by Robin Hobb
"Not exactly common. It was even more suspect that the girl who had this fox was neither of noble blood nor wealthy. What business had a farmer's child with such a beast? The rumors spread. The poultry flocks of the village folk near Trenury suffered the most, but the final blow was when something got into Lord Doplin's aviary and made dinner of his songbirds and imported Rain Wilds fowl. He sent his huntsmen after the girl and fox said to be at the root of it, and they were run down, not gently, and brought before Lord Doplin. She swore it was none of her fox's doing, she swore she was not Witted, but when the hot irons were put to the fox, it is said that she screamed as loudly as the beast did. Then, to close the circle of his proof, Doplin had the nails drawn from the girl's fingers and toes, and the fox likewise shrieked with her."
"A moment." Her words dizzied me. I could imagine it too well.
"I shall finish it swiftly. They died, slowly. But the next night, more of Doplin's songbirds were slain, and an old huntsman said it was a weasel, not a fox, for a weasel but drinks the blood whereas a fox would have taken the birds to pieces. I think it was the injustice of her death as much as the cruelty of it that roused the Witted against him. The next day, Doplin's own dog snapped at him. Doplin had both his dog and his dogboy put down. He claimed that when he walked through his stables, every one of his horses went wild-eyed at his passage, laying back ears and kicking their stall walls. He had two stableboys hanged over water and burned. He claimed flies began to flock to his kitchen so that he found them dead daily in his food, and that…" shook my head at her. "That is the wildness of a man's uneasy conscience, not the work of any Witted ones I have ever known."
She shrugged. "In any case, the folk cried out to the Queen for justice when over a dozen of his lesser servants had been tortured or killed. And she sent Chade."
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms on my chest. So. The old assassin was still the bearer of the Farseer justice. I wondered who had accompanied him to do the quiet work. "What happened?" asked, as if I did not know. "Chade made a simple solution to it all. By the Queen's order, he forbade Doplin to keep horse, hawk, or hound, or beast or bird of any kind in his manor. He cannot ride, hawk, or hunt in any form. Chade even forbade him and all who live in his keep the eating of any flesh or fish for a year." "That will make for a dreary holding." "It is said among the minstrels that no one guests with Doplin anymore unless they must, that his servants are few and surly, and that he has lost his stature with the other nobles since his hospitality has become such a threadbare welcome. And Chade forced him to pay blood-gold, not only to the families of the slain servants, but to the family of the fox-girl."
"Did they take it?"
"The servants' families did. It was only fair. The fox-girl's family was gone, dead or fled, no one could or would say. Chade demanded that the blood money for her be given to the Queen's counting-man, to be held for the family." She shrugged. "That should have settled it. But from that time to now, the incidents have multiplied. Not just the scourings for Witted ones, but the revenge the Witted wreak in turn on their tormentors."
I frowned. "I don't see why any of that would provoke further uprisings among the Witted. It seems to me Doplin was justly punished."
"And some say more severely than he deserved, but Chade was unrelenting. Nor did he stop with that. Shortly after that, all six Dukes received scrolls from Queen Kettricken, saying that to be Witted was no crime, save that a Witted one used it for evil ends. She told the Dukes they must forbid their nobles and lords to execute Witted ones, save that their crimes had been proven against them as surely as any ordinary man's crimes. The edict did not sit well, as you can imagine. Where it is not ignored, proof of a man's guilt is always ample after his death. Instead of calming feelings, the Queen's declaration seemed to wake all the old feelings against the Witted ones.
"But among the Witted, it has seemed to rally them to defiance. They do not suffer their blood to be executed without a fight. Sometimes they are content merely to free their own before they can be killed, but often enough they strike back in vengeance. Almost any time there is an execution of a Witted one, some evil swiftly befalls those responsible. Their cattle die or diseased rats bite their children. Always it has to do with animals. In one village, the river fish they depended on simply did not migrate that year. Their nets hung empty and the folk went hungry."
