by Robin Hobb
Shrewd shut the door to his bathing room firmly, as if to keep the stink from spreading into his bedchamber, and came to take a straight-backed chair by the fire. In a moment the Fool had drawn a table up beside it, the cloth covering the food had become a tablecloth, and he had set out food for the King as prettily as any serving maid could have done. Silverware and a napkin appeared, a sleight of hand that had even Shrewd smiling, and then the Fool folded himself up on the hearth, knees nearly to his ears, chin cupped in his long-fingered hands, pale skin and hair picking up red tones from the fire's dancing flames. His every move was as graceful as a dancer's and the pose he struck now was artful as well as comical. The King reached down to smooth his flying hair as if the Fool were a kitten.
"I told you I was not hungry, Fool."
"That you did. But you did not tell me not to bring food."
"And if I had?"
"Then I should tell you this is not food, but a steaming pot such as Wall Ass afflicts you with, to fill your nostrils with a scent at least more pleasing than his. And this be not bread, but a plaster for your tongue, which you should apply at once."
"Ah." King Shrewd drew his table a bit closer and took up a spoonful of the soup. Barley shouldered against bits of carrot and meat in it. Shrewd tasted, and then began to eat.
"Am I not at least as good a physician as Wall Ass?" the Fool purred, well pleased with himself.
"Well you know Wallace is not a physician, but simply my servant."
"Well I know it, and well do you, but Wall Ass knows it not, and hence you are not well."
"Enough of your nattering. Step up, Fitz, don't stand there grinning like a simpleton. What have you to tell me?"
I glanced at the Fool, and then decided I would insult neither King nor Fool by asking if I could report freely in front of him. So I did, a simple report, with no mention of my more clandestine actions other than their results. Shrewd listened gravely, and at the end he had no comment, other than to rebuke me mildly for poor manners at the Duke's table. He then asked if Duke Brawndy of Bearns seemed well and content with the peace in his Duchy. I replied that he had when I left. Shrewd nodded. Then he requested the scrolls I had copied. These I took out and displayed for him, and was rewarded by a compliment on the gracefulness of my handiwork. He told me to take them to Verity's map room, and be sure Verity knew of them. He asked if I had viewed the Elderling's relic. I described it to him in detail. And all the while the Fool perched on the hearthstones and watched us silent as an owl. King Shrewd ate his soup and bread under the Fool's watchful eyes as I read the scroll aloud to him. When I was finished, he sighed and leaned back in his chair. "So, let's see this scrollwork of yours," he commanded, and puzzled, I surrendered it to him. Once more he looked it over carefully, then re-rolled it. As he gave it back to me he said, "You've a graceful way with a pen, boy. Well lettered and well done. Take it to Verity's map room, and see that he knows of it."
"Of course, my king." I faltered, confused. I did not understand his motive in repeating himself, and was unsure if he were waiting for some other response from me. But the Fool was rising, and I caught from him something less than a glance; not quite the lift of an eyebrow, not quite the turn of a lip, but enough to bid me to silence. The Fool gathered up the dishes, all the while making merry talk with the King, and then both of us were dismissed together. As we left, the King was staring into the flames.
Out in the hall, we exchanged glances more openly. I began to speak, but the Fool commenced to whistle, and did not cease until we were halfway down the stairs. Then he paused and caught at my sleeve, and we halted on the stairway, betwixt floors. I sensed he had chosen this spot carefully. None could see or hear us speak here, save that we saw them also. Still, it was not even the Fool that spoke to me, but the rat atop the scepter. He brought it up before my nose and squeaked in the rat's voice, "Ah, but you and I, we must remember whatever he forgets, Fitz, and keep it safe for him. It costs him much to show as strong as he did tonight. Do not be deceived about that. What he said to you, twice, you must cherish and obey, for it means he held it twice as hard in his mind to be sure he would say it to you."
I nodded and resolved to deliver the scroll that very night to Verity. "I do not much care for Wallace," I commented to the Fool.
"'Tis not Wall's Ass you should have a care for, but Wall's Ears," he replied solemnly. Abruptly he balanced the tray on one long-fingered hand and lofted it high over his head, and went capering off down the stairs before me, leaving me alone to think.
