The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Hobb Robin Read Free Book Online

said nothing for so long that I, and probably her father, thought she would say it would be for the best if she stepped aside. I feared she had lost the spirit to claim a throne. Then she said, “I have lost so many things. My mother is gone; she will never dance at my wedding. If I ever wed, it will not be as the cherished virgin daughter that you hoped to celebrate. I have disappointed and shamed you. I have disappointed and shamed myself, to give my heart and body to a man who was worthy of neither. And I have cheated the child that grows within me; the babe will have no father to defend him, no name save my own, no future except what I can bestow.” She took a deep breath and when she let it out, she squared her shoulders. “Father, please do not take my crown and future. Please let me show you that I can be worthy of both, and that I can rear a child who is worthy to carry the Farseer name and wear the crown of the Six Duchies.”
    For a time the king sat silently, thinking. Then he nodded slowly. He did not say a word after that, not even a farewell, but rose and left her chamber.
    The next day when she rose she called me to her. She did not speak kindly or cruelly but directed me to arrange a bath for her, scented with lavender, and to lay out an assortment of dresses that might still fit her well despite her belly, and to put out hose and low shoes and such jewelry as was of the best quality without being girlish. I hastened to obey her, with no complaint that she had given me all the work that half a dozen women would usually do for her. I felt only happiness that she seemed to believe I could do it all and well, and that she had not called her staff back to attend her.
    Dressed and groomed, she descended. She ate in the Great Hall, where all might see and know that she had arisen from her gloom. She was subdued, but there was a fiery anger that glinted in her eyes. I wondered who would be the target for it, but when she made it known that she wished to call a general assembly of all the dukes, duchesses and lesser nobles then present at Buckkeep I wondered no longer. She commanded, too, that the four senior minstrels attend, to witness and then to carry the account of the assembly out to the land. By this, I knew she had a plan, for to call such a council usurped her father’s right to do so. It was the first time she had truly behaved as if she were a Queen-in-Waiting, calling upon the power that someday would be entirely hers.
    When all the higher nobles then visiting Buckkeep were gathered, and all the lesser nobles present at the keep were standing in the audience hall, she stood up and said, “No king do I need now, or ever, to share my bed or my throne or even to get me a child. For I have these things already, bed, throne, and heir, and I shall never share them with any man. Have no doubt about the throne and the crown of the Six Duchies. I will be your queen, and my child will reign after me. I will not wed, and there will be no other children to challenge my child’s claim. You have only to look at me to know that my child will be well-born, taking from me the Farseer bloodlines that pass on the right to rule. No other heir could be named who could carry more of that bloodline than my child does. So be content with the heir that I will give to you. I need no husband and my child needs no father.”
    Although these furious words were intended for the ears of the aristocracy she must have known that they would spread much farther than the walls of that room. Her nobles took her words to mean that a member of the nobility had fathered her child. As far as I know, she did nothing to correct that idea.
    I doubt that the evening stars had appeared that winter day before Stablemaster Lostler had heard how little she needed or wanted him. I thought surely that he would find some way to contact her then. But either he did not or he failed in his attempt. Perhaps her abandonment of their meetings followed by