Assassin's Apprentice

"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."

That is all I remember of our conversation then. But I am sure that Chade had deliberately led me to consider who might have acted against my father, to instill in me a greater wariness of the Queen. I held the thought close to me, and not just in the days that immediately followed. I kept myself to my chores, and slowly my hair grew, and by the begi

Summer came, bringing warmer weather to our coasts, and with it the Outislanders. Some came as honest traders, with cold lands' goods to trade-furs and amber and ivory and kegs of oil — and tall tales to share, ones that still could prickle my neck just as they had when I was small. Our sailors did not trust them, and called them spies and worse. But their goods were rich, and the gold they brought to purchase our wines and grains was solid and heavy, and our merchants took it.

And other Outislanders also visited our shores, though not too close to Buckkeep hold. They came with knives and torches, with bows and rams, to plunder and rape the same villages they had been plundering and raping for years. Sometimes it seemed an elaborate and bloody contest, they to find villages unaware or underarmed and for us to lure them in with seemingly vulnerable targets and then slaughter and plunder the pirates themselves. But if it were a contest, it went very badly for us that summer. My every visit to town was heavy with the news of destruction and the mutterings of the people.

Up at the keep, among the men-at-arms, there was a collective feeling of doltishness that I shared. The Outislanders eluded our patrol ships with ease and never fell into our traps. They struck where we were underma

Boyishly, I viewed the raids as a thing impersonal to me. Certainly they were bad things, and I felt sorry in a vague way for those villagers whose homes were torched or plundered. But secure at Buckkeep, I had very little feeling for the constant fear and vigilance that other seaports endured, or for the agonies of villagers who rebuilt each year, only to see their efforts torched the next. I was not to keep my ignorant i

I went down to Burrich for my "lesson" one morning, though I spent as much time doctoring animals and teaching young colts and fillies as I did in being taught. I had very much taken over Cob's place in the stables, while he had gone on to being Regal's groom and dog man. But that day, to my surprise, Burrich took me upstairs to his room and sat me down at his table. I dreaded spending a tedious morning repairing tack.

"I'm going to teach you ma

"With horses?" I asked incredulously.

"No. You've those already. With people. At table, and afterward, when folk sit and talk with one another. Those sorts of ma

"Why?"

Burrich frowned. "Because for reasons I don't understand, you're to accompany Verity when he goes to Neatbay to see Duke Kelvar of Rippon. Lord Kelvar has not been cooperating with Lord Shemshy in ma

Prince Verity is going to consult with Kelvar about these allegations."

I grasped the situation completely. It was common gossip around Buckkeep Town. Lord Kelvar of Rippon Duchy had three watchtowers in his keeping. The two that bracketed the points of Neatbay were always well ma

Traditionally, the fishing grounds and clamming beaches of Watch Island were the territory of Rippon Duchy, and so the ma

So when Shoaks's villages were raided, without warning, in an early spring spree that destroyed all hopes of the fields being planted on time, as well as saw most of the pregnant sheep either slaughtered, stolen, or scattered, Lord Shemshy had protested loudly to the King that Kelvar had been lax in ma

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.