Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Nighteyes and the lead wolf stood look­ing at one an­other. They were far enough apart that there was no chal­lenge in it, but Nighteyes kept his tail down. The lead wolf was ran­gier than Nighteyes and his coat was black. Not so well fed, he bore the scars of both fights and hunts. He car­ried him­self con­fid­ently. Nighteyes did not move. After a time the other wolf walked a short way, cocked his leg on a tuft of grass and ur­in­ated. He scuffed his front feet in the grass, then walked off without a back­ward glance. Nighteyes sat down and was still, con­sid­er­ing.

  The next morn­ing I arose and con­tin­ued on my way. Nighteyes had left me two days ago. Only two days. Yet it seemed very long to me that I had been alone. And how, I wondered, did Nighteyes meas­ure our sep­ar­a­tion? Not by days and nights. He had gone to find out a thing, and when he had found it out, then his time to be away from me would be over and he would come back to me. But what, really, had he gone to find out? What it was like to be a wolf among wolves, a mem­ber of a pack? If they ac­cep­ted him, what then? Would he run with them for a day, a week, a sea­son? How long would it take for me to fade from his mind into one of his end­less yes­ter­days?

  Why should he want to re­turn to me, if this pack would ac­cept him?

  After a time, I al­lowed my­self to real­ize I was as heartsore and hurt as if a hu­man friend had snubbed me for the com­pany of oth­ers. I wanted to howl, to quest out to Nighteyes with my loneli­ness for him. By an ef­fort of will, I did not. He was not a pet dog, to be whistled to heel. He was a friend and we had trav­elled to­gether for a time. What right did I have to ask him to give up a chance at a mate, at a true pack of his own, simply that he might be at my side? None at all, I told my­self. None at all.

  At noon I struck a trail that fol­lowed the bank. By late af­ter­noon I had passed sev­eral small farm­steads. Mel­ons and grain pre­dom­in­ated. A net­work of ditches car­ried river-wa­ter in­land to the crops. The sod houses were set well back from the river’s edge, prob­ably to avoid flood­ing. I had been barked at by dogs, and honked at by flocks of fat white geese, but had seen no folk close enough to hail. The trail had widened to a road, with cart-tracks.

  The sun was beat­ing on my back and head from a clear blue sky. High above me, I heard the shrill ki of a hawk. I glanced up at him, wings open and still as he rode the sky. He gave cry again, fol­ded his wings and plummeted to­ward me. Doubt­less, he dived on some small ro­dent in one of the fields. I watched him come at me, and only at the last mo­ment real­ized I was truly his tar­get. I flung up an arm to shield my face just as he opened his wings. I felt the wind of his brak­ing. For a bird his size, he landed quite lightly on my up­flung arm. His talons clenched pain­fully in my flesh.

  My first thought was that he was a trained bird gone feral, who had seen me and some­how de­cided to re­turn to man. A scrap of leather dangling from one of his legs might be the re­mainder of jesses. He sat blink­ing on my arm, a mag­ni­fi­cent bird in every way. I held him out from me to have a bet­ter look at him. The leather on his leg se­cured a tiny scroll of parch­ment. ‘Can I have a look at that?’ I asked him aloud. He turned his head to my voice and one gleam­ing eye stared at me. It was Sleet.

  Old Blood.

  I could make no more of his thoughts than that, but it was enough.

  I had never been much good with the birds at Buck­keep. Burrich had fi­nally bid me leave them alone, for my pres­ence al­ways agit­ated them. Nev­er­the­less, I ques­ted gently to­ward his flame-bright mind. He seemed quiet. I man­aged to tug the tiny scroll loose. The hawk shif­ted on my arm, dig­ging his talons into fresh flesh. Then, without warn­ing, he lif­ted his wings and launched away from me into the air. He spir­al­led up, beat­ing heav­ily to gain alti­tude, cried once more his high ki, ki, and went slid­ing off down the sky. I was left with blood trick­ling down my arm where his talons had scored my flesh, and one ringing ear from the beat­ing of his wings as he launched. I glanced at the punc­tures in my arm. Then curi­os­ity made me turn to the tiny scroll. Pi­geons car­ried mes­sages, not hawks.

  The hand­writ­ing was in an old style, tiny, thin and spidery. The bright­ness of the sun made it even harder to read. I sat down at the edge of the road and shaded it with my hand to study it. The first words al­most stilled my heart. ‘Old Blood greets Old Blood.’

