Page 142 (1/1)

Prologue

My dear Lady Fennis,

We have been friends far too long for me to be circumspect As you so delicately hinted, yes, there has been shattering news delivered to me My stepson, Prince Chivalry, has exposed himself as the crude fellow I have always known him to be His bastard child, fathered on a Mountain whore, has been revealed

As shameful as that is, it could have been handled far more discreetly if his clever-as-a-stone brother Prince Verity had taken swift and decisive action to elirace Instead he has announced the child in an indiscreet e to my husband

And so, in the face of this base disgrace, what does my lord do? Why, not only does he insist the bastard ht to Buckkeep Castle, he then bestows on Chivalry the title to Withywoods, and sends hiraceless, barren wife Withywoods! A fine estate that any number of my friends would be pleased to occupy, and he rewards it to his son for fathering a bastard with a foreign co Shrewd find it distasteful that said bastard has been brought back here to Buckkeep Castle where any e

And the final insult to me and my son? He has decreed that Prince Verity will now take up the title of King-in-Waiting, and be the next presumed heir to the throne When Chivalry had the decency to secede his clai that Regal would i While he er than both his half-brothers, no one can dispute that his bloodlines areas lordly as his name

Prologue

My dear Lady Fennis,

We have been friends far too long for me to be circumspect As you so delicately hinted, yes, there has been shattering news delivered to me My stepson, Prince Chivalry, has exposed himself as the crude fellow I have always known him to be His bastard child, fathered on a Mountain whore, has been revealed

As shameful as that is, it could have been handled far more discreetly if his clever-as-a-stone brother Prince Verity had taken swift and decisive action to elirace Instead he has announced the child in an indiscreet e to my husband

And so, in the face of this base disgrace, what does my lord do? Why, not only does he insist the bastard ht to Buckkeep Castle, he then bestows on Chivalry the title to Withywoods, and sends hiraceless, barren wife Withywoods! A fine estate that any number of my friends would be pleased to occupy, and he rewards it to his son for fathering a bastard with a foreign co Shrewd find it distasteful that said bastard has been brought back here to Buckkeep Castle where any e

And the final insult to me and my son? He has decreed that Prince Verity will now take up the title of King-in-Waiting, and be the next presumed heir to the throne When Chivalry had the decency to secede his clai that Regal would i While he er than both his half-brothers, no one can dispute that his bloodlines areas lordly as his name

Truly, I aave up n and titles to be Shrewd’s Queen, it was in the belief that any child I bore hie than the two reckless boys his forn after Shrewd But does he now look at Chivalry and ad him heir? No Instead he sets hi-in-Waiting Verity Hulking, square-faced Verity, with all the grace of an ox

It is too much, my dear Too al would then be without a defender here

Missive from Queen Desire to Lady Fennis of Tilth

I hated her when I was a boy I recall the first time I found thatfor myself that the Queen I had never formally met had, indeed, hated me from the moment she knew of me I made it mutual I never asked Chade how he ca Shrewd, Chade had never hesitated in pursuing the best interests of the Farseer throne He had purloined it from Queen Desire’s desk, perhaps Perhaps it had been his ploy to make it appear that the Queen snubbed Lady Fennis by not responding to her letter Does it matter now? I do not know, for I do not knohat effect ained with his theft

Yet I do wonder, sometimes, if it was an accident that I found and read Queen Desire’s letter to Lady Fennis, or if it was a deliberate revelation on Chade’s part He wasruthlessly, as assassin, spy, and ht me to do the same A royal bastard, he toldas he is useful Ostensibly I was a lowly bastard, ignored or reviled as I navigated the dangerous currents of politics in the castle But both King Shrewd and I knew that I was protected by the King’s hand and his assassin It was not only poisons and knife-work and subterfuge that he taught me, but what one e Did he seek to give ht be more firmly his? Even those questions come to me too late

Over the years I have seen Queen Desire in so uises First she was the horrid woman who hated my father and hated me even more, the woman with the power to snatch the crown from my father’s head and condemn me to a life where even my name was the mark of my bastardy I recall a time in my life when I feared even to let her see me

Years after I arrived at Buckkeep, when my father was murdered at Withywoods, hers was the handI or Chade could do about it, no justice we could de Shrewd did not know or if he did not care I re with absolute certainty that if Queen Desire wished my death, she could ask for it I even wondered then if Chade would protect me or if he would bow to his duty and allow it to happen Such things for a child to wonder

Withywoods was an idea to me, a harsh place of banishment and humiliation When I was a boy and I lived in Buckkeep, I was told that here one, to hide from the shame that was me He had abdicated his throne and crown; bowed his head to the hurt and anger of his laife, Patience; apologized to King and court for his failure of virtue and judgment; and fled from the bastard he had sired