Royal Assassin

An excerpt from Chade’s journal discusses the different methods of Skilling instruction used by Galen and his predecessor, Solicity. Galen taught by cruel, invasive methods, starving his pupils and depriving them of sleep before invading their minds and forcing the skill on them. Solicity—whose pupils included the princes Verity and Chivalry—used much gentler methods, seeking to guide her students to the Skill in their own time. The passage laments that she died before Verity and Chivalry could complete their training, and wonders how much knowledge of the Skill died with her.

In the present, Fitz reports to Verity, who gives him a fine new sword, intending to ask it back temporarily to present it formally during Winterfest. Verity reveals that he knows about Fitz and Molly, having glimpsed their intimacy through Fitz’s unguarded Skill-dreams. He offers Fitz a potential future serving on the new warships, provided Fitz can master both the Skill and his blade. To begin, Verity joins Fitz’s hunt for the Forged ones via a Skill-link, forcing Fitz to conceal his forbidden Wit-bond with Nighteyes.

During the hunt, Fitz and Nighteyes discover three Forged ones cannibalizing a small child who is already dead before the fight properly begins. They kill two of the Forged ones on the scene; the third snatches the child’s body and flees, and is killed after a separate chase up the hillside. A party led by Verity and Burrich arrives to find Fitz cradling the dead girl’s body as her horrified mother looks on. Back at Buckkeep, Verity arranges for Burrich to train Fitz with an ax, hoping the practice will help Fitz learn to maintain a Skill-link during combat. Burrich protests that Fitz was sent alone into a slaughterhouse situation, but Fitz declares he must fight the Outislanders because they are attacking “his people.”

During the Winterfest holiday, Fitz is turned away from King Shrewd’s chambers by the king’s unpleasant personal servant, Wallace. In his own room, Fitz finds the Fool already there in his absence, having entered while Fitz was out and sorting the Elderling scrolls into groups by the hearth; the Fool strikes a bargain with Fitz, offering to reveal the secret of where he comes from if Fitz allows him to study the scrolls. The next morning, Fitz begins his ax training with Burrich while maintaining his Skill-link to Verity. Afterward, carrying pastries from the cook, Fitz forces his way past Wallace into King Shrewd’s chambers, with Verity still mentally linked to him.

Fitz is appalled to find the King’s room filthy and the air thick with the fumes of an herb called Smoke. He opens the shutters, dumps the censer ash out the window to air the room, and bars the door against Wallace. The King himself is frail, groggy, and disoriented. An enraged Prince Regal arrives with guards and accuses Fitz of trying to harm their father. King Shrewd rouses briefly, affirming Fitz’s right to be there but telling him to come back another day. Fitz realizes he has lost his chance to ask for permission to marry Molly and that Regal will now ensure the King is never left unguarded.

Verity launches his four new warships at Winterfest. In Fitz’s room, the Fool reveals his secret in exchange for having been allowed to study the Elderling scrolls. He describes coming from a distant land, part of a pale, long-lived race that compiles prophecies to map the future and sends certain individuals forward to alter it. He came to Buckkeep specifically because the future histories pointed to Fitz as a “catalyst” whose actions are necessary to prevent a future global catastrophe. Overwhelmed by this revelation, Fitz suffers a fit and orders the Fool to leave.

Fitz then wanders through the Winterfest feast in a daze. Patience and Lacey find him behaving oddly and takes him back to his own room to recover. Later, Chade appears and explains that Fitz contaminated himself by handling the censer ash with his bare hands while cleaning Shrewd’s room, suggesting that the herbs Wallace burns in the King’s room are intended to poison the King’s mind. That night, Molly comes to Fitz’s room and they are intimate. The next morning, Burrich wakes him for their ax training.

An excerpt from Chade’s journal describes the third year of the Red-Ship War. The warships of the Six Duchies (the kingdom of which Buckkeep is the capital) begin to make headway against the Red-Ships. The Red-Ship Raiders never allow themselves to be captured alive. Even when outnumbered, they fight to the death. The writer admits that this should have been a clue to their nature, but notes that the Six Duchies fighters were too busy trying to survive to ask such questions.

In the present, Fitz continues to train with Burrich and Verity—Burrich teaching him combat while Verity trains him to control the Skill. In spare time, he visits the docks where Verity’s warships are being prepared to fight the Red-Ships. He notes that some Outisland immigrants—refugees from their own lands—have been hired to work on the ships and that many distrust the immigrants and treat them with disdain.

