Assassins Apprentice, Page 34

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  The poisons were no crueler than they had to be, but to be effective even in the smallest dosage, we had to use harsh ones. The Forged ones did not die gently, but it was as swift a death as Chade could concoct. They snatched their deaths from me eagerly, and I did not have to witness their frothing convulsions, or even see their bodies by the road. When news of the fallen Forged ones reached Buckkeep, Chade’s tale that they had probably died from eating spoiled fish from spawning streams had already spread as a ubiquitous rumor. Relatives collected the bodies and gave them proper burial. I told myself they were probably relieved, and that the Forged ones had met a quicker end than if they had starved to death over winter. And so I became accustomed to killing, and had nearly a score of deaths to my credit before I had to meet the eyes of a man, and then kill him.

  That one, too, was not so difficult as it might have been. He was a minor lordling, holding lands outside of Turlake. A story reached Buckkeep that he had, in a temper, struck the child of a servant, and left the girl a witling. That was sufficient to raise King Shrewd’s lip. The lordling had paid the full blood debt, and by accepting it, the servant had given up any form of the King’s justice. But some months later there came to court a cousin of the girl’s, and she petitioned for private audience with Shrewd.

  I was sent to confirm her tale and saw how the girl was kept like a dog at the foot of the lordling’s chair, and more, how her belly had begun to swell with child. And so it was not too difficult, as he offered me wine in fine crystal and begged the latest news of the King’s court at Buckkeep, for me to find a time to lift his glass to the light and praise the quality of both vessel and wine. I left some days later, my errand completed, with the samples of paper I had promised Fedwren, and the conveyed wishes of the lordling for a good trip home. The lordling was indisposed that day. He died, in blood and madness and froth, a month or so later. The cousin took in both girl and child. To this day, I have no regrets, for the deed or for the choice of slow death for him.

  And when I was not dealing death to Forged ones, I waited on my lord Prince Verity. I remember the first time I climbed all those stairs to his tower, balancing a tray as I went. I had expected a guard or sentry at the top. There was none. I tapped at the door, and receiving no answer, entered quietly. Verity was sitting in a chair by a window. A summer wind off the ocean blew into the room. It could have been a pleasant chamber, full of light and air on a stuffy summer day. Instead it seemed to me a cell. There was the chair by the window, and a small table next to it. In the corners and around the edges of the room the floor was dusty and littered with bits of old strewing reeds. And Verity, chin slumped to his chest as if dozing, except that to my senses the room thrummed with his effort. His hair was unkempt, his chin bewhiskered with a day’s growth. His clothing hung on him.

  I pushed the door shut with my foot and took the tray to the table. I set it down and stood beside it, quietly waiting. And in a few minutes he came back from wherever he had been. He looked up at me with a ghost of his old smile, and then down at his tray. “What’s this?”

  “Breakfast, sir. Everyone else ate hours ago, save yourself. ”

  “I ate, boy. Early this morning. Some awful fish soup. The cooks should be hanged for that. No one should face fish first thing in the morning. ” He seemed uncertain, like some doddering gaffer trying to recall the days of his youth.

  “That was yesterday, sir. ” I uncovered the plates. Warm bread swirled with honey and raisins, cold meats, a dish of strawberries, and a small pot of cream for them. All were small portions, almost a child’s serving. I poured the steaming tea into a waiting mug. It was flavored heavily with ginger and peppermint, to cover the ground elfbark’s tang.

  Verity glanced at it and then up to me. “Chade never relents, does he?” Spoken so casually, as if Chade’s name were mentioned every day about the keep.

  “You need to eat, if you are to continue,” I said neutrally.

  “I suppose,” he said wearily, and turned to the tray as if the artfully arranged food were yet another duty to attend. He ate with no relish for the food, and drank the tea in a manful draft, as a medicine, undeceived by ginger or mint. Halfway through the meal he paused with a sigh and gazed out the window for a bit. Then, seeming to come back again, he forced himself to consume each item completely. He pushed the tray aside and leaned back in the chair as if exhausted. I stared. I had prepared the tea myself. That much elfbark would have had Sooty leaping over the stall walls.

