Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  But if I had thought to rend her, I failed there also. ‘You make no men­tion of your daugh­ter, FitzChiv­alry.’

  It was true. I had not made men­tion of Molly and the child. Fear sliced through me like a cold blade. ‘I had not thought of her as per­tain­ing to my re­port.’

  ‘She ob­vi­ously must,’ Queen Kettricken said im­plac­ably. I forced my­self to look at her. She clasped her hands be­fore her. Did they tremble, did she feel any re­morse for what she said next? I could not tell. ‘Given her lin­eage, she much more than “per­tains” to this dis­cus­sion. Ideally, she should be here, where we could guar­an­tee a meas­ure of safety to the Farseer heir.’

  I im­posed calm on my voice. ‘My queen, you are mis­taken in nam­ing her so. Neither I nor she have any le­git­im­ate claim to the throne. We are both il­le­git­im­ate.’

  Kettricken was shak­ing her head. ‘We do not con­sider what is or is not between you and her mother. We con­sider only her blood­line. Re­gard­less of what you may claim for her, her lin­eage will claim her. I am child­less.’ Un­til I heard her speak that word aloud, I did not grasp what her depth of pain was. A few mo­ments ago, I had thought her heart­less. Now I wondered if she were com­pletely sane any more. Such was the grief and des­pair that one word con­veyed. She forced her­self on. ‘There must be an heir to the Farseer throne. Chade has ad­vised me that alone I can­not rally the people to pro­tect them­selves. I am too for­eign to their eyes still. But no mat­ter how they see me, I re­main their queen. I have a duty to do. I must find a way to unite the Six Duch­ies and re­pulse the in­vaders from our shores. To do that, they must have a leader. I had thought to of­fer you, but he has said that they will not ac­cept you either. That mat­ter of your sup­posed death and use of Beast ma­gic is too big an obstacle. That be­ing so, there re­mains only your child of the Farseer line. Regal has proven false to his own blood. She, then, must be Sac­ri­fice for our people. They will rally to her.’

  I dared to speak. ‘She is only an in­fant, my queen. How can she …’

  ‘She is a sym­bol. It is all the people will re­quire of her right now, that she ex­ist. Later, she will be their queen in truth.’

  I felt as if she had knocked the wind from me. She spoke on. ‘I shall be send­ing Chade to fetch her here, where she may be kept safe and prop­erly edu­cated as she grows.’ She sighed. ‘I would like her mother to be with her. Un­for­tu­nately, we must present the child as mine, some­how. How I hate such de­cep­tions. But Chade has con­vinced me of the ne­ces­sity. I hope he will also be able to con­vince your daugh­ter’s mother.’ More to her­self, she ad­ded, ‘We shall have to say that we said my child was still­born to make Regal be­lieve there was no heir to threaten. My poor little son. His people will never even know he was born. And that, I sup­pose, is how he is Sac­ri­fice for them.’

  I found my­self look­ing at Kettricken closely, and find­ing there re­mained very little of the Queen I had known at Buck­keep. I hated what she was say­ing; it out­raged me. Yet my voice was gentle as I asked, ‘Why is any of this ne­ces­sary, my queen? King Ver­ity lives. I shall find him and do all I can to re­turn him to you. To­gether, you shall rule at Buck­keep, and your chil­dren after you.’

  ‘Shall he? Will we? Will they?’ Al­most she shook her head in denial. ‘It may be, FitzChiv­alry. But for too long I put my faith in be­liev­ing that things would turn out as they should. I will not fall prey to those ex­pect­a­tions again. Some things must be made cer­tain be­fore fur­ther risks can be taken. An heir to the Farseer line must be as­sured.’ She met my eyes calmly. ‘I have made up the de­clar­a­tion and given a copy to Chade, with an­other to be kept safely here. Your child is heir to the throne, FitzChiv­alry.’

  I had been keep­ing my soul in­tact with a tiny hope for so long. For so many months, I had lured my­self along with the idea that when all was over and done, I could some­how go back to Molly and win again her love, that I could claim my daugh­ter as my own. Other men might dream of high hon­ours or riches or deeds of valour sung by min­strels. I wanted to come to a small cot as the light faded, to sit in a chair by a fire, my back aching from work, my hands rough with toil, and hold a little girl in my lap while a wo­man who loved me told me of her day. Of all the things I had ever had to give up simply by vir­tue of the blood I car­ried, that was the dearest. Must I now sur­render that? Must I be­come to Molly forever the man who had lied to her, who had left her with child and never re­turned, and then caused that child to be stolen from her as well?

