The Tawny Man 1 - Fool's Errand

by Robin Hobb

  Yet the layers of masks were back in place, and must be recognized. My body shivered. The tide was going out again. I could not see anything beyond the ring of our firelight, but I could hear the waters retreat in the rhythm of the falling waves. The unmistakable smell of low tide, of bared kelp and shellfish, was in the air.

  The Prince lay on his back staring up at the sky. I looked down at him and thought at first that he was unconscious. In the fickle light of my dying fire, I saw only black cavities where his eyes should be. Then he spoke. "I had a dream." There was wonder and uncertainty in his voice.

  "How nice." It was a neutral sneer. I was incredibly relieved that he was back in his body and could speak. To an equal degree, I hated that I was trapped inside my own body again and had to listen to him.

  He seemed immune to my nastiness. The edges of his voice were soft. "I've never had a dream like that. I could feel . . . everything. I dreamed my father held me together and told me that I was going to be fine. That was all. But the strangest part was, that was enough." Dutiful smiled up at me. It was a luminous smile, wise and young. It made him look like Kettricken.

  "I have to find more firewood," I said at last. I turned from the light and the fire and the smiling boy and walked away into the darkness.

  I didn't look for wood. The retreating waves had left the sand wet and packed under my bare feet. A fading slice of moon had risen. I looked at it, then up at the sky, and felt my stomach drop. According to the stars, we were substantially south of the Six Duchies. My previous experience with Skill'pillars was that they could save a few days of travel time. This evidence of their power was not reassuring. If tomorrow's low tide did not bare the stone, we faced a long journey home, with no resources to aid us. The moon reminded me too that our time was dwindling. In eight nights, the new moon would herald Prince Dutiful's betrothal ceremony. Would the Prince stand at the narcheska's side? It was hard to make the question seem important.

  There are times when not thinking requires all of one's concentration. I don't know how far I walked before I stepped on it. It shifted in the wet sand beneath my foot, and for an instant I thought I had stepped on a knife blade lying flat on the sand. In the darkness, I stooped and located it by touch. I picked it up. It was about the length of the blade of a butcher's knife, and somewhat shaped the same. It was hard and cold, stone or metal, I could not tell which. But it was not a knife. I ran my fingers over it cautiously. There was no sharpened edge. A rib ran up the center of it, and then the object was finely striated in parallel rows at an angle to the rib on both sides. It culminated in a sort of tube at one end. It was heavy, yet not as heavy as it seemed it should have been. I stood holding it in the darkness, feeling sure I knew what it was, but unable to summon up that knowledge. It was familiar in an eerie way, as if I picked up something that had been mine a long time ago.

  The puzzle of the object was a welcome distraction from my own thoughts. I held it in my hand as I continued down the beach. I hadn't gone a dozen steps before I stepped on another one. I picked it up. By touch I compared the two. They were not quite identical, one being slightly longer. I held them, weighing them in my hands.

  When I stepped on the third one, I was almost expecting it. I lifted it from the sand and wiped the wet grit from it. Then I stood still where I was. I had a strange sense of something waiting for me. It hovered, unable to take shape without my volition. I had the strangest sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff. One more step, and I would either plummet to my death, or discover I could fly.

  I stepped back from it. I turned around and walked back toward the dying campfire on the beach. As I watched, I saw Dutiful's silhouette pass before the flames, and the sparks leapt up into the night as he dropped more wood on the fire. Well, at least he could do that much for himself.

  It was hard to go back to the circle of that light. I didn't want to face him, didn't want his questions or his accusations. I did not want to pick up the reins of my life. But by the time I reached the fire, Dutiful was stretched out beside it, feigning sleep. He wore his own shirt, and mine had been draped on the stakes to warm and dry. I put it on silently. As I tugged up the collar, my fingers encountered Jinna's charm. Ah. Well, that explained his smile and kindly words. I lay down on my side of the fire.

  Before I closed my eyes, I examined the objects I had found. They were feathers. Of stone or metal, I still could not say. In the fire's deceptive light, they were dark gray. I instantly knew where they belonged. I doubted they would ever be there. I put them on the ground beside me and closed my eyes, fleeing into sleep.