  “My prince?” I said, and when he did not stir, I touched his shoulder lightly. “Verity? Are you all right?”

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  “Verity,” he repeated as in a daze. “Yes. And I prefer that to “sir’ or “my prince’ or “my lord. ’ This is my father’s gambit, to send you. Well. I may surprise him yet. But, yes, call me Verity. And tell them I ate. Obedient as ever, I ate. Go on, now, boy. I have work to do. ”

  He seemed to roust himself with an effort, and once more his gaze went afar. I stacked the dishes as quietly as I could atop the tray and headed toward the door. But as I lifted the latch, he spoke again.

  “Boy?”

  “Sir?”

  “Ah-ah!” he warned me.

  “Verity?”

  “Leon is in my rooms, boy. Take him out for me, will you? He pines. There is no sense in the both of us shriveling like this. ”

  “Yes, sir. Verity. ”

  And so the old hound, past his prime now, came to be in my care. Each day I took him from Verity’s room, and we hunted the back hills and cliffs and the beaches for wolves that had not run there in a score of years. As Chade had suspected, I was badly out of condition, and at first it was all I could do to keep up even with the old hound. But as the days went by we regained our tone, and Leon even caught a rabbit or two for me. Now that I was exiled from Burrich’s domain, I did not scruple to use the Wit whenever I wished. But as I had discovered long ago, I could communicate with Leon, but there was no bond. He did not always heed me, nor even believe me all the time. Had he been but a pup, I am sure we could have bonded to one another. But he was old, and his heart given forever to Verity. The Wit was not dominion over beasts, but only a glimpse into their lives.

  And thrice a day I climbed the steeply winding steps, to coax Verity to eat, and to a few words of conversation. Some days it was like speaking to a child or a doddering oldster. On others, he asked after Leon and quizzed me about matters down in Buckkeep Town. Sometimes I was absent for days on my other assignments. Usually, he seemed not to have noticed, but once, after the foray in which I took my knife wound, he watched me awkwardly load his empty dishes onto the tray. “How they must laugh in their beards, if they knew we slay our own. ”

  I froze, wondering what answer to make to that, for as far as I knew, my tasks were known only to Shrewd and Chade. But Verity’s eyes had gone afar again, and I left silently.

  Without intending to, I began to make changes around him. One day, while he was eating, I swept the room, and later that evening, brought up in a separate trip a sackful of strewing reeds and herbs. I had worried that I might be a distraction to him, but Chade had taught me to move quietly. I worked without speaking to him, and as for Verity, he acknowledged neither my coming nor going. But the room was freshened, and the ververia blossoms mixed in with the strewing herbs were an enlivening scent. Coming in once, I discovered him dozing in his hard-backed chair. I brought up cushions, which he ignored for several days, and then one day had arranged to his liking. The room remained bare, but I sensed he needed it so, to preserve his single-mindedness. So what I brought him were the barest items of comfort, no tapestries or wall hangings, no vases of flowers or tinkling wind chimes, but flowering thymes in pots to ease the headaches that plagued him, and on one stormy day, a blanket against the rain and chill from the open window.

  On that day I found him sleeping in his chair, limp as a dead thing
. I tucked the blanket around him as if he were an invalid, and set the tray before him, but left it covered, to keep the good heat in the food. I sat down on the floor next to his chair, propped against one of his discarded cushions, and listened to the silence of the room. It seemed almost peaceful today, despite the driving summer rain outside the open window, and the gale wind that gusted in from time to time. I must have dozed, for I woke to his hand on my hair.

  “Do they tell you to watch over me so, boy, even when I sleep? What do they fear, then?”

  “Naught that I know, Verity. They tell me only to bring you food, and see as best I can that you eat it. No more than that. ”

  “And blankets and cushions, and pots of sweet flowers?”

  “My own doing, my prince. No man should live in such a desert as this. ” And in that moment I realized we were not speaking aloud, and sat bolt upright and looked at him.

