Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Ver­ity con­sidered. ‘No. Of course not.’ But just as I felt re­lief that he was not com­pletely mad, he ad­ded, ‘It isn’t fin­ished yet.’ He looked again over his dragon with the fondly proud look he had once re­served for his best maps. ‘But even this much has taken me a long time. A very long time.’

  ‘Won’t you drink your tea while it’s hot, sir?’ Kettle asked, once more prof­fer­ing the cup.

  Ver­ity looked at it as if it were a for­eign ob­ject. Then he took it gravely from her hand. ‘Tea. I had al­most for­got­ten about tea. Not elf­bark, is it? Eda’s mercy, how I hated that bit­ter brew!’

  Kettle al­most winced to hear him speak of it. ‘No, sir, no elf­bark, I prom­ise you. It is made from way­side herbs, I’m afraid. Mostly nettle, and a bit of mint.’

  ‘Nettle tea. My mother used to give us nettle tea as a spring tonic.’ He smiled to him­self. ‘I will put that in my dragon. My mother’s nettle tea.’ He took a sip of it, and then looked startled. ‘It’s warm … it has been so long since I had time to eat any­thing warm.’

  ‘How long?’ Kettle asked him con­ver­sa­tion­ally.

  ‘A … long time,’ Ver­ity said. He took an­other sip of the tea. ‘There are fish in a stream, out­side the quarry. But it is hard enough to take time to catch them, let alone cook them. Ac­tu­ally, I for­get. I have put so many things into the dragon … per­haps that was one of them.’

  ‘And how long since you slept?’ Kettle pressed him.

  ‘I can­not both work and sleep,’ he poin­ted out to her. ‘And the work must be done.’

  ‘And the work shall be done,’ she prom­ised him. ‘But to­night you will pause, just for a bit, to eat and drink. And then to sleep. See? Look down there. Starling has made you a tent, and within it will be warm, soft bed­ding. And warmed wa­ter, to wash your­self. And such fresh cloth­ing as we can man­age.’

  He looked down at his silvered hands. ‘I do not know if I can wash my­self,’ he con­fided to her.

  ‘Then FitzChiv­alry and the Fool will help you,’ she prom­ised him blithely.

  ‘Thank you. That would be good. But …’ His eyes went afar for a time. ‘Kettricken. Was not she here, a while ago? Or did I dream her? So much of her was what was strongest, so I put it into the dragon. I think that is what I have missed the most, of all I have put there.’ He paused and then ad­ded, ‘At the times when I can re­call what I miss.’

  ‘Kettricken is here,’ I as­sured him. ‘She has gone hunt­ing, but she will re­turn soon. Would you like to be washed and freshly clothed when she re­turns?’ I had privately re­solved to re­spond to the parts of his con­ver­sa­tion that made sense, and not up­set him by ques­tion­ing the other parts.

  ‘That one sees past such things,’ he told me, a shade of pride in his voice. ‘Still, it would be nice … but there is so much work to do.’

  ‘But it is get­ting too dark to work any more today. Wait un­til to­mor­row. It will get done,’ Kettle as­sured him. ‘To­mor­row, I will help you.’

  Ver­ity shook his head slowly. He sipped more of the tea. Even that thin bever­age seemed to be strength­en­ing him. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I am afraid you can­not. I must do it my­self, you see.’

  ‘To­mor­row, you will see. I think, if you have strength enough by then, then it may be pos­sible for me to help you. But we shall not worry about it un­til then.’

  He sighed and offered the empty mug back to her. In­stead, she quickly gripped his up­per arm and drew him to his feet. She was strong for such an old wo­man. She did not seek to take the sword from his grasp, but he let it fall. I stooped to gather it up. He fol­lowed Kettle do­cilely, as if her simple act of tak­ing his arm had de­prived him of all will. As I fol­lowed, I ran my eyes down the blade that had been Hod’s pride. I wondered what had pos­sessed Ver­ity to take such a kingly weapon and turn it into a rock-carving tool. The edges were turned and notched from the mis­use, the tip no more poin­ted than a spoon. The sword was much like the man, I re­flec­ted, and fol­lowed them down to the camp.