"Ridiculous. Folk claim happenstance is malice. The Witted do not have the kind of powers you are ascribing to them." I spoke with great surety.
She gave me a disdainful look. "Then why do the Piebalds claim credit for such acts, if the work is not theirs?"
"The Piebalds? Who are the Piebalds?"
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "No one knows. They do not announce themselves. They leave messages pegged to inn doors or trees, and send missives to the nobles. They always sing the same tune with different words: 'Such a one was killed unjustly, for no crime but merely for possessing Old Blood magic. Now our wrath falls on you. When the Piebald Prince returns, he will have no mercy on you. And it is signed with no name, but only an image of a piebald stallion. It makes folk furious.
"The Queen has refused to send out her guard to hunt them down. So now the gossip among some of the nobility is that Queen Kettricken herself is at fault for the increased executions of Witted ones, for her punishing of Lord Doplin has made them think they have the right to their perverted magic." At my scowl, she reminded me, "A minstrel but repeats what she has heard. I do not create the rumors, nor put words in people's mouths." She came closer to me and, from behind me, set her hands on my shoulders. She bent down, her cheek by mine. Gently, she added, "After all the years we have been together, surely you know by now that I do not consider you tainted." She kissed my cheek.
Our current conversation had almost driven my resolve from my mind. Nearly, I took her in my arms. Instead, I stood, awkwardly, for she was right behind my chair. When she tried to embrace me, I chilled my heart. I set her at arm's length from me. "You are not mine," I told her quietly.
"Nor am I his!" she blazed at me suddenly. Her dark eyes shone with her anger. "I belong to myself, and I shall decide who shares my body. It hurts nothing for me to be with both of you. I will not get pregnant by either of you. If any man could get me with child, it would have happened long ago. So what does it matter whose bed I share?"
She was quick-witted and words served her tongue far better than mine. I had no clever reply. So I echoed her own words. "I too belong to myself, and I decide who will share my body. And I will not share it with another man's wife."
I think then that she finally believed it. I had set her belongings in a neat pile beside the hearth. She flung herself to her knees beside it. Snatching up her saddle pack, she began to stuff it furiously. "I don't know why I ever bothered with you," she muttered.
Mishap, true to his name, chose that moment to enter the cabin. The wolf was at his heels. At the sight of Starling's angry face, Hap turned to me. "Should I leave?" he asked baldly.
"No!" Starling spat the word. "You get to stay. I'm the one he's throwing out. Thanks to you. You might ponder a moment or two, Hap, on what would have become of you if I had left you digging in that village garbage heap. I deserved gratitude from you, not this betrayal!"
The boy's eyes went wide. Nothing she had ever done, not even how she had deceived me, angered me as much as witnessing her hurt him. He gave me a stricken look, as if he expected I too would turn on him. Then he bolted out of the door. Nighteyes gave me a baleful look, then spun to follow him.
I'll come soon. Let me finish this first.
Better you had never started it.
I let his rebuke hang unanswered, for there was no good reply to it. Starling glared up at me, and as I glowered back, I saw something almost like fear pass over her face. I crossed my arms on my chest. "Best you were gone," I said tightly, The wary look in her eye was as great an insult to me as the abuse she had flung at Hap. I left the cabin and went to fe
tch her horse. A fine horse and a fine saddle, doubtless both gifts from a fine young man. The animal sensed my agitation and pranced restlessly as I saddled her. I took breath, gathered control over myself, and set my hand to the horse. I sent calmness to her. In doing so, I calmed myself. I stroked her sleek neck. She turned to whuffle her nose against my shirt. I sighed. "Take care of her, would you? For she takes no care with herself."
I had no bond with the creature, and my words were only reassuring sounds to her. I sensed in return her acceptance of my mastery. I led her to the front of the cottage and stood outside, holding her reins. In a moment, Starling appeared on the porch. "Can't wait for me to leave, can you?" she observed bitterly. She threw her pack across the saddle, unsettling the horse once more.
