Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  A chill went down my spine. ‘Forged ones? But Forged ones seem to have no Wit at all. I do not sense them with my Wit-sense at all, only with eyes or nose or …’

  ‘To your Old Blood senses, all creatures give off a kin­ship warmth. All save the Forged ones. This is true?’

  I nod­ded un­eas­ily.

  ‘They have lost it. I do not know how it is stolen from them, but that is what For­ging does. And it leaves an empti­ness in them. This much is well known among those of the Old Blood, and we know, too, that we are more likely to be fol­lowed and at­tacked by Forged ones. Es­pe­cially if we use those tal­ents care­lessly. Why this is so, no one can say with cer­tainty. Per­haps only the Forged ones know, if they truly “know” any­thing any more. But it gives us one more reason to be cau­tious of ourselves and our tal­ents.’

  ‘Are you sug­gest­ing that Nighteyes and I should re­frain from us­ing the Wit?’

  ‘I am sug­gest­ing that per­haps you should stay here for a while, and take the time to learn to mas­ter the tal­ents of the Old Blood. Or you may find your­self in more battles such as the one you fought yes­ter­day.’ He per­mit­ted him­self a small smile.

  ‘I said noth­ing to you of that at­tack,’ I said quietly.

  ‘You did not need to,’ he poin­ted out. ‘I am sure that every­one of Old Blood for leagues around heard you when you fought them. Un­til you both learn to con­trol how you speak to one an­other, noth­ing between you is truly private.’ He paused then ad­ded, ‘Did you never think it strange that Forged ones would spend time at­tack­ing a wolf when there is ap­par­ently noth­ing to gain from such an at­tack? They only fo­cus on him be­cause he is bon­ded to you.’

  I gave Nighteyes a brief apo­lo­getic glance. ‘I thank you for your of­fer. But we have a thing we must do and it will not wait. I think that we shall en­counter fewer Forged ones as we move in­land. We should be fine.’

  ‘That is likely. The ones that go so far in­land are gathered up by the King. Still, any that may be left will be drawn to you. But even if you en­counter no more Forged ones, you are likely to en­counter the King’s Guards. They take a spe­cial in­terest in “wit­ted” folk these days. Of late, many of the Old Blood have been sold to the King, by neigh­bours, and even fam­ily. His gold is good, and he does not even ask much proof that they are truly Old Blood. Not for years has the ven­detta against us burned so hot.’

  I looked away un­com­fort­ably, well aware of why Regal hated those with the Wit. His co­terie would sup­port him in that hate. I felt sickened as I thought of in­no­cent folk sold to Regal that he might re­venge him­self on them in my stead. I tried to keep the rage I felt masked.

  Hilda came back to the table, looked it over con­sid­er­ingly, then seized the pot that held the hon­ey­combs in both her paws. She waddled care­fully away from the table, to seat her­self in the corner and be­gin a care­ful lick­ing out of the pot. Holly con­tin­ued to watch me. I could read noth­ing from her eyes.

  Black Rolf scratched at his beard, then winced as his fin­gers found a sore spot. He smiled a care­ful, rue­ful smile at me. ‘I can sym­path­ize with your de­sire to kill King Regal. But I do not think you shall find it as easy as you sup­pose.’

  I just looked at him, but Nighteyes rolled a light snarl in the back of his throat. Hilda looked up at that and thumped down on all fours, the honey jar rolling away from her across the floor. Black Rolf sent her a glance and she sat back, but fixed both Nighteyes and me with a glare. I don’t think there is any­thing as gut-tight­en­ing as an angry glare from a brown bear. I did not move. Holly sat up straight in her chair but re­mained calm. Above us in the rafters Sleet rattled his plumage.

  ‘If you bay out all your plans and griev­ances to the night moon, you can­not be as­ton­ished that oth­ers know of them. I do not think you shall en­counter many of the Old Blood who are sym­path­etic to King Regal … or any, per­haps. In fact, many would be will­ing to aid you if you asked them. Still, si­lence is wisest, for a plan such as that.’

  ‘From your song earlier, I would sus­pect you share my sen­ti­ments,’ I said quietly. ‘And I thank you for your warn­ing. But Nighteyes and I have had to be cir­cum­spect be­fore about what we shared with one an­other. Now we know there is a danger of be­ing over­heard, I think we can com­pensate for it. One ques­tion I will ask of you. What care the City Guards of Crows­neck if a man has a few drinks and sings a mock­ing song about the … King?’ I had to force the word from my throat.