  Chapter XXIV

  CONFRONTATIONS

  So up strides Jock and stands be ore the Other, so bold that he rocked from his heels to his toes and back again. "Oh, ho," says he, and he holds up the bag of red pebbles that he'd gathered. "So all that rests on this beach is yours? Well, I say that what I've gathered is mine, and he who wants what is mine will not get it without me taking a piece of his flesh in exchange." And Jack showed the Other his every tooth, from white in the front to black in the back, and his fist too doubled up like a tree knot. "I'll slam you," he says, "and I'll rip your ears from the sides of your head." And it's certain that he would hafe that very moment, save that Others have no more ears than a toad, as any child knows.

  But all the same, the Other knew he would not take the sack of red pebbles without a fight. So all in a moment, he shimmered and shook. He reeked of dead fish no longer then, but gave off the scent of every flower that blooms in high summer. He shivered his skin so he sparkled and to Jack's eyes there was suddenly a maiden standing there, naked as a new leaf and licking her lips as if she tasted honey there.

  . "ten voyages with jack, voyage the fourth"

  I think that for a time I slept dreamlessly. Certainly I was weary enough. Far too much had happened to me, far too swiftly. Sleep was as much a respite from thought as it was rest. Yet after a time, dreams claimed me and tumbled me. I climbed the steps to Verity's tower. He was sitting at the window, Skilling. My heart leapt joyfully at first sight of him, but when he turned to me, his face was grieved. "You did not teach my son, Fitz. I'll have to take your daughter for that." Both Nettle and Dutiful were stones on a game cloth, and with a single sweep of his hand, he exchanged their positions. "It's your move," he said. But before I could do anything, Jinna came to brush all the stones from the cloth into her hand. "I'll make a charm of these," she promised me. "One to protect all of the Six Duchies."

  "Put it away," I begged her, for I was the wolf and the charm was one against predators. It sickened and cowed me just to behold it. It was potent, far more potent than any of the other charms she had shown me. It was magic stripped to its most basic form, all human sentiment abraded from it. It was magic of an older time and place, magic that cared nothing for people. It was as implacable as the Skill. It was sharp as knives and burning as poison. "Put it away!"

  He couldn't hear me. He had never been able to hear me. The Scentless One wore it around his throat, and he had opened his collar wide to bare it. It was all I could do to force myself to stand still and guard his back. Even behind him, I could feel its harsh radiance. I could smell blood, his and my own. I still felt the warm slow seep of my blood down my flank, and my strength dripping away with it.

  A man with a whining dog stood guard over us, scowling. Behind him, a fire burned, and Piebalds slept around it. Beyond them was the open mouth of the shelter, and an edge of dawn in the sky. It seemed horribly far away. Our guard's face was contorted, not just with anger but with fear and frustration. He longed to hurt us, but dared come no closer. It was not a dream. It was the Wit and I was with Nighteyes and he lived. The surge of joy I felt amused him but only for an instant. Your witnessing this will not make it easier for either of us. You should have stayed away from this. "Cover that damned thing!" the guard growled at him. "Make me!" the Scentless One suggested. I heard the Fool's lilting reply with the wolf's ears. The whip-snap of his old mockery cap
ered in his words. Some part of him relished this defiance. His sword was gone, taken from him when they had been captured, but he sat defiantly straight, throat bared to show a charm that burned with cold magic. He had placed himself between the wolf and those who would torment him.

  Nighteyes showed me a chamber, walls of stone, floor of earth. A cave, perhaps. He and the Fool were in a corner of it. Blood had sheeted down the side of the Fool's tawny face. Dried, it had cracked so that he looked like a badly glazed pot. Nighteyes and the Fool were prisoners, violently taken but kept alive, the Fool because he might know where the Prince had gone and how, and the wolf because of his link to me.

  They puzzled that out, that we are linked?

  I'm afraid it was obvious to all.

  From out of the shadows, the cat appeared. She stalked stiffly toward us. Her whiskers vibrated and her intent stare fixed on Nighteyes. When the guard's dog turned to look at her, she spat and slashed at him. He leapt back with a yipe and the guard's scowl deepened, but both he and his dog gave ground to her. She prowled back and forth, padding stiff-legged and casting sidelong glances up at the Fool while rumbling a threat in her throat. Her tail floated behind her.

