by Robin Hobb
Chade summoned me that night, but when I went to him, he seemed to have no more purpose in calling me than to see me. We sat almost silently before the black hearth, and I thought he looked older than he ever had. As Verity was devoured, so Chade was consumed. His bony hands appeared almost desiccated, and the whites of his eyes were webbed with red. He needed to sleep, but instead had chosen to call me. Yet he sat, still and silent, scarce nibbling at the food he had placed before us. At length, I decided to help him.
"Are you afraid I won't be able to do it?" I asked him softly.
"Do what?" he asked absently.
"Kill the mountain Prince. Rurisk."
Chade turned to look at me full face. The silence held for a long moment.
"You didn't know King Shrewd had given me this," I faltered.
Slowly he turned back to the empty hearth and studied it as carefully as if there were flames to read. "I'm only the toolmaker," he said at last, quietly. "Another man uses what I make."
"Do you think this is a bad ... task? Wrong?" I took a breath. "From what I've been told, he has not that much longer to live anyway. It might almost be a mercy, if death were to come quietly in the night, instead of-"
"Boy," Chade remarked quietly. "Never pretend we are anything but what we are. Assassins. Not merciful agents of a wise king. Political assassins dealing death for the furtherance of our monarchy. That is what we are."
It was my turn to study the ghosts of the flames. "You are making this very hard for me. Harder than it already was. Why? Why did you make me what I am, if you then try to weaken my resolve ... ?" My question died away, half-formed.
"I think ... never mind. Maybe it is a kind of jealousy in me, my boy. I wonder, I suppose, why Shrewd uses you instead of me. Maybe I fear I have outlived my usefulness to him. Maybe, now that I know you, I wish I had never set out to make you what ..." And it was Chade's turn to fall silent, his thoughts going where his words could not follow them.
We sat contemplating my assignment. This was not a serving of a king's justice. This was not a death sentence for a crime. This was a simple removal of a man who was an obstacle to greater power. I sat still until I began to wonder if I would do it. Then I lifted my eyes to a silver fruit knife driven deep into Chade's mantelpiece, and I thought I knew the answer.
"Verity has made complaint, on your behalf," Chade said suddenly.
"Complaint?" I asked weakly.
"To Shrewd. First, that Galen had mistreated you and cheated you. This complaint he made formally, saying that he had deprived the kingdom of your Skill, at a time when it would have been most useful. He suggested to Shrewd, informally, that he settle it with Galen, before you took matters into your own hands."
Looking at Chade's face, I could see that the full content of my discussion with Verity had been revealed to him. I was not sure how I felt about that. "I would not do that, take my own revenge on Galen. Not after Verity asked me not to."
Chade gave me a look of quiet approval. "So I told Shrewd. But he said to me that I must say to you that he will settle this. This time the King works his own justice. You must wait and be satisfied."
"What will he do?"
"That I do not know. I do not think Shrewd himself knows yet. The man must be rebuked. But we must keep in mind that if other coteries are to be trained, Galen must not feel too badly treated." Chade cleared his throat and said more quietly, "And Verity made another complaint to the King as well. He accused Shrewd and me, quite bluntly, of being willing to sacrifice you for the sake of the kingdom."
This, I knew suddenly, was why Chade had called me tonight. I was silent.
Chade spoke more slowly. "Shrewd claimed he had not even considered it. For my part, I had no idea such a thing was possible." He sighed again, as if parting with these words cost him. "Shrewd is a king, my boy. His first concern must always be for his kingdom."
The silence between us stretched long. "You are saying he would sacrifice me. Without a qualm."
He did not take his eyes from the fireplace. "You. Me. Even Verity, if he thought it necessary for the survival of the kingdom." Then he did turn to look at me. "Never forget that," he said.
The night before the wedding caravan was to leave Buckkeep, Lacey came tapping on my door. It was late, and when she said Patience wished to see me, I foolishly asked, "Now?"
