Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  ‘Take him to a healer, then,’ I heard Regal fi­nally give the com­mand. ‘See if he can work out what’s wrong with him. Did one of you kick him in the head?’

  I thought that he spoke of me, un­til I heard the sounds of Will be­ing car­ried out. So either I had got more into him than I had thought, or someone had kicked him in the head. Per­haps his gasp had pulled it into his lungs. I had no idea what it would do there. As I felt his Skill pres­ence fad­ing, it was re­lief al­most as blessed as sur­cease from pain. Cau­tiously I re­laxed my vi­gil­ance against him. It was like set­ting down a ter­ribly heavy weight. An­other thought blessed me. They didn’t know. No one had seen the pa­per and powder, it had happened too quickly for them. They might not even think of poison un­til it was too late for him.

  ‘Is the Bas­tard dead?’ Regal de­man­ded an­grily. ‘If he is, I swear, every man of you will hang!’

  Someone stooped hast­ily be­side me, to lay fin­gers at the pulse in my throat. ‘He’s alive,’ a sol­dier said gruffly, al­most sul­lenly. Some day Regal would learn not to threaten his own guard. I hoped he’d be taught it by an ar­row through his back.

  A mo­ment later, someone dashed a bucket of cold wa­ter over me. The shock of it jarred every pain I had to new frenzy. I pulled my one eye open. The first thing I saw was the wa­ter and blood on the floor in front of me. If all that blood was mine, I was in trouble. Dazedly, I tried to think of whose else it could be. My mind did not seem to be work­ing very well. Time seemed to be flow­ing in jumps. Regal was stand­ing over me, angry and dishevelled, and then sud­denly he was sit­ting in his chair. In and out. Light and dark and light again.

  Someone knelt be­side me, ran com­pet­ent hands over me. Burrich? No. That was a dream from long ago. This man had blue eyes and the nasal twang of a Far­row-man. ‘He’s bleed­ing a lot, King Regal. But we can stop that.’ Someone put pres­sure on my brow. A cup of watered wine held against my cracked lips, splashed into my mouth. I choked on it. ‘You see, he’s alive. I’d leave off, for today, your majesty. I doubt if he’ll be able to an­swer any more ques­tions be­fore to­mor­row. He’ll just faint on you.’ A calm pro­fes­sional opin­ion. Who­ever it was stretched me out on the floor again and left.

  A spasm rattled through me. Seizure com­ing soon. Good thing Will was gone. Didn’t think I could keep my walls up through a seizure.

  ‘Oh, take him away,’ Regal said, dis­gus­ted and dis­ap­poin­ted. ‘This has been noth­ing but a waste of my time today.’ His chair’s legs scraped on the floor as he left it. I heard the sounds of his boots on the stone floor as he strode from the room.

  Someone grabbed me by the shirt front, jerked me to my feet. I could not even scream for the pain. ‘Stu­pid piece of dung,’ he snarled at me. ‘You’d bet­ter not die. I’m not go­ing to take lashes over the likes of you dy­ing.’

  ‘Great threat, Verde,’ someone mocked him. ‘What are you go­ing to do to him after he’s dead?’

  ‘Shut up. It’ll be your back flayed to the bone as much as mine. Let’s get him out of here and clean this up.’

  The cell. The blank wall of it. They had left me on the floor, fa­cing away from the door. Some­how that seemed un­fair of them. I’d have to do all the work of rolling over just to see if they’d left me any wa­ter.

  No. It was too much trouble.

  Are you com­ing now?

  I really want to, Nighteyes. But I just don’t know how.

  Changer. Changer! My brother! Changer.

  What is it?

  You have been si­lent for so long. Are you com­ing now?

  I have been … si­lent?

  Yes. I thought you had died, without com­ing to me first. I could not reach you.

  Prob­ably a seizure. I didn’t know it had happened. But now I am right here, Nighteyes. Right here.

  Then come to me. Hurry, be­fore you die.

  A mo­ment. Let us be sure of this.

  I tried to think of a reason not to. I knew there had been some, but I could no longer re­call them. Changer, he had called me. My own wolf, call­ing me that, just as the Fool or Chade called me a cata­lyst. Well. Time to change things for Regal. The last thing I could do was make sure I died be­fore Regal broke me. If I had to go down, I would do it alone. No words of mine would im­plic­ate any­one else. I hoped the dukes would de­mand to see my body.