  The charm holds her at bay?

  Yes. But not for long, I fear. The wolf's next thought surprised me. The cat is a miserable creature, honeycombed with the woman as a sick deer is riddled with parasites . She stalks about with a human looking out of her eyes . She does not even move like a true cat anymore.

  The cat halted suddenly and opened her mouth wide as if taking our scent. Then she suddenly spun about and trotted purposefully away.

  You should not have come. She senses you are with me. She has gone to find the big man. He is bonded to a horse. The charm does not bother prey, nor those who bond with them.

  The wolf's thought rang with contempt for grass-eaters, but there was an element of dread behind it. I pondered it. The Fool's charm was a charm against predators; it was logical it would not bother the man bonded to the warhorse.

  Before I could follow that thought further, the cat returned with the man behind her. She sat down at his side, insufferably pleased with herself, and fixed us with a very uncatlike stare. The big man stared too, not at the defiant Fool, but past him at my wolf.

  "There you are. We've been waiting for you," he said slowly.

  Nighteyes would not meet his gaze, but the big man's words fell on his ears and came to me. "I have your friends, you treacherous coward. Will you betray them as you've betrayed your Old Blood? I know you're somewhere with the Prince. I don't know how you vanished, nor do I care. I say only this to you. Bring him back, or they die slowly."

  The Fool stood up between the man and my wolf. I knew he spoke to me when he said, "Don't listen. Stay away. Keep him safe."

  I could not see past the Fool, but the shadow of the big man loomed suddenly larger. "Your hedge-witch charm means nothing to me, Lord Golden."

  Then the Fool's flying body crashed suddenly into my battered wolf, and my Wit-bond to him vanished.

  I jolted awake. I leapt to my feet, but all I saw was the graying of dawn and the empty beach. I heard only the cries of seabirds wheeling overhead. In my sleep, I had drawn my body up into a ball for warmth, but now I shook with something that was not cold. Sweat sheathed me and I was breathing hard. Sleep had fled completely. I stared out over the sea, my dream still vivid in my mind. I did not doubt the reality of it. I took a long, shuddering breath. The tide was rising again, but had not quite peaked. I sought in vain for some sign of a Skill-pillar thrusting up from the waves. I would have to wait until afternoon, when the water would be at full ebb. I dared not wonder what would happen to the Fool and Nighteyes in the intervening hours. If luck sided with me, the retreating waves would bare the pillar that had brought us here, and I would go back to them. The Prince would have to manage here on his own until I could return for him.

  If the retreating water did not reveal the pillar I refused to consider what that might mean. Instead, I focused on the problems I could solve right now. Find food and eat it. Keep up my strength. And break the woman's hold on the Prince. I turned to the still-sleeping boy and nudged him firmly with my foot. "Get up!" I grated at him.

  I knew that waking him would not necessarily break his Wit-link with the cat, but it would make it more difficult for him to focus on it exclusively. When I was a lad, I had spent my sleeping hours "dreaming" of hunts with Nighteyes. Awake, I was still aware of the wolf, but not in such an immediate way. When Dutiful groaned, and rolled away from me, stubbornly clinging to his Wit-dreams, I bent over him, seized him by the collar, and stood him on his feet. "Wake up!"

  "Leave me alone, you ugly bastard," he rasped at me. Catlike he glowered at me, head canted, mouth ajar. I almost expected him to hiss and claw at me. Then my temper got the better of me. I gave him a violent shake, then thrust him from me, so that he stumbled back, lost his footing, and nearly fell into the embers of the fire.

  "Don't call me that," I warned him. "Don't you ever call me that!"

  He wound up sitting on the sand, staring up at me in astonishment. I doubted that anyone had ever spoken to him that way in his life, let alone given him a shaking. It shamed me that I was the first. I turned away from him and spoke over my shoulder. "Build up the fire. I'm going to see if the tide has bared anything for us to eat, before it covers it up again." I strode away without looking back at him. Within three strides, I wanted to go back for my boots, but c-ai, I would not. I didn't want to face him again just yet. My temper with him was still too high, my thwarted fury at the Piebalds too strong.