"Well, you leave tomorrow," Lacey pointed out, and I obediently followed her as if that made sense.
I found Patience sitting up in a cushioned chair, an extravagantly embroidered robe on over her nightclothes.
Her hair was down about her shoulders, and as I seated myself where she indicated, Lacey resumed the brushing of it.
"I have been waiting for you to come to apologize to me," Patience observed.
I immediately opened my mouth to do so, but she irritably waved me to silence.
"But, in discussing it with Lacey tonight, I found I had already forgiven you. Boys, I decided, simply have a given amount of rudeness they must express. I decided you meant nothing by it, hence you do not need to apologize."
"But I am sorry," I protested. "I just couldn't decide how to say-"
"It's too late to apologize now, I've forgiven you," she said briskly. "Besides, there isn't time. I'm sure you should be asleep by now. But as this is your first real venture into court life, I wanted to give you something before you left."
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. If she wanted to consider this my first real venture into court life, I wouldn't argue it with her.
"Sit here," she said imperiously, and pointed to a spot by her feet.
I went and sat obediently. For the first time I noticed a small box in her lap. It was of dark wood, and a stag was carved into the lid in bas-relief. As she opened it I caught a whiff of the aromatic wood. She took out an ear stud and held it up to my ear. "Too small," she muttered. "What is the sense of wearing jewelry if no one else can see it?" She held up and discarded several others, with similar comments. Finally she held up one that was like a silver bit of net with a blue stone caught in it. She made a face over it, then nodded reluctantly. "That man has taste. Whatever else he lacks, he has taste." She held it up to my ear again, and with absolutely no warning, thrust the pin of it through my earlobe.
I yelped and clapped a hand over my ear, but she slapped it away. "Don't be such a baby. It only stings for a minute." There was a sort of clasp that held it behind, and she ruthlessly bent my ear in her fingers to fasten it. "There. That quite suits him, don't you think, Lacey?"
"Quite," Lacey agreed over her eternal tatting.
Patience dismissed me with a gesture. As I rose to go she said, "Remember this, Fitz. Whether you can Skill or not, whether you wear his name or not, you are Chivalry's son. See that you behave with honor. Now go and get some sleep."
"With this ear?" I asked, showing her blood on my fingertips.
"I hadn't thought. I'm sorry-" she began, but I interrupted her.
"Too late to apologize. I've already forgiven you. And thank you." Lacey was still giggling as I left.
I arose early the next morning to take my place in the wedding cavalcade. Rich gifts must be taken as a token of the new bond between the families. There were gifts for the Princess Kettricken herself, a fine blooded mare, jewelry, fabric for garments, servants, and rare perfumes. And there were the gifts to her family and people. Horses and hawks and worked gold for her father and brother, of course, but the more important gifts were the ones offered to her kingdom, for in keeping with the Jhaampe traditions, she was of her people more than she was of her family. And so there was breeding stock, cattle, sheep, horses and fowl, and powerful yew bows such as the mountain folk did not have, and metalworking tools of good Forge iron, and other gifts judged likely to improve the lot of the mountain folk. And there was knowledge, in the form of several of Fedwren's best-illustrated herbals, and several tablets of cures, and a scroll on hawking that was a careful copy of one created by Hawker himself. These last, o
stensibly, were my purpose in accompanying the caravan.
They were given into my keeping, along with a generous supply of the herbs and roots mentioned in the herbal, and with seed for growing those that did not keep well. This was not a trivial gift, and I took my responsibility for seeing it well delivered as seriously as I took my other mission. All was well wrapped and then placed within a carved cedar chest. I was checking their wrappings a final time before taking the chest down to the courtyard when I heard the Fool behind me.
"I brought you this."
I turned to find him standing just inside the door of my room. I hadn't even heard the door open. He was proffering a leather drawstring bag. "What is it?" I asked, and tried not to let him hear either the flowers or the doll in my voice.
"Seapurge."
