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

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The next chapter, “Forgings,” opens with an extended musing on the legend of the Pocked Man in the Six Duchies; the figure is one cursed by El, one of the two gods the Duchies appear to acknowledge, made into an undying harbinger of pestilence whose appearance is a portent of doom. It pivots to comment on Fitz’s return to Buckkeep from his mission to Kelvar, which is onerous and highlights Chade’s skill in maintaining the fiction of Lady Thyme.

There is some comfort for Fitz, though; his efforts with Lady Grace meet resounding success and acclaim. Verity’s bachelorhood is noted, with Burrich commenting that Verity having a wife will do much to comfort the people of the kingdom. Verity himself, however, is distracted by the increasing Red-Ship raids and more Forgings. Popular responses to the attacks are sometimes harsh but understood as inevitable and necessary. The lack of a cohesive response from the Kingdom, however, sits ill with the populace, as Chade notes to Fitz during one of their late-night sessions.

Chade also comments with some aspersion about the politics in the Farseer dynasty, noting Verity’s deficiencies against the current situation (he “was raised to be second, not first,” and it shows) and Regal’s continued pampering. And Fitz’s regular lessons continue as Buckkeep girds for war, even if it does not yet strike out at its attackers.

Fitz is, however, able to resume his friendship with Molly. They talk together of the popular reaction in Buckkeep to the Forgings, as well as the anger building against Shrewd for his inaction. And in the wake of a conversation with her, when Fitz returns to the castle and scrounges a meal against the budding growth of his adolescent body, he encounters a noble woman not known to him. They make one another awkward, and Fitz leaves the encounter feeling a fool.

There is a fair bit of foreshadowing in the chapter, some of it working over longer terms within the novel than others. (Little if any of it extends to the other novels in the series.) Again, the idea of prognostication is one that pervades the Realm of the Elderlings novels, so its appearance in the present chapter is not a surprise. The cliffhanger of the meeting with the noblewoman, though, which is an instance of foreshadowing is somewhat annoying; it reads to me at present as a division-spanning item that might have done better in another place. Then again, strange events occur at jarring times, and the inclusion in its present position may well be a nod to that.

To return to the comment in the previous entry about the parallel between the Red-Ship raiders and current-to-this-writing perceptions of immigrants, there is a point in the chapter at which Molly notes to Fitz that local merchants have banded together to hire their own guard-ships. She comments that it may be a clever move on the part of Shrewd to allow them to do so, since they spend the money and he does not, and it may well be that. But there is also a parallel to near-current events, such as the ultimately racist and too-often too-close-to-Nazism militias that currently work ill on the southwestern border of the United States (and it’s always that border, not the much longer one at the north; I wonder [sarcastically] what the difference is). The book is decades old at this point, so there is no way it can be commenting on such events, but the parallels in the present reading are a bit much to ignore.

Realizing such is the case, I’m beginning to be uncomfortable with the novel in a way I was not before. I’m going to continue the re-read, of course; I try to carry through the projects I begin, although I am not always as good about that as I would like to be. But I have to acknowledge the shift in how I regard the work. I am not the reader I was when I first encountered the book; I am not even the reader I was when I was an aspiring scholar, working on the series for my master’s degree or turning to it again for conference papers and book chapters while I was working on my doctorate. I know more things than I did then, and I know differently the things I knew then. The opinions I form upon re-encountering things cannot help but differ, therefore. Many people seek to deny that they do; they try to regard things as settled when, ultimately, they are not. The failure to recognize such undergirds or informs a great many problems; I am glad to have the reminder, however small, that I ought not to make that particular mistake again.

Like what you’re getting? Go ahead and send some help along so that I can keep giving it to you!

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

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A chapter titled “Revelations” comes next, opening with Fitz’s reflective musings on fate before moving into the resumed journey towards Forge. Fitz wakes and eats as the ship he and Chade had boarded continues towards the village, and he notes the effects of a powerful stimulant–carris seed–on Chade, rebuking him amid an explanation of its effects. Chade sets Fitz’s concerns aside and briefs him on the upcoming mission.

Fitz and Chade proceed in haste towards Forge, Fitz musing on the comfort of being able to place trust in another, Chade reminiscing about his youth. They arrive at Forge too late to save it–or its inhabitants, who act erratically and who are opaque to Fitz’s Wit. He reflects on the sense and its absence in others and narrates his sudden panic at the revelation, panic that pushes him to drag Chade away. In explaining his actions to his mentor, he intimates his abilities to him, though Chade appears not to understand.

As they make to return to Forge, they are seen by people from a neighboring village who have come to check on their attacked neighbors. Chade is seen, an his likeness to a harbinger of plague is noted, worsening the situation and prompting him and Fitz to flee. After they are safe, Chade expounds on the problem of his having been seen as such and of the threat raised by the new Red-Ship raids that leave their victims disconnected from one another.