I delivered the scroll that night, and in the days that followed, I took up the tasks Verity had assigned me earlier. I used fat sausage and smoked fish as the vehicles for my poisons, wrapped in small bundles. These I might easily scatter as I fled, in the hopes there would be sufficient for all who pursued me. Each morning I studied the map in Verity's map room, and then saddled Sooty and took myself and my poisons out where I thought it most likely I would be set upon by Forged ones. Remembering my previous experiences, I carried a short sword on these riding expeditions, something that afforded both Hands and Burrich some amusement at first. I gave it out that I was scouting for game in case Verity wished to plan a winter hunt. Hands accepted it easily, Burrich with a tightened mouth that showed he knew I lied, and knew also that I could not tell him the truth. He did not pry, but neither did he like it.
Twice in ten days I was set upon by Forged ones, and twice fled easily, letting my poisoned provisions tumble from my saddlebags as I went. They fell upon them greedily, scarcely unwrapping the meat before stuffing it into their mouths. I returned to each site the following day, to document for Verity how many I had slain and the details of their appearances. The second group did not match any description we had received. We both suspected this meant there were more Forged ones than we had heard.
I did my task, but I took no pride in it. Dead, they were even more pitiful than alive. Ragged, thin creatures, frostbitten and battered by their fights among themselves they were, and the savagery of the quick harsh poisons I used twisted their bodies into caricatures of men. Frost glistened on their beards and eyebrows, and the blood from their mouths made red clumps like frozen rubies in the snow. Seven Forged ones I killed this way, and then heaped the frozen bodies with pitchpine, and poured oil on them and set them aflame. I cannot say what I found most distasteful, the poisoning, or the concealing of my deed. Cub had initially begged to go with me when he understood that I was riding out each day after feeding him, but at one point, as I stood over the frozen stickmen I had slain, I heard, This is not hunting, this. This is no pack's doing. This is man's doing. His presence was gone before I could rebuke him for intruding into my mind again.
Evenings I returned to the Keep, to hot fresh food and warm fires, dry clothes and a soft bed, but the specters of those Forged ones stood between me and those comforts. I felt myself a heartless beast that I could enjoy such things after spreading death by day. My only comfort was a prickly one, that at night when I slept, I dreamed of Molly, and walked and talked with her, unhaunted by Forged ones or their frost rimed bodies.
Came a day I rode out later than I had intended, for Verity had been in his map room and had kept me overlong in talk. A storm was coming up, but it did not seem too severe of one. I had not intended to go far that day. But I found fresh sign instead of my prey, and sign of a larger group of them than I had expected. And so I rode on, ever at the alert with my five senses, for the sixth of the Wit was no help at all in finding Forged ones. The gathering clouds stole the light from the sky more swiftly than I had expected and the sign led me down game trails where Sooty and I found it slow going. When I finally glanced up from my tracking, admitting that they had eluded me this day, I found myself much farther from Buckkeep than I had intended and well off any traveled road.
The wind began to blow, a nasty cold one that foretold snow to follow. I wrapped my cloak more tightly about myself and turned Sooty's head toward home, relying on her to pick her path
and pace. Darkness fell before we'd gone far, and snow with it. Had I not traversed this area so frequently of late, I would surely have been lost. But we pressed on, going always, it seemed, into the teeth of the wind. The cold soaked right through me, and I began to shiver. I feared the shivering might actually be the beginnings of trembling and a fit such as I had not suffered for a long time.
I was grateful when the winds finally tore a rent in the cloud cover, and moonlight and starlight leaked through to gray our way. We made a better pace then, despite the fresh snow that Sooty waded through. We broke out of a thin birch forest, onto a hillside that lightning had burned off a few years ago. The wind was stronger here with nothing to oppose it, and I gathered my cloak and turned up the collar again. I knew that once I crested the hill, I would see the lights of Buckkeep, and that another hill away and a vale would find a well-used road to take me home. So I was of better cheer as we cut our way across the hill's smooth flank.
