Robin Hobb has made a vast name for herself as an epic fantasy author . And now we ’ve catch the exclusive cover reveal for her next book , Fool ’s Asssassin — plus the first excerption !
sucker ’s Assassincomes out in August from Del Rey , and it ’s her long - await return to her lover - favorite Fitz & the Fool serial publication . Check out an exclusive chapter below !
Mydear Lady Fennis ,
Wehave been friend far too long for me to be circumspect . As you so delicatelyhinted , yes , there has been shatter intelligence cede to me . My stepson , PrinceChivalry , has exposed himself as the primitive fellow I have always acknowledge him tobe . His bastard tike , fathered on a Mountain whore , has been revealed .
Asshameful as that is , it could have been handled far more discreetly if hisclever - as - a - Harlan Stone comrade Prince Verity had taken fleet and decisive action toeliminate the shame . Instead , he has announced him in an indiscreet messageto my married man .
Andso , in the face of this home disgrace , what does my lord do ? Why , not only doeshe assert the bastard must be bring to Buckkeep Castle , he then bestows onChivalry the title to Withywoods , and sends him out to pasture there with hisgraceless barren wife . Withywoods ! A ok estate that any number of my friendswould be pleased to occupy , and he reinforce it to his son for fathering abastard with a foreign common person ! Nor does King Shrewd find it distasteful thatsaid bastard has been bring back here to Buckkeep Castle where any member ofmy court may see the trivial Mountain savage .
Andthe final insult to me and my son ? He has decreed that Prince Verity will nowtake up the deed of top executive - in - Waiting , and be the next make bold heir to thethrone . When Chivalry had the decency to secede his claim in the face of thisdisgrace , I secretly joy , believing that Regal would now berecognized as the next king . While he may be younger than both hishalf - brothers , no one can dispute that his blood are more noble , and hisbearing as lordly as his name .
really , I am wasted here . As wasted as my son Regal . When I feed up my own sovereignty andtitles to be Shrewd ’s world-beater , it was in the belief that any small fry I bore himwould be seen as possessing far better origin than the two reckless boys hisformer queen gave him , and would prevail after Shrewd . But does he now look atChivalry and admit his mistake in bring up him heir ? No . Instead he sets himaside only to install his cloddish young pal as King in Waiting . Verity . Hulking , square - faced Verity , with all the grace of an ox .
Itis too much , my dear . Too much for me to stick out . I would give court , save thatRegal would then be without a defender here .
A missive from Queen Desire to Lady Fennis of Tilth
I detest her when I was a boy . Irecall the first time I found that missive , unfinished and never charge . I readit , confirming for myself that the queen I had never formally meet had , indeed , hated me from the moment she knew of me . I made it common . I never asked Chade , how he come by that letter . A bastard himself and half - brother to King Shrewd , Chadehad never hesitated in pursuing the best interests of the Farseer throne . Hehad pilfer it from Queen Desire ’s desk , perhaps . Perhaps it had been hisploy to make it seem the queen snubbed Lady Fennis by not reply to herletter . Does it matter now ? I do not know , for I do not know what core my oldmentor gain with his theft .
YetI do admiration , sometimes , if it was an fortuity that I found and read QueenDesire ’s alphabetic character to Lady Fennis , or if it was a deliberate revealing on Chade’spart . He was my mentor in those day , instruct me the assassin ’s arts . Chadeserved his king ruthlessly , as assassin , spy and manipulator of the court atBuckkeep Castle , and taught me to do the same . A regal bastard , he narrate me , isonly safe in a court so long as he is utilitarian . Ostensibly , I was a lowlybastard , ignored or reviled as I navigated the dangerous currents of politicsin the castle . But both King Shrewd and I knew that I was protected by theking ’s hand and his assassin . Yet it was not only poisons and knife - work andsubterfuge that he learn me , but what one must do to live as a bastard ofroyal lineage . Did he seek to give me admonition , or teach me to hate that I mightbe more securely his ? Even those questions come to me too late .
