Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  He stopped talk­ing. I heard him get up. He went to the table and picked up the bottle of eld­er­berry wine that Chade had left. I watched him as he turned it sev­eral times in his hands. Then he set it down. He sat down on one of the chairs and stared into the fire.

  ‘Chade said I should leave you to­mor­row,’ he said quietly. He looked down at me. ‘I think he’s right.’

  I sat up and looked up at him. The dwind­ling light of the fire made a shad­owy land­scape of his face. I could not read his eyes.

  ‘Chade says you have been my boy too long. Chade’s boy, Ver­ity’s boy, even Pa­tience’s boy. That we kept you a boy and looked after you too much. He be­lieves that when a man’s de­cisions came to you, you made them as a boy. Im­puls­ively. In­tend­ing to be right, in­tend­ing to be good. But in­ten­tions are not good enough.’

  ‘Send­ing me out to kill people was keep­ing me a boy?’ I asked in­cred­u­lously.

  ‘Did you listen to me at all? I killed people as a boy. It didn’t make me a man. Nor you.’

  ‘So what am I to do?’ I asked sar­castic­ally. ‘Go look­ing for a prince to edu­cate me?’

  ‘There. You see? A boy’s reply. You don’t un­der­stand, so you get angry. And venom­ous. You ask me that ques­tion but you already know you won’t like my an­swer.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘It might be to tell you that you could do worse than to go look­ing for a prince. But I’m not go­ing to tell you what to do. Chade has ad­vised me not to. And I think he is right. But not be­cause I think you make your de­cisions as a boy would. No more than I did at your age. I think you de­cide as an an­imal would. Al­ways in the now, with never a thought for to­mor­row, or what you re­call from yes­ter­day. I know you know what I’m speak­ing of. You stopped liv­ing as a wolf be­cause I forced you to. Now I must leave you alone, for you to find out if you want to live as a wolf or a man.’

  He met my gaze. There was too much un­der­stand­ing in his eyes. It frightened me to think that he might ac­tu­ally know what I was fa­cing. I denied that pos­sib­il­ity, pushed it aside en­tirely. I turned a shoulder to him, al­most hop­ing my an­ger would come back. But Burrich sat si­lently.

  Fi­nally I looked up at him. He was star­ing into the fire. It took me a long time to swal­low my pride and ask, ‘So, what are you go­ing to do?’

  ‘I told you. I’m leav­ing to­mor­row.’

  Harder still to ask the next ques­tion. ‘Where will you go?’

  He cleared his throat and looked un­com­fort­able. ‘I’ve a friend. She’s alone. She could use a man’s strength about her place. Her roof needs mend­ing, and there’s plant­ing to do. I’ll go there, for a time.’

  ‘She?’ I dared to ask, rais­ing an eye­brow.

  His voice was flat. ‘Noth­ing like that. A friend. You would prob­ably say that I’ve found someone else to look after. Per­haps I have. Per­haps it’s time to give that where it is truly needed.’

  I looked into the fire, now. ‘Burrich. I truly needed you. You brought me back from the edge, back to be­ing a man.’

  He snorted. ‘If I’d done right by you in the first place, you’d never have gone to the edge.’

  ‘No. I’d have gone to my grave in­stead.’

  ‘Would you? Regal would have had no charges of Wit ma­gic to bring against you.’

  ‘He’d have found some ex­cuse to kill me. Or just op­por­tun­ity. He doesn’t really need an ex­cuse to do what he wants.’

  ‘Per­haps. Per­haps not.’

  We sat watch­ing the fire die. I reached up to my ear, fumbled with the catch on the ear­ring. ‘I want to give this back to you.’

  ‘I would prefer that you kept it. Wore it.’ It was al­most a re­quest. It felt odd.

  ‘I don’t de­serve whatever it is that this ear­ring sym­bol­izes to you. I haven’t earned it, I have no right to it.’

  ‘What it sym­bol­izes to me is not some­thing that is earned. It’s some­thing I gave to you, de­served or not. Whether or not you wear that, you still take it with you.’

  I left the ear­ring dangling from my ear. A tiny sil­ver net with a blue gem trapped in­side it. Once Burrich had given it to my father. Pa­tience, all un­know­ing of its sig­ni­fic­ance, had passed it on to me. I did not know if he wanted me to wear it for the same reason he had given it to my father. I sensed there was more about it, but he had not told me and I would not ask. Still, I waited, ex­pect­ing a ques­tion from him. But he only rose and went back to his blankets. I heard him lie down.