Sudden as thunder, I heard the hoofbeats of a horse struggling to make speed, but somehow encumbered. Sooty slowed, then threw back her head and whinnied. At the same moment I saw a horse and rider break out of the cover, downhill of me and to the south. The horse carried a rider, and two other people clung to it, one to its breast strap and one to the rider's leg. Light glinted on a blade that rose and fell, and with a cry the man clutching at the rider's leg fell away to wallow and shriek in the snow. But the other figure had caught the horse's headstall, and as he tried to drag the beast to a halt, two other pursuers burst from the trees to converge on the struggling horse and rider.
The moment of recognizing Kettricken is inseparable from the moment I set heels to Sooty. What I saw made no sense to me, but that did not prevent my responding. I did not ask myself what my queen-in-waiting was doing out here, at night, unaccompanied and set upon by robbers. Rather, I found myself admiring how she kept her seat and set her horse to wheeling as she kicked and slashed at the men who tried to drag her down. I drew my sword as we closed on the struggle, but I do not recall that I made any sound. My recollection of the whole struggle is a strange one, a battle of silhouettes, done in black and white like a mountain shadow play, soundless save for the grunts and cries of the Forged ones as one after another they fell.
Kettricken had slashed one across the face, blinding him with blood, but still he clung to her and tried to drag her from the saddle. The other ignored the plight of his fellows, tugging instead at saddlebags that probably carried no more than a bit of food and brandy packed for a day's ride.
Sooty took me in close to the one gripping Softstep's headstall. I saw it was a woman and then my sword was into her and out again, as soulless an exercise as chopping wood. Such a peculiar struggle. I could sense Kettricken and me, the fright of her horse and Sooty's battle-trained enthusiasm, but from her attackers, nothing. Nothing at all. No anger throbbed, no pain of their wounds shrieked for attention. To my Wit, they were not there at all, any more than the snow or the wind that likewise opposed me.
I watched as in a dream as Kettricken seized her attacker by the hair and leaned his head back that she might cut his throat. Blood spilled black in the moonlight, drenching her coat and leaving a sheen on the chestnut's neck and shoulder before he fell back to spasm in the snow. I swung my short sword at the last one, but missed. Kettricken did not. Her short knife danced in, and punched through jerkin and rib cage and into his lung, and out again as swift. She kicked him away. "To me!" she said simply into the night, and put heels to her chestnut, driving Softstep straight up the hill. Sooty ran with her nose at Kettricken's stirrup, and so we crested the hill together, glimpsing the lights of Buckkeep briefly before we plunged down the other side.
There was brush at the bottom of the slope, and a creek hidden by the snow, so I kicked Sooty into the lead and turned Softstep before she could blunder into it and fall. Kettricken said nothing as I turned her horse, but let me take the lead as we entered the forest on the other side of the stream. I moved us as swiftly as I dared, expecting always figures to shout and leap out at us. But we made the road at last, just as the clouds closed up again, stealing the moonlight from us. I slowed the horses and let them breathe. For some time we traveled in silence, both intently listening for any sounds of pursuit.
After a time we felt safer, and I heard Kettricken let out her pent breath in a long, shaky sigh. "Thank you, Fitz," she said simply, but could not keep her voice quite steady. I made no comment, half expecting that at any moment she would burst into weeping. I would not have blamed her. Instead she gradually gathered herself, tugging her clothes straight, wiping her blade on her pants and then resheathing it at her waist. She leaned forward to pat Softstep's neck and murmur words of praise and comfort to the horse. I felt Softstep's tension ease and admired Kettricken's skill to have so swiftly gained the confidence of the tall horse.
"How came you here? Seeking me?" she asked at last.
I shook my head. Snow was beginning to fall again. "I was out hunting, and went farther than I had intended. It was but good fortune that brought me to you." I paused, then ventured, "Did you get lost? Will there be riders searching for you?"
She sniffed, and took a breath. "Not exactly," she said in a shaky voice. "I went out riding with Regal. A few others rode with us, but when the storm began to threaten, we all turned back to Buckkeep. The others rode on before us, but Regal and I came more slowly. He was telling me a folktale from his home Duchy, and we let the others ride ahead, that I should not have to hear it through their chatter." She took a breath and I heard her swallow back the last of the night's terror. Her voice was calmer when she went on.
