Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘And have not you just come from there your­self?’ Honey asked tartly.

  ‘No, my lady, in truth I had come cross coun­try, from vis­it­ing some shep­herd friends,’ I ex­tem­por­ized. Honey’s man­ner was be­gin­ning to wear on me.

  ‘My lady,’ she said softly to Piper and rolled her eyes. Piper giggled. Josh ig­nored them.

  ‘Down­river is much the same as up these days, only more so,’ he told me. ‘Hard times, and harder to come for those who farm. The food grain went to pay the taxes, so the seed grain went to feed the chil­dren. So only what was left went into the fields, and no man grows more by plant­ing less. Same is true for the flocks and herds. And no signs that the taxes will be less this har­vest. And even a goose-girl that can’t cipher her own age knows that less take away more leaves naught but hun­ger on the table. It’s worst along the salt wa­ter. If a per­son goes out fish­ing, who knows what will hap­pen to home be­fore he re­turns? A farmer plants a field, know­ing it won’t yield enough both for taxes and fam­ily, and that there will be less than half of it left stand­ing if the Red Ships come to pay a call. There’s been a clever song made about a farmer who tells the tax-col­lector that the Red Ships have already done his job for him.’

  ‘Save that clever min­strels don’t sing it,’ Honey re­minded him tartly.

  ‘Red Ships raid Buck’s coast as well, then,’ I said quietly.

  Josh gave a snort of bit­ter laughter. ‘Buck, Bearns, Rip­pon or Shoaks … I doubt the Red Ships care where one duchy ends and an­other be­gins. If the sea brushes up against it, they’ll raid there.’

  ‘And our ships?’ I asked softly.

  ‘The ones that have been taken away from us by the Raid­ers are do­ing very well. Those left de­fend­ing us, well, they are as suc­cess­ful as gnats at both­er­ing cattle.’

  ‘Does no one stand firm for Buck these days?’ I asked, and heard the des­pair in my own voice.

  ‘The Lady of Buck­keep does. Not only firmly, but loudly. There’s some as say all she does is cry out and scold, but oth­ers know that she doesn’t call on them to do what she hasn’t already done her­self.’ Harper Josh spoke as if he knew this at first hand.

  I was mys­ti­fied, but did not wish to ap­pear too ig­nor­ant. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Everything they can. She wears no jew­ellery at all any more. It’s all been sold and put to­ward pay­ing patrol ships. She sold off her own an­ces­tral lands, and put the money to pay­ing mer­cen­ar­ies to man the towers. It’s said she sold the neck­lace given her by Prince Chiv­alry, his grand­mother’s ru­bies, to King Regal him­self, to buy grain and tim­ber for Buck vil­lages that wanted to re­build.’

  ‘Pa­tience,’ I whispered. I had seen those ru­bies once, long ago, when we had first been get­ting to know one an­other. She had deemed them too pre­cious a thing even to wear, but she had shown them to me and told me some day my bride might wear them. Long ago. I turned my head aside and struggled to con­trol my face.

  ‘Where have you been sleep­ing this past year … Cob, that you know none of this?’ Honey de­man­ded sar­castic­ally.

  ‘I have been away,’ I said quietly. I turned back to the table and man­aged to meet her eyes. I hoped my face showed noth­ing.

  She cocked her head and smiled at me. ‘Where?’ she countered brightly.

  I did not like her much at all. ‘I’ve been liv­ing by my­self, in the forest,’ I said at last.

  ‘Why?’ She smiled at me as she pressed me. I was cer­tain she knew how un­com­fort­able she was mak­ing me.

  ‘Ob­vi­ously, be­cause I wished to,’ I said. I soun­ded so much like Burrich when I said it, I al­most looked over my shoulder for him.

  She made a small mouth at me, totally un­re­pent­ant, but Harper Josh set his mug down on the table a bit firmly. He said noth­ing, and the look he gave her from his blind eyes was no more than a flicker, but she sub­sided ab­ruptly. She fol­ded her hands at the edge of the table like a re­buked child, and for a mo­ment I thought her quashed, un­til she looked up at me from un­der her lashes. Her eyes met mine dir­ec­tly, and the little smile she shot me was de­fi­ant. I looked away from her, totally mys­ti­fied as to why she wished to peck at me like this. I glanced at Piper, only to find her face bright red with sup­pressed laughter. I looked down at my hands on the table, hat­ing the blush that sud­denly flooded my face.

  In an ef­fort to start the con­ver­sa­tion again, I asked, ‘Are there any other new tid­ings from Buck­keep?’