  I wished he had asked me the ques­tion. It hurt that he hadn’t. I answered it any­way. ‘I don’t know what I’m go­ing to do,’ I said into the darkened room. ‘All my life, I’ve al­ways had tasks to do, mas­ters to an­swer to. Now that I don’t … it’s a strange feel­ing.’

  I thought for a time that he wasn’t go­ing to reply at all. Then he said ab­ruptly, ‘I’ve known that feel­ing.’

  I looked up at the darkened ceil­ing. ‘I’ve thought of Molly. Of­ten. Do you know where she went?’

  ‘Yes.’

  When he said no more than that, I knew bet­ter than to ask. ‘I know the wisest course is to let her go. She be­lieves me dead. I hope that who­ever she went to takes bet­ter care of her than I did. I hope he loves her as she de­serves.’

  There was a rust­ling of Burrich’s blankets. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked guardedly.

  It was harder to say than I had thought it would be. ‘She told me when she left me that day that there was someone else. Someone that she cared for as I cared for my king, someone she put ahead of everything and every­one else in her life.’ My throat closed up sud­denly. I took a breath, will­ing the knot in my throat away. ‘Pa­tience was right,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, she was,’ Burrich agreed.

  ‘I can blame it on no one save my­self. Once I knew Molly was safe, I should have let her go her own way. She de­serves a man who can give her all his time, all his de­vo­tion …’

  ‘Yes, she does,’ Burrich agreed re­lent­lessly. ‘A shame you didn’t real­ize that be­fore you had been with her.’

  It is quite one thing to ad­mit a fault to your­self. It is an­other thing en­tirely to have a friend not only agree with you, but point out the full depth of the fault. I didn’t deny it, or de­mand how he knew of it. If Molly had told him, I didn’t want to know what else she had said. If he had de­duced it on his own, I didn’t want to know I had been that ob­vi­ous. I felt a surge of some­thing, a fierce­ness that made me want to snarl at him. I bit down on my tongue and forced my­self to con­sider what I felt. Guilt and shame that it had ended in pain for her, and made her doubt her worth. And a cer­tainty that no mat­ter how wrong it had been, it had also been right. When I was sure of my voice, I said quietly, ‘I will never re­gret lov­ing her. Only that I could not make her my wife in all eyes as she was in my heart.’

  He said noth­ing to that. But after a time, that sep­ar­at­ing si­lence be­came deaf­en­ing. I could not sleep for it. Fi­nally I spoke. ‘So. To­mor­row we go our own ways, I sup­pose.’

  ‘I sup­pose so,’ Burrich said. After a time, he ad­ded, ‘Good luck.’ He ac­tu­ally soun­ded as if he meant it. As if he real­ized how much luck I would need.

  I closed my eyes. I was so tired now. So tired. Tired of hurt­ing people I loved. But it was done now. To­mor­row Burrich would leave and I would be free. Free to fol­low my heart’s de­sire, with no in­ter­ven­tion from any­one.

  Free to go to Trade­ford and kill Regal.

  THREE

  The Quest

  The Skill is the tra­di­tional ma­gic of the Farseer roy­alty. While it seems to run strongest in the royal blood­lines, it is not all that rare to dis­cover it in a lesser strength in those dis­tantly re­lated to the Farseer line, or in those whose an­ces­try in­cludes both Outis­landers and Six Duchy folk. It is a ma­gic of the mind, giv­ing the pr
ac­ti­tioner the power to com­mu­nic­ate si­lently with those at a dis­tance from him. Its pos­sib­il­it­ies are many; at its simplest, it may be used to con­vey mes­sages, to in­flu­ence the thoughts of en­emies (or friends) to sway them to one’s pur­poses. Its draw­backs are two­fold: it re­quires a great deal of en­ergy to wield it on a daily basis, and it of­fers to its prac­ti­tion­ers an at­trac­tion that has been mis­named as a pleas­ure. It is more of a eu­phoric, one that in­creases in power pro­por­tion­ately with the strength and dur­a­tion of Skilling. It can lure the prac­ti­tioner into an ad­dic­tion to Skilling, one which even­tu­ally saps all men­tal and phys­ical strength, to leave the mage a great, drool­ing babe.