"The others were far ahead of us, when a fox started up suddenly from the brush by the path. `Follow me, if you'd like to see real sport!' Regal challenged me, and he turned his horse from the path and set off after the animal. Whether I would or no, Softstep sprang after them. Regal rode like a mad thing, all stretched out on his horse, urging it on with a quirt." There was consternation, and wonder, but also a stain of admiration in her voice as she described him.
Softstep had not answered the rein. At first she had been fearful of their pace, for she did not know the terrain and feared that Softstep would stumble. So she had tried to rein in her mount. But when she had realized that she could no longer see the road or the others, and that Regal had gotten far ahead of her, she had given Softstep her head, in the hopes of catching up. With the predictable result that as the storm closed in she had lost her way completely. She had turned back to retrace her trail to the road, but the falling snow and blowing wind had quickly erased it. At last she had given Softstep the bit, trusting her horse to find her way home. Probably she would have, if those wild men had not set upon her. Her voice dwindled away into silence.
"Forged ones," I told her quietly.
"Forged ones," she repeated in a wondering voice. Then, more firmly: "They have no hearts left. So it was explained to me." I felt more than saw her glance. "Am I so poor a Sacrifice that there are folk who would kill me?"
In the distance we heard the winding of a horn. Searchers.
"They would have set upon any that crossed their paths," I told her. "For them, there was no thought that it was their queen-in-waiting they attacked. I doubt greatly that they knew who you were at all." I closed my jaws firmly before I could add that such was not the case with Regal. If he had not intended her harm, neither had he kept her from coming to it. I did not believe he had ever intended to show her "sport" in chasing a fox across snowy hills in the twilight. He had meant to lose her. And done so handily.
"I think my lord will be very wroth with me," she said, woeful as a child. As if in answer to her prediction, we rounded the shoulder of the hill and saw men on horseback bearing torches coming toward us. We heard the horn again, more clearly, and in a few moments we were among them. They were the forerunners of the main search party, and a girl set out at once galloping back to tell the King-in-Waiting that his queen had been found. In the lig
ht of the torches, Verity's guards exclaimed and swore over the blood that glinted yet on Softstep's neck, but Kettricken kept her composure as she assured them that none of it was hers. She spoke quietly of the Forged ones who had set upon her and what she had done to defend herself. I saw admiration of her growing among the soldiers. I heard then for the first time that the boldest attacker had dropped out of a tree upon her. Him she had slain first.
"Four she done, and not a scratch upon her!" exulted one grizzled veteran, and then: "Begging your pardon, my lady queen. No disrespect meant! "
"It might have been a different tale had not Fitz come to free my horse's head," Kettricken said quietly. Their respect for her grew as she did not glory in her triumph, but made sure I received my due as well.
They congratulated her loudly, and spoke angrily of scouring the woods tomorrow all about Buckkeep. "It shames us all as soldiers, that our own queen cannot ride forth safely!" declared one woman. She set her hand to the hilt of her blade and swore on it to have it blooded with Forged blood by the morrow. Several others followed her example. The talk grew loud, bravado and relief at the Queen's safety fueling it. It became a triumphal procession home, until Verity arrived. He came at a dead gallop, on a horse lathered by both distance and speed. I knew then that the search had not been a brief one, and could only guess at how many roads Verity had traveled since he had received word his lady was missing.
"How could you be so foolish as to go so far astray!" were his first words to her. His voice was not tender. I saw her head lose its proud lift, and heard the muttered comments of the man closest to me. From there nothing went well. He did not scold her before his men, but I saw him wince as she told him plainly what had become of her and how she had killed to defend herself. He was not pleased to have her speak so plainly of a band of Forged ones, brave enough to attack the Queen, and scarce out of Buckkeep's shadow. That which Verity had sought to keep quiet would be on everyone's lips tomorrow, with the added fillip that it had been the Queen herself they'd dared to attack. Verity shot me a murderous glance, as if it were all my doing, and roughly commandeered fresh horses from two of his guard to take himself and his queen back to Buckkeep. He whisked her away from them, carrying her back to Buckkeep at a gallop as if arriving there sooner would somehow make the breach of safety less real. He seemed not to realize he had denied his guard the honor of bringing her safely home.
