Assassin’s Apprentice

But Kerry and I and Nosy would sit under the tables with our backs braced against the legs, nibbling penny sweetloaves, and listen wide-eyed to tales of red-keeled ships with a dozen bodies swinging from their yardarms, not dead, no, but bound men who jerked and shrieked when the gulls came down to peck at them. We would listen to deliciously scary tales until even the stuffy taverns seemed chilling cold, and then we would race down to the docks again, to earn another penny.

Once Kerry, Molly and I built a raft of driftwood logs and poled it about under the docks. We left it tied up there, and when the tide came up, it battered loose a whole section of dock and damaged two skiffs. For days we dreaded that someone would discover we were the culprits. And one time a tavern-keeper boxed Kerry’s ears and accused us both of stealing. Our revenge was the stinking herring we wedged up under the supports of his table-tops. It rotted and stank and made flies for days before he found it.

I learned a smattering of trades in my travels: fish-buying, net-mending, boat-building and idling. I learned even more of human nature. I became a quick judge of who would actually pay the promised penny for a message delivered, and who would just laugh at me when I came to collect. I knew which baker could be begged from, and which shops were easiest to thieve from. And through it all, Nosy was at my side, so bonded to me now that I seldom separated my mind completely from his. I used his nose, his eyes and his jaws as freely as my own, and never thought it the least bit strange.

So the better part of the summer passed. But one fine day, with the sun riding a sky bluer than the sea, my good fortune came at last to an end. Molly, Kerry and I had pilfered a fine string of liver sausages from a smoke-house and were fleeing down the street with the rightful owner in pursuit. Nosy was with us, as always. The other children had come to accept him as a part of me. I don’t think it ever occurred to them to wonder at our singleness of mind. Newboy and Nosy we were, and they probably thought it but a clever trick that Nosy would know before I threw where to be to catch our shared bounty. Thus there were actually four of us, racing down the cluttered street, passing the sausages from grubby hand to damp jaws and back to hand again while behind us the owner bellowed and chased us in vain.

Then Burrich stepped out of a shop.

I was running toward him. We recognized one another in a moment of mutual dismay. The blackness of the look that appeared on his face left me no doubts about my conduct. Flee, I decided in a breath, and dodged away from his reaching hands, only to discover in sudden befuddlement that I had somehow run right into him.

I do not like to dwell on what happened next. I was soundly cuffed, not only by Burrich but by the enraged owner of the sausages. All my fellow culprits save Nosy evaporated into the nooks and crannies of the street. Nosy came bellying up to Burrich, to be cuffed and scolded. I watched in agony as Burrich took coins from his pouch to pay the sausage man. He kept a grip on the back of my shirt that nearly lifted me off my feet. When the sausage man had departed and the little crowd who had gathered to watch my discomfiture were dispersing, he finally released me. I wondered at the look of disgust he gave me. With one more backhanded cuff on the back of my head, he commanded, ‘Get home. Now.’

We did, more speedily than ever we had before. We found our pallet before the hearth, and waited in trepidation. And waited, and waited, through the long afternoon and into early evening. Both of us got hungry, but knew better than to leave. There had been something in Burrich’s face more frightening than even the anger of Molly’s papa.

When Burrich did come, full night was in place. We heard his step on the stair, and I did not need Nosy’s keener senses to know that Burrich had been drinking. We shrank in on ourselves as he let himself into the dimmed room. His breathing was heavy, and it took him longer than usual to kindle several tapers from the single one I had set out. That done, he dropped onto a bench and regarded the two of us. Nosy whined, and then fell over on his side in puppy supplication. I longed to do the same, but contented myself with looking up at him fearfully. After a moment, he spoke.

‘Fitz. What’s to come of you? What’s to come of us both? Running with beggar-thieves in the streets, with the blood of kings in your veins. Packing up like animals.’

I didn’t speak.

‘And me as much to blame as you, I suppose. Come here, then. Come here, boy.’

I ventured a step or two closer. I didn’t like coming too close.

Burrich frowned at my caution. ‘Are you hurt, boy?’

I shook my head.

‘Then come here.’

I hesitated, and Nosy whined in an agony of indecision.