  Burrich left the next morn­ing. When I awoke, he was up and dressed and mov­ing about the hut, pack­ing his things. It did not take him long. He took his per­sonal ef­fects, but left me the lion’s share of our pro­vi­sions. There had been no drink the night be­fore, yet we both spoke as softly and moved as care­fully as if pained by the morn­ing. We de­ferred to one an­other un­til it seemed to me worse than if we had not been speak­ing to one an­other at all. I wanted to babble apo­lo­gies, to beg him to re­con­sider, to do some­thing, any­thing, to keep our friend­ship from end­ing this way. At the same time, I wished him gone, wished it over, wished it to be to­mor­row, a new day dawn­ing and I alone. I held to my res­ol­u­tion as if grip­ping the sharp blade of a knife. I sus­pect he felt some­thing of the same, for some­times he would stop and look up at me as if about to speak. Then our eyes would meet and hold for a bit, un­til one or the other of us looked aside. Too much hovered un­spoken between us.

  In a hor­ribly short time he was ready to leave. He shouldered his pack and took up a stave from be­side the door. I stood star­ing at him, think­ing how odd he ap­peared thus: Burrich the horse­man, afoot. The early sum­mer sun­light spill­ing in the open door showed me a man at the end of his middle years, the white streak of hair that marked his scar fore­tell­ing the grey that had already be­gun to show in his beard. He was strong and fit, but his youth was un­ques­tion­ably be­hind him. The days of his full strength he had spent watch­ing over me.

  ‘Well,’ he said gruffly. ‘Farewell, Fitz. And good luck to you.’

  ‘Good luck to you, Burrich.’ I crossed the room quickly, and em­braced him be­fore he could step back.

  He hugged me back, a quick squeeze that nearly cracked my ribs, and then pushed my hair back from my face. ‘Go comb your hair. You look like a wild man.’ He al­most man­aged a smile. He turned from me and strode away. I stood watch­ing him go. I thought he would not look back, but on the far side of the pas­ture, he turned and lif­ted his hand. I raised mine in re­turn. Then he was gone, swal­lowed into the woods. I sat for a time on the step, con­sid­er­ing the place where I had last seen him. If I kept to my plan, it might be years be­fore I saw him again. If I saw him again. Since I was six years old, he had al­ways been a factor in my life. I had al­ways been able to count on his strength, even when I didn’t want it. Now he was gone. Like Chade, like Molly, like Ver­ity, like Pa­tience.

  I thought of all I had said to him the night be­fore and shuddered with shame. It had been ne­ces­sary, I told my­self. I had meant to drive him away. But far too much of it had erup­ted from an­cient re­sent­ments that had festered long in­side me. I had not meant to speak of such things. I had in­ten­ded to drive him away, not cut him to the bone. Like Molly, he would carry off the doubts I had driven into him. And by savaging Burrich’s pride, I had des­troyed what little re­spect Chade had still held for me. I sup­pose some child­ish part of my­self had been hop­ing that someday I could come back to them, that someday we would share our lives again. I knew now we would not. ‘It’s over,’ I told my­self quietly. ‘That life is over, let it go.’

  I was free of both of them now. Free of their lim­it­a­tions on me, free of their ideas of hon­our and duty. Freed of their ex­pect­a­tions. I’d never again have to look either of them in the eyes and ac­count for what I had done. Free to do the only thing I had the heart or the cour­age left to do, the only thing I could do to lay my old life to rest be­hind me.

  I would kill Regal.

  It only seemed fair. He had killed me first. The spectre of the prom­ise I had made to King Shrewd, that I would never harm one of his own, rose briefly to haunt me. I laid it to rest by re­mind­ing my­self that Regal had killed the man who had made that prom­ise, as well as the man I had given it to. That Fitz no longer ex­is­ted. I would never again stand be­fore old King Shrewd and re­port the res­ult of a mis­sion, I would not stand as King’s Man to loan strength to Ver­ity. Lady Pa­tience would never harry me with a dozen trivial er­rands that were of the ut­most im­port­ance to her. She mourned me as dead. And Molly. Tears stung my eyes as I meas­ured my pain. She had left me be­fore Regal had killed me, but for that loss, too, I held him re­spons­ible. If I had noth­ing else out of this crust of life Burrich and Chade had salvaged for me, I would have re­venge. I prom­ised my­self that Regal would look at me as he died, and know that I killed him. This would be no quiet as­sas­sin­a­tion, no si­lent ven­ture of an­onym­ous poison. I would de­liver death to Regal my­self. I wished to strike like a single ar­row, like a thrown knife, go­ing straight to my tar­get un­hampered by fears for those around me. If I failed, well, I was already dead in every way that mattered to me. It would hurt no one that I had tried. If I died killing Regal, it would be worth it. I would guard my own life only un­til I had taken Regal’s. Whatever happened after that did not mat­ter.

