The Farseer: Assassin's Apprentice characters

Also known as Fitz, Newboy

Appears from the start

A six-year-old boy delivered to the Six Duchies royal family by his mother's father, who wants nothing more to do with him. He is the acknowledged bastard of Prince Chivalry, the King-in-Waiting, and his existence is a scandal that ends his father's career before the boy has spoken a dozen words at court. Raised in the stables at Buckkeep with no name of his own, he grows up half servant and half unwanted kin, watching a family he cannot claim. He has an unschooled talent for reaching the minds of animals, a thing his guardian treats as a shameful sickness rather than a gift, and he is quick, watchful, and desperate to be of use to somebody.

Appears from the start

Prince Chivalry's stableman and closest man, a dark, blunt, hard-drinking horseman who is handed the boy and told to raise him. He is scrupulously fair and completely unsentimental, teaching the boy horses, hounds, hawks and discipline while giving him almost no affection. He recognizes the boy's beast-magic at once and sets himself to beating it out of him, insisting it is a filthy thing no Farseer should touch. Whatever it costs him, he keeps the boy fed, whole and out of trouble because Chivalry left him to do it.

Appears from the start

King Shrewd's second son, a plain, square, practical soldier with none of his elder brother's polish. He is decent to the boy from their first meeting and is unexpectedly saddled with the succession when Chivalry steps aside. He carries the royal Skill magic and the defence of a coast that is beginning to be raided, and he does his duty without complaint or flourish.

Appears from the start

King Shrewd's eldest son and King-in-Waiting, a gifted diplomat and soldier admired throughout the Six Duchies. He is married to Lady Patience and has no legitimate children. The revelation of a bastard son ruins his standing, and he renounces the throne and withdraws to the inland estate of Withywoods rather than let the scandal be used against the crown. He never meets the boy, and remains for him a reputation rather than a father.

First appears in chapter 3

King of the Six Duchies, an old and calculating ruler who has outlived one queen and married another. He summons the bastard boy privately and makes a bargain with him: the crown will feed, house and school him, and in return he will be the king's man before he is anyone else's, taking his loyalty from no other hand. He gives the boy a pin as the token of that agreement, and thereafter treats him as a useful possession rather than a grandson.

First appears in chapter 3

King Shrewd's youngest son by his second queen, raised inland at Tradeford tastes and manners. He is elegant, sharp-tongued and fastidious, dresses richly, and makes no attempt to hide his contempt for a stable-raised bastard who reminds the court of his brother's disgrace. He is ambitious for a crown that two elder brothers stand between him and, and he is well practised at charming his father.

First appears in chapter 3

The daughter of a Buckkeep Town chandler, a year or two older than the boy, who runs the shop and the candle-making while her father drinks. She is brisk, proud and quick-tempered, and she takes the ragged stable boy for a town child like herself. She is his first real friend outside the keep and the one person who likes him for no reason of duty.

First appears in chapter 6

King Shrewd's jester, a slight figure with colourless skin, pale eyes and white hair, of unguessable age and sex, who mocks the court in riddles and rhymes that are usually cleverer than they first sound. Everyone at Buckkeep finds the Fool unsettling. The Fool takes an interest in the bastard boy that has nothing to do with the boy's usefulness, appearing without warning, saying things that will only make sense later, and refusing to explain any of them.

First appears in chapter 7

A gaunt, pockmarked old man who lives unseen in the walls of Buckkeep and comes for the boy at night by way of a hidden stair. He is the king's private assassin, the hand that does the quiet work the crown will not put its name to, and he has been told to train a successor. He teaches herbs, poisons, forgery, lock-work and the habit of noticing everything, and he is the closest thing to a kind teacher the boy has, which does not soften what he is training him for.

First appears in chapter 12

Chivalry's widow, an eccentric noblewoman living in retirement with her maid Lacey. She is scattered, blunt, and famously difficult, given to a dozen half-finished enthusiasms at once, and she has spent years resenting the boy whose existence took her husband from the throne. When she finally sends for him the meeting goes badly, and then she abruptly appoints herself responsible for his education and his prospects, whether or not either of them enjoys the arrangement.

First appears in chapter 13

A puppy given to the boy as a gift, over the objection of everyone who suspects what will happen. He is cheerful, greedy and entirely devoted, and the bond between them becomes the deepest attachment in the boy's life, kept secret because the beast-magic that makes it possible is forbidden at Buckkeep.

First appears in chapter 14

The Skillmaster of Buckkeep, charged with finding and training those who can use the Farseer magic. He is severe, self-righteous and physically punishing with his students, and he loathes Chivalry's bastard on sight, treating the boy's presence in his class as an insult to the royal line. He controls who is judged to have the talent and who is not, and he uses that power freely.

First appears in chapter 20

Daughter of the ruler of the Mountain Kingdom and the bride chosen for Verity in a match arranged by proxy. Tall, fair and plainly dressed by Six Duchies standards, she has been raised to think of a ruler as the Sacrifice, the one who is spent for the good of the people, and she takes that duty entirely seriously. She is warm, direct and wholly unprepared for the ornamental role a Buckkeep queen is expected to play.

First appears in chapter 21

Kettricken's elder brother and the heir of the Mountain Kingdom, a big, plain-spoken man with an old wound that has never healed properly. He supports the marriage alliance and speaks frankly about what the Mountain Kingdom and the Six Duchies each stand to gain, which is not at all what the boy has been told to expect of him.