Robin Hobb - Assassin's Apprentice

Verity had halted, and his face darkened with frustration. “I cannot. You know I cannot. If I leave off my work here while it is still Reaptime, there will be nothing to bring a bride back to. Always, the Outislanders have been greediest and most reckless in the final month before the winter storms drive them back to their own wretched shore. Do you think it will be any different this year? Like as not I would bring Kettricken back here to find them feasting in our own Buckkeep, with your head on a pike to greet me!”

King Shrewd looked angered, but kept his temper as he asked, “Do you really think they could press us that greatly if you gave off your efforts for twenty days or so?”

“I know it,” Verity said wearily. “I know it as surely as I know that I should be at my post right now, not arguing here with you. Father, tell them it must be put off. I’ll go for her as soon as we’ve a good coat of snow on the ground, and a blessed gale lashing all ships into their ports.”

“It cannot be,” Shrewd said regretfully. “They have beliefs of their own, up in the mountains. A wedding made in winter yields a barren harvest. You must take her in the fall, when the lands are yielding, or in late spring, when they till their little mountain fields.”

“I cannot. By the time spring comes to their mountains, it is fair weather here, with Raiders on our doorsills. Surely they must understand that!” Verity moved his head about, like a restless horse on a short lead. He did not want to be here. Distasteful as he found his Skill work, it called to him. He wanted to go to it, wanted it in a way that had nothing to do with protecting his kingdom. I wondered if Shrewd knew that. I wondered if Verity did.

“To understand something is one thing,” the King expounded. “To insist they flaunt their traditions is another. Verity, this must be so, done now.” Shrewd rubbed his head as if it pained him. “We need this joining. We need her soldiers, we need her marriage gifts, we need her father at our back. It cannot wait. Could not you perhaps go in a closed litter, unhampered by managing a horse, and continue your Skill work as you travel? It might even do you good to get out and about a bit, to have a little fresh air and—”

“NO!” Verity bellowed the word, and Shrewd turned where he stood, almost as if he were at bay against the windowsill. Verity advanced to the table and pounded upon it, showing a temper I had never suspected in him. “No and no and no! I cannot do the work I must do to keep the Raiders from our coast while being rocked and jolted in a horse litter. And no, I will not go to this bride you have chosen for me, to this woman I scarce recall, in a litter like an invalid or a witling. I will not have her see me so, nor would I have my men sniggering behind me, saying, ‘Oh, this is what brave Verity has come to, riding like a palsied old man, pandered off to some woman as if he were an Outislander whore.’ Where are your wits that you can think such stupid plans? You’ve been among the mountain folk, you know their ways. Think you a woman of theirs would accept a man who came to her in such a sickly way? Even their royals expose a child if it is born less than whole. You’d spoil your own plan, and leave the Six Duchies to the Raiders while you did it.”

“Then perhaps—”

“Then perhaps there is a Red-Ship right now, not so far that they cannot see Egg Island, and already the captain of it is discounting the dream of ill omen he had last night, and the navigator is correcting his course, wondering how he could have so mistaken the landmarks of our coastline. Already all the work I did last night while you slept and Regal danced and drank with his courtiers is coming undone, while we stand here and yatter at one another. Father, arrange it. Arrange it any way you wish and can, so long as it does not involve me doing anything save the Skill while fair weather plagues our coast.” Verity had been moving as he spoke, and the slamming of the King’s chamber door almost drowned out his final words.

Shrewd stood and stared at the door for some moments. Then he passed his hand across his eyes, rubbing them, but for weariness or tears or just a bit of dust, I could not tell. He looked about the room, frowning when his eyes encountered me, as if I were a thing puzzlingly out of place. Then, as if recalling why I were there, he observed dryly, “Well, that went well, didn’t it? Still and all, a way must be found. And when Verity rides to claim his bride, you will go with him.”

“If you wish, my King,” I said quietly.

“I do.” He cleared his throat, then turned to look out his window again. “The Princess has a single sibling, an older brother. He is not a healthy man. Oh, he was well and strong once, but on the Ice Fields he took an arrow through his chest. Passed clean through him, so Regal was told. And the wounds on his chest and back healed. But in winters, he coughs blood, and in summer he cannot sit a horse nor drill his men for more than half the morning. Knowing the mountain folk, it is full surprising that he is their King-in-Waiting.”

I thought quietly for a moment. “Among the mountain folk the custom is the same as ours. Male or female, the offspring inherit, by the order of their birth.”

“Yes. That is so,” Shrewd said quietly, and I knew that already he was thinking that Seven Duchies might be stronger than Six.

“And Princess Kettricken’s father,” I asked, “how is his health?”

“As hale and hearty as one could wish, for a man of his years. I am sure he will reign long and well, for at least another decade, keeping his kingdom whole and safe for his heir.”

“Probably by then our troubles with the Red-Ships will long be over. Verity will be free to turn his mind to other things.”

“Probably,” King Shrewd agreed quietly. His eyes finally met mine. “When Verity goes to claim his bride, you will go with him,” he said again. “You understand what your duties will be? I trust to your discretion.”

I inclined my head to him. “As you wish, my King.”

To speak of the Mountain Kingdom as a kingdom is to start out with a basic misunderstanding of the area and the folk who people it. It is equally inaccurate to refer to the region as Chyurda, although the Chyurda do make up the dominant folk there. Rather than one stretch of united countryside, the Mountain Kingdom consists of various hamlets clinging to the mountainsides, of small vales of arable land, of trading hamlets sprung up along the rough roads that lead to the passes, and clans of nomadic herders and hunters who range the inhospitable countryside in between. Such a diverse people are unlikely to unite, for their interests are often in conflict. Strangely, though, the only force more powerful than each group’s independence and insular ways is the loyalty they bear to the “King” of the mountain folk.

Traditions tell us that this line was begun by a prophet-judge, a woman who was not only wise, but also a philosopher who founded a theory of ruling whose keystone is that the leader is the ultimate servant of the people, and must be totally selfless in that regard. There was no definite time when the judge became the King; rather it was a gradual transition, as ward of the fairness and wisdom of the holy one at Jhaampe spread. As more and more folk sought counsel there, willing to be bound by the decision of the Judge, it was only natural that the laws of that settlement came to be respected throughout the mountains, and that more and more folk adopted Jhaampe laws as their own. And so judges became Kings, but, amazingly, retained their self-imposed decree of servitude and self-sacrifice for their people. The Jhaampe tradition is rife with tales of Kings and Queens who sacrificed themselves for their folk, in every conceivable way, from fending wild animals off shepherd children to offering themselves as hostages in times of feud.