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

       NINE

       Guards and Bonds

      Oftentimes I understand and commend Fedwren’s stated dream. Had he his way, paper would he as common as bread and every child would learn his letters before he was thirteen. But even were it so, I do not think this would bring to pass all he hopes. He mourns for all the knowledge that goes into a grave each time a man dies, even the commonest of men. He speaks of a time to come when a blacksmith’s way of setting a shoe, or a shipwright’s knack for pulling a drawknife would be set down in letters, that any who could read could learn to do as well. I do not believe it is so, or ever will be. Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hand and heart, and later by his head. I have believed this ever since I saw Mastfish set the fish-shaped block of wood that he was named after into Verity’s first ship. His eyes had seen that mastfish before it existed, and he set his hands to shaping what his heart knew must be. This is not a thing that can be learned from words on a page. Perhaps it cannot be learned at all, but comes, as does the Skill or the Wit, from the blood of one’s forebears.

      I returned to my own chamber and sat watching the dying embers in my hearth, waiting for the rest of the keep to awaken. I should have been exhausted. Instead, I almost trembled with the energy rushing through me. I fancied that if I sat very still, I could still feel the warmth of Molly’s arms around me. I knew precisely where her cheek had touched mine. A very faint scent of her clung to my shirt from our brief embrace, and I agonized over whether to wear the shirt that day, to carry that scent with me, or to set it aside carefully in my clothing chest, to preserve it. I did not think it a foolish thing at all to care so much about that. Looking back, I smile, but it is at my wisdom, not my folly.

      Morning brought storm winds and falling snow to Buckkeep Castle, but to me it only made all inside the cosier. Perhaps it would give us all a chance to recover ourselves from yesterday. I did not want to think about those poor ragged bodies, or bathing the still, cold faces. Nor of the roaring flames and heat that had consumed Kerry’s body. We could all use a quiet day inside the keep. Perhaps the evening would find all gathered about the hearths, for storytelling, music and conversation. I hoped so. I left my chambers to go to Patience and Lacey.

      I tormented myself, knowing well the exact moment when Molly would descend the stairs to fetch a breakfast tray for Patience, and also when she would ascend the stairs carrying it. I could be on the stairs or in the hallway as she passed. It would be a minor thing, a coincidence. But I had no question that there were those who had been set to watching me, and they would make note of such ‘coincidences’ if they occurred too often. No. I had to heed the warnings that both the King and Chade had given me. I would show Molly I had a man’s self-control and forbearance. If I must wait before I could court her, then I would.

      So I sat in my room and agonized until I was sure that she would have left Patience’s chambers. Then I descended, to tap upon the door. As I waited for Lacey to open it, I reflected that redoubling my watch upon Patience and Lacey was easier said than done. But I had a few ideas. I had begun last night, by extracting a promise from Molly that she would bring up no food she had not prepared herself, or taken fresh from the common serving pots. She had snorted at this, for it had come after a most ardent goodbye. ‘Now you sound just like Lacey,’ she had rebuked me, and gently closed the door in my face. She opened it a moment later, to find me still staring at it. ‘Go to bed,’ she chided me. Blushing, she added, ‘And dream of me. I hope I have plagued your dreams lately as much as you have mine.’ Those words sent me fleeing down to my room, and every time I thought of it, I blushed again.

      Now, as I entered Patience’s room, I tried to put all such thoughts from my mind. I was here on business, even if Patience and Lacey must believe it a social call. Keep my mind on my tasks. I cast my eyes over the latch that had secured the door, and found it well to my liking. No one would be slipping that with a belt knife. As for the window, even if anyone had scaled the outer wall to it, they must burst through not only stoutly-barred wooden shutters, but a tapestry, and then rank upon rank of pots of plants, soldiered in rows before the closed window. It was a route no professional would willingly choose. Lacey resettled herself with a bit of mending while Patience greeted me. Lady Patience herself was seemingly idle, seated on the hearth before the fire as if she were but a girl. She poked at the coals a bit. ‘Did you know,’ she asked me suddenly, ‘that there is a substantial history of strong queens at Buckkeep? Not just those born as Farseers, either. Many a Farseer prince has married a woman whose name came to overshadow his in the telling of deeds.’

      ‘Do you think Kettricken will become such a queen?’ I asked politely. I had no idea where this conversation would lead.

      ‘I do not know,’ she said softly. She stirred the coals idly again. ‘I know only that I would not have been one.’ She sighed heavily, then lifted her eyes to say almost apologetically, ‘I am having one of those mornings, Fitz, when all that fills my head is what might have been and what could have been. I should never have allowed him to abdicate. I’d wager he’d be alive today, if he had not.’

      There seemed little reply I could make to such a statement. She sighed again, and drew on the hearth stones with the ash-coated poker. ‘I am a woman of longings today, Fitz. While everyone else yesterday was stirred to amazement at what Kettricken did, it awakened in me the deepest discontent with myself. Had I been in her position, I would have hidden away in my chamber. Just as I do now. But your grandmother would not have. Now there was a Queen. Like Kettricken in some ways. Constance was a woman who spurred others to action. Other women especially. When she was queen, over half our guard was female. Did you know that? Ask Hod about her some time. I understand that Hod came with her when Constance came here to be Shrewd’s queen.’ Patience fell silent. For a few moments, she was so quiet I thought she had finished speaking. Then she added softly, ‘She liked me, Queen Constance did.’ She smiled almost shyly.

      ‘She knew I did not care for crowds. So, sometimes, she would summon me, and only me, to come and attend her in her garden. And we would not even speak much, but only work quietly in the soil and the sunlight. Some of my pleasantest memories of Buckkeep are of those times.’ She looked up at me suddenly. ‘I was just a little girl then. And your father was just a boy, and we had not ever really met. My parents brought me to Buckkeep, the times they came to court, even though they knew I did not much care for all the folderol of court life. What a woman Queen Constance was, to notice a homely, quiet little girl, and give her of her time. But she was like that. Buckkeep was a different place then, a much merrier court. Times were safer, and all was more stable. But then Constance died,