  The rest was harder to puzzle out. The scroll was tattered, the spellings quaint, the words as few as would suf­fice. The warn­ing was from Holly, though I sus­pec­ted Rolf had penned it. King Regal act­ively hunted down Old Blood now. To those he cap­tured, he offered coins if they would help find a wolf – man pair. They sus­pec­ted Nighteyes and I were the ones he wanted. Regal threatened death to those who re­fused. There was a little more, some­thing about giv­ing my scent to oth­ers of Old Blood and ask­ing that they aid me as they could. The rest of the scroll was too tattered to read. I tucked the scroll into my belt. The bright day seemed edged with dark­ness now. So Will had told Regal I yet lived. And Regal feared me enough to set these wheels in mo­tion. Per­haps it was as well that Nighteyes and I had par­ted com­pany for a time.

  As twi­light fell, I as­cen­ded a small rise on the ri­verb­ank. Ahead of me, tucked into a bend of the river, were a few lights. Prob­ably an­other trad­ing post or a ferry dock to al­low farm­ers and her­ders easy pas­sage across the river. I watched the lights as I walked to­ward them. Ahead there would be hot food, and people, and shel­ter for the night. I could stop and have a word with the folk there if I wished. I still had a few coins to call my own. No wolf at my heels to ex­cite ques­tions, no Nighteyes lurk­ing out­side hop­ing no dogs would pick up his scent. No one to worry about ex­cept my­self. Well, maybe I would. Maybe I’d stop and have a glass and a bit of talk. Maybe I’d learn how much farther it was to Trade­ford, and hear some gos­sip of what went on there. It was time I began for­mu­lat­ing a real plan as to how I would deal with Regal.

  It was time I began de­pend­ing only on my­self.

  EIGHT

  Trade­ford

  As sum­mer mel­lowed to an end, the Raid­ers re­doubled their ef­forts to se­cure as much of the coast of Bearns Duchy as they could be­fore the storms of winter set in. Once they had se­cured the ma­jor ports, they knew they could strike along the rest of the Six Duch­ies coast­line at their pleas­ure. So al­though they had made raids as far as Shoaks Duchy that sum­mer, as the pleas­ant days dwindled they con­cen­trated their ef­forts on mak­ing the coast of Bearns their own.

  Their tac­tics were pe­cu­liar. They made no ef­fort to seize towns or con­quer the folk. They were solely in­tent on de­struc­tion. Towns they cap­tured were burned en­tirely, the folk slain, Forged or fled. A few were kept as work­ers, treated as less than beasts, Forged when they be­came use­less to their captors, or for amuse­ment. They set up their own rough shel­ters, dis­dain­ing to use the build­ings they could simply have seized rather than des­troyed. They made no ef­fort to es­tab­lish per­man­ent set­tle­ments but in­stead simply gar­risoned the best ports to be sure they could not be taken back.

  Al­though Shoaks and Rip­pon Duch­ies gave aid to Bearns Duchy where they could, they had coasts of their own to pro­tect and scant re­sources to em­ploy. Buck Duchy wal­lowed along as best it could. Lord Bright had be­latedly seen how Buck re­lied on its outly­ing hold­ings for pro­tec­tion, but he judged it too late to sal­vage that line of de­fence. He de­voted his men and money to for­ti­fy­ing Buck­keep it­self. That left the rest of Buck Duchy with but its own folk and the ir­reg­u­lar troops that had de­voted them­selves to Lady Pa­tience as a bul­wark against the Raid­ers. Bearns ex­pec­ted no suc­cour from that quarter, but grate­fully ac­cep­ted all that came to them un­der the Ivy badge.

  Duke Brawndy of Bearns, long past his prime as a fighter, met the chal­lenge of the Raid­ers with steel as grey as his hair and beard. His res­ol­u­tion knew no bounds. He did no
t scruple to beg­gar him­self of per­sonal treas­ure, nor to risk the lives of his kin in his fi­nal ef­forts to de­fend his duchy. He met his end try­ing to de­fend his home castle, Ripple­keep. But neither his death nor the fall of Ripple­keep stopped his daugh­ters from car­ry­ing on the res­ist­ance against the Raid­ers.

  My shirt had ac­quired a pe­cu­liar new shape from be­ing rolled in my pack so long. I pulled it on any­way, grim­acing slightly at its musty odour. It smelled faintly of wood smoke, and more strongly of mil­dew. Damp had got into it. I per­suaded my­self that the open air would dis­perse the smell. I did what I could with my hair and beard. That is, I brushed my hair and bound it back into a tail, and combed my beard smooth with my fin­gers. I de­tested the beard, but hated tak­ing the time each day to shave. I left the ri­verb­ank where I had made my brief ablu­tions and headed to­ward the town lights. This time, I had re­solved to be bet­ter pre­pared. My name, I had de­cided, was Jory. I had been a sol­dier, and had a few skills with horses and a pen, but had lost my home to Raid­ers. I was presently in­tent on mak­ing my way to Trade­ford to start life anew. It was a role I could play con­vin­cingly.