  I had not meant to speak aloud. I did not real­ize I had un­til the Queen replied. ‘That is what it is to be Sac­ri­fice, FitzChiv­alry. Noth­ing can be held back for one­self. Noth­ing.’

  ‘I will not ac­know­ledge her, then.’ The words burned my tongue to speak them. ‘I will not claim her as mine.’

  ‘You need not, for I shall claim her as mine. No doubt she will carry the Farseer looks. Your blood is strong. For our pur­poses, it is suf­fi­cient that I know the child is yours. You have already ac­know­ledged that to Starling the min­strel. To her you said you had fathered a child with Molly, a candle­maker from Buck­keep Town. In all of the Six Duch­ies, the wit­ness of a min­strel is re­cog­nized by law. She has already set her hand to the doc­u­ment, with her oath that she knows the child to be a true Farseer. FitzChiv­alry,’ she went on and her voice was al­most kind, though my ears rang to hear her words and I near reeled where I stood, ‘no one can es­cape fate. Not you, nor your daugh­ter. Step back and see this is why she came to be. When all cir­cum­stances con­spired to deny the Farseer line an heir, some­how one was yet made. By you. Ac­cept, and en­dure.’

  They were the wrong words. She might have been raised to them, but I had been told, ‘The fight is not over un­til you have won it.’ I lif­ted my eyes and looked around at them all. I don’t know what they saw on my face but their faces be­came still. ‘I can find Ver­ity,’ I said quietly. ‘And I will.’

  They were si­lent.

  ‘You want your king,’ I said to Kettricken. I waited un­til I saw as­sent in her face.

  ‘I want my child,’ I said quietly.

  ‘What are you say­ing?’ Kettricken de­man­ded coldly.

  ‘I am say­ing that I want the same things you do. I wish to be with the one I love, to raise our child with her.’ I met her eyes. ‘Tell me I can have that. It is all I have ever wanted.’

  She met my eyes squarely. ‘I can­not make you that prom­ise, FitzChiv­alry. She is too im­port­ant for simple love to claim her.’

  The words struck me as both ut­terly ab­surd and com­pletely true. I bowed my head in what was not as­sent. I stared a hole into the floor, try­ing to find other choices, other ways.

  ‘I know what you will say next,’ Kettricken said bit­terly. ‘That if I claim your child for the throne, you will not help me find Ver­ity. I have con­sidered long and well, know­ing that this will sever me from your help. I am pre­pared to seek him out on my own. I have the map. Some­how, I shall …’

  ‘Kettricken.’ I cut into her speech with her name said quietly, bereft of her title. I had not meant to. I saw it startled her. I found my­self slowly shak­ing my head. ‘You do not un­der­stand. Were Molly stand­ing here be­fore me with our daugh­ter, still I would have to seek my king. No mat­ter what is done to me, no mat­ter how I am wronged. Still, I must seek Ver­ity.’

  My words changed the faces in the room. Chade lif­ted his head and looked at me with fierce pride shin­ing in his eyes. Kettricken turned aside, blink­ing at tears. I think she may have felt slightly ashamed. To the Fool, I was once more his Cata­lyst. In Starling there bloomed the hope that I might still be worthy of a le­gend.

  But in me there was the over­rid­ing hun­ger for the ab­so­lute. Ver­ity had shown it to me, in its pure phys­ical form. I would an­swer my king’s Skill-com­mand and serve him as I had vowed. But an�
�other call beckoned me now as well. The Skill.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The Moun­tains

  One might sup­pose that the Moun­tain King­dom, with its sparse ham­lets and scattered folk, was a new realm but re­cently gathered to­gether. In truth, its his­tory far pred­ates any of the writ­ten re­cords of the Six Duch­ies. To call this re­gion a king­dom is truly a mis­nomer. In an­cient times, the di­verse hunters, her­ders and farm­ers, both no­madic and settled, gradu­ally gave their al­le­gi­ance to a Judge, a wo­man of great wis­dom, who resided at Jhaampe. Al­though this per­son has come to be called the King or Queen of the Moun­tains by out­siders, to the res­id­ents of the Moun­tain King­dom, he or she is still the Sac­ri­fice, the one who is will­ing to give all, even life, for the sake of those who are ruled. The first Judge who lived at Jhaampe is now a shad­owy fig­ure of le­gend, her deeds known only by the songs of her that Moun­tain folk still sing.