The effects of the carris seed leave Chade suddenly, and Fitz has to get the two of them and their horses back to the ship that had borne them. They return to where Verity is concluding his visit with Kevlar, and Fitz learns that, while his own mission has been a success, rumors of what happened at Forge are spreading already, bringing fear and the start of despair to the Six Duchies.

The chapter introduces the Forged, those afflicted by means later books make clearer and stripped of the ability to connect emotionally to themselves or to others. The parallels between the Forged and zombies have been noted by others (here and here among a great many), so I do not need to belabor the point, but it is notable that the Forged Ones, even in their first appearances, evoke the panicky terror of the uncanny valley. They are too much like Fitz–and the reader–to be truly Other, and they are afflicted rather than choosing, so that they should be recipients of sympathy. But they are already horrible, terrible things that provoke revulsion, precisely because they are like those with whom readers already sympathize; they may not be evil, as such, but they cannot be abided, even so.

(When I first read the novel, many years ago, I was not the kind of person who attended to political parallels. Nor am I up enough on what was going on in the world when the book was released [and, presumably, written] to be able to comment on that parallel with any accuracy. But as I read now, I wonder if the Forged Ones do not read as a backhanded comment on the fears too many have about immigrants and terrorists, that their machinations will somehow corrupt the hardworking, virtuous folks with whom they come into violent contact. Given their ultimate source…the comment becomes an interesting one. I might return to the idea in later posts in the series. It might bear some explication.)

Something I’ve noted as I’ve looked for art for these pieces is that there seems a fairly sharp divide among portrayals of the Farseers. Most of the works I’ve seen depict them as white, following Tolkienian conventions. A few, though, and many of the better ones, depict them as persons of color, whether as Black folks or as more closely akin to Native American and First Nations peoples. (For the record, I think the latter more accurate, given my earlier arguments about the milieu being more of the Pacific Northwest than the medieval European northwest and the oft-noted geographical similarities between the Six Duchies and Alaska.) I tend to think the persons-of-color depictions better in line with the text, else there’d not be quite so much made of–well, that will come later in the text. I also tend to think it a good thing, reminding readers that the medieval of which Hobb’s work partakes is not quite the monochromatic thing it is too often, and all too unhelpfully, assumed to be. (Helen Young has more to say on the matter.) It’s a bit of an aside, I know, but still a useful one.

Care to show some support?

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

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A chapter titled “Fat Suffices” follows, opening with a longer-than-usual musing on the Fool and his background. When the narration shifts to events, it sees Fitz waking in the night and stalking off to the local kitchens to eat. He scrounges himself a simple, hearty meal, from which he is interrupted by a young woman, clutching a small dog. Fitz’s extranormal senses and training in the stables and kennels tell him that the problem is a bone lodged in the dog’s throat; he makes to remove it, succeeding with help from the young woman.

It is only belatedly that Fitz realizes the young woman is Lady Grace, Kelvar’s new wife. He realizes his social gaffe as she offers him reward, but he is able quickly to turn it to advantage by spinning a fabricated story; his mind plays out the benefits likely to come. Thinking his mission done, he goes to bed.

Fitz is roused before dawn by a message that Lady Thyme requires his immediate attention. He dresses and races to her, only to find that she is a persona Chade uses. The old spy briefs him on the circumstances occasioning his sudden summoning: the nearby village of Forge has been raided, and a ransom is demanded, or the raiders will release the prisoners. The two race through the night towards Forge, Fitz reporting his success with Grace along the way.

Something occurs to me in the present reading that did not before. According to the Continental Kennel Club (and I am aware that there is a potential for problems in using such a source), the feist as a breed is a product of the United States. This is important for reasons I discuss in my chapter in Fantasy and Science Fiction Medievalisms, wherein I argue that the Realm of the Elderlings milieu borrows more from North American than from the nebulously European medieval setting common to Tolkienian-tradition fantasy fiction. In the chapter, I do consider some of the fauna described in the books as justification for the central assertion; I had missed the bit about the feist early on. Having another point in support of my idea is a welcome thing, even if it’s not terribly likely that having made the argument will do me much good.

It occurs to me, too, that the action is divided strangely at present. That is, the incident with Grace forecast by the title’s chapter and the race towards Forge are different scenes, however, compressed in time they may be. Many authors would put each in its own chapter. Combining the two and stopping well before reaching Forge has the effect of building suspense for the oddity forecast by the raiders’ strange message as well as eliding the possible effects of Fitz’s work. His interaction with Grace is made almost incidental; the salutary effects of that interaction are thereby foreshadowed as coming to little effect. Hobb makes much of presaging in the novel; how the foreshadowing functions or fails to will be of interest as the re-read continues.