Burrich glanced down at him in puzzlement. I could see his mind working through a wine-induced haze. His eyes went from the pup to me and back again, and a sickened look spread across his face. He shook his head. Slowly he stood and walked away from the table and the pup, favouring his damaged leg. In the corner of the chamber there was a small rack, supporting an assortment of dusty tools and objects. Slowly Burrich reached up and took one down. It was made of wood and leather, stiff with disuse. He swung it, and the short leather lash smacked smartly against his leg. ‘Know what this is, boy?’ he asked gently, in a kind voice.

I shook my head mutely.

‘Dog whip.’

I looked at him blankly. There was nothing in my experience or Nosy’s to tell me how to react to this. He must have seen my confusion. He smiled genially and his voice remained friendly, but I sensed something hidden in his manner, something waiting.

‘It’s a tool, fitz. A teaching device. When you get a pup that won’t mind – when you say to a pup, “come here”, and the pup refuses to come – well, a few sharp lashes from this and the pup learns to listen and obey the first time. Just a few sharp cuts is all it takes to make a pup learn to mind.’ He spoke casually as he lowered the whip and let the short lash dance lightly over the floor. Neither Nosy nor I could take our eyes off it, and when he suddenly flipped the whole object at Nosy, the pup gave a yelp of terror and leaped back from it, and then rushed to cower behind me.

And Burrich sank down slowly, covering his eyes as he folded himself onto a bench by the fireplace. ‘Oh, Eda,’ he breathed, between a curse and a prayer. ‘I guessed, I suspected, when I saw you running together like that, but damn El’s eyes, I didn’t want to be right. I didn’t want to be right. I’ve never hit a pup with that damn thing in my life. Nosy had no reason to fear it. Not unless you’d been sharing minds with him.’

Whatever the danger had been, I sensed that it had passed. I sank down to sit beside Nosy, who crawled up into my lap and nosed at my face anxiously. I quieted him, suggesting we wait to see what happened next. Boy and pup, we sat, watching Burrich’s stillness. When he finally raised his face, I was astounded to see that he looked as if he had been crying. ‘Like my mother,’ I remember thinking, but oddly I cannot now recall an image of her weeping. Only of Burrich’s grieved face.

‘Fitz. Boy. Come here,’ he said softly, and this time there was something in his voice that could not be disobeyed. I rose and went to him, Nosy at my heels. ‘No,’ he said to the pup, and pointed to a place by his boot, but me he lifted onto the bench beside him.

‘Fitz,’ he began, and then paused. He took a deep breath and started again. ‘Fitz, this is wrong. It’s bad, very bad, what you’ve been doing with this pup. It’s unnatural. It’s worse than stealing or lying. It makes a man less than a man. Do you understand me?’

I looked at him blankly. He sighed, and tried again.

‘Boy, you’re of the royal blood. Bastard or not, you’re Chivalry’s own son, of the old line. And this thing you’re doing, it’s wrong. It’s not worthy of you. Do you understand?’

I shook my head mutely.

‘There, you see. You’re not talking any more. Now talk to me. Who taught you to do this?’

I tried. ‘Do what?’ My voice felt creaky and rough.

Burrich’s eyes grew rounder. I sensed his effort at control. ‘You know what I mean. Who taught you to be with the dog, in his mind, seeing things with him, letting him see with you, telling each other things?’

I mulled this over for a moment. Yes, that was what had been happening. ‘No one,’ I answered at last. ‘It just happened. We were together a lot,’ I added, thinking that might explain it.

Burrich regarded me gravely. ‘You don’t speak like a child,’ he observed suddenly. ‘But I’ve heard that was the way of it, with those who had the old Wit. That from the beginning, they were never truly children. They always knew too much, and as they got older, they knew even more. That was why it was never accounted a crime, in the old days, to hunt them down and burn them. Do you understand what I’m telling you, fitz?’

I shook my head, and when he frowned at my silence, I forced myself to add, ‘But I’m trying. What is the old Wit?’

Burrich looked incredulous, then suspicious. ‘Boy!’ he threatened me, but I only looked at him. After a moment, he conceded my ignorance.