  When we got down to the fireside, I was al­most shocked to see that Kettricken had re­turned. She sat by the fire, star­ing dis­pas­sion­ately into it. Nighteyes lay al­most across her feet. His ears pricked to­ward me as I ap­proached the fire, but he made no move to leave the Queen.

  Kettle guided Ver­ity dir­ec­tly to the make­shift tent that had been pitched for him. She nod­ded to the Fool, and without a word he took up a steam­ing basin of wa­ter from be­side the fire and fol­lowed her. When I ven­tured to enter the tiny tent also, the Fool shooed both me and Kettle away. ‘He will not be the first king I have ten­ded to,’ he re­minded us. ‘Trust him to me.’

  ‘Touch not his hands nor fore­arms!’ Kettle warned him sternly. The Fool looked a bit taken aback by that, but after a mo­ment he gave a bob­bing nod of agree­ment. As I left he was un­ty­ing the much-knot­ted thong that closed Ver­ity’s worn jer­kin, speak­ing all the while of in­con­se­quen­tial things. I heard Ver­ity ob­serve, ‘I have missed Charim so. I should never have let him come with me, but he had served me so long … He died slowly, with much pain. That was hard for me, watch­ing him die. But, he, too, has gone into the dragon. It was ne­ces­sary.’

  I felt awk­ward when I re­turned to the fire. Starling was stir­ring the pot of stew that was bub­bling mer­rily. A large chunk of meat on a spit was drip­ping fat into the fire, mak­ing the flames leap and hiss. The smell of it re­minded me of my hun­ger so that my belly growled. Kettle was stand­ing, her back to the fire, star­ing off into dark­ness. Kettricken’s eyes flickered to­ward me.

  ‘So,’ I said sud­denly, ‘how was the hunt­ing?’

  ‘As you see,’ Kettricken said softly. She ges­tured at the pot, and then tossed a hand cas­u­ally to in­dic­ate a butchered out wood-sow. I stepped over to ad­mire it. It was not a small an­imal.

  ‘Dan­ger­ous prey,’ I ob­served, try­ing to sound cas­ual rather than hor­ri­fied that my queen would take on such a beast alone.

  ‘It was what I needed to hunt,’ she said, her voice still soft. I un­der­stood her only too well.

  It was very good hunt­ing. Never have I taken so much meat with so little ef­fort, Nighteyes told me. He rubbed the side of his head against her leg in true af­fec­tion. She dropped a hand to pull gently at his ears. He groaned in pleas­ure and leaned heav­ily against her.

  ‘You’ll spoil him,’ I mock-warned her. ‘He tells me he has never taken so much meat with so little ef­fort.’

  ‘He is so in­tel­li­gent. I swear, he drove the game to­ward me. And he has cour­age. When my first ar­row did not drop her, he held her at bay while I nocked an­other one to my bow.’ She spoke as if she had noth­ing else on her mind but this. I nod­ded to her words, con­tent to let our con­ver­sa­tion be thus. But she sud­denly asked me, ‘What is wrong with him?’

  I knew she did not speak of the wolf. ‘I am not sure,’ I said gently. ‘He has known a great deal of priva­tion. Per­haps enough to … weaken his mind. And …’

  ‘No.’ Kettle’s voice was brusque. ‘That is not it at all. Though I will grant you he is weary. Any man would be, to do what he has done alone. But –’

  ‘You can­not be­lieve he has carved that whole dragon him­self!’ I in­ter­rup­ted her.

  ‘I do,’ the old wo­man replied with cer­tainty. ‘It is as he told you. He must do it him­self, and so he has done it.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Never have I heard such a thing. Even King Wis­dom had the help of his co­terie, or what was left of it when he reached here.’

  ‘No one could have carved that statue with a sword,’ I said stub­bornly. What she was say­ing was non­sense.

