When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. Even if you don’t choose to play the game of thrones. Sometimes you’re thrown into it just because you’re a royal son born on “the wrong side of the sheets.”
Such is the case for Fitzchivalry Farseer.
The thing about royal bastards is they can be useful to the royal family. If they’re not useful, they have a tendency to have fatal accidents.
Fitz’s maternal grandfather takes him to Moonseye, an outpost on the outskirts of the Mountain Kingdom. He drops him off with Prince Verity, the second son of King Shrewd, saying Fitz is the son of Prince Chivalry, who’s next in line for the throne.
Verity assigns Burrich, the stable master, to take care of Fitz.
Chivalry leaves as soon as Fitz arrives, so he never gets to meet his father. He dies in a horseback riding accident not long afterward.
Burrich puts Fitz to work in the stables, which Fitz likes because he can communicate with animals, a talent known as the Wit.
But Burrich frowns on this ability and discourages Fitz from ever using it, though he never says why.
After a while, a man named Chade comes to collect Fitz in the middle of the night. Chade is the royal family’s assassin, though I don’t think that word is ever used. The way he puts it is that they keep him around to take care of problems.
Sometimes he arranges for people to fall ill or have an accident. When Fitz remembers his father died in a horseback riding accident, he puts two and two together. His father was an excellent horseback rider.
Chade starts teaching Fitz about poisons with the understanding that Fitz will do everything he is told.
But he puts Fitz in an impossible situation when he tells him to steal a knife from the king.
The situation is made worse by a conversation Fitz has with King Shrewd in which Shrewd promises to have his back as long as Fitz has his.
Fitz stops his midnight trainings with Chade for a while. Finally he tells the king about his dilemma, then takes a knife from the king’s table in such a way that the king couldn’t possibly miss what he was doing. He walks into Chade’s rooms, buries the tip of the blade in Chade’s table and walks out without a word.
As if studying to be an assassin weren’t enough, Fitz begins training with another royal bastard, Galen, to learn about the Skill, in which you learn to read people’s minds, block other people from your mind, control others’ thoughts, and communicate telepathically with another person with the Skill, even over great distances.
Fitz shows some aptitude with the Skill, but Galen sets him up for failure in his class, so he can’t use it the way those who were trained properly can use it.
The book reaches its very slow climax when Fitz is sent with a wedding party to collect Verity’s bride-to-be.
Now that Verity is next in line for the throne, his father is anxious for him to get married so he can secure the line of succession.
But Verity is more concerned with the immediate threat posed by the Raiders, who keep attacking their shores. He’s been using his powers to try and keep the kingdom safe, but it’s aging him quickly.
So they compromise. Regal will go marry the princess as Verity’s proxy, bring her back to Buckkeep Castle where Verity will seal the deal.
Fitz is sent because the rumor is the princess’ brother is not in good health, and if he dies, she inherits everything. So Chase “suggests” Fitz should “help nature take its course.”
But Fitz arrives to find the situation more complicated.
For one, he likes the prince, whose health is not as bad as reported.
For another, Regal is meddling in such a way as to ensure Fitz’s death.
I won’t spoil the ending. I’ll just say I didn’t like this book by Robin Hobb nearly as much as I should have. It sounds like it should have been right up my alley, and if I had encountered it 25 years ago, I probably would have devoured the entire series.
As it is, I felt like this book took forever to get going and I had a hard time getting into it, much less caring about the characters.