Over the years , I have seen QueenDesire in so many guises . First , she was the horrid fair sex who detest my fatherand hat me even more , the woman with the power to snatch the diadem from myfather ’s headspring and condemn me to a life where even my name was the mark of mybastardy . I recall a time in my biography when I feared even to have her see me .
Years after I arrived at Buckkeep , when my father was murdered at Withywoods , hers was the hand most likely behindit . And yet there was nothing I or Chade could do about it , no justice we coulddemand . I remember enquire if King Shrewd did not bonk or if he did not care . I commemorate lie with with absolute certainty that if Queen Desire wish mydeath , she could need for it . I even wondered then if Chade would protect me orif he would bow to his obligation and allow it to happen . Such things for a child towonder .
Withywoods was an mind to me , aharsh place of ostracism and humiliation . When I was a male child and I lived inBuckkeep , I was told that was where my father had gone , to obliterate from the shamethat was me . He had abdicated his crapper and summit , bow his pass to the hurtand anger of his rightful wife Patience , apologized to big businessman and court for hisfailure of virtue and judgment , and fly from the bastard he had generate .
And so I envisage that place basedon the only lieu I had ever lived , as a bastioned castle on a hill . I hadthought of it as a place like the stockade fort at Moonseye in the MountainKingdom , or the steep wall of Buckkeep Castle perched on top of sheer andforbidding grim cliffs overlooking the sea . I had imagined my don , broodingalone in a chill endocarp hall hung with conflict pennants and ancient arms . Iimagined stony fields that gave onto grey - obscure marshes .
afterward I would discover that Withywoodswas a grand manor , a large and well-off home built in a all-embracing and generousvalley . Its walls were not of Harlan F. Stone , but of golden oak and rich maple , andthough the floors of the halls were flagged with two-dimensional river stone , the wallswere empanel in warm wood . The blue sunlight of the farming vale fall inbroad banding into the rooms through the tall , narrow window . The carriagewayto the front doorway was wide , and graceful lily-white birch line it . In fall , they spill a carpet of gold on the road , and in winter , burdened with snow , theyarched over it , a frosted white burrow paned with glimpse of blue sky .
Withywoods was not a fortressbanishment , not an exile , but a kind pasturing - out for my forefather and hisbarren married woman . I think my grandfather had loved my father as much as hisstepmother hated him . King Shrewd send him to that removed acres to be safe .
And when my fourth dimension get to go there , with the adult female Iloved and her zippy boys and the woman who had always wanted to be my female parent , it became for a time a haven of rest and peace for us .
Time is an unkind teacher , delivering lessons that we learn far too late for them to be utilitarian . Yearsafter I could have benefited from them , the insights follow to me . Now , I lookback on ‘ former ’ King Shrewd and see him as a man beset by a foresighted cachexy illnessthat stole from him the comfort of his own torso and the sharpness of his intellect . But worse , I see Queen Desire for what she was : not an evil cleaning lady spirit onmaking my little life low , but as a female parent full of ruthless beloved for her onlyson , intent that he should never be slighted in any room . She would stop atnothing to put him on a throne .
What would I not have done toprotect my little daughter ? What legal action would have been too uttermost ? If I say , “ Iwould have killed them all , with no regret , ” does that make me a monster ?
Or just a father ?
But it is all hindsight . All theselessons , learned too late . When I was still a youthful man , I feel in my fleshlike a bent honest-to-goodness old-timer , full of pain in the neck and sigh . Oh , how I pitied myself , andjustified every savage decision I had ever made ! And then , when it came time forme to be the wise elder of my home , I was trapped in the body of a human race ofmiddle years , still subject to those passions and pulsing , still relying onthe strength of my correct arm when I would have been wiser to stop and utilize mypowers of intellect .
example learn too belatedly . Insightsdiscovered decades after .
And so much lost as a result .
Copyright © 2014 by Robin Hobb . Excerpted by permission of Del Rey , a division of RandomHouse LLC . All right wing reserved . No part of this excerpt may be reproduce orreprinted without permission in write from the publisher .
And here ’s the full covering :
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