  As the last of the day’s light faded, more lamps were kindled in the river­side town and I saw I had been much mis­taken as to the size of it. The sprawl of the town ex­ten­ded far up the bank. I felt some trep­id­a­tion, but con­vinced my­self that walk­ing through the town would be much shorter than go­ing around it. With no Nighteyes at my heels I had no reason to add those ex­tra miles and hours to my path. I put my head up and af­fec­ted a con­fid­ent stride.

  The town was a lot live­lier after dark than most places I had been. I sensed a hol­i­day air in those strolling the streets. Most were headed to­ward the centre of town, and as I drew closer, there were torches, folk in bright dress, laughter, and the sound of mu­sic. The lin­tels of the inn doors were ad­orned with flowers. I came to a brightly lit plaza. Here was the mu­sic, and mer­ry­makers were dan­cing. There were casks of drink set out, and tables with bread and fruit piled upon them. My mouth watered at the sight of the food, and the bread smelled es­pe­cially won­der­ful to one so long de­prived of it.

  I lingered at the edges of the crowd, listen­ing, and dis­covered that the Capa­man of the town was cel­eb­rat­ing his wed­ding: hence the feast­ing and dan­cing. I sur­mised that the Capa­man was some sort of Far­row title for a noble, and that this par­tic­u­lar one was well re­garded by his folk for his gen­er­os­ity. One eld­erly wo­man, no­ti­cing me, ap­proached me and pushed three cop­pers into my hand. ‘Go to the tables, and eat, young fel­low,’ she told me kindly. ‘Capa­man Lo­gis has de­creed that on his wed­ding night all are to cel­eb­rate with him. The food is for the shar­ing. Go on, now, don’t be shy.’ She pat­ted me re­as­sur­ingly on the shoulder, stand­ing on tip­toe to do so. I blushed to be mis­taken for a beg­gar, but thought bet­ter of dis­suad­ing her. If so she thought me, so I ap­peared, and bet­ter to act as one. Still, as I slipped the three cop­pers into my pouch, I felt oddly guilty, as if I had tricked them away from her. I did as she had bid me, go­ing to the table to join the line of those re­ceiv­ing bread and fruit and meat.

  There were sev­eral young wo­men man­aging the tables, and one piled up a trencher for me, hand­ing it across the table hast­ily, as if re­luct­ant to have any con­tact with me at all. I thanked her, which caused some gig­gling among her friends. She looked as af­fron­ted as if I had mis­taken her for a whore, and I quickly took my­self away from there. I found a corner of a table to sit at, and marked that no one sat near to me. A young boy set­ting out mugs and filling them with ale gave me one, and was curi­ous enough to ask me where I had come from. I told him only that I had been trav­el­ling up­river, look­ing for work, and asked if he had heard of any­one hir­ing.

  ‘Oh, you want the hir­ing fair, up the wa­ter in Trade­ford,’ he told me fa­mil­iarly. ‘It’s less than an­other day’s walk. You might get har­vest work this time of year. And if not, there’s al­ways the King’s Great Circle be­ing built. They’ll hire any­one for that as can lift a stone or use a shovel.’

  ‘The King’s Great Circle?’ I asked him.

  He cocked his head at me. ‘So that all may wit­ness the King’s justice be­ing served.’

  Then he was called away by someone wav­ing a mug and I was left alone to eat and muse. They’ll hire any­one. So I ap­peared that way­ward and strange. Well, it could not be helped. The food tasted in­cred­ibly good. I had all but for­got­ten the tex­ture and fra­grance of good wheaten bread. The sa­voury way it mingled with the meat juices on my trencher sud­denly re­called Cook Sara and her gen­er­ous kit­chen to me. Some­where up the river, in Trade­ford, she would be mak­ing pastry dough now, or per­haps prick­ing a roast full of spices be­fore put­ting it in one of her heavy black kettles and cov­er­ing it well, to let it slow cook in the coals all night. Yes, and in Regal’s stables, Hands would be mak­ing his fi­nal rounds for the night as Burrich used to do in the stables at Buck­keep, check­ing to see that every beast had fresh clean wa­ter and that every stall was se­curely fastened. A dozen other stable-hands from Buck­keep would be there as well, faces and hearts well known to me from years spent to­gether in Burrich’s do­main and un­der his tu­tel­age. House ser­vants, too, Regal had taken with him from Buck. Mis­tress Hasty was prob­ably there, and Brant and Lowden and …

