Assassin's Apprentice

I found my concern over these last rumors to be deeper than I would have expected. None of the royals had ever paid much mind to me, at least not in a personal way. Shrewd saw to my education and comfort and had long ago bought my loyalty, so that now I was his without even giving thought to any alternative. Regal despised me, and I had long learned to avoid his narrow glance, and the casual nudges or furtive shoves that had once been enough to send a smaller boy staggering. But Verity had been kind to me, in an absentminded sort of way, and he loved his dogs and his horse and his hawks in a way I understood. I wanted to see him stand tall and proud at his wedding, and hoped someday to stand behind the throne he would occupy much as Chade stood behind Shrewd’s. I hoped he was well, and yet there was nothing I could do about it if he were not, nor even a way I could see him. Even if we had been keeping the same hours, the circles we moved in were seldom the same.

It was still not quite full spring when Galen made his announcement. The rest of the keep was making its preparations for Springfest. The stalls in the marketplace would be sanded clean and repainted in bright colors, and tree branches would be brought inside and gently forced so that their blossoms and tiny leaves could grace the banquet table on Springseve. But tender new greens and eggcake with carris seed toppings were not what Galen had in mind for us, nor puppet shows and huntdances. Instead, with the coming of the new season, we would be tested, either to be proven worthy or discarded.

“Discarded,” he repeated, and if he had been condemning those unchosen to death, the attention of his other students could not have been more intent. I numbly tried to understand in full what it would mean to me when I failed. I had no belief that he would test me fairly, or that I could pass such a test even if he did.

“You shall be a coterie, those of you who prove yourselves. Such a coterie as has never been before, I would think. At the height of Springfest, I myself will present you to your king, and he shall see the wonder of what I have wrought. As you have come this far with me, you know I will not be shamed before him. So I myself will test you, and test you to your limits, to be sure that the weapon I place in my king’s hand holds an edge worthy of its purpose. One day from now, I will scatter you, like seeds in the wind, across the kingdom. I have arranged that you will be taken hence, by swift horse, to your destinations. And there each of you will be left, alone. Not one of you will know where any of the others are.” He paused, I think to let each of us feel the tension thrumming through the room. I knew that all the others vibrated in tune, sharing a common emotion, almost a common mind as they received their instruction. I suspected they heard far more than the simple words from Galen’s lips. I felt a foreigner there, listening to words in a language whose idiom I could not grasp. I would fail.

“Within two days of being left, you will be summoned. By me. You will be directed who to contact, and where. Each of you will receive the information you need to make your way back here. If you have learned, and learned well, my coterie will be here and present on Springseve, ready to be presented to the King.” Again the pause. “Do not think, however, that all you must do is find your way back to Buckkeep by Springseve. You are to be a coterie, not homing pigeons. How you come and in what company will prove to me that you have mastered your Skill. Be ready to leave by tomorrow morning.”

And then he released us, one by one, again with a touch for each, and a word of praise for each, save me. I stood before him, as open as I could make myself, as vulnerable as I dared to be, and yet the brush of the Skill against my mind was less than the touch of the wind. He stared down at me as I looked up at him, and I did not need the Skill to feel that he both loathed and despised me. He made a noise of contempt and looked aside, releasing me. I started to go.

“Far better,” he said in that cavernous voice of his, “if you had gone over the wall that night, bastard. Far better. Burrich thought I abused you. I was only offering you a way out, as close to an honorable way as you were capable of finding. Go away and die, boy, or at least go away. You shame your father’s name by existing. By Eda, I do not know how you came to exist. That a man such as your father could fall to such depth as lying with something and letting you become is beyond my mind to imagine.”

As always, there was that note of fanaticism in his voice as he spoke of Chivalry, and his eyes became almost blank with blind idolatry for him. Almost absentmindedly, he turned away and walked off. He reached the top of the stairs, and then turned, very slowly. “I must ask,” he said, and the venom in his voice was hungry with hatred. “Are you his catamite, that he lets you suck strength from him? Is that why he is so possessive of you?”