to his pound­ing. And then, from off-stage, a voice soun­ded. Not from within the doors, but from be­hind us, back the way we had come. ‘Father, please,’ the wo­man’s voice begged. I turned to look at her, but it had be­gun to snow again, a lacy veil that clung to eye­lashes and coatsleeves. I can’t re­call that I saw any­one. Cer­tainly, I did not struggle to break free of the old man’s grip on my hand, nor did I call out, ‘Mother, Mother!’ In­stead I stood, a spec­tator, and heard the sound of boots within the keep, and the un­fasten­ing of the door hasp within.

  One last time she called. I can still hear the words per­fectly, the des­per­a­tion in a voice that now would sound young to my ears. ‘Father, please, I beg you!’ A tremor shook the hand that gripped mine, but whether of an­ger or some other emo­tion, I shall never know. As swift as a black crow seizes a bit of dropped bread, the old man stooped and snatched up a frozen chunk of dirty ice. Word­lessly he flung it, with great force and fury, and I cowered where I stood. I do not re­call a cry, nor the sound of struck flesh. What I do re­mem­ber is how the doors swung out­ward, so that the old man had to step hast­ily back, drag­ging me with him.

  And there is this: the man who opened the door was no house-ser­vant, as I might ima­gine if I had only heard this story. No, memory shows me a man-at-arms, a war­rior, gone a bit to grey and with a belly more of hard suet than muscle, but not some mannered house-ser­vant. He looked both the old man and me up and down with a sol­dier’s prac­tised sus­pi­cion, and then stood there si­lently, wait­ing for us to state our busi­ness.

  I think it rattled the old man a bit, and stim­u­lated him, not to fear, but to an­ger. For he sud­denly dropped my hand and in­stead gripped me by the back of my coat and swung me for­ward, like a whelp offered to a pro­spect­ive new owner. ‘I’ve brought the boy to you,’ he said in a rusty voice.

  And when the house-guard con­tin­ued to stare at him, without judge­ment or even curi­os­ity, he elab­or­ated. ‘I’ve fed him at my table for six years, and never a word from his father, never a coin, never a visit, though my daugh­ter gives me to un­der­stand he knows he fathered a bas­tard on her. I’ll not feed him any longer, nor break my back at a plough to keep clothes on his back. Let him be fed by him what got him. I’ve enough to tend to of my own, what with my wo­man get­ting on in years, and this one’s mother to keep and feed. For not a man will have her now, not a man, not with this pup run­ning at her heels. So you take him, and give him to his father.’ And he let go of me so sud­denly that I sprawled to the stone door­step at the guard’s feet. I scrabbled to a sit­ting po­s­i­tion, not much hurt that I re­call, and looked up to see what would hap­pen next between the two men.

  The guard looked down at me, lips pursed slightly, not in judge­ment but merely con­sid­er­ing how to clas­sify me. ‘Whose get?’ he asked, and his tone was not one of curi­os­ity, but only that of a man who asks for more spe­cific in­form­a­tion on a situ­ation, in or­der to re­port well to a su­per­ior.

  ‘Chiv­alry’s,’ the old man said, and he was already turn­ing his back on me, tak­ing his meas­ured steps down the flag­stoned path­way. ‘Prince Chiv­alry,’ he said, not turn­ing back as he ad­ded the qual­i­fier. ‘Him what’s King-in-Wait­ing. That’s who got him. So let him do for him, and be glad he man­aged to father one child, some­where.’

  For a mo­ment the guard watched the old man walk­ing away. Then he word­lessly stooped to seize me by the col­lar and drag me out of the way so that he could close the door. He let go of me for the brief time it took him to se­cure the door. That done, he stood look­ing down on me. No real sur­prise, only a sol­dier’s stoic ac­cept­ance of the odder bits of his duty. ‘Up, boy, and walk,’ he said.

  So I fol­lowed him, down a dim cor­ridor, past rooms spartanly fur­nished, with win­dows still shuttered against winter’s chill, and fi­nally to an­other set of closed doors, these of rich, mel­low wood em­bel­lished with carvings. There he paused, and straightened his own gar­ments briefly. I re­mem­ber quite clearly how he went down on one knee, to tug my shirt straight and smooth my hair with a rough pat or two, but whether this was from some kind-hearted im­pulse that I make a good im­pres­sion, or merely a con­cern that his pack­age look well-ten­ded, I will never know. He stood again, and knocked once at the double doors. Hav­ing knocked, he did not wait for a reply, or at least I never heard one. He pushed the doors open, her­ded me in be­fore him, and shut the doors be­hind him.

