Robin Hobb - The Complete Farseer Trilogy - Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest

I could make no response. The Chyurda stooped and seized Burrich by the ankles. As he dragged him away, the dark brush of his hair feathered a trail of blood on the tiles. A dizzying mixture of hatred and despair rolled with the poison through my blood. A cold purpose rose and set in me. I could not hope to live now, but it did not seem important. Warning Verity did. And avenging Burrich. I had no plans, no weapons, no possibilities. So play for time, Chade’s counsels advised me. The more time you create for yourself, the better the chance that something will present itself. Delay him. Perhaps someone will come to see why the Prince is not dressing for the wedding. Perhaps someone else will want to use the steams before the ceremony. Engage him somehow.

‘The Princess …’ I began.

‘Is not a problem,’ Regal finished for me. ‘The Princess did not forgive Burrich. Only you. What I have done to him is well within my rights. He is a traitor. He must pay. And the man disposing of him was most fond of his Prince Rurisk. He has no objections to any of this.’

The Chyurda left the steams without a glance back. My hands scrabbled weakly on the smooth tile floor but found no purchase. Regal busily dried himself all the while. When the man was gone, he came to stand over me. ‘Aren’t you going to call for help?’ he asked brightly.

I took a breath, pushed down my fear. I mustered as much contempt for Regal as I could find. ‘To whom? Who would hear me over the water?’

‘So you save your strength. Wise. Pointless, but wise.’

‘Do you think Kettricken will not know what happened?’

‘She will know you went to the steams, unwisely in your condition. You slipped beneath the hot, hot water. Such a shame.’

‘Regal, this is madness. How many bodies do you think you can leave in your wake? How will you explain Burrich’s death?’

‘To your first question, quite a few, as long as they are not people of consequence.’ He stooped over me, and gripped my shirt. He dragged me while I thrashed weakly, a fish out of water. ‘And to your second, well, the same. How much fuss do you think anyone will raise over a dead stableman? You are so obsessed with your plebeian self-importance that you extend it to your servants.’ He dumped me carelessly half on top of Burrich. His still-warm body sprawled face-down on the floor. Blood was congealing on the tiles around his face, and still dripping from his nose. A slow bubble of blood formed on his lips, broke with his faint exhalation. He lived yet. I shifted to conceal it from Regal. If I could survive, Burrich might have a chance also.

Regal noticed nothing. He tugged my boots off and set them aside. ‘You see, bastard,’ he said as he paused to catch his breath. ‘Ruthlessness creates its own rules. So my mother taught me. People are intimidated by a man who acts with no apparent regard for consequences. Behave as if you cannot be touched and no one will dare to touch you. Look at the whole situation. Your death will anger some people, yes. But enough to make them take actions that would affect the security of the whole Six Duchies? I think not. Besides, your death will be eclipsed by other things. I’d be a fool not to take this opportunity to remove you.’ Regal was so damnably calm, and superior. I fought him, but he was surprisingly strong for the indulgent life he led. I felt like a kitten as he shook me out of my shirt. He folded my clothes neatly and set them aside. ‘Minimal alibis will work. If I made too much effort to appear guiltless, people might think I cared. They might start then to pay attention themselves. So, I simply know nothing. My man saw you enter with Burrich after I had left. And I go now to complain to August that you never came to talk with me so that I might forgive you, as I had promised Princess Kettricken. I will reprimand August most severely for not bringing you himself.’ He looked around. ‘Let’s see. A nice deep hot one. Right here.’ I clutched at his throat as he levered me up to the edge, but he shook me off easily.

‘Goodbye, bastard,’ he said calmly. ‘Pardon my haste, but you have quite delayed me. I must rush to dress myself. Or I shall be late for the wedding.’

And he tumbled me in.

The pool was deeper than I was tall, designed to be neck-high on a tall Chyurda. It was painfully hot to my unprepared body. It drove the air from my lungs and I sank. I pushed feebly off the bottom and managed to get my face above water. ‘Burrich!’ I wasted my breath on a shout to someone who could not aid me. The water closed on me again. My arms and legs would not work together. I blundered into a wall and pushed myself under before I could once again surface and gasp in some air. The hot water was loosening my already flaccid muscles. I think I would still have been drowning even if the water had been only knee-deep.

I lost count of how many times I floundered to the surface, to gasp a breath. The smooth, worked stone of the walls eluded my palsied grip, and my ribs stabbed with pain each time I tried for a deep breath. My strength was flowing out of me, lassitude flowing in. So warm, so deep. Drowned like a puppy, I thought to myself as I felt the darkness closing. Boy? someone queried, but all was black.

So much water, so hot and so deep. I could not find a bottom any more, let alone a side. I struggled feebly against the water, but there was no resistance. No up, no down. No use fighting to stay alive inside my body. Nothing left to protect, so drop the walls, and see if there is one last service you can render your king. The walls of my world fell away from me, and I sped forth like an arrow finally released. Galen had been right. There was no distance in Skilling, no distance at all. Buckkeep was right here, and Shrewd! I shrieked in desperation. But my king was intent upon other things. He was closed and walled to me, no matter how I stormed around him. No help there.

My body was failing, my thread to it was tenuous. One last chance. Verity, Verity! I cried. I found him, flailed at him, but could find no purchase, no grip. He was elsewhere, open to someone else, closed to me. Verity! I wailed, drowning in despair. And suddenly it was as if strong hands gripped mine as I scrabbled up a slippery cliff, gripped and held tight and drew me in when I would have slipped away.

Chivalry! No, it can’t be, it’s the boy! Fitz?

You imagine things, my prince. There is no one there. Attend to what we do now . Galen, calm and insidious as poison as he pushed me aside. I could not withstand him; he was too strong.

Fitz? Verity, unsure now as I grew weaker.

From I knew not where, I found strength. Something gave way before me, and I was strong. I clung to Verity like a hawk on his wrist. I was there with him. I saw with Verity’s eyes: the freshly-decked throne room, the Book of Events on the great table before him, laid open to receive the recording of Verity’s marriage. Around him, in their best finery and most costly jewels, the few honoured ones who had been invited to witness Verity witnessing his bride’s pledge through August’s eyes. And Galen, who was supposed to be offering his strength as a King’s man, was poised beside and slightly behind Verity, waiting to drain him dry. Shrewd, in crown and robe upon his throne, was all unknowing, his Skill burned and dulled away years ago by misuse, and him too proud to admit it.

Like an echo, I saw through August’s eyes as Kettricken stood pale as a wax candle on a dais before all her people. She was telling them, simply and kindly, that last night Rurisk had finally succumbed to the arrow-wound he had taken on the Ice Fields. She hoped to please his memory by pledging herself as he had helped arrange, to the King-in-Waiting of the Six Duchies. She turned to face Regal.