  Harper Josh gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Not much new misery to tell. The tales are all the same, with only the names of the vil­lages and towns dif­fer­ent. Oh, but there is one small bit, a rich one. Word is now that King Regal will hang the Pocked Man him­self.’

  I had been swal­low­ing a sip of ale. I choked ab­ruptly and de­man­ded, ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a stu­pid joke,’ Honey de­clared. ‘King Regal has had it cried about that he will give gold coin re­ward to any who can turn over to him a cer­tain man, much scarred with the pox, or sil­ver coin to any man who can give in­form­a­tion as to where he may be found.’

  ‘A pox-scarred man? Is that all the de­scrip­tion?’ I asked care­fully.

  ‘He is said to be skinny, and grey-haired, and to some­times dis­guise him­self as a wo­man.’ Josh chuckled mer­rily, never guess­ing how his words turned my bowels to ice. ‘And his crime is high treason. Ru­mour says the King blames him for the dis­ap­pear­ance of Queen-in-Wait­ing Kettricken and her un­born child. Some say he is just a cracked old man who claims to have been an ad­viser to Shrewd, and as such he has writ­ten to the Dukes of the Coastal Duch­ies, bid­ding them be brave, that Ver­ity shall re­turn and his child in­herit the Farseer throne. But ru­mour also says, with as much wit, that King Regal hopes to hang the Pocked Man and thus end all bad luck in the Six Duch­ies.’ He chuckled again, and I plastered a sick smile on my face and nod­ded like a sim­pleton.

  Chade, I thought to my­self. Some­how Regal had picked up Chade’s trail. If he knew he was pock-scarred, what else might he know? He had ob­vi­ously con­nec­ted him to his mas­quer­ade as Lady Thyme. I wondered where Chade was now, and if he was all right. I wished with sud­den des­per­a­tion that I knew what his plans had been, what plot he had ex­cluded me from. With a sud­den sink­ing of heart, my per­cep­tion of my ac­tions flopped over. Had I driven Chade away from me, to pro­tect him from my plans, or had I aban­doned him just when he needed his ap­pren­tice?

  ‘Are you still there, Cob? I see your shadow still, but your place at the table’s gone very quiet.’

  ‘Oh, I’m here, Harper Josh!’ I tried to put some life into my words. ‘Just mulling over all you’ve told me, that’s all.’

  ‘Won­der­ing what pocked old man he could sell to King Regal, by the look on his face,’ Honey put in tartly. I sud­denly per­ceived that she saw her con­stant be­little­ment and stings as a sort of flir­ta­tion. I quickly de­cided I had had enough com­pan­ion­ship and talk for an even­ing. I was too much out of prac­tice at deal­ing with folk. I would leave now. Bet­ter they thought me odd and rude than that I stayed longer and made them curi­ous.

  ‘Well, I thank you for your songs, and your con­ver­sa­tion,’ I said as grace­fully as I could. I fingered out a cop­per to leave un­der my mug for the boy. ‘And I had best take my­self back to the road.’

  ‘But it’s full dark out­side!’ Piper ob­jec­ted in sur­prise. She set down her mug and glanced at Honey, who looked shocked.

  ‘And cool, my lady,’ I ob­served blithely. ‘I prefer the night for walk­ing. The moon’s close to full, which should be light enough on a road as wide as the river road.’

  ‘Have you no fear of the Forged ones?’ Harper Josh asked in con­sterna­tion.

  Now it was my turn to be sur­prised. ‘This far in­land?’

  ‘You have been liv­ing in a tree,’ Honey ex�
�claimed. ‘All the roads have been plagued with them. Some trav­el­lers hire guards, arch­ers and swords­men. Oth­ers, such as we, travel in groups when we can, and only by day.’

  ‘Can­not the patrols at least keep them from the roads?’ I asked in as­ton­ish­ment.

  ‘The patrols?’ Honey sniffed dis­dain­fully. ‘Most of us would as soon meet Forged ones as a pack of Far­row men with pikes. The Forged ones do not bother them, and so they do not bother the Forged ones.’

  ‘What, then, do they patrol for?’ I asked an­grily.

  ‘Smug­glers, mainly.’ Josh spoke be­fore Honey could. ‘Or so they would have you be­lieve. Many an hon­est trav­el­ler do they stop to search his be­long­ings and take whatever they fancy, call­ing it con­tra­band, or claim­ing it was re­por­ted stolen in the last town. Me­thinks Lord Bright does not pay them as well as they think they de­serve, so they take whatever pay they are able.’

  ‘And Prince … King Regal, he does noth­ing?’ How the title and the ques­tion choked me.