I raised my eyebrows. "A cathartic? As a marriage gift? I suppose some would find it appropriate, but the herbs I am taking can be planted and grown in the mountains. I do not think-"
"It is not a wedding gift. It is for you."
I accepted the pouch with mixed feelings. It was an exceptionally powerful purge. "Thank you for thinking of me. But I am not usually prone to traveler's ailments, and-"
"You are not usually, when you travel, in danger of being poisoned."
"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" I tried to make my tone light and bantering. I missed the Fool's usual wry faces and mockeries from this conversation.
"Only that you'd be wise to eat lightly, or not at all, of any food you do not prepare yourself."
"At all the feasts and festivities that will be there?"
"No. Only at the ones you wish to survive." He turned to go.
"I'm sorry," I said hastily. "I didn't mean to intrude. I was looking for you, and I was so hot, and the door wasn't latched, so I went in. I didn't mean to pry."
His back was to me and he didn't turn around as he asked, "And did you find it amusing?"
"I ..." I could not think of anything to say, of any way to assure him that what I had seen there would stay only within my own mind. He took two steps and was closing the door. I blurted, "It made me wish there were a place as much me as that place is you. A place I would keep as secret."
The door halted a handbreadth short of closed. "Take some advice, and you may survive this trip. When considering a man's motives, remember you must not measure his wheat with your bushel. He may not be using the same standard at all."
And the door closed and the Fool was gone. But his last words had been cryptic and frustrating enough that I thought perhaps he had forgiven me my trespass.
I stuffed the seapurge into my jerkin, not wanting it, but afraid to leave it now. I glanced about my room, but as always it was a bare and practical place. Mistress Hasty had seen to my packing, not trusting me with my new garments. I had noticed that the barred buck on my crest had been replaced with a buck with his antlers lowered to charge. "Verity ordered it," was all she said when I asked about it. "I like it better than the barred buck myself. Don't you?"
"I suppose," I replied, and that had been the end of it. A name and a crest. I nodded to myself, shouldered my chest of herbs and scrolls, and went down to join the caravan.
As I was going. down the steps I encountered Verity coming up. At first I scarcely knew him, for he was ascending like a crabbed old man. I stepped out of his way to let him pass, and then knew him as he glanced at me. It is a strange thing to see a once familiar man like that, encountered as a stranger. I marked how his clothes hung on him now, and the bushy dark hair I remembered had a peppering of gray. He smiled absently at me, and then, as if it had suddenly occurred to him, he stopped me.
"You're leaving for the Mountain Kingdom? For the wedding ceremony?"
"Yes."
"Do me a favor, boy?"
"Of course," I said, taken aback by the rust in his voice.
"Speak well of me to her. Truthfully, mind you, I'm not asking for lies. But speak well of me. I've always thought that you thought well of me."
"I do," I said to his retreating back. "I do, sir." But he didn't turn or make a reply, and I felt much as I had when the Fool left me.
The courtyard was a milling of folk and animals. There were no carts this time; the roads into the mountains were notoriously bad, and it had been decided that pack animals would have to suffice for the sake of swiftness. It would not do for the royal entourage to be late for the wedding; it was bad enough that the groom was not attending.
The flocks and herds had been sent on days before. It was expected that our trip would take two weeks, and three had been allowed for it. I saw to fastening the cedar chest onto a pack animal, and then stood beside Sooty and waited. Even in the cobbled courtyard, dust stirred thick in the hot summer air. Despite all the careful planning that had gone into it, the caravan seemed chaotic. I glimpsed Sevrens, Regal's favorite valet. Regal had sent him back to Buckkeep a month ago, with specific instructions about certain garments he wished created. Sevrens was following Hands, dithering and expostulating about something, and whatever it was, Hands was not looking patient about it. When Mistress Hasty had been giving me final instructions on the care of my new garments, she had divulged that Sevrens was taking so many new garments, hats, and accoutrements for Regal that he had been allotted three pack animals to carry them. I imagined that caring for the three animals had fallen to Hands, for Sevrens was an excellent valet, but timid around the larger animals. Rowd, Regal's ready man, hulked after both of them, looking ill-tempered and impatient. On one wide shoulder he carried yet another trunk, and perhaps the loading of this additional item was what was fretting Sevrens. I soon lost sight of them in the crowd.