  ‘None at all, when they are Crows­neck men. But that is no longer the case in Crows­neck, nor in any of the river road towns. Those are King’s Guards, in the liv­ery of the Crows­neck Guard, and paid from the town purse, but King’s Men all the same. Regal had not been king two months be­fore he de­creed that change. He claimed the law would be en­forced more equit­ably if city guards were all sworn King’s Men, car­ry­ing out the law of the Six Duch­ies above any other. Well. You have seen how they carry it out … mostly by car­ry­ing off whatever they can from any poor sot who treads upon the King’s toes. Still those two in Crows­neck are not so bad as some I’ve heard of. Word is that down in Sand bend, a cut­purse or thief can make an easy liv­ing, so long as the guard gets a share. The town mas­ters are power­less to dis­miss the guards the King has ap­poin­ted. Nor are they al­lowed to sup­ple­ment them with their own men.’

  It soun­ded only too much like Regal. I wondered how ob­sessed he would be­come with power and con­trol. Would he set spies upon his spies? Or had he already done so? None of it boded well for the Six Duch­ies as a whole.

  Black Rolf broke me from my mus­ings. ‘Now, I’ve a ques­tion I would ask of you.’

  ‘Be free to ask,’ I in­vited him, but held to my­self how freely I should an­swer.

  ‘Late last night … after you had fin­ished with the Forged ones. An­other at­tacked you. I could not sense who, only that your wolf de­fen­ded you, and that he some­how went … some­where. That he threw his strength into a chan­nel I did not un­der­stand, nor could fol­low. I know no more than that he, and you, were vic­tori­ous. What was that thing?’

  ‘A ser­vant of the King,’ I hedged. I did not wish to en­tirely re­fuse him an an­swer, and this seemed harm­less, as he seemed to already know it.

  ‘You fought what they call the Skill. Didn’t you?’ His eyes locked with mine. When I did not an­swer, he went on any­way. ‘There are many of us who would like to know how it was done. In our past, Skilled ones have hunted us down as if we were ver­min. No one of the Old Blood can say that his fam­ily has not suffered at their hands. Now those days have come again. If there is a way to use the tal­ents of the Old Blood against those who wield the Farseer’s Skill, it is know­ledge worth much to us.’

  Holly sidled from the corner, then came to grip the back of Rolf’s chair and peer over his shoulder at me. I sensed the im­port­ance of my an­swer to them.

  ‘I can­not teach you that,’ I said hon­es­tly.

  His eyes held mine, his dis­be­lief plain. ‘Twice to­night, I have offered to teach you all I know of the Old Blood, to open to you all the doors that only your ig­nor­ance keeps closed. You have re­fused me, but by Eda, I have offered, and freely. But this one thing I ask, this one thing that might save so many lives of our own kind, you say you can­not teach me?’

  My eyes flickered to Hilda. Her eyes had gone beady and bright again. Black Rolf was prob­ably un­aware of how his pos­ture mim­icked that of his bear. They both had me meas­ur­ing the dis­tance to the door, while Nighteyes was already on his feet and ready to flee. Be­hind Rolf, Holly cocked her head and stared at me. Above us, the hawk turned his head to watch us. I forced my­self to loosen my muscles, to be­have much more calmly than I felt. It was a tac­tic learned from Burrich when con­front­ing any dis­tressed an­imal.

  ‘I speak truth to you,’ I said care­fully. ‘I can­not teach you what
I do not fully un­der­stand my­self.’ I re­frained from men­tion­ing that I my­self car­ried that des­pised Farseer blood. I was sure now of what I had only sus­pec­ted be­fore. The Wit could be used to at­tack a Skilled one only if a Skill chan­nel had been opened between them. Even if I had been able to de­scribe what Nighteyes and I had done, no one else would have been able to copy it. To fight the Skill with the Wit, one had to pos­sess both the Skill and the Wit. I met Black Rolf’s eyes calmly, know­ing I had spoken the truth to him.

  Slowly he re­laxed his hunched shoulders, and Hilda dropped back to all fours and went snuff­ling after the trail­ing honey. ‘Per­haps,’ he said, quietly stub­born, ‘per­haps if you stayed with us, and learned what I have to teach you, you would be­gin to un­der­stand what you do. Then you could teach it to me. Do you think so?’

  I kept my voice calm and even. ‘You wit­nessed the King’s ser­vants at­tack me last night. Do you think they will suf­fer me to re­main here and learn more to use against them? No. My only chance is to beard them in their den be­fore they come seek­ing me out.’ I hes­it­ated, then offered, ‘Al­though I can­not teach you to do as I do, you may be as­sured that it will be used against the en­emies of the Old Blood.’