  ‘Well, per­haps if you go so far as Trade­ford, you might com­plain to him your­self,’ Honey told me sar­castic­ally. ‘I am sure he would listen to you, as he has not the dozens of mes­sen­gers who have gone be­fore.’ She paused, and looked thought­ful. ‘Though I have heard that if any Forged ones do make it far enough in­land to be a bother, he has ways of deal­ing with them.’

  I felt sickened and wretched. It had al­ways been a mat­ter of pride to King Shrewd that there was little danger of high­way­men in Buck, so long as one kept to the main roads. Now, to hear that those who should guard the king’s roads were little more than high­way­men them­selves was like a small blade twis­ted in me. Not enough that Regal had claimed the throne to him­self, and then deser­ted Buck­keep. He did not keep up even the pre­tence of rul­ing wisely. I wondered numbly if he were cap­able of pun­ish­ing all Buck for the lacklustre way he had been wel­comed to the throne. Fool­ish won­der; I knew he was. ‘Well, Forged ones or Far­row men, I still must be on my way, I fear,’ I told them. I drank off the last of my mug and set it down.

  ‘Why not wait at least un­til the morn­ing, lad, and then travel with us?’ Josh sud­denly offered. ‘The days are not too hot for walk­ing, for there’s al­ways a breeze off the river. And four are safer than three, these days.’

  ‘I thank you kindly for the of­fer,’ I began, but Josh in­ter­rup­ted me.

  ‘Don’t thank me, for I wasn’t mak­ing an of­fer, but a re­quest. I’m blind, man, or close enough. Cer­tainly you’ve no­ticed that. No­ticed, too, that my com­pan­ions are comely young wo­men, though from the way Honey’s nipped at you, I fancy you’ve smiled more at Piper than at her.’

  ‘Father!’ in­dig­nantly from Honey, but Josh ploughed on dog­gedly.

  ‘I was not of­fer­ing you the pro­tec­tion of our num­bers, but ask­ing you to con­sider of­fer­ing your right arm to us. We’re not rich folk; we’ve no coin to hire guards. And yet we must travel the roads, Forged ones or no.’

  Josh’s fogged eyes met mine un­err­ingly. Honey looked aside, lips fol­ded tightly, while Piper openly watched me, a plead­ing look on her face. Forged ones. Pinned down, fists fall­ing on me. I looked down at the table-top. ‘I’m not much for fight­ing,’ I told him bluntly.

  ‘At least you would see what you were swinging at,’ he replied stub­bornly. ‘And you’d cer­tainly see them com­ing be­fore I did. Look, you’re go­ing the same dir­ec­tion we are. Would it be that hard for you to walk by day for a few days rather than by night?’

  ‘Father, don’t beg him!’ Honey re­buked him.

  ‘I’d rather beg him to walk with us, than beg Forged ones to let you go un­harmed!’ he said harshly. He turned his face back to me as he ad­ded, ‘We met some Forged ones, a couple of weeks back. The girls had the sense to run when I shouted at them to do so, when I could not keep up with them any longer. But we lost our food to them, and they dam­aged my harp, and …’

  ‘And they beat him,’ Honey said quietly. ‘And so we have vowed, Piper and I, that the next time we will not run from them, no mat­ter how many. Not if it means leav­ing Papa.’ All the play­ful teas­ing and mock­ery had gone out of her voice. I knew she meant what she said.

  I will be delayed, I sighed to Nighteyes. Wait for me, watch for me, fol­low me un­seen.

  ‘I will travel with you,’ I con­ceded. I can­not say I made the of­fer will­ingly. ‘Though I am not a man who does well at fight­ing.’

  ‘As if we couldn’t tell that from his face,’ Honey ob­served in an aside to Piper. The mock­ery was back in her voice, but I doubted that she knew how deeply her words cut me.

  ‘My thanks are all I have to pay you with, Cob.’ Josh reached across the table for me, and I gripped hands with him in the an­cient sign of a bar­gain settled. He grinned sud­denly, his re­lief plain. ‘So take my thanks, and a share of whatever we’re offered as min­strels. We’ve not enough coin for a room, but the innkeeper has offered us shel­ter in his barn. Not like it used to be, when a min­strel got a room and a meal for the ask­ing. But at least the barn has a door that shuts between us and the night. And the innkeeper here has a good heart; he won’t be­grudge ex­tend­ing shel­ter to you if I tell him you’re trav­el­ling with us as a guard.’

  ‘It will be more shel­ter than I’ve known for many a night,’ I told him, at­tempt­ing to be gra­cious. My heart had sunk into a cold place in the pit of my belly.