Fitz frequently visits King Shrewd, and though Wallace is still ever-present, he no longer has full control over the King’s living conditions. In the aftermath of Fitz’s poisoning, other members of the castle staff have become aware of the messy state of the King’s room and insisted on cleaning up. Wallace, chastened, has no choice but to stand aside and let this happen. With fresh air and no more herbal smoke, the King begins to seem like his old self again. 

Fitz’s training with Burrich and Verity results in a breakthrough, and he masters the ability to fight while maintaining a Skill-link. He is assigned as an oarsman to Verity’s warship, the Rurisk, where the ship’s mate is an Outislander who plays an important role in teaching the Six Duchies crew how to handle a warship. There are several Outisland immigrants on the crew, and they tend to talk among themselves in their own language, arousing the suspicion of their Six Duchies shipmates. At Verity’s urging, Fitz eavesdrops on their conversations, finding that the Outisland language is closely related to that of the Duchies and that he can understand most of what is said. Rather than talk of mutiny, he hears the Outislanders’ sorrow at having seen their kin Forged by their own compatriots. They seek revenge against those holding power in their own lands, and their loyalty to their adopted home is genuine.

After much waiting, Fitz finally finds an opportunity to tell King Shrewd about his love for Molly and ask the King’s blessing. To his horror, he finds that the King expects him to marry Celerity, Duke Bawndy’s 14-year-old daughter. The King tells Fitz that Celerity took a liking to him on his visit to Bearns. If Fitz marries Celerity, he will receive lands and a title. The King demands his obedience in this matter and forbids him from seeing Molly again. Heartbroken, Fitz privately vows to marry Molly even if he has to wait for the King to die of old age first.

 A hostile member of Galen’s coterie, Justin, also serves aboard the Rurisk. During a patrol in a dense fog, Fitz involuntarily experiences the death cry of a watchtower guard through his Wit or Skill; Verity, already linked to him, confirms the attack at Antler Island and directs Fitz to inform the master. The Rurisk’s crew surprises the Raiders. Swept up in a collective battle-fury, Fitz leads the charge in a berserker-like rage, and they win a decisive victory, capturing the enemy vessel. When the fighting is over, an Outislander from the Rurisk crew gives Fitz a medallion, stating that it belonged to a man Fitz killed in the battle, who had been the Outislander’s friend “before the Korriks took his heart” (333). This is the first time that Fitz or anyone from the Six Duchies has heard of the Korriks. In the celebrations that follow, Fitz gets drunk and is turned away by Molly.

On a subsequent night patrol, the crew is paralyzed by a wave of unnatural fear projected by a man on a mysterious white ship. Using the Wit in a reflex he did not know he had, Fitz pushes back against it; physically, he flies backward into the bilge while the cloaked figure stumbles and falls overboard. The terror breaks, allowing the crew to fight off boarders. No one else on the ship saw the white vessel. The summer continues with draining skirmishes, leaving Fitz feeling increasingly isolated as his relationships with Molly, Verity, and Nighteyes all become strained. As autumn approaches, he visits Kettricken in her garden. She expresses fury at the ongoing raids and vows to find a way to put an end to them.

King Shrewd summons Fitz and gives him a scroll from Duke Brawndy’s daughter, Lady Celerity. Shrewd first addresses the scroll and instructs Fitz to reply, then speaks warmly of his intentions for Fitz—land, a title, and the Celerity match. It is only after Fitz raises his love for another woman that Shrewd dismisses it as infatuation with a chambermaid and, weakened and trembling, uses drugged wine and Wallace’s herbal smoke to compose himself before falling asleep in Fitz’s presence. In defiance of Shrewd’s plan, Fitz writes a letter to Celerity portraying himself as a cowardly and oafish soldier, hoping she will reject him.

He and Molly spend a romantic afternoon on a hidden beach. When Fitz tells her about the King’s marriage plans, Molly is devastated, believing their relationship is now hopeless. Dejected, Fitz returns to his room, prepares a packet of poison, and sews it into his cuff. Chade then summons Fitz and, angered that Fitz assumed he had been idle, reveals that he kept Forged ones away from Buckkeep all summer while Fitz was on the Rurisk. He informs Fitz that another small group of Forged ones has been sighted, and Fitz must resume his duties as a royal assassin.