  This, fi­nally, was a reas­on­ing he could ac­cept. He snuffed sev­eral times thought­fully. I wondered un­com­fort­ably if I had as many wolf man­ner­isms as he had bear and Holly had hawk.

  ‘Will you stay the night at least?’ he asked ab­ruptly.

  ‘We do bet­ter when we travel by night,’ I said re­gret­fully. ‘It is more com­fort­able for both of us.’

  He nod­ded sagely to that. ‘Well. I wish you well, and every good for­tune in achiev­ing your end. You are wel­come to rest safely here un­til the moon rises, if you wish.’

  I con­ferred with Nighteyes, and we ac­cep­ted grate­fully. I checked the slash on Nighteyes’ shoulder and found it to be no bet­ter than I had sus­pec­ted. I treated it with some of Burrich’s salve, and then we sprawled out­side in the shade and napped the af­ter­noon away. It was good for both of us to be able to re­lax com­pletely, know­ing that oth­ers stood guard over us. It was the best sleep either of us had had since we had be­gun our jour­ney. When we awoke, I found that Black Rolf had put up fish, honey and bread for us to carry with us. There was no sign of the hawk. I ima­gined he had gone to roost for the night. Holly stood in the shad­ows near the house, re­gard­ing us sleepily.

  ‘Go care­fully, go gently,’ Rolf coun­selled us after we had thanked him and packed his gifts. ‘Walk in the ways Eda has opened for you.’

  He paused, as if wait­ing for a re­sponse. I sensed a cus­tom I was not fa­mil­iar with. I wished him simply, ‘Good luck,’ and he nod­ded to that.

  ‘You will be back, you know,’ he ad­ded.

  I shook my head slowly. ‘I doubt that. But I thank you for what you have given me.’

  ‘No. I know you will be back. It is not a mat­ter of your want­ing what I can teach you. You will find you need it. You are not a man as or­din­ary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to sub­jug­ate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mas­tery. The horse that car­ries you will do so be­cause he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts be­side you. You have a deeper sense of your­self in the world. You be­lieve you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Pred­ator or prey; there is no shame to be­ing either one. As time goes on, you will find you have ur­gent ques­tions. What must you do when your friend wishes to run with a pack of true wolves? I prom­ise you, that time will come. What must he do if you marry and have a child? When the time comes for one of you to die, as it must, how does the other make room for what is left, and carry on alone? In time you will hun­ger for oth­ers of your kind. You will need to know how to sense them and how to seek them out. There are an­swers to these ques­tions, Old Blood an­swers, ones I can­not tell you in a day, ones you can­not un­der­stand in a week. You need those an­swers. And you will come back for them.’

  I looked down at the trod­den soil of the forest path. I had lost all cer­tainty that I would not re­turn to Rolf.

  Holly spoke softly but clearly from the shad­ows. ‘I be­lieve in what you go to do. I wish you suc­cess, and would aid you if I could.’ Her eyes dar­ted to Rolf, as if this were a thing they had dis­cussed, but had not agreed upon. ‘If you are in need, cry out, as you do to Nighteyes, ask­ing that any of Old Blood who hear you pass word back to Holly and Sleet of Crows­neck. Those who hear may come to help you. Even if they do not, they will send word to me, and I will do what I can.’

  Rolf let out a sud­den huff of breath. ‘We will do what we can,’ he amended her words. ‘But you would be wiser to stay here and learn first how to bet­ter pro­tect your­self.’

  I nod­ded to his words, but re­solved privately that I would not in­volve any of them in my re­venge against Regal. When I glanced up at Rolf, he smiled at me wryly, and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Go then. But be wary, both of you. Be­fore the moon goes down you’ll leave Buck be­hind and be in Far­row. If you think King Regal has a grip on us here, wait un­til you get to where folk be­lieve he has a right to it.’

  I nod­ded grimly to that, and once more Nighteyes and I were on our way.

  SEVEN

  Far­row

  Lady Pa­tience, the Lady of Buck­keep as she came to be called, rose to power in a unique fash­ion. She had been born into a noble fam­ily and was by birth a lady. She was raised to the loftier status of Queen-in-Wait­ing by her pre­cip­it­ous mar­riage to King-in-Wait­ing Chiv­alry. She never as­ser­ted her­self in either po­s­i­tion to take the power that birth and mar­riage had brought her. It was only when she was alone, al­most aban­doned, as ec­cent­ric Lady Pa­tience at Buck­keep that she gathered to her­self the reins of in­flu­ence. She did it, as she had done everything else in her life, in a haphaz­ard, quaint way that would have availed any other wo­man not at all.