  Verity, too, seemed to come to himself. He shifted in his comfortless chair. “I bless this storm, that lets me rest. I hid it from three of their ships, persuading those who looked to the sky that it was no more than a summer squall. Now they ply their oars and peer through the rain, trying to keep their courses. And I can snatch a few moments of honest sleep. ” He paused. “I ask your pardon, boy. Sometimes, now, the Skilling seems more natural than speaking. I did not mean to intrude on you. ”

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  “No matter, my prince. I was but startled. I cannot Skill myself, except weakly and erratically. I do not know how I opened to you. ”

  “Verity, boy, not your prince. No one’s prince sits still in a sweaty shirt, with two days of beard. But what is this nonsense? Surely it was arranged for you to learn the Skill? I remember well how Patience’s tongue battered away my father’s resolve. ” He permitted himself a weary smile.

  “Galen tried to teach me, but I had not the aptitude. With bastards, I am told it is often—”

  “Wait,” he growled, and in an instant was within my mind. “This is faster,” he offered, by way of apology, and then, muttering to himself, “What is this that clouds you so? Ah!” and was gone again from my mind, and all as deft and easy as Burrich taking a tick off a hound’s ear. He sat long, quiet, and so did I, wondering.

  “I am strong in it, as was your father. Galen is not. ”

  “Then how did he become Skillmaster?” I asked quietly. I wondered if Verity was saying this only to somehow make me feel my failure less.

  Verity paused as if skirting a delicate subject. “Galen was Queen Desire’s . . . pet. A favorite. The Queen emphatically suggested Galen as apprentice to Solicity. Often I think our old Skillmaster was desperate when she took him as apprentice. Solicity knew she was dying, you see. I believe she acted in haste, and toward the end, regretted her decision. And I do not think he had half the training he should have had before becoming “master. ’ But there he is; he is what we have. ”

  Verity cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “I will speak as plainly as I can, boy, for I see that you know how to hold your tongue when it is wise. Galen was given that place as a plum, not because he merited it. I do not think he has ever fully grasped what it means to be the Skillmaster. Oh, he knows the position carries power, and he has not scrupled to wield it. But Solicity was more than someone who swaggered about secure in a high position. Solicity was adviser to Bounty, and a link between the King and all who Skilled for him. She made it her business to seek out and teach as many as manifested real talent and the judgment to use it well. This coterie is the first group Galen has trained since Chivalry and I were boys. And I do not find them well taught. No, they are trained, as monkeys and parrots are taught to mimic men, with no understanding of what they do. But they are what I have. ” Verity looked out the window and spoke softly. “Galen has no finesse. He is as coarse as his mother was, and just as presumptuous. ” Verity paused suddenly, and his cheeks flushed as if he had said something ill considered. He resumed more quietly. “The Skill is like language, boy. I need not shout at you to let you know what I want. I can ask politely, or hint, or let you know my wish with a nod and a smile. I can Skill a man, and leave him thinking it was all his own idea to please me. But all that eludes Galen, both in the use of the Skill and the teaching of it. He uses force to batter his way in. Privation and pain are one way to lower a man’s defenses; it is the only way Galen believes in. But Solicity used guile. She would have me watch a kite, or a bit of dust floating in a sunbeam, focusing on it as if there were nothing else in the world. And suddenly there she would be, inside my mind with me, smiling and praising me. She taught me that being open was simply not being closed. And going into another’s mind is mostly done by being willing to go outside of your own. Do you see, boy?”

  “Somewhat,” I hedged.

  “Somewhat. ” He sighed. “I could teach you to Skill, had I but the time. I do not. But tell me this—were your lessons going well, before he tested you?”

  “No. I never had any aptitude . . . wait! That’s not true! What am I saying, what have I been thinking?” Though I was sitting, I swayed suddenly, my head bounding off the arm of Verity’s chair. He reached out a hand and steadied me.

  “I was too swift, I suppose. Steady now, boy. Someone had misted you. Befuddled you, much as I do Red-Ship navigators and steersmen. Convince them they’ve taken a sighting already and their course is true when really they are steering into a cross current. Convince them they’ve passed a point they haven’t sighted yet. Someone convinced you that you could not Skill. ”

  “Galen. ” I spoke with certainty. I almost knew the moment. He had slammed into me that afternoon, and from that time nothing had been the same. I had been living in a fog, all those months. . . .

