Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘The an­swer could be that they did not ex­pect any­one to come to Bay­guard’s aid,’ Kettricken said suc­cinctly. ‘They have the town to pil­lage for sup­plies, and per­haps other ships are ex­pec­ted.’ She turned to Kerf, mo­tioned him along­side Fox­glove. ‘I have no battle ex­per­i­ence,’ she said simply. ‘You two will have to plan this. I listen now, as a sol­dier. What should we do next?’

  I saw Burrich wince. Such hon­esty is ad­mir­able, but not al­ways good lead­er­ship. I saw Fox­glove and Kerf ex­change meas­ur­ing glances. ‘My queen, Kerf has more battle ex­per­i­ence than I. I would ac­cept his com­mand,’ Fox­glove offered quietly.

  Kerf looked down, as if mildly ashamed. ‘Burrich was Chiv­alry’s man. He has seen far more battle than I have,’ he ob­served to his mare’s neck. He looked up sud­denly, ‘I com­mend him to you, my queen.’

  Burrich’s face was a struggle of con­flict­ing emo­tions. For a mo­ment, his eyes lit. Then I saw a hes­it­a­tion build.

  Heart of the Pack, they will hunt well for you, Nighteyes urged him.

  ‘Burrich, take com­mand. They will fight with heart for you.’

  My skin prickled to hear Queen Kettricken vir­tu­ally echo Nighteyes’ thought. From where I sat, I could ac­tu­ally see a shiver run over Burrich. He straightened in his saddle. ‘We have no hope of sur­pris­ing them in this flat coun­try. And the three circles they have already gained can be­come de­fences for them. We are not a vast force. What we have most of, my queen, is time. We can pen them. They have no ac­cess to fresh wa­ter. If Bay­guard stands, and we keep the Outis­landers trapped where they are, between the third earth­work and the wall, we can simply wait for our ships to ar­rive. At that time we can judge if we wish to join an at­tack on them, or simply starve them out.’

  ‘This seems wise to me,’ the Queen ap­proved.

  ‘They are fools if they have not left at least a small force with their ships. Those we will have to con­tend with im­me­di­ately. Then we must set our own guards to the ships, with or­ders to des­troy them if it looks as if any of the Outis­landers have got past us and are try­ing to es­cape. If not, you will have ships to add to King-in-Wait­ing Ver­ity’s fleet.’

  ‘This, too, seems sens­ible.’ The idea clearly pleased Kettricken.

  ‘It is tidy, but only if we act swiftly. They will soon be aware of us, if they are not already. Cer­tainly they will see the situ­ation as clearly as we have. We need to get down there, and con­tain those be­sieging the keep and des­troy those guard­ing the ships.’

  Kerf and Fox­glove were both nod­ding. Burrich looked at them. ‘I want your arch­ers for our circle around the keep. We want to con­tain them there, not get into any close fight­ing. Simply pin them down where they are. Wherever they breached the walk is where they will try to trickle out again. Guard most heav­ily there, but watch all along the outer wall. And for now, do not try to go within the outer wall at all. Let them scuttle about like crabs in a pot.’

  Terse nods from both cap­tains. Burrich con­tin­ued.

  ‘I want swords for the ships. Ex­pect the fight­ing to be nasty. They’ll be de­fend­ing their only es­cape routes. Send a few lesser arch­ers, and have them pre­pare fire ar­rows. If all else fails, burn the ships where they’re beached. But try to take them first.’

  ‘The Rurisk!’ Someone in the back ranks gave a cry. All heads turned to the wa­ter. There was the Rurisk, round­ing the north tooth of Neat­bay. In a mo­ment, a second sail ap­peared. Be­hind us, the moun­ted war­ri­ors raised a shout. But out bey­ond our ships, anchored in deep wa­ter, white as a dead man’s belly and her sails as bloated, floated the white ship. The mo­ment I saw it, an icicle of ter­ror sliced my guts.

  ‘The white ship!’ I choked. Fear sent a shud­der through me that was al­most like pain.

  ‘What?’ Burrich asked, startled. It was the first word he had spoken to me that day.

  ‘The white ship!’ I re­peated and poin­ted a hand.

  ‘What? Where? That? That’s a fog bank. Our ships are com­ing into the har­bour over there.’

  I looked. He was right. A fog bank, melt­ing in the morn­ing sun even as I watched. My ter­ror re­ceded like the ghost of mock­ing laughter. But the day seemed sud­denly chil­lier, and the sun that had briefly par­ted the storm clouds a weak and wa­tery thing. An evil cast lingered on the day, like a bad smell.