I was surprised to discover Burrich checking the lead lines on the breeding horses and the Princess's gift mare. Surely whoever was in charge of them could do that, I thought. And then, as I saw him mount, I realized that he, too, would be part of this procession. I looked about to see who was accompanying him, but saw none of the stable boys I knew, save Hands. Cob was already in Jhaampe with Regal. So Burrich had taken this on himself. I was not surprised.
August was there, astride a fine gray mare, waiting with an impassivity that was almost inhuman. Already his time in the coterie had changed him. Once he had been a chubby youth, quiet but pleasant. He had the same black bushy hair as Verity, and I had heard it said that he resembled his cousin as a boy. I reflected that as his Skill duties increased, he would probably resemble Verity even more. He would be present at the wedding, as a sort of window for Verity as Regal uttered the vows on his brother's behalf. Regal's voice, August's eyes, I mused to myself. What did I go as? His poniard?
I mounted Sooty, as much to be up and away from the folk exchanging good-byes and last-minute instructions as for any other reason. I wished to Eda we could be away and on the road. It seemed to take forever for the straggling line to form and for the last-minute tying and strapping of bundles to be accomplished. And then, almost abruptly, the standards were lifted, a horn was blown, and the line of horses, laden pack animals, and folk began to move. I looked up once, to see that Verity had actually come out to stand atop the tower and watch us depart. I waved up at him, but doubted that he knew me amidst so many. And then we were out of the gates and winding up the hilly path that led away from Buckkeep and to the west.
Our path would lead us up the banks of the Buckriver, which we would ford at its wide shallows near where the borders of Buck and Farrow Duchies touched. From there we would journey across Farrow's wide plains, in baking heat I had never encountered before, until we reached Blue Lake. From Blue Lake, we would follow a river named simply Cold whose origins were in the Mountain Kingdom. From the Cold Ford the trading road began, that led between the mountains and through their shadows and up, ever up, to Storm Pass, and thence to the thick green forests of the Rain Wilds. But we would not go so far as that, but would stop at Jhaampe, which was as close to a city as the Mountain Kingdom possessed.
In some ways, it was an unremarkab
le journey, if one discounts all that inevitably goes with such journeys. After the first three days or so, things settled into a remarkably monotonous routine, varied only by the different countryside we passed. Every little village or hamlet along our road turned out to greet us and delay us, with official best wishes and felicitations for the Crown Prince's wedding festivities.
But after we reached the wide plains of Farrow, such hamlets were few and far between. Farrow's rich farms and trading cities were far to the north of our path, along the Vin River. We traveled Farrow's plains, where people were mostly nomadic herders, creating towns only in the winter months when they settled along the trade routes for what they called the "green season." We passed herds of sheep, or goats, or horses, or more rarely, the dangerous, rangy swine they called haragars, but our contact with the people of that region was usually limited to the sight of their conical tents in the distance, or some herder standing tall in his saddle and holding aloft his crook in greeting.
Hands and I became reacquainted. We would share food and a small cook fire in the evenings, and he would regale me with tales of Sevrens's nattering worries of dust getting into silk robes or bugs getting into fur collars and velvet getting chafed to pieces during the long trek. Grimmer were his complaints about Rowd. I myself had no fond memories of the man, and Hands found him an oppressive traveling companion, for he seemed to constantly suspect Hands of trying to steal from the packs of Regal's belongings. One evening Rowd even found his way to our fire, where he laboriously delivered a vague and indirect warning against any who might conspire to steal from his master. But other than such unpleasantness, our evenings were peaceful.