  Nighteyes stirred, dis­turbed by some ink­ling of my thoughts.

  Have you ever con­sidered what it would do to me if you died? Nighteyes asked me.

  I shut my eyes tightly for an in­stant. But I had con­sidered it. What would it do to us if I lived as prey?

  Nighteyes un­der­stood. We are hunters. Neither of us was born to be prey.

  I can­not be a hunter if I am al­ways wait­ing to be prey. And so I must hunt him be­fore he can hunt me.

  He ac­cep­ted my plans too calmly. I tried to make him un­der­stand all I in­ten­ded to do. I did not wish him simply to fol­low me blindly.

  I’m go­ing to kill Regal. And his co­terie. I’m go­ing to kill all of them, for all they did to me, and all they took from me.

  Regal? There is meat we can­not eat. I do not un­der­stand the hunt­ing of men.

  I took my im­age of Regal and com­bined it with his im­ages of the an­imal trader who had caged him when he was a cub and beat him with a brass-bound club.

  Nighteyes con­sidered that. Once I got away from him, I was smart enough to stay away from him. To hunt that one is as wise as to go hunt­ing a por­cu­pine.

  I can­not leave this alone, Nighteyes.

  I un­der­stand. I am the same about por­cu­pines.

  And so he per­ceived my ven­detta with Regal as equi­val­ent to his weak­ness for por­cu­pines. I found my­self ac­cept­ing my stated goals with less equan­im­ity. Hav­ing stated them, I could not ima­gine turn­ing aside for any­thing else. My words from the night be­fore came back to re­buke me. What had happened to all my fine speeches to Burrich, about liv­ing a life for my­self? Well, I hedged, and per­haps I would, if I sur­vived ty­ing up these loose ends. It was not that I could not live my own life. It was that I could not stom­ach the idea of Regal go­ing about think­ing he had de­feated me, yes, and stolen the throne from Ver­ity. Re­venge, plain and simple, I told my­self. If I was ever go­ing to put the fear and shame be­hind me, I had to do this.

  You can come in now, I offered.

  Why would I want to?

  I did not have to turn and see that Nighteyes had already come down to the hut. He came to sit be­side me, then peered into the hut.

  Phew! You fill your den with such stinks, no won­der your nose works so poorly.

  He crept into the hut cau­tiously and
began a prowl­ing tour of the in­terior. I sat on the door­step, watch­ing him. It had been a time since I had looked at him as any­thing other than an ex­ten­sion of my­self. He was full grown now, and at the peak of his strength. An­other might say he was a grey wolf. To me, he was every col­our a wolf could be, dark-eyed, dark-muzzled, buff at the base of his ears and throat, his coat peppered with stiff, black guard-hairs, es­pe­cially on his shoulders and the flat of his rump. His feet were huge, and spread even wider when he ran over crus­ted snow. He had a tail that was more ex­press­ive than many a wo­man’s face, and teeth and jaws that could eas­ily crack a deer’s leg bones. He moved with that eco­nomy of strength that per­fectly healthy an­im­als have. Just watch­ing him salved my heart. When his curi­os­ity was mostly sat­is­fied, he came to sit be­side me. After a few mo­ments, he stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes. Keep watch?

  ‘I’ll watch over you,’ I as­sured him. His ears twitched at my spoken words. Then he sank into a sun-soaked sleep.

  I rose quietly and went in­side the hut. It took a re­mark­ably short time for me to take stock of my pos­ses­sions. Two blankets and a cloak. I had a change of clothes, warm woolly things ill-suited to sum­mer travel. A brush. A knife and whet­stone. Flint fire­stone. A sling. Sev­eral small cured hides from game we had taken. Sinew thread. A hand-axe. A small kettle and sev­eral spoons. The last were the re­cent work of Burrich’s whit­tling. There was a little sack of meal, and one of flour. The leftover honey. A bottle of eld­er­berry wine.

  Not much to be­gin this ven­ture with. I was fa­cing a long over­land jour­ney to Trade­ford. I had to sur­vive that be­fore I could plan how to get past Regal’s guards and Skill co­terie and kill him. I con­sidered care­fully. It was not yet the height of sum­mer. There was time to gather herbs and dry them, time to smoke fish and meat for trav­el­ling ra­tions. I needn’t go hungry. For now, I had cloth­ing and the other ba­sics. But even­tu­ally I’d need some coin. I had told Chade and Burrich that I could make my own way, on my skills with an­im­als and scrib­ing skills. Per­haps those abil­it­ies could get me as far as Trade­ford.