Description: The first Robin Hobb Trilogy, The Farseer Trilogy, took place in the Six Duchies. It is the tale of FitzChivalry Farseer. The discovery that this bastard son exists is enough to topple Prince Chivalry's ambition for the throne. He abdicates, ceding the title of heir to the throne to his younger brother Verity and abandoning the child to the care of the stable master Burrich. The youngest prince, Regal, has ambitions of his own, and wishes to do away with the bastard. But old King Shrewd sees the value of taking the lad and training him as an assassin. For a bastard can be sent into dangers where a true born son could not be risked, and may be given tasks that would soil an heir's hands. And so FitzChivalry is trained in the secret arts of being a royal assassin. He shows a predilection for the Wit, a beast magic much despised in the Six Duchies. This secret vice in the young assassin is tolerated, for a partnership with an animal may be a useful trait in an assassin. When it is discovered that he may possess the hereditary magic of the Farseers, the Skill, he becomes both the King's weapon, and an obstacle to Prince Regal's ambitions for the throne. At a time when the rivalry for the throne is intense, and the Outislanders and their Red Ship raiders are bringing war to the Six Duchies, FitzChivalry discovers that the fate of the kingdom may very well rest on the actions of a young bastard and the King's Fool. Armed with little more than loyalty and his sporadic talent for the old magic, Fitz follows the fading trail of King Verity who has traveled beyond the Mountain Kingdom and into the realm of the legendary Elderlings in what may be a vain hope to renew an old alliance.