  ‘Split your forces and de­ploy them now,’ Burrich said quietly. ‘We don’t want our ships to meet any res­ist­ance as they come into shore. Quickly, now. Fitz. You’re to go with the force that at­tacks the Red Ships. Be there when the Rurisk beaches, and let those on board know what we’ve de­cided. As quickly as those Red Ships are cleaned out, we shall want all fight­ers to join us in con­tain­ing the Outis­landers. I wish there was a way to get word to Duke Kelvar of what we’re do­ing. I sup­pose he’ll see, soon enough. Well, let’s get go­ing.’

  There was some milling about, some con­fer­ring between Kerf and Fox­glove, but in a sur­pris­ingly short time, I found my­self rid­ing be­hind Fox­glove with a con­tin­gent of war­ri­ors. I had my sword, but what I really missed was the axe I had be­come so com­fort­able with over the sum­mer.

  Noth­ing was as tidy as was planned. We en­countered Outis­landers in the wreck­age of the town, long be­fore we reached the beach. They were mov­ing back to­ward their ships, and hampered with a coffle of pris­on­ers. We at­tacked the Raid­ers. Some stood and fought, and some aban­doned their pris­on­ers and ran be­fore our horses. Our troops were soon scattered through­out the still-smoul­der­ing build­ings and debris-scattered streets of Neat­bay. Some of our force stayed to cut the ropes on the pris­on­ers and help them as best they could. Fox­glove swore at the delay, for the Raid­ers that had fled would warn the ship-guards. Swiftly she split our force, leav­ing a hand­ful of sol­diers to help the battered towns­folk. The smells of dead bod­ies and rain on charred tim­bers brought back my memor­ies of Forge with a vivid­ness that al­most un­manned me. There were bod­ies every­where, far more than we had ex­pec­ted to find. Some­where I sensed a wolf prowl­ing through the ru­ins, and took com­fort from him.

  Fox­glove cursed us all with sur­pris­ing skill, and then or­gan­ized those she kept with her into a wedge. We swept down on the Red Ships in time to see one be­ing launched into the re­treat­ing tide. There was little we could do about that, but we were in time to pre­vent a second ship from get­ting off. We killed those ones with sur­pris­ing alac­rity. There were not many, only a skel­eton row­ing crew. We even man­aged to kill them be­fore they could slay most of their cap­tives who lay bound on the thwarts of the ships. We sus­pec­ted that the ship that es­caped had been sim­il­arly laden. And hence, I sur­mised to my­self, not ini­tially plan­ning to en­gage the Rurisk or any of the ships that now con­verged on the one that had eluded us.

  But the Red Ships had been out­ward-bound with host­ages. To where? To a ghost ship that only I had glimpsed? Even to think of the white ship brought a shud­der over me and a pres­sure in my head like the be­gin­ning of pain. Per­haps they had in­ten­ded to drown their host­ages, or to Forge them, how­ever that was done. I was not in a po­s­i­tion to give it great thought then, but I saved the know­ledge for Chade. Each of the three re­main­ing beached ships had a con­tin­gent of war­ri­ors, and they fought as des­per­ately as Burrich had pre­dicted they would. One ship was set afire by an overzeal­ous archer, but the oth­ers were taken in­tact.

  We had se­cured all the ships by the time the Rurisk was beached. There was time now to lift my head, and to look out over Neat­bay. No sign of the white ship. Per­haps it had been only a cloud bank. Be­hind the Rurisk came the Con­stance, and be­hind them a flo­tilla of fish­ing ves­sels and even a couple of mer­chant ships. Most of them had to an­chor out in the shal­low har­bour, but the men aboard them were fer­ried swiftly ashore. The wa
r­ship crews waited for their cap­tains to hear word of what went on, but those from the fish­ing ves­sels and mer­chant ships swept past us and headed dir­ectly for the be­sieged keep.

  The trained crews from the war­ships soon over­took them, and by the time we reached the outer walls of the keep, there was an at­ti­tude of co­oper­a­tion if not any real or­gan­iz­a­tion. The pris­on­ers we had freed were weak from lack of food and wa­ter, but re­covered quickly and were in­dis­pens­able in giv­ing us in­tim­ate know­ledge of the outer earth­works. By af­ter­noon, our siege of the be­siegers was in place. With dif­fi­culty, Burrich per­suaded all in­volved that at least one of our war­ships would re­main fully manned and on alert, in the wa­ter. His pre­mon­i­tion was proven cor­rect the next morn­ing, when two more Red Ships sailed around the north­ern point of the bay. The Rurisk ran them off, but they fled too eas­ily for us to take any sat­is­fac­tion in it. All knew they would simply find an un­defen­ded vil­lage to raid fur­ther up the coast. Sev­eral of the fish­ing ves­sels be­latedly gave chase, though there was little chance of them catch­ing the oared ves­sels of the Raid­ers.