Help me tend my gardens?

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

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The next chapter, “Lady Thyme,” opens with a musing on geography before describing the outset of Verity’s expedition to Rippon. The marching order and the general tedium of the trip receive comment before Fitz begins to opine on his particular vexation: being made to attend on the heavily veiled and eminently cantankerous Lady Thyme. One of the other workers on the expedition relates the common understanding of Lady Thyme, namely that working for her is markedly undesirable; she proves the point as the journey continues across five days.

At length, the expedition arrives in Rippon, and Fitz deposits Lady Thyme where she desires to lodge before rejoining Verity. Fitz’s uncle has him attend briefly to his dog, which he does by his Wit as much as anything else, then has him dress for the reception to come. Fitz is surprised by being taken in in such a way, but bathes and dresses as instructed.

At the appropriate time, Fitz accompanies Verity to the reception dinner. He marks the regard in which others seem to hold Verity (it is mixed), and assesses Kelvar swiftly–particularly as his new wife, Grace, joins him. He puts his various training to use at the dinner, observing the mighty carefully while keeping politely abreast of the surrounding conversations.

After the reception, Verity takes Fitz’s report of his observations. Fitz adds his summary of the situation: Kelvar is trying to compensate for the infirmities of age by taking a young wife and showering her with gifts. Verity bristles at the thought of soft-pedaling around Kelvar, purposing to order him to his duty. After being dismissed, Fitz muses on the inadequacy of that response and begins to contemplate responses as he falls asleep.

As I reread the chapter, I cannot help but think that it comments on the failures of direct solutions. The chapter ends with Fitz’s conclusion that simply ordering a task done will not ensure it is done well, that people have to be made to feel worthwhile to do work that is worthwhile. Some people can be trusted to act out of a sense of duty and to do their work well because of that duty, but more are more selfish than that and will not exert themselves without feeling some stake in the matter. Part of effective leadership, then, lies in helping others realize that they have a stake in doing what needs to be done. Verity acknowledges that Chivalry had realized it; Fitz himself understands it. That a refined politeness and its bastard both enact what simple truth struggles to do does point to etiquette as lies–but effective ones.

The last reminds that Hobb makes much of the significance of names in the Six Duchies, giving many characters emblematic names. That significance receives in-milieu comment; indeed, in the present chapter, Verity remarks that “Shrewd [his father] is called, and shrewd he is,” pointing to the name as characterization in a way that bespeaks his own name as his prominent quality. It is telling, then, that Lady Thyme, about whom more is revealed in following chapters, is named as she is. Though she is unpleasant to those who work for her, the flowering herb of her name is one that connotes courage and strength, if Catherine Boeckmann’s 2018 contribution to the Old Farmer’s Almanac is to be believed. The herb is also associated with purification and carries medicinal properties. Knowing this, the name becomes either a joke or a bit of foreshadowing; Hobb’s writing makes the latter more likely than the former.

Help me tend my gardens?

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

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The seventh chapter in Assassin’s Apprentice, “An Assignment,” presents commentaries about the death of Regal’s mother, Queen Desire, from what seems to have been a drug overdose. It moves on to note the mourning rituals enacted in the wake of Chivalry’s death, focusing on haircutting and noting the extreme removals Burrich inflicts on Fitz–appropriate to mourning a father–and himself–more fit to a crowned king, despite Chivalry’s abdication. The extent of Burrich’s emotional investment in Chivalry is clear.

In the weeks and months following Chivalry’s death, Chade summons Fitz several times. Fitz asks about his father and his circumstances, and Chade agrees that the death is suspicious–as well as noting both that Fitz is far from safe and that he judges his father overly harshly. Fitz’s regular life continues among the summonses, and he notes the increasing frequency of raids from the Out Islands before learning that he is to be sent as part of a diplomatic envoy to one of the Six Duchies experiencing many such raids. Burrich instructs him rapidly, and Fitz encounters the Fool unexpectedly; the Fool delivers a prophecy to the boy:

Fitz fixes feist’s fits. Fat suffices. It’s a message, I believe. A calling for a significant act. As you are the only one I know who endures being called Fitz, I believe it’s for you. As for what it means, how should I know? I’m a fool, not an interpreter of dreams. Good day.

Later, Chade informs Fitz his presence in the envoy is a cover for his first assignment as an assassin–potentially. Fitz is to assess the situation and, if disloyalty on the part of the local duke underlies the increase in raiding, he is to eliminate the duke–without allowing any of the others to be any the wiser. Fitz asks Chade about his own entry into the assassin’s profession–and Chade offers some answers, but not many.