  What have you got your­self into now? Nighteyes wondered. As did I.

  FIVE

  Con­front­a­tions

  What is the Wit? Some would say it is a per­ver­sion, a twis­ted in­dul­gence of spirit by which men gain know­ledge of the lives and tongues of the beasts, even­tu­ally to be­come little more than beasts them­selves. My study of it and its prac­ti­tion­ers has led me to a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion, how­ever. The Wit seems to be a form of mind link­ing, usu­ally with a par­tic­u­lar an­imal, which opens a way for the un­der­stand­ing of that an­imal’s thoughts and feel­ings. It does not, as some have claimed, give men the tongues of the birds and beasts. A Wit­ted one does have an aware­ness of life all across its wide spec­trum, in­clud­ing hu­mans and even some of the migh­tier and more an­cient of trees. But a Wit­ted one can­not ran­domly en­gage a chance an­imal in ‘con­ver­sa­tion’. He can sense an an­imal’s nearby pres­ence, and per­haps know if the an­imal is wary or hos­tile or curi­ous. But it does not give one com­mand over the beasts of the land and the birds of the sky as some fanci­ful tales would have us be­lieve. What the Wit may be is a man’s ac­cept­ance of the beast nature within him­self, and hence an aware­ness of the ele­ment of hu­man­ity that every an­imal car­ries within it as well. The le­gendary loy­alty that a bon­ded an­imal feels for his Wit­ted one is not at all the same as what a loyal beast gives its mas­ter. Rather it is a re­flec­tion of the loy­alty that the Wit­ted one has pledged to his an­imal com­pan­ion, like for like.

  I did not sleep well, and it was not just that I was no longer ac­cus­tomed to sleep­ing at night. What they had told me about Forged ones had put the wind up my back. The mu­si­cians all climbed up into the loft to sleep on the heaped straw there, but I found my­self a corner where I could put my back to a wall and yet still have a clear view of the door. It felt strange to be in­side a barn again at night. This was a good tight barn, built of river-rock and mor­tar and tim­ber. The inn kept a cow and a hand­ful of chick­ens in ad­di­tion to their hire-horses and the beasts of their guests. The homely sounds and smells of the hay and an­im­als put me sharply in mind of Burrich’s stables. I felt sud­denly home­sick for them as I never had for my own room up in the keep.

  I wondered how Burrich was, and if he knew of Pa­tience’s sac­ri­fices. I thought of the love that had once been between them, and how it had foundered on Burrich’s sense of duty. Pa­tience had gone on to marry my fathe
r, the very man to whom Burrich had pledged all that loy­alty. Had he ever thought of go­ing to her, at­tempt­ing to re­claim her? No. I knew it in­stantly and without doubt. Chiv­alry’s ghost would stand forever between them. And now mine as well.

  It was not a far jump from pon­der­ing this to think­ing of Molly. She had made the same de­cision for us that Burrich had made for Pa­tience and him­self. Molly had told me that my ob­sess­ive loy­alty to my king meant we could never be­long to one an­other. So she had found someone she could care about as much as I cared for Ver­ity. I hated everything about her de­cision ex­cept that it had saved her life. She had left me. She had not been at Buck­keep to share my fall and my dis­grace.

  I reached vaguely to­ward her with the Skill, then ab­ruptly re­buked my­self. Did I really want to see her as she prob­ably was this night, sleep­ing in an­other man’s arms, his wife? I felt an al­most phys­ical pain in my chest at the thought. I did not have a right to spy on any hap­pi­ness she had claimed for her­self. Yet as I drowsed off, I thought of her, and longed hope­lessly after what had been between us.

  Some per­verse fate brought me dreams of Burrich in­stead, a vivid dream that made no sense. I sat across from him. He was sit­ting at a table by a fire, mend­ing har­ness as he of­ten did of an even­ing. But a mug of tea had re­placed his brandy cup, and the leather he worked at was a low soft shoe, much too small for him. He pushed the awl through the soft leather and it went through too eas­ily, jab­bing him in the hand. He swore at the blood, and then looked up ab­ruptly, to awk­wardly beg my par­don for us­ing such lan­guage in my pres­ence.

  I woke up from the dream, dis­or­i­en­ted and be­mused. Burrich had of­ten made shoes for me when I was small but I could not re­call that he had ever apo­lo­gized for swear­ing in my pres­ence, though he had rapped me of­ten enough when I was a boy if I had dared to use such lan­guage in his. Ri­dicu­lous. I pushed the dream aside, but sleep had fled with it.