Robin Hobb - Royal Assassin

Someone shouted after me as I fled, but no one gave chase. I was to the bottom of the stairs before I heard someone finally give the order to catch me. I laughed aloud. As if they could! Buckkeep Castle was a warren of back ways and servants' passages for a boy who had grown up there. I knew where I was going, but I didn't go there directly. Like a fox I ran, appearing briefly in the Great Hall, dashing across the cobbles of the washing courts, terrifying Cook with my frantic dash through her kitchens. And always, always, the pale Skill fingers plucked and fingered me, not knowing at all that I was coming, coming, my dears, coming to find you.

Galen, born and raised in Farrow, had always hated the sea. He feared it, I think, and so his chamber had been on the side of the Keep that faced the mountains. After he had died, I had heard it had become a shrine to him. Serene had taken over his bedchamber, but kept his sitting room as a gathering place for the coterie. I had never visited his rooms, but I knew the way. I took the steps up like an arrow in flight, whisked down the hall past a couple in a heated embrace and stopped at a heavy door banded with iron. But a thick door that is not properly barred is no barrier at all, and in moments this one swung open to my touch.

There was a semicircle of chairs set up around a tall table. A fat candle burned in the center of it. For focus, I imagined. Only two of the chairs were occupied. Justin and Serene sat side by side, hands clasped, eyes closed, heads lolled back in the throes of Skilling. No Will. I had hoped to find him here as well.

For the barest instant I looked at their faces. Perspiration gleamed on them, and I was flattered that they put so much effort to breaking down my walls. Their mouths twitched in small smiles, resisting the ecstasy of the Skill user, focusing on the object rather than on the pleasure of the pursuit. I did not hesitate. "Surprise!" I said softly. I jerked Serene's head back and pulled the King's blade across her exposed throat. She jerked once, and I let her fall to the floor. There was a remarkable amount of blood.

Justin leaped to his feet with a shriek and I braced myself for his onslaught. He fooled me, though. He fled squealing down the hall and I followed, knife in hand. He sounded just like a pig, and he was incredibly fast. No fox tricks for Justin, he favored the most direct route to the Great Hall, shrieking all the way. I laughed as I ran. Even now it seems to me incredible to recall that, but I cannot deny it. Did he suppose Regal would draw sword to defend him? Did he think, having killed my king, that anything in the world could stand between me and him?

In the Great Hall, musicians had been playing and folk dancing, but Justin's entrance put an end to that. I had gained on him, so that there were scarce a score of steps between us when he caromed into one of the laden tables. Folk were still standing shocked at his entrance when I leaped on him and pulled him down. I punched the knife in and out of him half a dozen times before anyone thought they should interfere. As Regal's Farrow-bred guards reached for me I flung his twitching body into them, found a table at my back, and leaped onto it. I held up my dripping blade. "The King's knife!" I told them, and showed it 'round. "Taking blood in vengeance for the King's death. That is all!"

"He's mad!" someone cried. "Verity's death has driven him mad!"

"Shrewd!" I cried in fury. "King Shrewd has fallen to treachery this night!"

Regal's Inlander guards hit my table in a wave. I had not thought there were that many of them. We all went down in a wave of food and crockery. Folk were screaming, but as many surged forward to witness as retreated in horror. Hod would have been proud of me. With the king's belt knife, I held off three men with short swords. I danced, I leaped, I pirouetted. I was much too fast for them and the cuts they did inflict on me caused me no pain. I scored two good slashes on two of them, simply because they did not think I would dare lunge close enough to inflict them.

Somewhere back in the crowd, someone raised a cry. "Arms! To the Bastard! They are killing FitzChivalry!" A struggle began, but I could not see who was involved, nor give it any attention at all. I stabbed one of the guards in the hand and he dropped his blade. "Shrewd!" someone cried above the din. "King Shrewd is slain!" By the sounds of the other struggle, more folk were becoming involved. I could not look to see. I heard another table crash to the floor, and a scream across the room. Then Buckkeep's own guard came pouring into the room. I heard Kerf's voice raised above the general din. "Separate them! Quell it! Try not to spill blood in the King's own hall!" I saw my attackers ringed, saw Blade's look of consternation as he saw me and then cried out over his shoulder, "It's FitzChivalry! They're trying to take down the Fitz!"

"Separate them! Disarm them!" Kerf butted heads with one of Regal's guards, dropping him. Beyond him I saw knots of struggling break out as Buck guards fell on Regal's personal guard, battering blades down and demanding that swords be sheathed. I had space for a breath, and could lift my eyes from my own struggle to see that, indeed, a great many folk had become involved, and not just guards. Fistfights had broken out among the guests as well. It looked to become both brawl and riot when suddenly Blade, one of our own guardsmen, shouldered between two of my attackers, sending them sprawling to the floor. He leaped forward and confronted me.

"Blade!" I greeted him with delight, thinking him an ally. Then, as I noticed his defensive stance, I told him, "You know I would not draw blade against you!"

"I know that well, lad," he told me sadly, and the old soldier flung himself forward to trap me in a bear hug. I do not know who hit me on the back of the head, or with what.

IF A HOUNDSMAN suspects that a dog boy is using the Wit to defile and divert the hounds to his own ends, he should be watchful for these signs. If the boy speaks not overmuch to his fellows, be wary. If the hounds perk up before the boy is in sight, or whine before he has left, be watchful. If a hound will leave off his snuffing for a bitch in season, or turn aside from a blood trail and lie quiet at the boy's word, be certain. Let the boy be hanged, over water if possible, well away from the stables, and his body burned. Let every hound he has trained be drowned, as well as all sired by defiled hounds. A hound who has known the Wit use will neither fear nor respect any other master, but is sure to turn vicious when deprived of the Witted one. A Witted boy cannot be trusted to beat an unruly hound, nor will he suffer his Wit hound to be sold away, or used as bear bait, no matter how old the dog. A Wit boy will turn his master's hounds to his own purposes, and never has any true loyalty to his master, but only to his Wit hound.

I woke up sometime. Of all the cruel jests fate had recently played on me, I decided that awakening was the cruelest. I lay still and cataloged my various discomforts. The exhaustion from my carris-seed frenzy combined well with the exhaustion from my Skill battle with Justin and Serene. I had taken some nasty sword cuts to my right forearm, and one to my left thigh that I recalled not at all. None of them had been dressed; my sleeve and trousers were matted to my skin with dried blood. Whoever had knocked me unconscious had made sure of his work with several more blows. Other than that, I was fine. I told myself this a number of times, ignoring the trembling in my left leg and arm. I opened my eyes.

The room I was in was small and stone. There was a pot in the corner. When I finally decided I could move, I craned my head enough to see that there was a door, with a small barred window in it. This was the light source, fed by a torch somewhere down a hallway outside. Oh. Yes. The dungeons. My curiosity satisfied, I closed my eyes again and slept. Nose to tail, I rested safe in a deep den covered over by the blowing snow. The illusion of safety was as much as Nighteyes could offer me. So weak I was that even his thoughts to me seemed misty. Safe. That was as much as he could convey.