Hobb, Robin
ROYAL ASSASSIN [book two in THE FARSEER trilogy]
Robin Hobb
Bantam Books 1996
Pb 675 pages
ISBN#
0-553-57341-1
The Six Duchies are breaking up. King Shrewd is old and ailing. The son of his oldest and now deceased child is a bastard, unfit for the throne so raised to be royal assassin. Shrewd's second son, from his first wife of coastal stock, is now King-in-Waiting. And Shrewd's third son, from his second wife of inland breeding, is slyly maneuvering to take that throne from his father and brother for the Inland Duchies. Meanwhile, Raiders batter the Coastal Duchies. So it is that the Coastal Duchies have no support from the inlands ones, or their ailing king, and must learn to protect themselves.
Bastard and assassin FitzChivalry is young, but not too young to fear Prince Regal's attempt for the throne. Prince Regal has already tried to kill Fitz twice. But most everyone else is dazzled by Prince Regal as King Shrewd remains abed and King-in-Waiting Verity goes away to find supernatural help for his kingdom against the Raiders. Regal is left to plunder Buckkeep of its riches, shipping the best animal stock, castle furniture, the cook! and everything else inland for his personal use once he usurps the throne. Fitz tries to keep Verity's Queen-in-Waiting safe from Regal but should have spent more time worrying over his king. Regal finds "proof" that Verity is dead, then goes on to secretly kill his own father, King Shrewd. Caught between the brothers, Fitz's life is up for grabs. Verity has Fitz "Skilling" better now than in book one [Assassin's Apprentice]. King-in-Waiting Verity maintains a mind-link with Fitz while traveling abroad, but this Skill-link is spied upon by Prince Regal's Skill-coterie. The powerful coterie use Fitz against Shrewd and Verity. They also discover that Fitz has more than one kind of magic: not only is Fitz, bastard son to Prince Chivalry, blessed with Farseer blood, he is also cursed with beast magic and soul-linked to a wolf. Once all the other players are off the board, no more obstructions remain between Regal and his hatred of FitzChivalry. The ending is quite upsetting.
The Farseer storyline is compelling because, couched among heavy passages of endless description are jewels of excellent characterization. This reader finds constant ways to identify with FitzChivalry, basic human ways that should catch many readers in Ms Hobbs' tangling fantasy. A wonderful story! --just start with book one (and be sure to have book three ready to grab after you finish this one!).
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