  By the second day of wait­ing, we were be­gin­ning to be bored and un­com­fort­able. The weather had turned foul again. The hard bread was start­ing to taste of mould, the dried fish was no longer com­pletely dry. To cheer us, Duke Kelvar had ad­ded the Buck flag of the Six Duch­ies to his own pen­non fly­ing over Bay­guard to ac­know­ledge us. But like us, he had chosen a wait­ing strategy. The Outis­landers were penned. They had not at­temp­ted to break out past us, nor to ad­vance closer to the keep. All was still and wait­ing.

  ‘You don’t listen to warn­ings. You never have.’ Burrich spoke quietly to me.

  Night had fallen. It was the first time since our ar­rival that we had had more than a few mo­ments to­gether. He sat on a log, his in­jured leg stretched straight in front of him. I crouched by the fire, try­ing to warm my hands. We were out­side a tem­por­ary shel­ter set up for the Queen, tend­ing a very smoky fire. Burrich had wanted her to settle in one of the few in­tact build­ings left in Neat­bay, but she had re­fused, in­sist­ing on stay­ing close to her war­ri­ors. Her guard came and went freely, in her shel­ter and at her fire. Burrich frowned over their fa­mili­ar­ity, but also ap­proved her loy­alty. ‘Your father, too, was like that,’ he ob­served sud­denly as two of Kettricken’s guard emerged from her shel­ter and went to re­lieve oth­ers still on watch.

  ‘Didn’t take warn­ings?’ I asked in sur­prise.

  Burrich shook his head. ‘No. Al­ways his sol­diers, com­ing and go­ing, at all hours. I’ve al­ways wondered when he found the pri­vacy to cre­ate you.’

  I must have looked shocked, for Burrich sud­denly flushed as well. ‘Sorry. I’m tired and my leg is – un­com­fort­able. I wasn’t think­ing what I was say­ing.’

  I found a smile un­ex­pec­tedly. ‘It’s all right,’ I said, and it was. When he had found out about Nighteyes, I was afraid he was go­ing to ban­ish me again. A jest, even a rough jest, was wel­come. ‘You were say­ing about warn­ings?’ I asked humbly.

  He sighed. ‘You said it. We are as we are. And he said it. Some­times, they don’t give you a choice. They just bond to you.’

  Some­where off in the dark­ness, a dog howled. It was not really a dog. Burrich glared at me. ‘I can’t con­trol him at all,’ I ad­mit­ted.

  Nor I, you. Why should there be con­trol, one of the other?

  ‘Nor does he stay out of per­sonal con­ver­sa­tions,’ I ob­served.

  ‘Nor per­sonal any­thing,’ Burrich said flatly. He spoke in the voice of a man who knew.

  ‘I thought you said you never used … it.’ Even out here, I would not say ‘the Wit’ aloud.

  ‘I don’t. No good comes of it. I will tell you plainly now what I’ve told you be­fore. It … changes you. If you give in to it. If you live it. If you can’t shut it out, at least don’t seek after it. Don’t be­come –’

  ‘Burrich?’

  We both jumped. It was Fox­glove, come quietly out of the dark­ness to stand on the other side of the fire. How much had she heard?

  ‘Yes? Is there a prob­lem?’

  She hunkered down in the dark­ness, lif­ted her red hands to the fire. She sighed. ‘I don’t know. How do I ask this? Are you aware that she’s preg­nant?’

  Burrich and I ex­changed glances. ‘Who?’ he asked lev­elly.

  ‘I’ve got two chil­dren of my own, you know. And most of her guard are wo­men. She pukes every morn­ing, and lives off rasp­berry leaf tea. She can’t even look at the salt­fish without retch­ing. She shouldn’t be here, liv­ing like this.’ Fox­glove nod­ded to­ward the tent.

  Oh. The vixen.

  Shut up.

  ‘She did not ask our ad­vice,’ Burrich said care­fully.

  ‘The situ­ation here is un­der con­trol. There is no reason she should not be sent back to Buck­keep,’ Fox­glove said calmly.

  ‘I can’t ima­gine “send­ing her back” any­where,’ Burrich ob­served. ‘I think it would have to be a de­cision she reached on her own.’

  ‘You might sug­gest it to her,’ Fox­glove ven­tured.

  ‘So might you,’ Burrich countered. ‘You are cap­tain of her guard. The con­cern is rightly yours.’

  ‘I haven’t been keep­ing watch out­side her door each night,’ Fox­glove ob­jec­ted.

