Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

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Following a rumination by Fitz upon the Fool, “The Spider’s Lair” begins with Fitz glossing the passage of time and Bee’s slow growth before moving to confront Chade about Lant. Fitz’s progress to Buckkeep is described, as is his passage into the castle itself, and he arrives in Chade’s rooms and what had been his laboratories unmarked. There he waits, first surprising Lant with his appearance, then Rosemary, who has succeeded Chade as the court’s assassin. Fitz recalls his earlier experiences with her, and Chade emerges into the room.

Discussion of the attempted infiltration by Lant ensues, Chade attempting to set Fitz’s concerns aside and addressing some of his own about the potential Farseer heir that Bee is. Rosemary and Lant are dismissed, and discussion between Fitz and Chade continues. Chade asks Fitz to accept Lant into his household in time, knowing that he must either be placed or eliminated, given his training, and he urges Fitz to consider Bee’s possible futures. Gaps in Skill instruction are also treated in the discussion, and Chade attempts without success to prevail upon Fitz to rejoin life in Buckkeep. He seems to accept it at last, even as Fitz agrees to continue his scholarly work on Chade’s behalf.

The opening commentary, as often, attracts my attention. I am fortunate that my daughter, though born small, throve from her earliest days and thrives even now as I write this. She remains a marvel and a wonder to me, and if it is the case that I have had hopes for her that seem as if they will never come to be–I think many parents hope to see what they think the best of themselves reflected in their children, and my daughter is very much her own person–there are and have always been so many other excellences in her that I marvel daily that she is in my life. So I have not the concerns that Fitz voices for Bee. (I do know well that many parents do have such concerns or greatly similar, and I know that there are all too many parents who have and have had to have greater concerns yet; I do not wish to be taken as minimizing those experiences for lack of sharing them directly.) But that I do not have quite those same concerns does not mean I do not have concerns at all, and there are some that, like Fitz, I do not voice to others, knowing that my roles in life and the positions I must occupy to those others means I cannot let them hear such words from me. What that says about Fitz’s relationships or mine, I cannot well say, although I imagine the words would not themselves be kind, even if true. But, again, I read affectively and sentimentalize too much.

I note, too, the predilection for bastards in the Six Duchies to receive training as assassins. Chade is a bastard; Fitz is rather overtly so, and so is Lant. (Rosemary’s legitimacy does not come to mind as having been treated in the text, although that may be as much my oversight as anything else.) And on the topic of Lant: there’s more to be said about the character, and I’m certain I’ll treat some of it, but having an illegitimate child receiving training as an infiltrator named as, in effect, a lapse in vigilance is a bit on the nose even for a writer such as Hobb detailing a group such as the nobility of the Six Duchies that runs towards emblematic names. There’s humor to be found in it, certainly, but it’s a backhanded kind of humor–which is, admittedly, the kind of thing that tickles my fancy and attracts my attention.

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