Assassin's Apprentice

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.”

“What happened to me?” I managed to ask. My teeth chattered against each other, and my whole body shook as with a chill. I felt I would rattle my bones out of their joints.

“You offered me your strength. I took it.” He poured a cup of the tea, then knelt to hold it to my mouth. “Go slowly. I was in a hurry. Did I say earlier that Chivalry was a bull with his Skill? What must I say about myself then?”

He had his old bluff heartiness and good nature back. This was a Verity I had not seen for months. I managed a mouthful of the tea and felt the elfbark sting my mouth and throat. My shivering eased. Verity took a casual gulp from the mug.

“In the old days,” he said conversationally, “a king would draw on his coterie. Half a dozen men or more, and all in tune with one another, able to pool strength and offer it as needed. That was their true purpose. To provide strength to their king, or to their own key man. I don’t think Galen quite grasps that. His coterie is a thing he has fashioned. They are like horses and bullocks and donkeys, all harnessed together. Not a true coterie at all. They lack the singleness of mind.”