  This room was as warm as the cor­ridor had been chill, and alive as the other cham­bers had been deser­ted. I re­call a quant­ity of fur­niture in it, rugs and hangings, and shelves of tab­lets and scrolls over­lain with the scat­ter­ing of clut­ter that any well-used and com­fort­able cham­ber takes on. There was a fire burn­ing in a massive fire­place, filling the room with heat and a pleas­antly rosin­ous scent. An im­mense table was placed at an angle to the fire, and be­hind it sat a stocky man, his brows knit as he bent over a sheaf of pa­pers in front of him. He did not look up im­me­di­ately, and so I was able to study his rather bushy dis­ar­ray of dark hair for some mo­ments.

  When he did look up, he seemed to take in both my­self and the guard in one quick glance of his black eyes. ‘Well, Jason?’ he asked, and even at that age I could sense his resig­na­tion to a messy in­ter­rup­tion. ‘What’s this?’

  The guard gave me a gentle nudge on the shoulder that pro­pelled me a foot or so closer to the man. ‘An old plough­man left him, Prince Ver­ity, sir. Says it’s Prince Chiv­alry’s bastid, sir.’

  For a few mo­ments the har­ried man be­hind the desk con­tin­ued to re­gard me with some con­fu­sion. Then some­thing very like an amused smile lightened his fea­tures and he rose and came around the desk to stand with his fists on his hips, look­ing down on me. I did not feel threatened by his scru­tiny; rather it was as if some­thing about my ap­pear­ance pleased him in­or­din­ately. I looked up at him curi­ously. He wore a short dark beard, as bushy and dis­orderly as his hair, and his cheeks were weathered above it. Heavy brows were raised above his dark eyes. He had a bar­rel of a chest, and shoulders that strained the fab­ric of his shirt. His fists were square and work-scarred, yet ink stained the fin­gers of his right hand. As he stared at me, his grin gradu­ally widened, un­til fi­nally he gave a snort of laughter.

  ‘Be damned,’ he fi­nally said. ‘Boy does have Chiv’s look to him, doesn’t he? Fruit­ful Eda. Who’d have be­lieved it of my il­lus­tri­ous and vir­tu­ous brother?’

  The guard made no re­sponse at all, nor was one ex­pec­ted from him. He con­tin­ued to stand alertly, await­ing the next com­mand. A sol­dier’s sol­dier.

  The other man con­tin­ued to re­gard me curi­ously. ‘How old?’ he asked the guard.

  ‘Plough­man says six.’ The guard raised a hand to scratch at his cheek, then sud­denly seemed to re­call he was re­port­ing. He dropped his hand. ‘Sir,’ he ad­ded.

  The other didn’t seem to no­tice the guard’s lapse in dis­cip­line. The dark eyes roved over me, and the amuse
­ment in his smile grew broader. ‘So make it seven years or so, to al­low for her belly to swell. Damn. Yes. That was the first year the Chy­urda tried to close the pass. Chiv­alry was up this way for three, four months, chivvy­ing them into open­ing it to us. Looks like it wasn’t the only thing he chiv­vied open. Damn. Who’d have thought it of him?’ He paused, then, ‘Who’s the mother?’ he de­man­ded sud­denly.

  The guards­man shif­ted un­com­fort­ably. ‘Don’t know, sir. There was only the old plough­man on the door­step, and all him said was that this was Prince Chiv­alry’s bastid, and he wasn’t go­ing to feed him ner put clothes on his back no more. Said him what got him could care for him now.’

  The man shrugged as if the mat­ter were of no great im­port­ance. ‘The boy looks well ten­ded. I give it a week, a fort­night at most be­fore she’s whim­per­ing at the kit­chen door be­cause she misses her pup. I’ll find out then if not be­fore. Here, boy, what do they call you?’

  His jer­kin was closed with an in­tric­ate buckle shaped like a buck’s head. It was brass, then gold, then red as the flames in the fire­place moved. ‘Boy,’ I said. I do not know if I were merely re­peat­ing what he and the guards­man had called me, or if I truly had no name be­sides the word. For a mo­ment the man looked sur­prised and a look of what might have been pity crossed his face. But it dis­ap­peared as swiftly, leav­ing him look­ing only dis­com­fited, or mildly an­noyed. He glanced back at the map that still awaited him on the table.

  ‘Well,’ he said into the si­lence. ‘Some­thing’s got to be done with him, at least un­til Chiv gets back. Jason, see the boy’s fed and bed­ded some­where, at least for to­night. I’ll give some thought to what’s to be done with him to­mor­row. Can’t have royal bas­tards clut­ter­ing up the coun­tryside.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Jason, neither agree­ing nor dis­agree­ing, but merely ac­cept­ing the or­der. He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and turned me back to­ward the door. I went some­what re­luct­antly, for the room was bright and pleas­ant and warm. My cold feet had star­ted to tingle, and I knew if I could stay a little longer, I would be warmed through. But the guards­man’s hand was in­ex­or­able, and I was steered out of the warm cham­ber and back into the chill dim­ness of the drear cor­ridors.