  It took a long time to get my arm from the floor to my chest. My lips were cracked and swollen, my teeth aching in my gums. But I put my shirt cuff to my mouth, and found the tiny lump of the leaf pel­let in­side the fab­ric. I bit down at it as hard as I could, then sucked on it. After a mo­ment, the taste of car­ryme flooded my mouth. It was not un­pleas­ant. Pun­gent. As the herb deadened the pain in my mouth, I could chew at my sleeve more strongly. Stu­pidly, I tried to be care­ful of the por­cu­pine quill. Didn’t want to get a quill in my lip.

  It really hurts when that hap­pens.

  I know, Nighteyes.

  Come to me.

  I’m try­ing. Give me a mo­ment.

  How does one leave one’s body be­hind? I tried to ig­nore it, to be aware of my­self only as Nighteyes. Keen nose. Ly­ing on my side, chew­ing di­li­gently at a lump of snow wad­ded up in the space between my toes. I tasted snow and my own paw as I nibbled and licked it away. I looked up. Even­ing com­ing on. It would soon be a good time to hunt. I stood up, shook my­self all over.

  That’s right, Nighteyes en­cour­aged me.

  But there was still that thread, that tiny aware­ness of a stiff and aching body on a cold stone floor. Just to think of it made it more real. A tremor ran through it, rat­tling its bones and teeth. Seizure com­ing. Big one this time.

  Sud­denly, it was all so easy. Such an easy choice. Leave that body for this one. It didn’t work very well any more any­way. Stuck in a cage. No point to keep­ing it. No point to be­ing a man at all.

  I’m here.

  I know. Let us hunt.

  And we did.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Wolf Days

  The ex­er­cise for cent­ring one­self is a simple one. Stop think­ing of what you in­tend to do. Stop think­ing of what you have just done. Then, stop think­ing that you have stopped think­ing of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is. Then, in that place, you will fi­nally have time to be your­self.

  There is a clean­ness to life that can be had when you but hunt and eat and sleep. In the end, no more than this is really needed by any­one. We ran alone, we the Wolf, and we lacked for noth­ing. We did not long for ven­ison when a rab­bit presen­ted it­self nor be­grudge the ravens that came to pick through our leav­ings. Some­times we re­membered a dif­fer­ent time and a dif­fer­ent way. When we did, we wondered what had been so im­port­ant about any of it. We did not kill what we could not eat, and we did not eat what we could not kill. Dusks and dawns were the best times for hunt­ing, and other times were good for sleep­ing. Other than this, time had no mean­ing.

  For wolves, as for dogs, life is a briefer thing than for men, if you meas­ure it by count­ing days and how many turns of a sea­son one sees. But in two years, a cub wolf does all a man does in a score. He comes to the full of his strength and size, he learns all that is need­ful for him to be a hunter or a mate or a leader. The candle of his life burns briefer and brighter than a man’s. In a dec­ade of years, he does all that a man does in five or six times that many. A year passes for a wolf as a dec­ade does for a man. Time is no miser when one lives al­ways in the now.

  So we knew the nights and the days, the hun­ger and the filling. Sav­age joys and sur­prises. Snatch up a mouse, fling it up, eat it down with a snap. So good. To start a rab­bit, to pur­sue it as it dodges and circles, then sud­denly, to stretch your stride and seize it in a flurry of snow and fur. The shake that snaps its neck, and then the leis­ure eat­ing, the tear­ing open of its belly and nos
­ing through the hot en­trails, and then the thick meat of the haunches, the easy crunch­ing of its back­bone. Sur­feit and sleep. And waken to hunt again.

  Chase a doe over pond ice, know­ing we can­not make such a kill, but re­joicing in the hunt. When through the ice she goes, and we circle, circle, circle end­lessly as she battles her hooves against the ice and fi­nally clam­bers out, too weary to evade the teeth that slash her ham­strings, the fangs that close in her throat. Eat­ing to sa­ti­ation, not once, but twice from the car­cass. A storm comes full of sleet to drive us to the den. Sleep­ing snug, nose to tail, while the wind flings icy rain and then snow about out­side the den. Awake to pale light glisten­ing in through a layer of snow. Dig out to snuff the clear cold day that is just fad­ing. There is meat still on the doe, frozen red and sweet, ready to be dug from the snow. What can be more sat­is­fy­ing than to know of meat that is wait­ing for you?

  Come.

  We pause. No, the meat is wait­ing. We trot on.

  Come now. Come to me. I’ve meat for you.

  We’ve meat already. And closer.

