No Stone Left Unturned

***Spoilers for The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince***

Everyone, buckle up… I’m going to say something shocking: Robin Hobb has once again impressed me. Ok, yes- me praising Robin is as guaranteed as the sun rising in the east. But with each expansion of the Realm, she continues to deliver awe.

And The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince is no different. With this installment, it’s not the story or characters themselves that particularly dazzled me – though they’re compelling on their own – but the immense color and context this tale adds to the world and the arc unfolding in Fitz’s story.

At the end of Fool’s Fate, I noted that I was getting answers to questions I didn’t know I had. Likewise, TWPATPP provides the deep clarity on the climate surrounding the Wit in the Farseer and Tawny Man storylines. It leads me to suspect there are no plot holes in RotE, only gaps in my own Realm-specific knowledge.

We’re given this story in two parts, related by Felicity, a Buckkeep servant with unusually close proximity to our titular royals. Let’s dig in…

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The Willful Princess

Our narrator is the daughter of the royal wet nurse and becomes a sort of trusted companion to the willful Princess Caution throughout childhood. Caution is the kind of child many parents would instantly recognize, and the “willful” is certainly apt. Wants to wear the same skirt every day and keep her lowborn companion glued to her side? Done. Has zero interest in finding a proper husband? Toss that task on the back burner. Might what some call willful, others call spoiled royal brat? Eh – potaytoe, potahtoe – choose your fighter and let’s move on.

Things get interesting when our gals go to market and Caution becomes taken with a quiet, mysterious horse-whisperer from Chalced named Lostler. She takes a liking to his spotted, kind-of-an-asshole horse that only he can control, so back to the Buckkeep stables with the both of them.

As their daily rides begin and they start clearly vibing, I developed the sort-of RotE amnesia I’m prone to and thought, Oh, perhaps this is going to be a sweet little star-crossed romance. HA!

Instead, our jealous twat of a narrator catches them boning, and when Caution ends up pregnant out of wedlock, Felicity goes full saboteur.

But before we reach the absolutely WILD choice with insane repercussions that echo through basically the rest of time (it’s dawning on me that this is kind of giving catalyst energy 🤔), let’s take a quick pause for the worst character in our tale: Felicity’s mom.

Felicity’s mother takes social climbing to the extreme, already having cast her young daughter away from home to keep her in proximity to Caution. When Felicity shares that Caution is pregnant, her mother insists Felicity must get with child ASAP. While not winning any loving mother awards, so far, so reasonable. We assume she just wants Felicity positioned to serve as Caution’s wet nurse. So, Felicity goes and bangs a minstrel – as one does – and ends up pregnant a couple months behind the princess.

Meanwhile, Caution has been sequestered away from her stablemaster lover/baby daddy. Felicity sees her despair and knows Caution is going to throw her name to the wind to reunite with Lostler. Convinced a permanent separation is best long-term, Felicity makes a rash decision that alters Six Duchies history. When Caution, surprised that her plain, presumably lesbian companion got D’d down is suddenly pregnant, asks who the father is, Felicity seizes the opening and coolly lies that it was Lostler.

Motherfucker!! I was livid. How dare she do sweet Witted ancestor-of-Fitz like that!

But the fuckery ain’t over yet. Yada yada… pregnancies progress… Caution feels betrayed and declares she needs no man. Felicity, knowing that having Lostler hanging around is bad news, convinces Caution to have his Wit-horse sold at market behind his back.

This plan goes about as well as you’d expect. The horse panics, things go sideways, and horse and Lostler die tragically in Caution’s arms. She’s covered in their blood, goes into labor, gives birth to a marked baby boy, and dies shortly afterward.

Felicity executing a plan:

Surely that must be the worst of it, right? WRONG. While Caution is in labor, Felicity’s mother unveils a deranged scheme: she wants Felicity to induce premature labor and swap her baby with the princess’s. Hwhat??!

