by Robin Hobb
He stepped forward and set his hand on my arm, and I heard a murmur run through the crowd as if he had done something amazingly brave. At his touch, the sword fell from my grasp. Beside me, Dutiful dropped suddenly to his knees. I looked down at him. There was blood on his hand and shirtfront, but it did not seem to be his. He dropped my knife now and gathered the limp cat from the floor into his arms. He held it to his breast as if it were a child and rocked back and forth, keening. "My cat, my friend."
A look of terrible concern washed over Lord Golden's face. "My Prince," he began worriedly. He stooped to touch the lad, but I caught him and turned him aside.
"Leave him alone," I suggested quietly. "Give him his time to mourn."
Then, tottering stiffly through the crowd came my wolf. When he reached my side, it was my turn to sink down beside him.
After that, little enough attention was paid to Tom Badgerlock and his wolf. They left us where we huddled as they moved Laudwine's followers away from the Prince. That suited us both, for it gave us time to be together, and freed me to observe all around us. What we mostly watched was the Prince. The archer, one Deerkin by name, had brought an old healer with him. She set aside the bow she had carried and came to the Prince's side. She made no effort to touch him, but only sat beside him and watched him as he mourned. Nighteyes and I kept vigil on the other side of him. She looked at me once. When our eyes met, her gaze was old and tired and sick with sadness. I fear mine was the same.
The bodies of the Piebalds I had killed were dragged outside, and slung over their horses. Too late I heard the clatter of departing hooves and realized that the Piebalds had been allowed to flee. I set my teeth. I could not have stopped it from happening. Laudwine had gone last, no longer their leader, swaying in the saddle atop his frothing warhorse and steadied by a young rider behind him. That had disturbed me most of all. Not only had I snatched the Prince from him, but I had slain the animal that held his sister's soul, and maimed him, as well. I needed no more enemies than I already had, but it had been beyond my control. He had gone free, and I hoped I would not live to regret that.
The healer let the Prince hold and mourn the cat until the sun touched the horizon. Then she looked past him to me. "Take the cat's body from him," she said quietly.
It was not a task I wanted, but I did it.
It was hard to coax him to give up the cat's cooling body. I chose my words with great care. This was not a time to let the Skill-command force him to do what he was not ready to do on his own. When finally he allowed me to lift the mistcat from his lap, I was astonished at how light the creature seemed. Usually, a dead animal, lax and lolling, seems to weigh more than a live one, but with the loss of its life, the pathetic condition of the little cat was revealed. "As if she were eaten through with worms," Nighteyes had said, and he was not far off the mark. The cat was a wasted little creature, her once-sleek fur gone dry and brittle, and bumps of bone defining her spine. At her death, her fleas were leaving her, far too many for a healthy animal. As the healer took the cat from me, I saw anger flicker over her face. She spoke softly. I do not know if Dutiful heard her words, but I did. "She did not even let it keep itself as a cat would. She possessed it too completely, and tried to be a woman in a cat's fur."
Peladine had imposed a human's ways on the mistcat. She had denied her the long sleeps, the gorging to satiation, and the grooming sessions that were the natural right of a lithe little cat. Play and hunting had been denied her. It was the way of the Piebalds to use the Wit only for their own human ends. It sickened me.
The healer carried the cat's body outside and the Prince and I followed with Nighteyes walking between us. A half-built cairn awaited the little corpse. All Deerkin's people came outside to witness the interment. Their eyes were saddened, but they brimmed with respect.
Their healer spoke, for Dutiful was too numbed with grief. "She goes on without you. She died for you, to free you both. Keep within you the cat tracks she left on your soul. Let go with her the humanness that you shared with her. You are parted now."
The Prince swayed as they put the last stones on the cat, covering her death snarl. I set a hand to his shoulder to steady him, but he shrugged away my touch as if I were tainted. I did not blame him. She had commanded me to kill her, had done all she could to force me to the act, and yet I did not expect him to forgive me for having obeyed her. As soon as the cat was interred, the Old Blood healer had brought the Prince a draught. "Your share of her death," she said as she offered it to him, and he had quaffed it down before either Lord Golden or I could interfere. Then the healer gestured to me that I should take him back into the cave. There, he lay down where his cat had died, and his mourning broke loose anew.