‘The Wit,’ he began slowly. His face darkened, and he looked down at his hands as if remembering an ancient sin. ‘It’s the power of the beast blood, just as the Skill comes from the line of kings. It starts out like a blessing, giving you the tongues of the animals. But then it seizes you and draws you down, makes you a beast like the rest of them. Until finally there’s not a shred of humanity in you, and you run and give tongue and taste blood, as if the pack were all you had ever known. Until no man could look on you and think you had ever been a man.’ His voice had become lower and lower as he spoke, and he had not looked at me, but had turned to the fire and stared into the failing flames there. ‘There’s some as say a man takes on the shape of a beast then, but he kills with a man’s passion rather than a beast’s simple hunger. Kills for the killing …

‘Is that what you want, fitz? To take the blood of kings that’s in you, and drown it in the blood of the wild hunt? To be as a beast among beasts, simply for the sake of the knowledge it brings you? Worse yet, think on what comes before. Will the scent of fresh blood touch off your temper, will the sight of prey shut down your thoughts?’ His voice grew softer still, and I heard the sickness he felt as he asked me, ‘Will you wake fevered and asweat because somewhere a bitch is in season and your companion scents it? Will that be the knowledge you take to your lady’s bed?’

I sat small beside him. ‘I do not know,’ I said in a little voice.

He turned to face me, outraged. ‘You don’t know?’ he growled. ‘I tell you where it will lead, and you say you don’t know?’

My tongue was dry in my mouth and Nosy cowered at my feet. ‘But I don’t know,’ I protested. ‘How can I know what I’ll do, until I’ve done it? How can I say?’

‘Well, if you can’t say, I can!’ he roared, and I sensed then in full how he had banked the fires of his temper, and also how much he’d drunk that night. ‘The pup goes and you stay. You stay here, in my care, where I can keep an eye on you. If Chivalry will not have me with him, it’s the least I can do for him. I’ll see that his son grows up a man, and not a wolf. I’ll do it if it kills both of us!’

He lurched from the bench to seize Nosy by the scruff of the neck. At least, such was his intention. But the pup and I sprang clear of him. Together we rushed for the door, but the latch was fastened and before I could work it, Burrich was upon us. Nosy he shoved aside with his boot; me he seized by a shoulder and propelled me away. ‘Come here, pup,’ he commanded, but Nosy fled to my side. Burrich stood panting and glaring by the door, and I caught the growling undercurrent of his thoughts, the fury that taunted him to smash us both and be done with it. Control overlay it, but that brief glimpse was enough to terrify me. And when he suddenly sprang at us, I repelled at him with all the force of my fear.

He dropped as suddenly as a bird stoned in flight, and sat for a moment on the floor. I stooped and clutched Nosy to me. Burrich slowly shook his head as if shaking raindrops from his hair. He stood, towering over us. ‘It’s in his blood,’ I heard him mutter to himself. ‘From his damned mother’s blood, and I shouldn’t be surprised. But the boy has to be taught.’ And then, as he looked me full in the eye, he warned me, ‘Fitz. Never do that to me again. Never. Now, give me that pup.’

He advanced on us again, and as I felt the lap of his hidden wrath, I could not contain myself. I repelled at him again. But this time my defence was met by a wall that hurled it back at me, so that I stumbled and sank down, almost fainting, my mind pressed down by blackness. Burrich stooped over me. ‘I warned you,’ he said softly, and his voice was like the growling of a wolf. Then, for the last time, I felt his fingers grip Nosy’s scruff. He lifted the pup bodily, and carried him, not roughly, to the door. The latch that had eluded me he worked swiftly, and in moments I heard the heavy tromp of his boots down the stair.

In a moment I had recovered and was up, flinging myself against the door. But Burrich had locked it somehow, for I scrabbled vainly at the catch. My sense of Nosy receded as he was carried farther and farther from me, leaving in its place a desperate loneliness. I whimpered, then howled, clawing at the door, and seeking after my contact with him. There was a sudden flash of red pain, and Nosy was gone. As his canine senses deserted me completely, I screamed and cried as any six-year-old might, and hammered vainly at the thick wood planks.

It seemed hours before Burrich returned. I heard his step, and lifted my head from where I lay panting and exhausted on the doorstep. He opened the door, and then caught me deftly by the back of my shirt as I tried to dart past him. He jerked me back into the room, and then slammed the door and fastened it again. I flung myself wordlessly against it, and a whimpering rose in my throat. Burrich sat down wearily.