  Yet old as those songs are, there is an even older ru­mour of a more an­cient ruler and cap­ital city. The Moun­tain King­dom, as we know it today, con­sists al­most en­tirely of the wan­der­ing folk and set­tle­ments on the east­ern flanks of the Moun­tains. Bey­ond the Moun­tains lie the icy shores that bor­der the White Sea. Some few trade routes still me­an­der through the sharp teeth of the Moun­tains to reach the hunt­ing folk who live in that snowy place. To the south of the Moun­tains are the un­settled forests of the Rain Wilds, and some­where the source of the Rain River that is the bound­ary of the Chalced States. These are the only lands and folks that have been truly charted bey­ond the Moun­tains. Yet there have al­ways been le­gends of an­other land, one locked and lost in the peaks bey­ond the Moun­tain King­dom. As one travels deeper in the Moun­tains, past the bound­ar­ies of the folk who owe al­le­gi­ance to Jhaampe, the land be­comes even more rugged and un­yield­ing. Snow never leaves the taller peaks, and some val­leys host only gla­cial ice. In some areas, it is said that great steams and smokes pour up from cracks in the moun­tains and that the earth may tremble quietly or wrench it­self in vi­ol­ent shak­ings. There are few reas­ons for any­one to ven­ture into that re­gion of scree and cliffs. Hunt­ing is easier and more prof­it­able on the greener slopes of the moun­tains. There is in­suf­fi­cient graz­ing to lure any shep­herd’s flocks.

  Re­gard­ing that land, we have the usual tales that dis­tant lands spawn. Dragons and gi­ants, an­cient tumble­down cit­ies, sav­age uni­corns, treas­ure hoards and secret maps, dusty streets paved with gold, val­leys of eternal spring where the wa­ter rises steam­ing from the ground, dan­ger­ous sor­cer­ers spell-locked in caves of gems and an­cient sleep­ing evils em­bed­ded in the earth. All are said to reside in the an­cient, name­less land bey­ond the bound­ar­ies of the Moun­tain King­dom.

  Kettricken truly had ex­pec­ted me to re­fuse to help her search for Ver­ity. In the days of my con­vales­cence she had de­term­ined she would seek for him on her own, and to that end she had mustered sup­plies and an­im­als. In the Six Duch­ies, a queen would have had the royal treas­ury to draw on, as well as the en­forced lar­gesse of her nobles. Such was not the case in the Moun­tain King­dom. Here, while King Eyod re­mained alive, she was no more than a younger re­l­at­ive of the Sac­ri­fice. While it was ex­pec­ted that she would suc­ceed him some day, it gave her no right to com­mand the wealth of her people. In truth, even were she Sac­ri­fice, she would not have had ac­cess to riches and re­sources. The Sac­ri­fice and his im­me­di­ate fam­ily lived simply within their beau­ti­ful dwell­ing. All of Jhaampe, the palace, the gar­dens, the foun­tains, all be­longed to the folk of the Moun­tain King­dom. The Sac­ri­fice did not want for any­thing, but neither did he pos­sess ex­cess.

  So Kettricken turned, not to royal cof­fers and nobles eager to curry fa­vour, but to old friends and cous­ins for what she needed. She had ap­proached her father, but he had told her, firmly but sadly, that find­ing the King of the Six Duch­ies was her con­cern, not that of the Moun­tain King­dom. Much as he grieved with his daugh­ter over the dis­ap­pear­ance of a man she loved, he could not di­vert sup­plies from de­fend­ing the Moun­tain King­dom from Regal of the Six Duch­ies. Such was the bond between them that she could ac­cept his re­fusal with un­der­stand­ing. It shamed me to think of the right­ful Queen of the Six Duch­ies turn­ing to the char­ity of her re­l­at­ives and friends. But only when I was not nurs­ing my re­sent­ment to­ward her.

  She had de­signed the ex­ped­i­tion to her con­veni­ence, not mine. I ap­proved of little of it. In the few days be­fore we de­par­ted, she deigned to con­sult me on some as­pects of it, but my opin­ions were over­rid­den as of­ten as they were listened to. We spoke to one an­other civilly, without the warmth of either an­ger or friend­ship. There were many areas where we dis­agreed, and when we did, she did as she judged wisest. Un­spoken but im­plied was that my judg­ment in the past had been faulty and short-sighted.

  I wanted no beasts of bur­den that might starve and freeze. Block as I might, the Wit left me vul­ner­able to their pain. Kettricken, how­ever, had pro­cured half a dozen creatures that she claimed did not mind snow and cold, and browsed rather than grazed. They were jep­pas, creatures nat­ive to some of the re­moter parts of the Moun­tain King­dom. They re­minded me of long-necked goats with paws in­stead of hooves. I had small faith that they would be able to carry enough to make them worth the nuis­ance of deal­ing with them. Kettricken told me calmly that I would soon get used to them.

