Assassin's Apprentice

Highlights

Page 4

suet

Note: New word

Page 4

And when the house-guard continued to stare at him, without judgement or even curiosity, he elaborated. ‘I’ve fed him at my table for six years, and never a word from his father, never a coin, never a visit, though my daughter gives me to understand he knows he fathered a bastard on her. I’ll not feed him any longer, nor break my back at a plough to keep clothes on his back. Let him be fed by him what got him. I’ve enough to tend to of my own, what with my woman getting on in years, and this one’s mother to keep and feed. For not a man will have her now, not a man, not with this pup running at her heels. So you take him, and give him to his father.’ And he let go of me so suddenly that I sprawled to the stone doorstep at the guard’s feet. I scrabbled to a sitting position, not much hurt that I recall, and looked up to see what would happen next between the two men.

Note: Powerful start

Page 6

The other man continued to regard me curiously. ‘How old?’ he asked the guard. ‘Ploughman 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, chivvying them into opening it to us. Looks like it wasn’t the only thing he chivvied open. Damn. Who’d have thought it of him?’

Page 13

One other memory I have of that time, but it is not sharp-edged. Rather it is warm and softly tinted, like a rich old tapestry seen in a dim room. I recall being roused from sleep by the pup’s wriggling and the yellow light of a lantern being held over me. Two men bent over me, but Burrich stood stiffly behind them and I was not afraid. ‘Now you’ve wakened him,’ warned the one, and he was Prince Verity, the man from the warmly-lit chamber of my first evening. ‘So? He’ll go back to sleep as soon as we leave. Damn him, he has his father’s eyes as well. I swear, I’d have known his blood no matter where I saw him. There’ll be no denying it to any that see him. But have neither you nor Burrich the sense of a flea? Bastard or not, you don’t stable a child among beasts. Was there no where else you could put him?’

Note: Like a tapestry. I like that

Page 15

But our father the King is not a hasty man, as well we know. Shrewd is as Shrewd does, as the common folk say. He forbade any settling of the matter. “Regal,” he said, in that way he has. “Don’t do what you can’t undo, until you’ve considered what you can’t do once you’ve done it.” Then he laughed.’ Regal himself gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I weary so of his humour.’

Page 16

In truth, I was his only failure that year, but I was a monumental one. He preceded us home to Buckkeep, where he abdicated his claim to the throne. By the time we arrived, he and Lady Patience were gone from court, to live as the Lord and Lady of Withywoods. I have been to Withywoods. Its name bears no relationship to its appearance. It is a warm valley, centred on a gently flowing river that carves a wide plain that nestles between gently rising and rolling foothills. A place to grow grapes and grain and plump children. It is a soft holding, far from the borders, far from the politics of court, far from anything that had been Chivalry’s life up to then. It was a pasturing out, a gentle and genteel exile for a man who would have been king. A velvet smothering for a warrior and a silencing of a rare and skilled diplomat.

Page 23

Hidden there, our hearts soon eased down from their wild thumpings, and from calmness we passed into the deep, dreamless sleep reserved for warm spring afternoons and puppies.

Note: Lovely

Page 29

The wind gusted and the man swayed shallowly against it. It brought us a whiff of him. Sweat and beer, Nosy informed me sagely. For a moment the man looked regretful, but then the pain of his sour belly and aching head hardened him.

Note: His dog can communicate with him, and he can read other people’s feelings?