  Nighteyes. Changer. Heart of the Pack sum­mons you.

  We pause again. Shake all over. This is not com­fort­able. And what is Heart of the Pack to us? He is not pack. He pushes us. There is meat closer. It is de­cided. We go to the pond’s edge. Here. Some­where here. Ah. Dig down to her through the snow. The crows come to watch us, wait­ing for us to be fin­ished.

  Nighteyes. Changer. Come. Come now. Soon it will be too late.

  The meat is frozen, crisp and red. Turn our head to use our back teeth to scis­sor it from the bones. A crow flies down, lands on the snow nearby. Hop, hop. He cocks his head. For sport, we lunge at him, put him to flight again. Our meat, all of it. Days and nights of meat.

  Come. Please. Come. Please. Come soon, come now. Come back to us. You are needed. Come. Come.

  He does not go away. We put back our ears, but still we hear him, come, come, come. He steals the pleas­ure from the meat with his whin­ing. Enough. We have eaten enough for now. We will go, just to still him.

  Good. That’s good. Come to me, come to me.

  We go, trot­ting through the gath­er­ing dark­ness. A rab­bit sits up sud­denly, scampers away across the snow. Shall we? No. Belly is full. Trot on. Cross a man’s path, an open empty strip un­der the night sky. We fade across it swiftly, trot on through the woods that bor­der it.

  Come to me. Come. Nighteyes, Changer, I sum­mon you. Come to me.

  The forest ends. There is a cleared hill­side be­low us, and bey­ond that a flat, bare place, shel­ter­less un­der the night sky. Too open. The crus­ted snow is un­tracked, but at the bot­tom of the hill, there are hu­mans. Two. Heart of the Pack digs while an­other watches. Heart of the Pack digs fast and hard. His breath smokes in the night. The other has a light, a too-bright light that shrinks the eye to be­hold. Heart of the Pack stops his dig­ging. He looks up at us.

  Come, he says. Come.

  He jumps into the hole he has dug. There is black earth, frozen chunks of it, on top of the clean snow. He lands with a thud like deer antlers on a tree. He crouches and there is a tear­ing sound. He uses a tool that thuds and tears. We settle down to watch him, wrap­ping tail around to warm front feet. What has this to do with us? We are full, we could go sleep now. He looks up at us sud­denly through the night.

  Wait. A mo­ment longer. Wait.

  He growls to the other, and that one holds the light to the hole. Heart of the Pack bends his back and the other reaches to help him. They drag some­thing from the hole. The smell of it sets our hackles ajar. We turn, we leap to run, we circle, we can­not leave. There is a fear here, there is a danger, a threat of pain, of loneli­ness, of end­ings.

  Come. Come down to us here, come down. We need you now. It is time.

  This is not time. Time is al­ways, is every­where. You need us, but per­haps we do not want to be needed. We have meat, and a warm place to sleep, and even more meat for an­other time. With a full belly and a warm den, what else is to be needed? Yet. We will go closer. We will snuff it, we will see what it is that threatens and beck­ons. Belly to snow, tail low, we slink down the hill.

  Heart of the Pack sits in the snow hold­ing it. He mo­tions the other away, and that one steps back, back, back tak­ing his pain­ful light with him. Closer. The hill is bey­ond us now, bare, shel­ter­less. It is a far run back to hid­ing if we are threatened. But noth­ing moves. There is only Heart of the Pack and that which he holds. It smells of blood. He shakes it, as if to worry off a piece of meat. Then he rubs at it, mov­ing his hands like a bitch’s teeth go over a cub to rid it of fleas. We know the smell of it. Closer we come. Closer. It is but a leap away.

  What do you want? we de­mand of him.

  Come back.

  We have come.

  Come back here. Changer. He is in­sist­ent. Come back to this. He lifts an arm, shows up a hand. He shows us a head lolling on his shoulder.

  That?

  This. This is yours, Changer.

  It smells bad. It is spoiled meat, we do not want it. There is bet­ter meat by the pond than that.

  Come here. Come closer.

  This is not a good idea. We will come no closer. He looks at us and grips us with his eyes. He edges closer to us, bring­ing it with him. It flops in his arms.

  Easy. Easy. This is yours, Changer. Come closer.

  We snarl, but he does not look away. We cower, tail to belly, want­ing to leave, but he is strong. He takes its hand and puts it on our head. He holds the scruff of our neck to still us.

  Come back. You must come back. He is so in­sist­ent.