  It all de­pends on how they taste, Nighteyes sug­ges­ted philo­soph­ic­ally. I was prone to agree with him.

  Her choice of com­pan­ions for the ex­ped­i­tion irked me even more. I saw no sense to her risk­ing her­self, but on that point I knew bet­ter than to ar­gue. I re­sen­ted Starling’s go­ing, once I dis­covered what she had bar­gained to be al­lowed to go. Her reason was still to find a song that would make her repu­ta­tion. She had bought her place in our group by her un­spoken trade that only if she were al­lowed to go would she make writ­ten re­cord that Molly’s child was mine also. She knew I felt she had be­trayed me, and wisely avoided my com­pany after that. With us would go three cous­ins of Kettricken’s, all big, stoutly-muscled folk well prac­tised in trav­el­ling through the Moun­tains. It would not be a large party. Kettricken as­sured me that if six were not enough to find Ver­ity, then six hun­dred would not suf­fice. I agreed with her that it was easier to sup­ply a smal­ler party, and that of­ten they trav­elled faster than large groups.

  Chade was not to be of our party. He was go­ing back to Buck­keep, to bear the tid­ings to Pa­tience that Kettricken would seek out Ver­ity, and to plant the seeds of ru­mour that there was, in­deed, an heir to the Six Duch­ies throne. He would also be see­ing Burrich and Molly and the child. He had offered to let Molly and Pa­tience and Burrich know that I was still alive. The of­fer had come awk­wardly, for he knew full well that I hated the part he had played in claim­ing my daugh­ter for the throne. But I swal­lowed my an­ger and spoke to him po­litely and was re­war­ded with his sol­emn prom­ise that he would say noth­ing of me to any of them. At the time it seemed like the wisest course. I felt that only I could fully ex­plain to Molly why I had ac­ted as I had. And she had already mourned me as dead once. If I did not sur­vive this quest, she would not grieve any more than she had.

  Chade came to bid me farewell the night he left for Buck. At first we both tried to pre­tend that all was well between us. We talked of small things that had once mattered to both of us. I felt genu­ine loss when he told me of Slink’s death. I tried to talk him into tak­ing Ruddy and Sooty with him, to re­turn them to Burrich’s care. Ruddy needed a firmer hand than he was get­ting, and the stal­lion could be far more than trans­port­a­tion to Burrich. His stud ser­vice could be sold or traded, and Sooty’s foal rep­res­en­ted more wealth to come. But Chade shook his head and said he
must travel swiftly and at­tract no at­ten­tion. One man with three horses was a tar­get for ban­dits if noth­ing else. I had seen the vi­cious little geld­ing Chade had for a mount. Bad-tempered as he was, he was tough and agile, and Chade as­sured me, very swift in a chase over bad ter­rain. He grinned as he said it, and I knew that that par­tic­u­lar abil­ity of the horse had been well tested. The Fool was right, I thought to my­self then bit­terly. War and in­trigue did agree with him. I looked at him, in his tall boots and swirl­ing cloak, at the rampant buck he wore so openly on his brow above his green eyes, and tried to equate him with the gentle-handed old man who had schooled me in how to kill people. His years were there still, but he car­ried them dif­fer­ently. Privately I wondered what drugs he used to pro­long his en­ergy.

  Yet as dif­fer­ent as he was, he was still Chade. I wanted to reach out to him and know that there was still a bond of some kind between us, but I could not. I could not un­der­stand my­self. How could his opin­ion still mat­ter so much to me, when I knew he was will­ing to take my child and my hap­pi­ness for the sake of the Farseer throne? I felt it as a weak­ness in my­self that I could not find the strength of will to hate him. I reached for that hatred, and came up with only a boy­ish sulk­i­ness that kept me from clasp­ing his hand at his de­par­ture or wish­ing him well. He ig­nored my sur­li­ness, which made me feel even more child­ish.

  After he was gone, the Fool gave me the leather saddle­bag he had left for me. In­side was a very ser­vice­able sheath knife, a small pouch of coins and a se­lec­tion of pois­ons and heal­ing herbs, in­clud­ing a gen­er­ous sup­ply of elf­bark. Wrapped and care­fully la­belled that it should be used only with the greatest cau­tion and in greatest need was a small pa­per of car­ris seed. In a battered leather sheath was a plain but ser­vice­able short sword. I felt a sud­den an­ger at him that I could not ex­plain. ‘It is so typ­ical of him,’ I ex­claimed and dumped the bag out on the table for the Fool to wit­ness. ‘Poison and knives. That is what he thinks of me. This is still how he sees me. Death is all he can ima­gine for me.’