  Loneli­ness sud­denly en­gulfed me. It would be so good to see them, to lean on a table and listen to Cook Sara’s end­less gos­sip, or lie on my back in the hayloft with Hands and pre­tend I be­lieved his out­rageous tales of the wo­men he had bed­ded since last I had seen him. I tried to ima­gine Mis­tress Hasty’s re­ac­tion to my present garb, and found my­self smil­ing at her out­rage and scan­dal­ized of­fence.

  My rev­erie was broken by a man shout­ing a string of ob­scen­it­ies. Not even the drunk­est sailor I had ever known would so pro­fane a wed­ding feast. Mine was not the only head that turned and for a mo­ment all nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion lapsed. I stared at what I had not no­ticed be­fore.

  Off one side of the square, at the edge of the torches’ reach, was a cart and team. A great barred cage sat upon it and three Forged ones were in it. I could make out no more than that, that there were three of them and that they re­gistered not at all upon my Wit. A team­ster wo­man strode up to the cage, cudgel in hand. She banged it loudly on the slats of the cage, com­mand­ing those within to be still, and then spun about to two young men loun­ging against the tail of her cart. ‘And you’ll leave them be as well, you great louts!’ she scol­ded them. ‘They’re for the King’s Circle, and whatever justice or mercy they find there. But un­til then, you’ll leave them be, you un­der­stand me? Lily! Lily, bring those bones from the roast over here and give them to these creatures. And you, I told you, get away from them! Don’t stir them up!’

  The two young men stepped back from her threat­en­ing cudgel, laugh­ing with up­raised hands as they did so. ‘Don’t see why we shouldn’t have our fun with them first,’ ob­jec­ted the taller of the lads. ‘I heard that down at Rundsford, their town’s build­ing their own justice circle.’

  The second boy made a great show of rolling the muscles in his shoulders. ‘Me, I’m for the King’s Circle my­self.’

  ‘As Cham­pion or pris­oner?’ someone hooted mock­ingly, and both the young men laughed, and the taller one gave his com­pan­ion a rough push by way of jest.

  I re­mained stand­ing in my place. A sick sus­pi­cion was rising in me. The King’s Circle. Forged ones and Cham­pi­ons. I re­called the av­ar­i­cious way Regal had watched his men beat me as I stood en­circled by them. A dull numb­ness spread through me as the wo­man called Lily made her way to the cart and then flung a plate­ful of meat bones at the pris­on­ers there. They fell upon them avidly, strik­ing and snap­ping at one an­other as each strove to claim as much of t
he bounty as he could. Not a few folk stood around the cart point­ing and laugh­ing. I stared, sickened. Didn’t they un­der­stand those men had been Forged? They were not crim­in­als. They were hus­bands and sons, fish­ers and farm­ers of the Six Duch­ies, whose only crime had been to be cap­tured by the Red Ships.

  I had no count of the num­ber of Forged ones I had slain. I felt a re­vul­sion for them, that was true, but it was the same re­vul­sion I felt at see­ing a leg that had gone to gan­grene, or a dog so taken with mange that there was no cure for him. Killing Forged ones had noth­ing to do with hatred, or pun­ish­ment, or justice. Death was the only solu­tion to their con­di­tion and it should have been meted out as swiftly as pos­sible, in mercy to the fam­il­ies that had loved them. Those young men had spoken as if there would be some sort of sport in killing them. I stared at the cage queas­ily.

  I sat down slowly at my place again. There was still food on my plat­ter but my ap­pet­ite for it had faded. Com­mon sense told me that I should eat while I had the chance. For a mo­ment I just looked at the food. I made my­self eat.

  When I lif­ted my eyes, I caught two young men star­ing at me. For an in­stant I met their looks; then I re­called who I was sup­posed to be and cast my glance down. They evid­ently were amused by me, for they came swag­ger­ing over to sit down, one across the table from me and one un­com­fort­ably close be­side me. That one made a great show of wrink­ling his nose and cov­er­ing his nose and mouth for his com­rade’s amuse­ment. I gave them both good even­ing.

  ‘Good even­ing for you, per­haps. Haven’t had a feed like this in a while, eh, beg­gar?’ This from the one across from me, a tow-headed lout with a mask of freckles across his face.