  We cower down, dig­ging claws into the snowy earth. Hump­ing our back, we try to pull away, struggle to take one step back­ward. He still holds onto the scruff of our neck. We gather strength to wheel and break away.

  Let him go, Nighteyes. He is not yours. A hint of teeth in those words, his eyes stare at us too hard.

  He is not yours, either, Nighteyes says.

  Whose am I, then?

  A mo­ment of tee­ter­ing, of bal­an­cing between two worlds, two real­it­ies, two fleshes. Then a wolf wheels and flees, tail tucked, over the snow, run­ning away alone, flee­ing from too much strange­ness. On top of a hill he stops, to point his nose at the sky and howl. Howl for the un­fair­ness of it all.

  I do not have a memory of that frozen grave­yard that is my own. I have a sort of dream. I was wretchedly cold, stiff, and the raw taste of brandy burned, not just in my mouth, but all through me. Burrich and Chade would not leave me alone. They didn’t care how much they were hurt­ing me, they just kept on rub­bing my hands and feet, care­less of the old bruises, the scabs on my arms. And every time I closed my eyes, Burrich would seize me and shake me like a rag. ‘Stay with me, Fitz,’ he kept say­ing. ‘Stay with me, stay with me. Come on, boy. You’re not dead. You’re not dead.’ Then sud­denly he hugged me to him, his bearded face brist­ling against mine and his hot tears fall­ing on my face. He rocked me back and forth, sit­ting in the snow at the edge of my grave. ‘You’re not dead, son. You’re not dead.’

  Epi­logue

  It was a thing Burrich had heard of, in a tale told by his grand­mother. A tale of a Wit­ted one who could leave her body, for a day or so, and then come back to it. And Burrich had told it to Chade, and Chade had mixed the pois­ons that would take me to the brink of death. They told me I had not died, that my body had but slowed to an ap­pear­ance of death.

  I do not be­lieve that.

  And so I lived once more in man’s body. Though it took me some days and time to re­mem­ber that I had been a man. And some­times, still, I doubt it.

  I did not re­sume my life. My life as FitzChiv­alry lay in smoking ru­ins be­hind me. In all the world, only Burrich and Chade knew I had not died. Of those who had known me, few re­membered me with smiles. Regal had killed me, in every way that mattered to me as a man. To present my­self to
any of those who had loved me, to stand be­fore them in my hu­man flesh would have only been to give them proof of the ma­gic I had tain­ted my­self with.

  I had died in my cell, a day or two after that fi­nal beat­ing. The dukes had been wroth about my death, but Regal had had enough evid­ence and wit­nesses to my Wit ma­gic to save face with them. I be­lieve that his guards saved them­selves from the lash by testi­fy­ing that I had at­tacked Will with the Wit, and that was why he lay ill so long. They said they had had to beat me to break my Wit hold on him. In the face of so many wit­nesses, the dukes not only aban­doned me, but wit­nessed Regal’s coron­a­tion, and the ap­point­ment of Lord Bright as cas­tel­lan for Buck­keep and all of Buck’s coast. Pa­tience had begged that my body not be burned, but be bur­ied whole. The Lady Grace had also sent word on my be­half, much to her hus­band’s dis­gust. Only those two stood by me, in the face of Regal’s proof of my Wit taint. But I do not think it was out of any con­sid­er­a­tion for them that he gave me up, but only that by dy­ing ahead of time, I had spoiled the spec­tacle that hanging and burn­ing would have af­forded. Cheated of his full ven­geance, Regal simply lost in­terest. He left Buck­keep to go in­land to Trade­ford. Pa­tience claimed my body to bury me.

  To this life did Burrich awaken me, to a life in which there was noth­ing left for me. Noth­ing save my king. The Six Duch­ies would crumble in the months to come, the Raid­ers would pos­sess our good har­bours al­most at will, our folk were driven from their homes, or brought to slavery while the Outis­landers squat­ted there. For­gings flour­ished. But as my Prince Ver­ity had done, I turned my back on all of it, and went in­land. But he went to be a king, and I went fol­low­ing my queen, seek­ing my king. Hard days fol­lowed.

  Yet even now, when the pain presses most heav­ily and none of the herbs can turn its deep ache, when I con­sider the body that en­traps my spirit, I re­call my days as a wolf, and know them not as a few but as a sea­son of liv­ing. There is a com­fort in their re­call­ing, as well as a tempta­tion. Come, hunt with me, the in­vit­a­tion whis­pers in my heart. Leave the pain be­hind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and al­ways your own.