"Robin Hobb - Assassin 1 - Assassin' s Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

beneath the table to snare a few more choice leavings before they were gone.
But it was no servant who startled at my sudden appearance but the old King,
my grandfather himself. A scant step behind him, at his elbow, was Regal. His
bleary eyes and rumpled doublet attested to his participation in last night's
revelries. The King's new fool, but recently acquired, pattered after them, pale
eyes agoggle in an eggshell face. He was so strange a creature, with his pasty
skin and motley all of blacks and whites, that I scarce dared to look at him. In
contrast, King Shrewd was clear of eye, his beard and hair freshly groomed, and
his clothing immaculate. For an instant he was surprised, and then remarked,
"You see, Regal, it is as I was telling you. An opportunity presents itself, and
someone seizes it; often someone young, or someone driven by the energies and
hungers of youth. Royalty has no leisure to ignore such opportunities, or to let
them be created for others."
The King continued his stroll past me, extolling on his theme while Regal
gave me a baleful look from bloodshot eyes. A flap of his hand indicated that I
should disappear myself. I indicated my understanding with a quick nod, but
darted first to the table. I stuffed two apples into my jerkin and took up a
mostly whole gooseberry tart when the King suddenly rounded and gestured at me.
His fool mimed an imitation. I froze where I stood.
"Look at him," the old King commanded.
Regal glared at me, but I dared not move.
"What will you make of him?"
Regal looked perplexed. "Him? It's the Fitz. Chivalry's bastard. Sneaking and
thieving as always."
"Fool." King Shrewd smiled, but his eyes remained flinty. The Fool, thinking
himself addressed, smiled sweetly. "Are your ears stopped with wax? Do you hear
nothing I say? I asked you, not `what do you make of him?' but `what will you
make of him?' There he stands, young, strong, and resourceful. His lines are
every bit as royal as yours, for all that he was born on the wrong side of the
sheets. So what will you make of him? A tool? A weapon? A comrade? An enemy? Or
will you leave him lying about, for someone else to take up and use against
you?"
Regal squinted at me, then glanced past me and, finding no one else in the
hall, returned his puzzled gaze to me. At my ankle, a pup whined a reminder that
earlier we had been sharing. I warned him to hush.
"The bastard? He's only a child."
The old King sighed. "Today. This morning and now he is a child. When next
you turn around he will be a youth, or worse, a man, and then it will be too
late for you to make anything of him. But take him now, Regal, and shape him,
and a decade hence you will command his loyalty. Instead of a discontented
bastard who may be persuaded to become a pretender to the throne, he will be a
henchman, united to the family by spirit as well as blood. A bastard, Regal, is
a unique thing. Put a signet ring on his hand and send him forth, and you have
created a diplomat no foreign ruler will dare to turn away. He may safely be
sent where a prince of the blood may not be risked. Imagine the uses for one who
is and yet is not of the royal bloodline. Hostage exchanges. Marital alliances.
Quiet work. The diplomacy of the knife."
Regal's eyes grew round at the King's last words. For a pause, we all
breathed in silence, regarding one another. When Regal spoke, he sounded as if
he had dry bread caught in his throat. "You speak of these things in front of