‘Don’t even think it, boy,’ he cautioned me, as if he could hear my wild plans for the next time he let me out. ‘He’s gone. The pup’s gone, and a damn shame, for he was good blood. His line was nearly as long as yours. But I’d rather waste a hound than a man.’ When I did not move, he added, almost kindly, ‘Let go of longing after him. It hurts less, that way.’

But I did not, and I could hear in his voice that he hadn’t really expected me to. He sighed, and moved slowly as he readied himself for bed. He didn’t speak to me again, just extinguished the lamp and settled himself on his bed. But he did not sleep, and it was still hours short of morning when he rose and lifted me from the floor and placed me in the warm place his body had left in the blankets. He went out again, and did not return for some hours.

As for me, I was heartsick and feverish for days. Burrich, I believe, let it be known that I had some childish ailment, and so I was left in peace. It was days before I was allowed out again, and then it was not on my own.

Afterward, Burrich was at pains to see that I was given no chance to bond with any beast. I am sure he thought he’d succeeded, and to some extent he did, in that I did not form an exclusive bond with any hound or horse. I know he meant well. But I did not feel protected by him, but confined. He was the warden that ensured my isolation with fanatical fervour. Utter loneliness was planted in me then, and sent its deep roots down into me.

THREE

Covenant

The original source of the Skill will probably remain forever shrouded in mystery. Certainly a penchant for it runs remarkably strong within the royal family, and yet it is not solely confined to the King’s household. There does seem to be some truth to the folk saying, ‘When the sea blood flows with the blood of the plains, the Skill will blossom’. It is interesting to note that the Outislanders seem to have no predilection for the Skill, nor the folk descended solely from the original inhabitants of the Six Duchies.

Is it the nature of the world that all things seek a rhythm, and in that rhythm a sort of peace? Certainly it has always seemed so to me. All events, no matter how earth-shaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their ploughing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.

So it proved for me. I look back on myself and wonder. Separated from my mother, dragged off to a new city and clime, abandoned by my father to the care of his man, and then bereft of my puppy companion, I still rose from my bed one day and resumed a small boy’s life. For me, that meant rising when Burrich awoke me, and following him to the kitchens, where I ate beside him. After that, I was Burrich’s shadow. He seldom allowed me out of his sight. I’d dog his heels, watching him at his tasks, and eventually assisting him in many small ways. Evening brought a meal during which I sat at his side on a bench and ate, my manners supervised by his sharp eyes. Then it was up to his quarters, where I might spend the rest of the evening watching the fire in silence while he drank, or watching the fire in silence awaiting his return. He worked while he drank, mending or making harness, compounding a salve, or rendering down a physic for a horse. He worked, and I learned, watching him, though few words passed between us that I recall. Odd to think of two years, and most of another one passed in such a way.

I learned to do as Molly did, stealing bits of time for myself on the days when Burrich was called away to assist in a hunt or help a mare birth. Once in a great while I dared to slip out when he had drunk more than he could manage, but those were dangerous outings. When I was free, I would hastily seek out my young companions in the city and run with them for as long as I dared. I missed Nosy with a keenness as great as if Burrich had severed a limb from my body. But neither of us ever spoke of that.

Looking back, I suppose he was as lonely as I. Chivalry had not allowed Burrich to follow him into his exile. Instead, he had been left to care for a nameless bastard, and found that the bastard had a penchant for what he regarded as a perversion. And even after his leg healed he discovered he would never ride nor hunt nor even walk as well as he once had; all that had to be hard, hard for a man such as Burrich. He never whined about it to anyone, that I heard. But again, in looking back, I cannot imagine to whom he could have made complaint. Locked into loneliness were we two, and looking at one another every evening, we each saw the one we blamed for it.

Yet all things must pass, but especially time, and with the months and then the years, I came slowly to have a place in the scheme of things. I fetched for Burrich, bringing before he had thought to ask for it, and tidied up after his ministrations to the beasts, and saw to clean water for the hawks and picked ticks off dogs come home from the hunt. Folk got used to seeing me, and no longer stared. Some seemed not to see me at all. Gradually Burrich relaxed his watch on me. I came and went more freely, but still took care that he should not know of my sojourns into town.