Page 29

She must have believed him, for she only cowered as he advanced on her, putting up her thin arms to shield her head and then seeming to think better of it, and hiding only her face with her hands. I stood transfixed in horror while Nosy yelped with my terror and wet himself at my feet. I heard the swish of the driftwood knob as the club descended. My heart leaped sideways in my chest and I pushed at the man, the force jerking out oddly from my belly. He fell, as had the keg-man the day before. But this man fell clutching at his chest, his driftwood weapon spinning harmlessly away. He dropped to the sand, gave a twitch that spasmed his whole body, and then was still. An instant later Molly unscrewed her eyes, shrinking from the blow she still expected. She saw her father collapsed on the rocky beach, and amazement emptied her face. She leaped toward him crying, ‘Papa, Papa, are you all right? Please, don’t die, I’m sorry I’m such a wicked girl! Don’t die, I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good.’ Heedless of her bleeding knees, she knelt beside him, turning his face so he wouldn’t breathe in sand, and then vainly trying to sit him up. ‘He was going to kill you,’ I told her, trying to make sense of the whole situation. ‘No. He hits me, a bit, when I am bad, but he’d never kill me. And when he is sober and not sick, he cries about it and begs me not to be bad and make him angry. I should take more care not to anger him. Oh, Newboy, I think he’s dead.’

Note: Nice way to describe his power. Also, classic abusive relationship

Page 35

‘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.’

Page 38

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.

Note: Fuck me. He’s not kidding around

Page 39

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.

Page 44

‘Look at him,’ the old King commanded. Regal glared at me, but I dared not move. ‘What will you make of him?’ Regal looked perplexed. ‘Him? It’s the fitz. Chivalry’s bastard. Sneaking and thieving as always.’ ‘Fool.’ King Shrewd smiled, but his eyes remained flinty. The Fool, thinking himself addressed, smiled sweetly. ‘Are your ears stopped with wax? Do you hear nothing I say? I asked you, not “what do you make of him?” but “what will you make of him?”. There he stands, young, strong, and resourceful. His lines are every bit as royal as yours, for all that he was born on the wrong side of the sheets. So, what will you make of him? A tool? A weapon? A comrade? An enemy? Or will you leave him lying about, for someone else to take up and use against you?’ Regal squinted at me, then glanced past me and, finding no one else in the hall, returned his puzzled gaze to me. At my ankle, a pup whined a reminder that earlier we had been sharing. I warned him to hush. ‘The bastard? He’s only a child.’ The old King sighed. ‘Today. This morning and now, he is a child. When next you turn around he will be a youth, or worse, a man, and then it will be too late for you to make anything of him. But take him now, Regal, and shape him, and a decade hence you will command his loyalty. Instead of a discontented bastard who may be persuaded to become a pretender to the throne, he will be a henchman, united to the family by spirit as well as blood. A bastard, Regal, is a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Marital alliances. Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife.’ Regal’s eyes grew round at the King’s last words. For a pause, we all breathed in silence, regarding one another. When Regal spoke, he sounded as if he had dry bread caught in his throat. ‘You speak of these things in front of the boy. Of using him, as a tool, a weapon. You think he will not remember your words when he is grown?’ King Shrewd laughed, and the sound rang against the stone walls of the Great Hall. ‘Remember them? Of course he will. I count on it. Look at his eyes, Regal. There is intelligence there, and possibly potential Skill. I’d be a fool to lie to him. More stupid still simply to begin his training and education with no explanation, for that would leave his mind fallow for whatever seeds others might plant there. Isn’t it so, boy?’

Note: Fantastic

Page 48

For as I entered, Burrich set aside the bit of harness he was mending and focused all his attention on me. He considered me in silence for a bit, and I returned his stare. Something had changed, and I feared. Ever since he had disappeared Nosy, I had believed that Burrich had the power of life and death over me as well; that a fitz could be disposed of as easily as a pup. That hadn’t stopped me from developing a feeling of closeness for him; one needn’t love in order to depend. That sense of being able to rely on Burrich was the only real stability I had in my life, and now I felt it trembling under me.

Note: I feel like highlighting every paragraph

Page 69

‘Boy,’ he said, and the gentleness in his voice startled me into meeting his eyes. ‘I can teach you even if you hate me, or if you despise the lessons. I can teach you if you are bored, or lazy or stupid. But I can’t teach you if you’re afraid to speak to me. At least, not the way I want to teach you. And I can’t teach you if you decide this is something you’d rather not learn. But you have to tell me. You’ve learned to guard your thoughts so well, you’re almost afraid to let yourself know what they are. But try speaking them aloud, now, to me. You won’t be punished.’

