Character from The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb
The king's hidden assassin — a pox-scarred bastard who spent decades in secret tunnels shaping the fate of the Six Duchies, loving his great-nephew Fitz in the only way he knows: by making him into a weapon.
Chade is the most dangerous conversationalist in Buckkeep because everything he says has at least two purposes. He taught Fitz to observe, to poison, to kill — and also to question, to think, to survive. His love for the boy is genuine and deep, but it is the love of a man who has never learned to separate caring from control. He is endlessly curious, perpetually scheming, and constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone. In his youth this made him the perfect hidden assassin; in old age it makes him a menace. When he finally gains access to the Skill late in life, he pursues it with the obsessive recklessness of an addict, nearly destroying himself and others. The contradiction of Chade is that he genuinely wants to protect the people he loves — Fitz, Dutiful, the Farseer line — but his methods are so manipulative that the protection often feels like another form of imprisonment. He is the man behind the throne who never stops wanting to be behind the throne, even when it costs him everything.
Tall and lean with the rangy build of a man who has never quite stopped moving. A pox scar marks one side of his face, pulling at the skin — a disfigurement that exiled him from court life and into the tunnels. His hair has gone from dark to iron gray to white across the decades. He dresses well when he's allowed in public, but his natural habitat is his cluttered tower workroom, sleeves rolled up, surrounded by powders and potions and half-finished experiments.
Also known as: Lord Chade, Chade, Old Chade