"That's not true and you know it," I replied. I tried to keep my voice level and calm. The pain I had been denying broke through my humiliation at how gullible I had been, and my anger that she had used me so. Our bond had not been a tender, heartfelt love; rather it had been a companionship that had included the sharing of our bodies and the trust of sleeping in one another's arms. The betrayal of a friend differs from the treachery of a lover only in the degree of pain, not the kind. I suddenly knew I had just lied to her; I desperately wanted her to leave. Her presence was like an arrow standing in a wound; it could not be healed until she was gone.
Nevertheless, I tried to think of some significant words, something that would salvage the good part of what we had shared. But nothing came to me, and in the end I stood dumbly by as she snatched the reins from my hand and mounted. She looked down on me from the animal's back. I am sure she felt some pain, but her face showed only her anger that I had thwarted her will. She shook her head at me.
"You could have been someone. Regardless of how you were born, they gave you every chance of making something of yourself. You could have mattered. But this is what you chose. Remember that. You chose this."
She tugged the horse's head around, not so badly as to injure her mouth, but rougher than she needed to be. Then she kicked the horse to a trot and rode away from me. I watched her go. She did not look back. Despite my pain, I felt not the regret of an ending, but the foreboding of a beginning. A shiver ran over me, as if the Fool himself stood at my elbow and whispered words at my ear. "Do not you sense it? A crossroads, a vertex, a vortex. All paths change from here."
I turned, but there was no one there. I glanced at the sky. Dark clouds were hastening from the south; already the tips of the trees were stirring with the oncoming squall. Starling would begin her journey with a drenching. I told myself I took no satisfaction in that, and went looking for Hap.
Chapter IV
The Hedge-Witch
There was a hedge-witch in those parts, Silva Copperleaf by name, whose charms were of such a strength that their potency lasted not just from year to year, but continued to protect the folk who possessed them for generations. It is said that she made for Baldric Farseer a marvelous sieve such that it purified all waters that passed through it. This was a great boon for a king so often threatened by poisoners.
Above the gate of the walled town of Eklse, she hung a charm against pestilence, and for many years the grain bins were free of rats and the stables clean of fleas and other vermin. The town prospered under this protection, until the town elders foolishly built a second gate in their walls, to admit more trade. This opened a way for pestilence to enter the town, and all there perished from the second wave of the Blood Plague.
Selkin's "Travels In The Six Duchies"
High summer found Hap and me just as it had found us for the last seven years. There was a garden to tend, poultry to mind, and fish to salt and smoke against winter's need. Day followed day in its round of chores and meals, sleeping and waking. Starling's departure, I told myself, had effectively quenched the restlessness that Chade's visit had sparked. I had spoken to Hap, in a desultory way, of putting him out to an apprenticeship. With an enthusiasm that surprised me, he told me of a cabinetmaker in Buckkeep whose work he had greatly admired. I balked at that, having no desire to visit Buckkeep Town, but I think he suspected I could not pay such a high prentice fee as a fine workman like Gindast could demand. In that, he was likely correct. When I asked him of any other woodworkers he had noticed, he stoutly replied that there was a boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove whose work was often praised. Perhaps we might try there. This was a far humbler master than the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep. I uneasily wondered if the boy was not tailoring his dreams to the depths of my pockets. His apprenticeship would determine the course of his life's work. I didn't want my lack of coin to condemn him to a trade he found merely tolerable.
Yet despite the boy's interest, the apprenticeship remained a topic for late night talks by the hearth and little more. Oh, I set aside the small store of coins that remained to me against a prentice fee. I even told the boy that we would make do with fewer eggs for meals if he wished to let the hens set some. There was always a market for chickens, and whatever he got for them he could save toward his fee. Even then, I wondered if it would be enough to buy him a good place. Willing hands and a strong back could buy a lad an apprenticeship, it was true, but the better artisans and craftsmen usually demanded a fee before they would take a likely boy into their shops. It was the way of Buck. The secrets of a man's trade and the good livelihood he made at it were not to be carelessly given to strangers. If parents loved their children, they either raised them in their own trades, or paid well to see them apprenticed to those who had mastered other arts. Despite the humbleness of our fortunes, I was determined to see Hap well placed. That, I told myself, was why I delayed, to muster more coin. It was not that I dreaded parting with the boy. Only that I wished to do well by him.