  “Probably. Though if you Skilled into him at all, I’m sure you’ve seen what Chivalry did to him. He hated your father with a passion, prior to Chiv turning him into a lapdog. We felt badly about it. We’d have undone it, if we could have figured out how to do it, and escape Solicity’s detection. But Chiv was strong with the Skill, and we were all but boys then, and Chiv was angry when he did it. Over something Galen had done to me, ironically. Even when Chivalry was not angry, being Skilled by him was like being trampled by a horse. Or ducked in a fast-flowing river, more like. He’d get in a hurry, and barge into you and dump his information and flee. ” He paused again and reached to uncover a dish of soup on his tray. “I guess I’ve always assumed you knew all this. Though I’m damned if there’s any way you could have. Who would have told you?”

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  I seized on one piece of information. “You could teach me to Skill?”

  “If I had time. A great deal of time. You’re a lot like Chiv and I were, when we learned. Erratic. Strong, but with no idea how to bring that strength to bear. And Galen has . . . well, scarred you, I suppose. You’ve walls I can’t begin to penetrate, and I am strong. You’d have to learn to drop them. That’s a hard thing. But I could teach you, yes. If you and I had a year, and nothing else to do. ” He pushed the soup aside. “But we don’t. ”

  My hopes crashed again. This second wave of disappointment engulfed me, grinding me against stones of frustration. My memories all reordered themselves, and in a surge of anger, I knew all that had been done to me. Were it not for Smithy, I’d have dashed my life out at the base of the tower that night. Galen had tried to kill me, just as surely as if he’d had a knife. No one would even have known of how he’d beaten me, save his loyal coterie. And while he’d failed at that, he had taken from me the chance to learn Skilling. He’d crippled me, and I would . . . I leaped to my feet, furious.

  “Whoa. Be slow and careful. You have a grievance, but we cannot have discord within the keep itself right now. Carry it with you until you can settle it quietly, for the King’s sake. ” I bowed my head to the wisdom of his counsel. He lifted the cover from a small roast fowl, dropped it again. “Why would you want to learn this Skill
anyway? It’s a miserable thing. No fit occupation for a man. ”

  “To help you,” I said without thinking, and then found it true. Once it would have been to prove myself a true and fit son to Chivalry, to impress Burrich or Chade, to increase my standing in the keep. Now, after watching what Verity did, day after day, with no praise or acknowledgment from his subjects, I found I only wanted to help him.

  “To help me,” he repeated. The storm winds were slackening. With exhausted resignation, he lifted his eyes to the window. “Take the food away, boy. I’ve no time for it now. ”

  “But you need strength,” I protested. Guiltily, I knew he had taken time with me that he should have taken for food and sleep.

  “I know. But I have no time. Eating takes energy. Odd to realize that. I have none extra to give to that just now. ” His eyes were questing afar now, staring through the sheeting rain that was just beginning to slacken.

  “I’d give you my strength, Verity. If I could. ”

  He looked at me oddly. “Are you sure? Very sure?”

  I could not understand the intensity of his question, but I knew the answer. “Of course I would. ” And more quietly: “I am a king’s man. ”

  “And of my own blood,” he affirmed. He sighed. For a moment he looked sickened. He looked again at the food, and again out the window. “There is just time,” he whispered. “And it might be enough. Damnation to you, Father. Must you always win? Come here, then, boy. ”

  There was an intensity to his words that frightened me, but I obeyed. When I stood by his chair, he reached out a hand. He placed it on my shoulder, as if he needed assistance to rise.

  I looked up at him from the floor. There was a pillow under my head, and the blanket I had brought up earlier had been tossed over me. Verity stood, leaning out the window. He was shaking with effort, and the Skill he exerted was like battering waves I could almost feel. “Onto the rocks,” he said with deep satisfaction, and whirled from the window. He grinned at me, an old fierce grin, that faded slowly as he looked down on me.

  “Like a calf to the slaughter,” he said ruefully. “I should have known that you didn’t know what you were talking about. ”