There were other children within the keep, many about my own age. Some were even related to me, second cousins or third. Yet I never formed any real bonds with any of them. The younger ones were kept by their mothers or caretakers, the older ones had their own tasks and chores to occupy them. Most were not cruel to me; I was simply outside their circles. So, although I might not see Dick or Kerry or Molly for months, they remained my closest friends. In my explorations of the keep, and on winter evenings when all gathered in the Great Hall for minstrels, or puppet shows or indoor games, I swiftly learned where I was welcome and where I was not.

I kept myself out of the Queen’s view, for whenever she saw me, she would always find some fault with my behaviour and have Burrich reproached with it. Regal, too, was a source of danger. He had most of his man’s growth, but did not scruple to shove me out of his path or walk casually through whatever I had found to play with. He was capable of a pettiness and vindictiveness that I never encountered in Verity. Not that Verity ever took time with me, but our chance encounters were never unpleasant. If he noticed me, he would tousle my hair, or offer me a penny. Once a servant brought to Burrich’s quarters some little wooden toys, soldiers and horses and a cart, their paint much worn, with a message that Verity had found them in a corner of his clothing chest and thought I might enjoy them. I cannot think of any other possession I ever valued more.

Cob in the stables was another danger zone. If Burrich were about, he spoke me fair and treated me evenly, but had small use for me at other times. He gave me to understand he did not want me about and underfoot where he was working. I found out eventually that he was jealous of me, and felt my care had replaced the interest Burrich had once taken in him. He was never overtly cruel, never struck me or scolded me unfairly; but I could sense his distaste for me, and avoided him.

All the men-at-arms showed a great tolerance for me. After the street children of Buckkeep Town, they were probably the closest I had to friends. But no matter how tolerant men may be of a boy of nine or ten, there is precious little in common. I watched their bone games and listened to their stories, but for every hour I spent among their company, there were days when I did not go amongst them at all. And while Burrich never forbade me the guardroom, he did not conceal that he disapproved of the time I spent there.

So I was and was not a member of the keep community. I avoided some and I observed some and I obeyed some. But with none did I feel a bond.

Then one morning, when I was still a bit shy of my tenth year I was at play under the tables in the Great Hall, tumbling and teasing with the puppies. It was quite early in the day. There had been an occasion of some sort the day before, and the feasting had lasted the whole day and well into the night. Burrich had drunk himself senseless. Almost everyone, noble or servants, was still abed, and the kitchen had not yielded up much to my hungry venturing that morning. But the tables in the Great Hall were a trove of broken pastries and dishes of meat. There were bowls of apples as well, slabs of cheese; in short, all a boy could wish for plundering. The great dogs had taken the best bones and retreated to their own corners of the hall, leaving various pups to scrabble for the smaller bits. I had taken a rather large meat pasty under the table and was sharing it out with my chosen favourites among the pups. Ever since Nosy, I had taken care that Burrich should not see me to have too great an affinity with any one puppy. I still did not understand why he objected to my closeness to a hound, but I would not risk the life of a puppy to dispute it with him. So I was alternating bites with three whelps when I heard slow footsteps threshing across the reed-strewn floor. Two men were speaking, discussing something in low tones.

I thought it was the kitchen servants, come to clear away. I scrabbled from beneath the table to snare a few more choice leavings before they were gone.

But it was no servant who startled at my sudden appearance but the old King, my grandfather, himself. A scant step behind him, at his elbow, was Regal. His bleary eyes and rumpled doublet attested to his participation in last night’s revelries. The King’s new Fool, but recently acquired, pattered after them, pale eyes agoggle in an eggshell face. He was so strange a creature, with his pasty skin and motley all of blacks and whites, that I scarce dared to look at him. In contrast, King Shrewd was clear of eye, his beard and hair freshly groomed and his clothing immaculate. For an instant he was surprised, and then remarked, ‘You see, Regal, it is as I was telling you. An opportunity presents itself, and someone seizes it; often someone young, or someone driven by the energies and hungers of youth. Royalty has no leisure to ignore such opportunities, or to let them be created for others.’