I don't know what she gave him in that drink, but the boy's heartbroken sobs wound slowly down into the hoarse breathing of sodden sleep. There was nothing of rest in the limp way he sprawled beside me. "A little death," she had confided to me, thoroughly frightening me. "I give him a little death of his own, a time of emptiness. He died, you know, when the cat was killed. He needs this empty time to be dead. Do not try to cheat him of it."
Indeed, it plunged him into a sleep but one step shy of death. She settled him on a pallet, arranging his body as if it were a corpse. As she did so, she muttered scathingly, "Such bruises on his neck and back. How could they beat a mere boy like that?"
I was too shamed to admit I had given him those marks. I held my silence and she covered him well, shaking her head over him. Then she turned and brusquely motioned me to her side for her services. "The wolf, too. I've time for you, now that the boy's hurts are tended. His hurt was far more grievous than anything that bleeds."
With warm water she washed our wounds and salved them with a greasy unguent. Nighteyes was passive to her touch. He held himself so tightly against the pain I could scarcely feel him there. As she worked on the scratches on my chest and belly, she muttered sternly to me. I gave Jinna's charm the credit that she deigned to speak to a renegade like me at all.
But the healer's only comment on it was that my necklace had probably saved my life. "The cat meant to kill you, and no mistake about that," she observed. "But it was no will or fault of her own, I'm sure. And not the boy's fault, either. Look at him. He is a child still to our ways, far too young to bond," she lectured me severely, as if it were my fault. "He is unschooled in our ways, and look how it has hurt him. I will not tell you lies. He is like to die of this, or take a melancholy madness that will plague him to the end of his days." She tightened the bandage around my belly with a tug. "Someone should teach him Old Blood ways. Proper ways of dealing with his magic." She glared at me, but I did not reply. I only pulled what was left of my shirt back over my head. As she turned away from me, I heard her snort of contempt.
Nighteyes wearily lifted his head and set it on my knee. Salve and clotted blood smeared me. He looked at the sleeping boy. Are you going to teach him?
I doubt he'd wish to learn anything from me. I killed his cat.
Who will, then?
I left that question hanging. I stretched out in the darkness beside the wolf. We lay between the Farseer heir and the outside world.
Not far from us, in the central part of the shelter, Deerkin sat in council with Lord Golden. Laurel sat between them. The healer had joined them, and there were two other elders present in the circle closest to the fire. I regarded them through my lashes. In the rest of the cave, the other Old Blood folk appeared casually engaged in the ordinary evening chores of a campsite. Several lounged on their blanket rolls behind Deerkin. They seemed content to let the young man speak for them, but I sensed that perhaps they were the true holders of power in the group. One was smoking a long-stemmed pipe. Another, a bearded fellow, was working a careful edge onto his sheath knife. The whetting of the blade was a monotonous undertone to the conversation. For all their casual postures, I sensed how keenly they listened to what went on. Deerkin might speak for them, but I sensed they would listen to be s
ure his words were what they wished said.
It was not to Tom Badgerlock that these Old Blood riders explained themselves, but to Lord Golden. What was Tom Badgerlock but a renegade to his kind, a lackey of the crown? He was worse by far than Laurel, for all knew that though she had been born to an Old Blood family, the talent was dead in her. It was expected of her that she must make her way in the world however she might, forever half-dead to all the life that blossomed and buzzed and burned about her. No shame to her that she was a Huntswoman to the Queen. I even sensed an odd pride in the Old Bloods, that one so impaired had risen so far. I had chosen my treason, however, and all the Witted folk walked a wide swath around me. One brought meat on spits and propped it over the fire. The smell was vaguely tantalizing.
Food? I asked Nighteyes.