The wolf did not ask me about the journey I had earlier proposed. I think that, in his heart, he was relieved to see it postponed. There were days when I felt that Starling's words had made an old man of me. Years had done that in, truth to the wolf. I suspected he was very old for his kind, though I had no idea how long a wild wolf usually lived. I wondered, sometimes, if our bond did not lend him an unnatural vitality. Once it even crossed my mind that perhaps he used up my years to lengthen his own. Yet that thought came not with any resentment that he might borrow my days but with hope that we might still have a good long span together. For once the boy was apprenticed out, whom else did I have in the world besides Nighteyes?
For a time, I wondered if Chade might come to call again, now that he knew the way, but the long days of summer simmered away and the trail to our cabin remained empty. I went to market with the boy twice, taking fledged chickens and my inks and dyes and such roots and herbs as I thought might be unusual there. Nighteyes was as pleased to remain at home, for he disliked not only the long walk to the trade crossroads but the dust and noise and confusion of the crowded market. I felt much the same about it but forced myself to go anyway. We did not do as well as I had hoped, for folk at the small market we frequented were more accustomed to trade in goods than to buy with coin. Still, I was pleasantly surprised at how many folk recalled Tom Badgerlock, and commented that it was good to see me come to market again.
It was the second time we went to market that we chanced to meet Hap's hedge-witch from Buckkeep. We had set our wares out on the tail of our pony cart in the market. Midway through the morning, she found us there, exclaiming with pleasure at seeing Hap again. I stood quietly to one side, watching them talk. He had told me Jinna was pretty, and so she was, but I confess I was startled to find her closer to my age than his. I had supposed her a girl who had turned his head when they met in Buckkeep. Instead she was a woman nearing her middle years, with hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles, and curly hair that shaded from auburn to brown. She had the round and pleasant figure of a mature woman. When he told her that her charm against pickpockets had been stolen from him before the day was out, she laughed aloud, an open hearty laugh. Then she calmly replied to him that that was exactly how the charm was intende
d to work. His purse had been protected when the thief took the charm instead of it.
When Hap glanced about to include me in the conversation, her eyes had already found me. She was regarding me with that expression parents usually reserve for possibly dangerous strangers. When I smiled and nodded to Hap's introduction and offered her good day, she visibly relaxed and her smile expanded to include me. She stepped closer as she did so, peering up at my face, and I realized her eyesight was not keen.
She had brought her wares to market, and spread her mat in the shadow of our cart. Hap helped her arrange her charms and potents, and the two of them made a merry day of our marketing after that, exchanging news since Springfest. I listened in as Hap told her of his apprenticeship plans. When he spoke to Jinna, it became very clear to me just how much he had wished for the cabinetmaker in Buckkeep rather than the boatbuilder in Hammerby Cove. I found myself pondering if there was yet some way it might be arranged, not only the higher fee but for someone other than myself to negotiate the apprenticeship on his behalf. Could Chade be persuaded to help me in such an endeavor? From there my mind wandered to what the old man might ask of me in return. I was deep in such thoughts when Hap's elbow in my ribs jolted me from my wandering.
"Tom!" he protested, and I instantly perceived that in some way I had embarrassed him. Jinna was looking at both of us expectantly.
"Yes?"
"See, I told you it would be fine with him," Hap crowed.
"Well, I do thank you, as long as you are sure it would be no trouble," Jinna replied. "It's a long road, with inns both far spaced and expensive to one such as myself." I nodded my agreement to the statement, and in the next few minutes of conversation, I realized that Hap had extended the hospitality of our cottage to her the next time she happened to pass our way. I privately sighed. Hap loved the novelty of our occasional guests, but I still regarded any I new stranger as a potential risk. I wondered how long I would have to live before my secrets were so old that they no longer mattered.
