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HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1995
Copyright © Robin Hobb 1995
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014. Illustration © Jackie Morris. Calligraphy by Stephen Raw. Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com (background).
Robin Hobb asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007562251
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007374038
Version: 2014-08-29
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One: The Earliest History
Chapter Two: Newboy
Chapter Three: Covenant
Chapter Four: Apprenticeship
Chapter Five: Loyalties
Chapter Six: Chivalry’s Shadow
Chapter Seven: An Assignment
Chapter Eight: Lady Thyme
Chapter Nine: Fat Suffices
Chapter Ten: The Pocked Man
Chapter Eleven: Forgings
Chapter Twelve: Patience
Chapter Thirteen: Smithy
Chapter Fourteen: Galen
Chapter Fifteen: The Witness Stones
Chapter Sixteen: Lessons
Chapter Seventeen: The Trial
Chapter Eighteen: Assassinations
Chapter Nineteen: Journey
Chapter Twenty: Jhaampe
Chapter Twenty-One: Princes
Chapter Twenty-Two: Dilemmas
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Wedding
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Aftermath
Epilogue
The Liveship Traders
The Rain Wild Chronicles
About the Author
By Robin Hobb
About the Publisher
A history of the Six Duchies is of necessity a history of its ruling family, the Farseers. A complete telling would reach back beyond the founding of the First Duchy, and if such names were remembered, would tell us of Outislanders raiding from the Sea, visiting as pirates a shore more temperate and gentler than the icy beaches of the Out Islands. But we do not know the names of these earliest forebears.
And of the first real king, little more than his name and some extravagant legends remain. Taker his name was, quite simply, and perhaps with that naming began the tradition that daughters and sons of his lineage would be given names that would shape their lives and beings. Folk beliefs claim that such names were sealed to the newborn babes by magic, and that these royal offspring were incapable of betraying the virtues whose names they bore. Passed through fire and