Page 76

There were games we played, too. For instance, he would tell me that I must go on the morrow to Sara the cook and ask her if this year’s bacon were leaner than last year’s. And then I must that evening report the entire conversation back to Chade, as close to word perfect as I could, and answer a dozen questions for him about how she stood, and was she left-handed and did she seem hard of hearing and what she was cooking at the time. My shyness and reticence were never accounted a good enough excuse for failing to execute such an assignment, and so I found myself meeting and coming to know a good many of the lesser folk of the keep. Even though my questions were inspired by Chade, every one of them welcomed my interest and was more than willing to share expertise. Without intending it, I began to garner a reputation as a ‘sharp youngster’ and a ‘good lad’. Years later I realized that the lesson was not just a memory exercise but also instruction in how to befriend the commoner folk, and to learn their minds. Many’s the time since then that a smile, a compliment on how well my horse had been cared for, and a quick question put to a stable-boy brought me information that all the coin in the kingdom couldn’t have bribed out of him.

Page 96

So I told him of Fedwren’s offer, and also of my sudden realization that maps were more than lines and colours. They were places and possibilities, and I could leave here and be someone else, be a scribe, or … ‘No.’ Chade spoke softly but abruptly. ‘No matter where you went, you would still be Chivalry’s bastard. Fedwren is more perspicacious than I believed him to be, but he still doesn’t understand. Not the whole picture. He sees that here at court you must always be a bastard, must always be something of a pariah. What he doesn’t realize is that here, partaking of King Shrewd’s bounty, learning your lessons, under his eye, you are not a threat to him. Certainly, you are under Chivalry’s shadow here. Certainly it does protect you. But were you away from here, far from being unneedful of such protection, you would become a danger to King Shrewd, and a greater danger to his heirs after him. You would have no simple life of freedom as a wandering scribe. Rather you would be found in your inn bed with your throat cut some morning, or with an arrow through you on the high road.’ A coldness shivered through me. ‘But why?’ I asked softly. Chade sighed. He dumped the seeds into a dish, dusted his hands lightly to shake loose those that clung to his fingers. ‘Because you’re a royal bastard, and hostage to your own blood-lines. For now, as I say, you’re no threat to Shrewd. You’re too young, and besides, he has you right where he can watch you. But he’s looking down the road. And you should be, too. These are restless times. The Outislanders are getting braver about their raids. The coast folk are beginning to grumble, saying we need more patrol ships, and some say warships of our own, to raid as we are raided. But the Inland Duchies want no part of paying for ships of any kind, especially not warships that might precipitate us into a full-scale war. They complain the coast is all the king thinks of, with no care for their farming. And the mountain folk are becoming more chary about the use of their passes. The trade fees grow steeper every month. So the merchants mumble and complain to each other. To the south, in Sandsedge and beyond, there is drought, and times are hard. Everyone there curses, as if the King and Verity were to blame for that as well. Verity is a fine fellow to have a mug with, but he is neither the soldier nor the diplomat that Chivalry was. He would rather hunt winter buck, or listen to a minstrel by the fireside than travel winter roads in raw weather, just to stay in touch with the other duchies. Sooner or later, if things do not improve, people will look about and say, “Well, a bastard’s not so large a thing to make a fuss over. Chivalry should have come to power; he’d soon put a stop to all this. He might have been a bit stiff about protocol, but at least he got things done, and didn’t let foreigners trample all over us”.’

Note: Very interesting

Page 109

‘But why should I mourn him?’ I asked Chade as I hadn’t dared to ask Burrich. ‘I didn’t even know him.’ ‘He was your father.’ ‘He got me on some woman. When he found out about me, he left. A father. He never cared about me.’ I felt defiant finally saying it out loud. It made me furious, Burrich’s deep wild mourning and now Chade’s quiet sorrow. ‘You don’t know that. You only hear what the gossips say. You aren’t old enough to understand some things. You’ve never seen a wild bird lure predators away from its young by pretending to be injured.’ ‘I don’t believe that,’ I said, but I suddenly felt less confident saying it. ‘He never did anything to make me think he cared about me.’ Chade turned to look at me and his eyes were older, sunken and red. ‘If you had known he’d cared, so would others. When you are a man, maybe you’ll understand just how much that cost him. To not know you in order to keep you safe. To make his enemies ignore you.’ ‘Well, I’ll “not know” him to the end of my days, now,’ I said sulkily. Chade sighed. ‘And the end of your days will come a great deal later than they would have had he acknowledged you as an heir.’