There are many issues with this plan. Also, almost no payoff. But, admittedly, they get disturbingly far, with Felicity delivering a baby of the same sex. Unfortunately for Evil Mom, it’s going to be hard to pass off a premature newborn as the extremely notable, piebald princeling. And thus, the plan collapses, Mom exits our story stage left (bitch, bye!), and our Willful Princess dies post-childbirth- setting the stage for Part Two.

A sweet little romance story, indeed!

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The Piebald Prince

We shift focus to our darling Piebald Prince as he fades into Buckkeep’s background. As a bastard with a dead mother, he’s not of much consequence to the nobles. It’s left to Felicity, so she names him Charger and raises him alongside her own son, Redbird. She at least feels a touch of guilt for her little *oopsie daisy* mistakes, so she ensures he is properly raised and educated.

Charger grows up a pretty chill kid and gradually earns the trust and admiration of his grandfather, King Virile. This is all fine and well until King Virile likes the cut of Charger’s jib enough to name him King-in-Waiting, which doesn’t sit so well with the King’s brother Strategy, whose son Canny had previously been presumed heir. But they grit their teeth and accept it.

Tensions simmer, but everyone seems willing to abide by King Virile’s decision until – what else – our very own Helen of Buckkeep shows up to cause chaos. (This novella doesn’t cast the greatest light on women operating behind the scenes, that’s for sure.)

Lady Wiffen strolls into town and immediately becomes the arena for the Charger-Canny power struggle. Now, here is where our narrator’s unreliability is perhaps most evident. She’s giving pretty strong “boy mom” vibes as she remarks on Lady Wiffen’s lack of beauty and assigns her a hefty share of the blame for what transpires. But all we have is her account, and it does seem Lady Dubs indecision adds fuel to the rivalry.

She ultimately chooses Canny, but after a dance with (now King) Charger at her own wedding, rumors of nighttime dalliances follow. Not to mention back-and-forth murder among the two men’s followers- peace becomes impossible. Lady Wiffen flip-flops between the men a couple more times, before Canny’s thugs ambush King Charger alone in the gardens and kill him without honor.

With no witnesses to the treason, the Wit becomes the perfect scapegoat. A foreign magic. Something mysterious to blame for all the misfortune. In the aftermath:

“All the piebald horses in Buckkeep and every spotted hound in the stables were put to the sword. Those who dared denounce such deeds were declared Witted, partaking of the king’s evil magic. Many a noble of the Motley Court was beaten or simply vanished. Any that could flee did. To be Witted had become a sign of an evil and beastly nature, low and deceiving.”

And there it is: the root of the prejudice Fitz faces his entire life.

Too bad Charger died alone and no one will ever know the truth. But wait- what’s that in the tree? That’s not a bird! It’s a man named bird. Redbird, to be exact. The minstrel-son who saw everything and, as we’ve been reminded roughly thirty thousand times, cares about the truth above all else.

As Canny launches his crusade against all things Piebald and Witted, Redbird takes measures to preserve the truth. He records his version of events in song and entrusts it to Mama Narrator for safekeeping. Then, at Canny’s coronation, he stands up, sings his truth, and is promptly killed. Yup. This is a Six Duchies tale, all right!

Thus ends the tale of the Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince. But wait… there is one more twist. As Felicity concludes her story, she notes that not long after Canny’s coronation, Lady Wiffen becomes pregnant. At the naming ceremony, Felicity spots a bird-shaped birthmark that leaves no doubt:

“Prince Courage Farseer, may he prosper and rule long, is the son of the rightful king, King Charger Farseer, son of Queen-in-Waiting Caution Farseer, daughter of King Virile and Queen Capable Farseer. And grandson of Lostler of Chalced, Stablemaster and Witted one.”

And there we have it- our direct line to our one and only FitzChivalry Farseer.

Musings:

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Alright, friends! It’s great to be back. Biting off a full novella in one go was a lot to chew, but I think we got there.

Next stop: Dragon Keeper! See you in the swamps!