  She did not call on noble fam­ily con­nec­tions, nor ex­ert in­flu­en­tial con­nec­tions based on her de­ceased hus­band’s status. In­stead she began with that low­est tier of power, the so-called men-at-arms, who were just as fre­quently wo­men. Those few re­main­ing of King Shrewd’s per­sonal guard, and Queen Kettricken’s guard had been left in the pe­cu­liar po­s­i­tion of guard­i­ans with noth­ing left to guard. The Buck­keep Guard had been sup­planted in their du­ties by the per­sonal troops that Lord Bright brought with him from Far­row, and del­eg­ated to lesser tasks that in­volved the clean­ing and main­ten­ance of the keep. The former guards were er­rat­ic­ally paid, had lost re­spect among and for them­selves, and were too of­ten idle or oc­cu­pied with de­grad­ing tasks. The Lady Pa­tience, os­tens­ibly be­cause they were not oth­er­wise busied, began to so­li­cit their ser­vices. She began by re­quest­ing a guard when she ab­ruptly began to ride out on her an­cient pal­frey, Silk. Af­ter­noon rides gradu­ally lengthened to all-day for­ays, and then to overnight vis­its to vil­lages that had either been raided or feared raids. In the raided vil­lages, she and her maid Lacey did what they could for the in­jured, logged down a tally of those slain or Forged, and provided, in the form of her guard, strong backs to aid in the clear­ing of rubble from the main streets and the rais­ing of tem­por­ary shel­ter for folks left home­less. This, while not true work for fight­ers, was a sharp re­minder of what they had been trained to fight against, and of what happened when there were no de­fend­ers. The grat­it­ude of the folk they aided re­stored to the guard their pride and in­ner co­hes­ive­ness. In the un­raided vil­lages, the guard were a small show of force that Buck­keep and the Farseer pride still ex­is­ted. In sev­eral vil­lages and towns, make­shift stock­ades were raised where the folk could re­treat from the Raid­ers and have a small chance of de­fend­ing them­selves.

  There is no re­cord of Lord Bright’s feel�
�ings re­gard­ing Lady Pa­tience’s for­ays. She never de­clared these ex­ped­i­tions in any of­fi­cial way. They were her pleas­ure rides, the guards that ac­com­pan­ied her had vo­lun­teered to do so, and like­wise for the du­ties she put them to in the vil­lages. Some, as she came to trust them, ran ‘er­rands’ for her. Such er­rands might in­volve the dis­tance car­ry­ing of mes­sages to keeps in Rip­pon, Bearns and even Shoaks, re­quest­ing news of how the coastal towns fared, and giv­ing news of Buck; they took her run­ners into and through oc­cu­pied ter­rit­or­ies and were fraught with danger. Her mes­sen­gers of­ten were given a sprig of the ivy she grew year round in her rooms as a token to present to the re­cip­i­ents of her mes­sages and sup­port. Sev­eral bal­lads have been writ­ten about the so-called Ivy Run­ners, telling of the bravery and re­source­ful­ness they showed, and re­mind­ing us that even the greatest walls must, in time, yield to the over-climb­ing ivy. Per­haps the most fam­ous ex­ploit was that of Pansy, the young­est run­ner. At the age of el­even, she trav­elled all the way to where the Duch­ess of Bearns was in hid­ing in the Ice Caves of Bearns, to bring her tid­ings of when and where a sup­ply boat would beach. For part of that jour­ney, Pansy trav­elled un­dis­covered amidst the sacks of grain in a wagon com­mand­eered by the Raid­ers. From the very heart of a Raid­ers’ camp, she es­caped to con­tinue her mis­sion, but only after she had set fire to the tent in which their leader slept in re­venge for her Forged par­ents. Pansy did not live to be thir­teen, but her deeds will be long re­membered.

  Oth­ers aided Pa­tience in dis­pos­ing of her jew­ellery and an­ces­tral lands for coin, which she then em­ployed ‘as she pleased, as was her right’ as she once in­formed Lord Bright. She bought grain and sheep from in­land, and again her ‘vo­lun­teers’ saw to its trans­port and dis­tri­bu­tion. Small sup­ply boats brought hope to em­battled de­fend­ers. She made token pay­ments to stone­ma­sons and car­penters who helped to re­build rav­aged vil­lages. And she gave coin, not much but ac­com­pan­ied by her sin­cerest thanks, to those guards who vo­lun­teered to as­sist her.