Royal Assassin (UK) by Robin Hobb

Author:Robin Hobb
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780006480105
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Published: 1996-03-31T21:00:00+00:00

SEV­EN­TEEN

In­ter­ludes

‘Of stone were their bones made, of the spark­ling veined stone of the moun­tains. Their flesh was made of the shin­ing salts of the earth. But their hearts were made of the hearts of wise men.

‘They came from afar, those men, a long and try­ing way. They did not hes­it­ate to lay down the lives that had be­come a wear­i­ness to them. They ended their days and began etern­it­ies, they put aside flesh and donned stone, they let fall their weapons and rose on new wings. Eld­er­lings.’

When the King fi­nally summoned me, I went to him. True to my prom­ise to my­self, I had not vol­un­tar­ily gone to his cham­bers since that af­ter­noon. Bit­ter­ness still ate at me over his ar­range­ments with Duke Brawndy con­cern­ing Celer­ity and me. But a sum­mons from one’s king was not a thing to be ig­nored, re­gard­less of what an­ger churned in­side me still.

King Shrewd sent for me on an au­tumn morn­ing. It had been at least two months since I had last stood be­fore him. I had ig­nored the wounded looks the Fool flung at me when I en­countered him, and turned aside Ver­ity’s oc­ca­sional query as to why I had not sought out Shrewd’s cham­ber. It was easy enough. Wal­lace still guarded his door like a ser­pent on the hearth, and the King’s poor health was no secret from any­one. No one was ad­mit­ted to his rooms be­fore noon any more. So I told my­self this morn­ing sum­mons be­tokened some­thing im­port­ant.

I had thought the morn­ing would be­long to me. An un­season­ably early and vi­cious au­tumn storm had poun­ded us for two days. The driv­ing wind was mer­ci­less, while drench­ing rain prom­ised that any­one in an open boat would be fully oc­cu­pied with bail­ing. I had spent the even­ing be­fore in the tav­ern with the rest of the Rurisk’s crew, toast­ing the storm and wish­ing the Red Ships the full kiss of it. I had come back to the keep to tumble sud­denly into my bed, cer­tain that I could sleep as long as I wished the next morn­ing. But a de­term­ined page had battered my door un­til sleep for­sook me, and then de­livered to me the King’s formal sum­mons.

I washed, shaved, smoothed my hair back into a tail and donned clean clothes. I steeled my­self to be­tray noth­ing of my smoul­der­ing re­sent­ment. When I was con­fid­ent I was mas­ter of my­self, I left my cham­ber. I presen­ted my­self at the King’s door. I fully ex­pec­ted Wal­lace to sneer and turn me aside. But this morn­ing he opened the door promptly to my knock. His glance was still dis­ap­prov­ing, but he im­me­di­ately ushered me into the King’s pres­ence.

Shrewd sat be­fore his hearth in a cush­ioned chair. Des­pite my­self, my heart sank at how wasted he had be­come. His skin was pa­pery and trans­lu­cent as parch­ment, his fin­gers gone to bone. His face sagged, skin droop­ing where flesh had once held it firm. His dark eyes were sunken into his face. He clasped his hands in his lap in a ges­ture I knew well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.