Note: Dialogue is so good

Page 112

I sat putting it cautiously together. ‘Then … you said it came from within the keep. But if you were not used, then it was not from the King … the Queen!’ I said it with sudden certainty. Chade’s eyes guarded his thoughts. ‘That’s a dangerous assumption to make. Even more dangerous if you think you must act on it in some way.’ ‘Why?’ Chade sighed. ‘When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities. Consider them all, boy. Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps Chivalry was killed by someone he had offended at Withywoods. Perhaps it had nothing to do with him being a prince. Or, perhaps the King has another assassin, one I know nothing about, and it was the King’s own hand against his son.’ ‘You don’t believe any of those,’ I said with certainty. ‘No. I don’t. Because I have no evidence to declare them truth. Just as I have no evidence to say your father’s death was the Queen’s hand striking.’

Note: Wisdom

Page 116

All this I knew better from tavern gossip and Chade’s political lectures than Burrich could imagine. But I bit my tongue and sat through his detailed and strained explanation. Not for the first time, I realized he considered me slightly slow. My silences he mistook for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.

Note: Hahaha

Page 117

Burrich recalled my attention with a sharp poke. ‘And you’re not to do that, either. You look an imbecile, sitting there nodding with your mind elsewhere. Don’t fancy no one notices when you do that. And don’t glare like that when you’re corrected. Sit up straight, and put a pleasant expression on your face. Not a vacuous smile, you dolt. Ah, Fitz, what am I to do with you? How can I protect you when you invite troubles on yourself? And why do they want to take you off like this anyway?’ The last two questions, put to himself, betrayed his real concern. Perhaps I was a trifle stupid not to have seen it. He wasn’t going. I was. For no good reason that he could discern. Burrich had lived long enough near court to be very cautious. For the first time since he had been entrusted with my care, I was being removed from his watchfulness. It had not been so long since my father had been buried. And so he wondered, though he didn’t dare say, whether I would be coming back or if someone was making the opportunity to dispose of me quietly. I realized what a blow to his pride and reputation it would be if I were to be ‘vanished’. So I sighed, and then carefully commented that perhaps they wanted an extra hand with the horses and dogs. Verity went nowhere without Leon, his wolfhound. Only two days before he had complimented me on how well I managed him. This I repeated to Burrich, and it was gratifying to see how well this small subterfuge worked. Relief flooded his face, then pride that he had taught me well. The topic instantly shifted from manners to the correct care of the wolfhound. If the lectures on manners had wearied me, the repetition of hound lore was almost painfully tedious. When he released me to go to my other lessons, I left with winged feet.

Note: Says so much about Burrich

Page 125

‘Royalty,’ Chade had warned me, ‘never travels light. Verity goes on this journey with the weight of the King’s sword behind him. All folk who see him pass know that without being told. The news must run ahead to Kelvar, and to Shemshy. The imperial hand is about to reconcile their differences. They must both be left wishing they had never had any differences at all. That is the trick of good government. To make folk desire to live in such a way that there is no need for its intervention.’

Note: Perfection

Page 214

There is something I have observed about skinny men. Some, like Chade, seem so preoccupied with their lives that they either forget to eat, or burn every bit of sustenance they take in the fires of their passionate fascination with life. But there is another type, one who goes about the world cadaverously, cheeks sunken, bones jutting, and one senses that he so disapproves of the whole of the world that he begrudges every bit of it that he takes inside himself. At that moment, I would have wagered that Galen had never truly enjoyed one bite of food or one swallow of drink in his life.