Too tired to eat, he declined, and I agreed with him. But for me there was the added reluctance of asking food of folk who ostracized us. So we rested, ignored in the outer circle of darkness. I refused to feel hurt that the Fool had spoken so little to me. Lord Golden could not be concerned with a servant's injuries, any more than Tom Badgerlock should fret about his master's bruises. We had our roles to play still. So I feigned sleep, but from beneath lowered lashes I watched them, and listened to their talk.
The talk was general at first, and I gathered my facts in bits and by assumption. Deerkin was telling Laurel some news of an uncle they had in common. It was old news, of sons grown and wed. So. Estranged cousins, separated for years. It made sense. She had admitted she had family in this area, and as much as told me they were Witted. The rest came out in an explanation to Lord Golden. Deerkin and Arno had ridden with Laudwine's Piebalds for only a summer. They had both been sickened and angry over how the Old Blood folk were treated. When Laudwine's sister had died, he had devoted himself to his people's cause and risen as a leader. He had nothing save himself to lose, and change, he had told them, demanded sacrifice. It was time the Old Blood took the peace that was rightfully theirs. He made them feel strong and daring, these Old Blood sons and daughters rising up boldly to take what their parents feared to reach for. They would change the world. Time once more to live as a united folk in Old Blood communities, time to let their children openly acknowledge their magic. Time for change. "He made it sound so logical. And so noble. Yes, we would have to take extreme measures, but the end we sought was no more than what we were rightfully entitled to. Simple peace and acceptance. That was all. Is that so much for any man to ask?"
"It seems a righteous goal," Lord Golden murmured attentively. "Though his means to it seem…" He left it dangling, for them to fill in. Disgusting. Cruel. Immoral. The very lack of a description let the full baseness of it be considered.
A short silence fell. "I didn't know that Peladine was in the cat," Deerkin asserted defensively. A skeptical quiet followed his words. Deerkin looked around at the elders almost angrily. "I know you say I should have been able to sense her, but I did not. Perhaps I have not been taught as well as I should. Or perhaps she was more adept at hiding than you know. But I swear I did not know. Arno and I took the cat to the Bresingas. They knew it was an Old Blood gift, intended for Prince Dutiful, to sway him to our cause. But I swear by my Old Blood, that was all they knew. Or I. Otherwise, I would not have been a party to it."
The old healer shook her head. "So many will say of an evil thing, after the fact," she charged him. "Only this puzzles me. You know a mistcat must be taken young, and that it hunts only for the one who takes it. Did not you wonder?"
Deerkin reddened but, "I did not know Peladine was in the cat," he insisted. "Yes, I knew she had been bonded with the mistcat. But Peladine was dead. I thought the cat alone, and put her odd ways down to her mourning. What else could be done with the cat? She could not make her own way in the hills; she had never lived a wild life. And so I took her to the Bresingas, a gift fit for a prince. I thought it possible," and a hitch in his voice betrayed him, "that she might want to bond again. She had that right, if she so chose. But when the Prince came to us, I thought it was what Laudwine said it was. That he came of his own will, to learn our ways. Do you think I would have helped otherwise, do you think Arno would have sacrificed his life for such an end?"
Some, I think, must have doubted his story as much as I did. But it was not a time for such accusations. All let it pass and he continued his tale.
"Arno and I rode with Laudwine and the Piebalds, as escort for the Prince. We intended to take him to Sefferswood, where he could live among the Piebalds and learn our ways. So Laudwine told us. When Arno was taken at Hallerby outside the Piebald Prince, we knew we had to ride for our lives. I hated to leave him, but it was what we had sworn as Piebalds: that each of us would sacrifice our life for the others as needed. My heart was full of fury when we first turned and set our ambush for the cowards that chased us. I do not regret a single one of those deaths. Arno was my brother! Then we rode on, and when next we came to a good place, Laudwine once more left me to guard the trail. 'Stop them, he told me. 'If it takes your life to do it, so be it. And I agreed with him."
He paused in his narrative and his eyes sought Laurel. "I swear I did not recognize you, cousin. Not even when my arrow stood in you did I know you. All I could think was to kill all those who had helped to kill Arno. Not until Badgerlock dragged me from the tree and I looked up at you did I realize what I had done. Shed more of my own family's blood." He swallowed and suddenly fell silent.
