Robin Hobb: Assassin's Apprentice

The guard looked down at me, lips pursed slightly, not in judgment 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 graveled 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 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 kindhearted 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 overlaid 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 resinous 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 plowman 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.

“Plowman 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 amusement 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, chivying them into opening it to us. Looks like it wasn’t the only thing he chivied 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 plowman 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 was 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 dreary corridors.

They seemed all the darker after the warmth and light, and endless as I tried to match the guard’s stride as he wound through them. Perhaps I whimpered, or perhaps he grew tired of my slower pace, for he spun suddenly, seized me, and tossed me up to sit on his shoulder as casually as if I weighed nothing at all. “Soggy little pup, you,” he observed, without rancor, and then bore me down corridors and around turns and up and down steps and finally into the yellow light and space of a large kitchen.

There, half a dozen other guards lounged on benches and ate and drank at a big scarred table before a fire fully twice as large as the one in the study had been. The room smelled of food, of beer and men’s sweat, of wet wool garments and the smoke of the wood and drip of grease into flames. Hogsheads and small casks ranged against the wall, and smoked joints of meats were dark shapes hung from the rafters. The table bore a clutter of food and dishes. A chunk of meat on a spit was swung back from the flames and dripping fat onto the stone hearth. My stomach clutched suddenly at my ribs at the rich smell. Jason set me rather firmly on the corner of the table closest to the fire’s warmth, jogging the elbow of a man whose face was hidden by a mug.