Some thoughts emerge as I reread–and some, I think I have not thought before, though I have to wonder if I am bringing up things I’ve read without realizing I’m doing so. I’ve read a lot of criticism of Hobb’s writing, so it’s possible I’m recapitulating it; if I am, it’s unintentional.

• Burrich is described in the novel as having been Chivalry’s man, committed to him to a degree exceeding the normal loyalty one might expect from those in service. (It’s a relationship that might well be likened to that between Sam and Frodo in Lord of the Rings.) Later novels explicate the relationship to some extent, though those novels also make a point of noting how little is ever made clear to Fitz–and thus to the reader–about life before Fitz’s arrival. (It is possible to read into that a comment about our own partial knowledge; what can we really know of the past other than pieces of it?) Given the metaphor for homosexuality already presented in the novel, though, as well as the decided homoeroticism that emerges in the later novels (and that no small amount of fanart depicts), that Burrich and Chivalry were more than servant and lord is a tantalizing prospect.
• While this is not the first appearance of the Fool in the narrative, it is the first of the Fool’s predictions to come up in the text. It does seem to indicate that the concept of the Fool–what the Fool actually is–is not entirely clear at present; the Fool’s comment about not being an interpreter of dreams is at odds with later information, suggesting the concept changes during composition–or that the Fool does.
• Fitz notes at the end of the chapter that he is thirteen as he takes on the first assignment. This is, of course, horrible to current sensibilities; sending children to wage war is atrocious, and assassination is less savory work than open war. At the same time, it sets up something of a precedent in the series; he is sent in part because, as a child, he would not be expected to be an assassin, and that lack of suspicion of a child returns in force later in the series. Seems there’s quite a bit of groundwork laid here for what comes afterwards…

Support a poor scholar?

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

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Chapter 6, “Chivalry’s Shadow,” opens with a rumination on royal naming traditions in the Six Duchies. It moves thence to a lesson Fitz has with Fedwren, the scribe who serves Buckkeep and after whom the Fedwren Project is named, who then asks the boy about the possibility of apprenticing with him. Fitz later discusses the issue with Chade, who explains why it would be a bad one to pursue. (The short answer is politics. A longer answer is that political concerns would almost certainly provoke one faction or another within the Six Duchies to kill Fitz.)

During the discussion, Fitz’s frustration with being largely confined to Buckkeep emerges. He is soon tasked with a shopping trip to Buckkeep Town, during which he reacquaints himself with Molly. They reconnect relatively easily, and Fitz reads a bit of writing that Molly’s deceased mother left behind. She is grateful to him for the work, and some foreshadowing of romance to come emerges in their interactions.

As Fitz returns to Buckkeep, Verity and Regal overtake him. They bear the news that Chivalry, their elder brother and Fitz’s father, is dead.

Some points of interest emerge in the chapter. For one, a vendor in Buckkeep Town appears to recognize Fitz and to address him by the name of Keppet. The clear implication is that the vendor is Fitz’s mother, and Keppet is therefore the name he was given and should bear instead of FitzChivalry Farseer. Other bits and pieces that emerge in the series suggest that more is known of Fitz’s origins than he himself is given to understand, though it is never made clear by whom such things are known. Such things tend towards the Tolkienian bones from which the soup of story is made, though, or the unexplored vistas Tolkien mentions in his commentaries; they serve to suggest that the world of the Six Duchies has an independent life that exceeds perhaps even the authorial vision (though that is an overly sentimental and romantic reading, but I do not have to read as a detached academic unless I want to do so, being largely out of academe).

Further, while the return of a rightful and consummately skilled king to the throne is an integral part of the Tolkienian fantasy tradition, and most descriptions of Chivalry Farseer depict him as being such a consummately skilled man, the present chapter dispels any such notion. Chivalry is dead, and its honest and pompous brothers, and its bastard son, are what remain. If the series needed any more indication that it would not follow the Tolkienian narrative pattern prior to the chapter, it certainly does not with the present chapter taking place. And it serves as notice to the readers, if not necessarily to Fitz himself, that no characters in the works are safe (prefiguring the oft-lauded “realism” of George R.R. Martin’s works in publication, since Hobb’s novel was published more than a year before Martin’s–and I have Thoughts about the relationship between those novelists’ works).

While it may seem reasonably familiar ground to tread now, to the teenager steeped in Tolkienian fantasy I was then, the unsettling of such narrative tropes was almost disconcerting. I had read a lot even then, if not necessarily of the best quality, and I found myself on unfamiliar ground. It was not unwelcome that I did not know how things would go.

I do now, of course, but only after more than twenty years of reading and re-reading. It does not make revisiting the text unenjoyable.

Help me keep doing this!