"I forgive you." Laurel's voice was soft but carrying. She looked at the gathered Old Bloods. "Let all here witness that. Deerkin hurt me unknowingly, and I forgive him. There is no debt of vengeance or reparation between us. At the time, I knew none of this. All I could think was that, because I lacked the magic you possessed, you had marked me as fit to kill." A laugh twisted from her throat. "Only when Badgerlock was brutalizing you did I realize that… that it didn't matter." She suddenly turned to look at him. Shamefaced, Deerkin still forced himself to meet her earnest gaze. "You are my cousin, and my blood," she asserted softly. "What we share far outweighs our differences. I feared he would kill you, trying to get you to speak. And I knew that, despite what you had done, even regardless of my loyalty to the Queen, I could not let that happen. So I rose in the night while Lord Golden and his man were sleeping, and spirited my cousin away." She transferred her gaze to Lord Golden. "Earlier, you had told me I must trust you when you excluded me from the confidences you shared with Badgerlock. I decided I had the right to demand the same from you. So I left you sleeping, and did what thought best to save my Prince."
Lord Golden bowed bis head for a moment, and then nodded to her gravely.
Deerkin rubbed a hand across his eyes. He spoke as if he had not even heard her words to Lord Golden. "You are wrong, Laurel. I owe you a debt, and I will never forget it. When we were children, we were never kind to you when you came to visit your mother's kin. We always excluded you. Even your own brother called you the mole, blind and tunneling where we ran free and wise. And I had shot you. I had no right to expect any help from you. But you came to me. You saved my life."
Laurel's voice was stiff. "Arno," she said. "I did it for Arno. He was as blind and deaf as I was to this 'family' magic that excluded us. He alone was my playmate when I visited. But he loved you, always, and in the end he thought you worth his life." She shook her head. "I would not have let his death be for nothing."
Together, they had crept away from the cave that night. She had convinced him that the taking of Prince Dutiful could only bring harsh persecution down on the Old Blood, and demanded that he find elders powerful enough to demand Laudwine surrender him. Queen Kettricken, she reminded him, had already spoken out against those who lynched the Witted. Would he turn that Queen, the first who had taken their part in generations, against them? Laurel had convinced Deerkin that, as Piebalds had stolen the Prince, so the Old Blood must return him. It was the only reparation they could make.
She turned to Lord Golden. Her voice pleaded. "W
e returned with aid as swiftly as we could. It is not the fault of Old Blood that they must live scattered and silent. From farm to cottage we rode, gathering those of influence who were willing to speak sense to Laudwine. It was hard, for that is not the Old Blood way. Each man is supposed to rule himself, each household have its own integrity. Few wanted to stand over Laudwine and demand he do what was right." Her gaze left Lord Golden and traveled over the others gathered there. "To those of you who came, I give great thanks. And if you would let me, I would make your names known to the Queen, so she would know where her debt lies."
"And where to bring the rope and the sword?" the healer asked quietly. "Times are not yet kind enough for names to be given, Laurel. We have yours. If we need the Queen's ear, we can seek her out through you."
Those they had gathered were Old Blood folk, but they did not style themselves Piebalds, nor did they condone the latter's ways. They cleaved to the old teachings, Deerkin told Lord Golden earnestly. It shamed him that for a time he had followed Laudwine. Anger had made him do it, he swore, not a desire to master animals and turn them to his own purposes as the Piebalds did. He had seen too many of his own folk hung and quartered these last two years. It was enough to turn any man's reason, but he had seen the error of his ways, thank Eda. And thanks to Laurel, and he hoped his cousin would forgive him the cruelty of their childhood years.
The conversation lapped against me like the rhythmic washing of waves. I tried to stay awake and make sense of his words, but we were so weary, my wolf and I. Nighteyes lay beside me and I could not separate where his pain ended and mine began. I did not care. Even if pain had been all we could share anymore, I would have taken it gladly. We still had one another.
The Prince was not so fortunate. I rolled my head to look at him, but he slept on, his breath sighing in and out as if even in his dreams, he grieved.