  ‘Per­haps you should have,’ Burrich said, then tempered it with a, ‘Now that you know.’

  Fox­glove looked into the fire. ‘Per­haps I should. So. The ques­tion is, who es­corts her back to Buck­keep?’

  ‘All her per­sonal guard, of course. A queen should travel with no less.’

  Some­where off in the dark­ness there was a sud­den out­cry. I sprang to my feet.

  ‘Stand fast!’ Burrich snapped at me. ‘Wait for word. Don’t rush off un­til you know what is hap­pen­ing!’

  In a mo­ment, Whistle of the Queen’s Guard reached our fire. She stood be­fore Fox­glove to re­port. ‘Two-pronged at­tack. At the breach just be­low the south tower, they tried to break out. And some got through at …’

  An ar­row swept through her and car­ried off forever whatever she had be­gun to tell us. Outis­landers were sud­denly upon us, more of them than my mind could grasp, and all con­ver­ging on the Queen’s tent. ‘To the Queen!’ I shouted, and had the slim com­fort of hear­ing my cry taken up fur­ther down the line. Three guards rushed out of the tent, to put their backs to its flimsy walls, while Burrich and I stood our ground in front of it. I found my sword in my hand, and from the corner of my eye saw fire­light run red up the edge of Burrich’s. The Queen ap­peared sud­denly in the door of the tent.

  ‘Don’t guard me!’ she re­buked us. ‘Get to where the fight­ing is.’

  ‘It’s here, my lady,’ Burrich grunted, and stepped for­ward sud­denly, to take off the arm of a man who had ven­tured too close.

  I re­mem­ber those words clearly and I re­mem­ber see­ing Burrich take that stride. It is the last co­her­ent memory I have of that night. After that, all was shout­ing and blood, metal and fire. Waves of emo­tions poun­ded against me as all around me, sol­diers and raid­ers fought to the death. Early on, someone set fire to the tent. Its tower­ing blaze lit the battle scene like a stage. I re­mem­ber see­ing Kettricken, robe looped up and knot­ted, fight­ing bare-legged and bare­foot on the frozen ground. She held her ri­dicu­lously long Moun­tain sword in a two-handed grip. Her grace made a deadly dance of the battle that would have dis­trac­ted me at any other time.

  Outis­landers con­tin­ued to ap­pear. At one point, I was sure I heard Ver­ity shout­ing com­mands, but could not make sense of any of them. Nighteyes ap­peared from time to time, fight­ing al­ways at the edge of the light, a low sud­den weight of fur and teeth, ham­stringing with a slash, adding his weight to change a Raider’s charge to a stumble. Burrich
and Fox­glove fought back to back at one point when things were go­ing poorly for us. I was part of the circle that pro­tec­ted the Queen. At least, I thought I was, un­til I real­ized she was ac­tu­ally fight­ing be­side me.

  At some time I dropped my sword to snatch up a fallen Raider’s axe. I picked my blade up the next day from the frozen ground, crus­ted with mud and blood. But at the mo­ment I did not even hes­it­ate to dis­card Ver­ity’s gift for a more sav­agely ef­fect­ive weapon. When at last the tide of the battle turned, I did not con­sider the wis­dom of it, but pur­sued and hunted scattered en­emy through the night-black, fire-stink­ing wreck­age of Neat­bay vil­lage.

  Here, in­deed, Nighteyes and I hunted very well to­gether. I stood toe to toe with my fi­nal kill, axe against axe, while Nighteyes snarled and sav­aged his way past a smal­ler man’s sword. He fin­ished his but seconds be­fore I dropped my man.

  That fi­nal slaughter­ing held for me a wild and sav­age joy. I did not know where Nighteyes left off and I began; only that we had won and we both still lived. Af­ter­wards, we went to find wa­ter to­gether. We drank deep from a com­munal well’s bucket, and I laved the blood from my hands and face. Then we sank down and put our backs to the brick well to watch the sun rise bey­ond the thick ground mist. Nighteyes leaned warm against me, and we did not even think.

  I sup­pose I dozed a bit, for I was jostled alert as he quickly left me. I looked up to see what had startled him, only to dis­cover a frightened Neat­bay girl star­ing at me. The early sun struck glints off her red hair. A bucket was in her hand. I stood and grinned, lift­ing my axe in greet­ing, but she sheered off like a frightened rab­bit amongst the ruined build­ings. I stretched, then made my way back through the trail­ing fog to where the Queen’s tent had been. As I walked, im­ages of last night’s wolf hunt­ing came back to me. The memor­ies were too sharp, too red and black, and I pushed them down deep in my mind. Was this what Burrich had meant by his warn­ing?