Assassin's Apprentice (UK) by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Farseer Order
ISBN: 9780007562251
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 1995-04-30T21:00:00+00:00

SIX­TEEN

Les­sons

Ac­cord­ing to an­cient chron­icles, Skil­lusers were or­gan­ized in co­ter­ies of six. These groups did not usu­ally in­clude any of ex­cep­tional royal blood, but were lim­ited to cous­ins and neph­ews of the dir­ect line of as­cen­sion, or those who showed an aptitude and were judged worthy. One of the most fam­ous, Cross­fire’s Co­terie, provides a splen­did ex­ample of how they func­tioned. Ded­ic­ated to Queen Vis­ion, Cross­fire and the oth­ers of her co­terie had been trained by a Skill­mas­ter called Tac­tic. The part­ners in this co­terie were mu­tu­ally chosen by one an­other, and then re­ceived spe­cial train­ing from Tac­tic to bind them into a close unit. Whether scattered across the Six Duch­ies to col­lect or dis­sem­in­ate in­form­a­tion, or when massed as a group for the pur­pose of con­found­ing and de­mor­al­iz­ing the en­emy, their deeds be­came le­gendary. Their fi­nal hero­ism, de­tailed in the bal­lad Cross­fire’s Sac­ri­fice, was the mass­ing of their strength, which they chan­nelled to Queen Vis­ion dur­ing the Battle of Be­sham. Un­be­knownst to the ex­hausted queen, they gave to her more than they could spare them­selves, and in the midst of the vic­tory cel­eb­ra­tion the co­terie was dis­covered in their tower, drained and dy­ing. Per­haps the people’s love of Cross­fire’s Co­terie stemmed in part from their all be­ing cripples in one form or an­other: blind, lame, harelipped or dis­figured by fire were all of the six, yet in the Skill their strength was greater than that of the largest war­ship, and more of a de­term­in­ant in the de­fence of the Queen.

Dur­ing the peace­ful years of King Bounty’s reign, the in­struc­tion of the Skill for the cre­ation of co­ter­ies was aban­doned. Ex­ist­ing co­ter­ies dis­ban­ded due to age­ing, death or simply a lack of pur­pose. In­struc­tion in the Skill began to be lim­ited to princes only, and for a time it was seen as a rather ar­chaic art. By the time of the Red Ship raids, only King Shrewd and his son Ver­ity were act­ive prac­ti­tion­ers of the Skill. Shrewd made an ef­fort to loc­ate and re­cruit former prac­ti­tion­ers, but most were aged, or no longer pro­fi­cient.

Ga­len, then Skill­mas­ter for Shrewd, was as­signed the task of cre­at­ing new co­ter­ies for the de­fence of the king­dom. Ga­len chose to set aside tra­di­tion. Co­terie mem­ber­ships were as­signed rather than mu­tu­ally chosen. Ga­len’s meth­ods of teach­ing were harsh, his train­ing goal that each mem­ber would be an un­ques­tion­ing part of a unit, a tool for the King to use as he needed. This par­tic­u­lar as­pect was de­signed solely by Ga­len, and the first Skill co­terie he cre­ated, he presen­ted to King Shrewd as if it were his gift to give. At least one mem­ber of the royal fam­ily ex­pressed his ab­hor­rence of the idea. But times were des­per­ate, and King Shrewd could not res­ist wield­ing the weapon that had been given into his hand.

Such hate. Oh, how they hated me. As each stu­dent emerged from the stair­well onto the tower roof to find me there and wait­ing, each spurned me. I felt their dis­dain, as palp­ably as if each had dashed cold wa­ter against me.

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