  The tide had not quite reached the sand of the beach. On the bared black rock I stepped gingerly, trying to avoid barnacles. I gathered black mussels, and seaweed to steam them in. I found one fat green crab wedged under an outcropping of rock. He attempted to defend himself by clamping onto my finger. He bruised me but I captured him and pouched him in my shirt with the mussels. My gathering carried me some little way down the beach. The chill of the day and the simplicity of collecting food cooled my anger toward the Prince. Dutiful was being used, I reminded myself, by folk who should know better. The ugliness of what the woman was doing should prove that the folk who conspired had no ethics. I should not blame the boy. He was young, not stupid or evil. Well, perhaps young and stupid, but had not I been the same once?

  I was returning to the fire when I stepped on the fourth feather. As I stooped to pick it up, I saw the fifth one glinting in the sunlight, not a dozen paces away. The fifth one shone with extraordinary colors, dazzling to the eyes, but when I reached it, I decided it had been a trick of the sunlight and damp, for it was as flat a gray as its brethren.

  The Prince was not by the fire when I returned, though he had built it up before he left. I set the two feathers with the three I had found the night before. I glanced about for the lad and saw him walking back toward me. He had evidently visited the stream, for his face was damp and his hair washed back from his brow. When he reached the fire, he stood over me for a time, watching me as I killed the crab and wrapped it and the mussels in the flat fronds of seaweed. With a stick I nudged some of the burning wood aside and then gingerly placed the packet on the bared coals. It sizzled. He watched me pushing other coals up around it. When he spoke, his voice was even, as if he commented on the weather.

  "I've a message for you. If you do not bring me back before sunset, they will kill them both, the man and the wolf."

  I did not even betray that I had heard his words. I kept my eyes on the food, edging the coals closer to it. When I finally spoke, my words were just as cold. "Perhaps, if they do not free the man and the wolf before noon, I will kill you." I lifted my face to look into his, and showed him my assassin's eyes. He took a step back.

  "But I am the Prince!" he cried. An instant later, I saw how he despised those words. But he could not call them back. They hung quivering in the air between us.

  "That would only matter if you acted like the Princ
e," I observed callously. "But you don't. You're a tool, and you don't even know it. Worse, you're a tool used against not just your mother, but the whole of the Six Duchies." I looked aside from him as I spoke the words must. "You don't even know that the woman you worship doesn't exist. Not as a woman, at any rate. She's dead, Prince Dutiful. But when she died, instead of letting go, she pushed into her cat's mind, to live there. She rides the cat, a shameful thing for any Old Blood one to do. And she has used the cat to lure you in and deceive you with words of love. I do not know what she intends in the end, but it will not be good for any of you. And it will cost my friends' lives."

  I should have known that she was with him. I should have known that that was the one thing that she would not permit me to tell him. He hissed like a cat from his open mouth as he sprang, and the tiny sound gave me an instant of warning. I leaned to one side as he threw himself at me. I turned to his passage, caught him by the back of his shirt, and jerked him back toward me. I pinioned him in a hug. He threw his head back in an effort to smash my face, but got only the side of my jaw. I had long been wise to that trick, as it was one of my own favorites., It was not much of a fight, as fights go. He was at that lanky stage of his growth when bones and muscles do not yet match one another, and he fought with the heedless -s, frenzy of youth. I had long been comfortable in my body, and I had a man's weight and years of experience to back it. With his arms tightly pinioned, he could do little more than toss his head about and kick at me with his feet. I rec' ognized abruptly that no one had ever grappled with him this way. Of course. A prince would be trained with a blade, not with fists. Nor had he had brothers or a father for rough play. He did not know what to make of being manhandled this way. He repelled at me, the Wit equivalent of a mental shove. As Burrich had so long ago with me, I deflected it back at him. I felt his shock at that. In the next moment, he redoubled his struggle. I felt the fury that coursed through him. It was like fighting myself, and I knew he set no limits to what he would do in an attempt to injure me. His mindless savagery was limited only by his inexperience. He tried to fling us both to the ground, but I had his balance too well. His efforts to wriggle out of my embrace only made me tighten my grip. His face was bright red before his head suddenly drooped. For a moment he hung limp and gasping in my arms. Then he whispered in a sullen voice, "Enough. You win."