The Farseer Series Books 2 and 3: Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb
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a difficult jump, that instant when all things come into balance, and for a moment turn together as perfectly as birds wheeling in flight. The Skill gave that to one, but not for just a moment. Rather it lasted for as long as a man could sustain it, and became stronger and purer as one’s ability with the Skill refined; or so I believed. My own abilities with the Skill had been permanently damaged in a battle of wills with Galen. The defensive mental walls I had erected were such that not even someone as strongly Skilled as Verity could always reach me. My own ability to reach out of myself had become an intermittent thing, skittish and flighty as a frightened horse.
I paused outside Verity’s door. I took a very deep breath, then breathed it out slowly, refusing to let the blackness of spirit settle on me. Those things were over, that time was gone. No sense railing to myself about it. As was my old habit, I entered without knocking, lest the noise break Verity’s concentration.
He should not have been Skilling. He was. The shutters of the window were open and he leaned out on the sill. Wind and snow swirled throughout the room, speckling his dark hair and dark blue shirt and jerkin. He was breathing in deep, long steady breaths, a cadence somewhere between a very deep sleep and that of a runner at rest and catching his wind. He seemed oblivious of me. ‘Prince Verity?’ I said softly.
He turned to me, and his gaze was like heat, like light, like wind in my face. He Skilled into me with such force that I felt driven out of myself, his mind possessing mine so completely that there was no room left to be myself in it. For a moment I was drowning in Verity, and then he was gone, withdrawing so rapidly that I was left stumbling and gasping like a fish deserted by a high wave. In a step he was beside me, catching my elbow and steadying me on my feet.
‘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,