Page 220

Those who flinched or wavered were accused of weakness. During the day he berated us with our unworthiness and repeated that he had only consented to try to teach us at the King’s behest. The women he ignored, and though he often spoke of past princes and kings who had wielded the Skill in defence of the realm, he never once mentioned the queens and princesses who had done likewise. Nor did he ever once give us an overview of what he was attempting to teach us. There was only the cold and the discomfort of his exercises, and the uncertainty of when we would be struck. Why we struggled to endure it, I don’t know. So quickly were we all made accomplices in our own degradation.

Note: Casual sexism too. This villain is a bit of a caricature

Page 227

supercilious

Page 229

‘You’d ask me to give up? Now?’ I was incredulous. ‘I would.’ ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Because,’ he began, and then stopped in frustration. ‘I don’t know. Too many things converge. Perhaps if I pluck one thread loose, the knot will not form.’ I was suddenly tired, and the earlier elation of my triumph collapsed before his dour warnings. My irritability won and I snapped, ‘If you cannot speak clearly, why do you speak at all?’ He was as silent as if I had struck him. ‘That’s another thing I don’t know,’ he said at last. He rose to go. ‘Fool,’ I began. ‘Yes. I am that,’ he said, and left.

Note: I don’t like a character making vague prophecies, telling the protagonist exactly what he needs to hear

Page 232

And such a one was I. I sank into my shame. Helplessly, I began to sob. I merited such treatment as he had given me. I deserved worse. Only a misplaced pity had kept Galen from killing me. I had wasted his time, had taken his painstaking instruction and turned it all to selfish indulgence. I fled myself, going deeper and deeper within, but finding only disgust and hatred for myself layered throughout my thoughts. I would be better off dead. Were I to throw myself from the tower roof, it would still not be enough to destroy my shame, but at least I need no longer be aware of it. I lay still and wept. The others left. As each one passed, they had a word, a gobbet of spittle, a kick or a blow for me. I scarcely noticed. I rejected myself more completely than they could. Then they were gone, and Galen alone stood over me. He nudged me with his foot, but I was incapable of response. Suddenly, he was everywhere, over, under, around and inside me, and I could not deny him. ‘You see, bastard,’ he said archly, calmly. ‘I tried to tell them you were not worthy. I tried to tell them the training would kill you. But you would not listen. You strove to usurp that which had been given to another. Again, I am right. Well. This has not been time wasted if it has done away with you.’

Note: How he makes everyone hate each other

Page 235

‘No. You’re right about that.’ I tried to think how I could make Burrich understand why I had been punished. ‘But this was different, Burrich. A different kind of learning, a different kind of teaching.’ I felt compelled to defend Galen’s justice. I tried to explain. ‘I deserved this, Burrich. The fault was not with his teaching. I failed to learn. I tried. I did try. But like Galen, I believe there is a reason the Skill is not taught to bastards. There is a taint in me, a fatal weakness.’ ‘Horseshit.’ ‘No. Think on it, Burrich. If you breed a scrub-mare to a fine stud, the colt you get is as likely to get the weakness of the mother as the fineness of the father.’

Note: Abusive relationship

Page 253

Each possibility was debated with far more political sophistication than Galen would have believed these simple soldiers capable of commanding. I rose from their midst feeling ashamed of how I had dismissed them; in so short a time Galen had brought me to think of them as ignorant sword-wielders, men of brawn with no brain at all. I had lived among them all my life. I should have known better. No, I had known better. But my hunger to set myself higher, to prove beyond doubt my right to that royal magic, had made me willing to accept any nonsense with which he might choose to present me. Something clicked within me, as if the key piece to a wood puzzle had suddenly slid into place. I had been bribed with the offer of knowledge as another man might have been bribed with coins.

Page 317

His back was to me and he didn’t turn back as he asked, ‘And did you find it amusing?’ ‘I –’ I could not think of anything to say, of any way to assure him that what I had seen there would stay only within my own mind. He took two steps and was closing the door. I blurted, ‘It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret.’ The door halted a handsbreadth short of closed. ‘Take some advice, and you may survive this trip. When considering a man’s motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all.’

---