Farseer 1 – Assassin’s Apprentice

I entered and he closed the door behind me. “Shall we have wine?” I asked him.

“If you wish it,” he said, puzzled but polite. I seated myself on a chair while he unstoppered a carafe and poured for us. There was a censer on his table, too, still warm. I had not seen him indulge earlier. He probably had thought it more safe to wait until he was alone in his chamber. But you never can tell when an assassin will come calling with a pocketful of death. I pushed down a silly smile. He filled two glasses. I leaned forward and showed him my twist of paper. Painstakingly, I tipped it into his wine, picked up the glass, and swirled it to see it well dissolved. I handed it to him.

“I’ve come to poison you, you see. You die. Then Kettricken kills me. Then she marries Verity.” I lifted my glass and sipped from it. Apple wine. From Farrow, I guessed. Probably part of the wedding gifts. “So what does Regal gain?”

Rurisk eyed his wine with distaste and set it aside. He took my glass from my hand. He drank from it. There was no shock in his voice as he said, “He’s rid of you. I gather he does not value your company. He has been very gracious to me, extending many gifts to me as well as to my kingdom. But if I were dead, Kettricken would be left sole heir to the Mountain Kingdom. That would benefit the Six Duchies, would it not?”

“We cannot protect the land we already have. And I think Regal would see it as benefiting Verity, not the kingdom.” I heard a noise outside the door. “That will be Cob, coming to catch me in the act of poisoning you,” I surmised. I rose, went to the door, and opened it. Kettricken pushed past me into the room. I closed the screen quickly behind her.

“He’s come to poison you,” she warned Rurisk.

“I know,” he said gravely. “He put it in my wine. That’s why I’m drinking his.” He refilled the glass from the carafe and offered it to her. “It’s apple,” he cajoled when she shook her head.

“I don’t see any humor in this,” she snapped. Rurisk and I looked at one another and grinned foolishly. Smoke.

Her brother smiled benignly. “It’s like this. FitzChivalry realized tonight he is a dead man. Too many people have been told he is an assassin. If he kills me, you kill him. If he doesn’t kill me, how can he go home and face his king? Even if his king forgives him, half the court will know he’s an assassin. That makes him useless. Useless bastards are a liability to royalty.” Rurisk finished his lecture by draining the rest of the glass.

“Kettricken told me that even if I killed you tonight, she would still pledge to Verity tomorrow.”

Again, he was not surprised. “What would she gain by refusing? Only the enmity of the Six Duchies. She would be forsworn to your people, a great shame to our people. She would become outcast, to the good of no one. It would not bring me back.”

“And would not your people rise up at the thought of giving her to such a man?”

“We would protect them from such knowledge. Eyod and my sister would, anyway. Shall a whole kingdom rise to war over the death of one man? Remember, I am Sacrifice here.”

For the first time I dimly understood what that meant.

“I may soon be an embarrassment to you,” I warned him. “I was told it was a slow poison. But I looked at it. It is not. It is a simple extract of deadroot, and actually rather swift, if given in sufficient quantity. First, it gives a man tremors.” Rurisk extended his hands on the table, and they trembled. Kettricken looked furious with both of us. “Death follows swiftly. And I expect I am supposed to be caught in the act and disposed of along with you.”

Rurisk clutched at his throat, then let his head loll forward on his chest. “I am poisoned!” he intoned theatrically.

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