  For an­swer, she rose and stalked off into the dark­ness. When she re­turned, she dropped two ob­jects at my feet. One had been a chisel, once. Its head was peened over into a lump, its blade gone to noth­ing. The other w
as an an­cient iron mal­let head, with a re­l­at­ively new wooden handle set into it. ‘There are oth­ers, scattered about. He prob­ably found them in the city. Or dis­carded here­abouts,’ she ob­served be­fore I could ask the ques­tion.

  I stared at the battered tools, and con­sidered all the months that Ver­ity had been gone. For this? For the carving of a stone dragon?

  ‘I don’t un­der­stand,’ I said faintly.

  Kettle spoke clearly, as if I were slow. ‘He has been carving a dragon, and stor­ing all his memor­ies in it. That is part of why he seems so vague. But there is more. I be­lieve he used the Skill to kill Car­rod, and has taken griev­ous hurt in so do­ing.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘To have come so close to fin­ish­ing, and then to be de­feated. I won­der how sly Regal’s co­terie is. Did they send one against him, know­ing that if Ver­ity killed with the Skill, he might de­feat him­self?’

  ‘I do not think any of that co­terie would will­ingly sac­ri­fice him­self.’

  Kettle smiled bit­terly. ‘I did not say he was will­ingly sent. Nor did I say he knew what his fel­lows in­ten­ded. It is like the game of stones, FitzChiv­alry. One plays each stone to best ad­vant­age in the game. The ob­ject is to win, not to hoard one’s stones.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Girl on a Dragon

  Early in our res­ist­ance to the Red Ships, be­fore any­one in the Six Duch­ies had be­gun to call it a war, King Shrewd and Prince Ver­ity real­ized that the task fa­cing them was over­whelm­ing. No in­di­vidual man, no mat­ter how Skilled, could stand alone to fend the Red Ships from our coasts. King Shrewd summoned be­fore him Ga­len, the Skill­mas­ter, and dir­ec­ted him to cre­ate for Ver­ity a co­terie to aid the prince’s ef­forts. Ga­len res­is­ted this idea, es­pe­cially when he found that one of those he must train was a royal bas­tard. The Skill­mas­ter de­clared that none of the stu­dents presen­ted to him were worthy of train­ing. But King Shrewd in­sis­ted, telling him to make the best of them that he could. When Ga­len grudgingly gave in, he cre­ated the co­terie that bore his name.

  It soon be­came ap­par­ent to Prince Ver­ity that the co­terie, while in­tern­ally co­hes­ive, did not work well with the Prince at all. By then Ga­len had died, leav­ing Buck­keep with no suc­cessor to the post of Skill­mas­ter. In des­per­a­tion, Ver­ity sought for oth­ers trained in the Skill who might come to his aid. Al­though there had been no co­ter­ies cre­ated in the peace­ful years of King Shrewd’s reign, Ver­ity reasoned that there might still live men and wo­men trained for co­ter­ies be­fore that. Had not the longev­ity of co­terie mem­bers al­ways been le­gendary? Per­haps he could find one who would either help him, or be able to train oth­ers in the Skill.

  But Prince Ver­ity’s ef­forts in this area availed him noth­ing. Those he could identify as Skill-users from re­cords and word of mouth were all either dead, or mys­ter­i­ously van­ished. So Prince Ver­ity was left to wage his war alone.

  Be­fore I could press Kettle to cla­rify her an­swers, there was a cry from Ver­ity’s tent. Every one of us jumped, but Kettle was the first to the tent flap. The Fool emerged, grip­ping his left wrist in his right hand. He went straight to the wa­ter bucket and plunged in his hand. His face was con­tor­ted with either pain or fear, per­haps both. Kettle stalked after him to peer at the hand he gripped.

  She shook her head in dis­gust. ‘I warned you! Here, take it out of the wa­ter, it won’t do it any good. Noth­ing will do it any good. Stop. Think about it. It’s not really pain, it’s just a sen­sa­tion you’ve never felt be­fore. Take a breath. Re­lax. Ac­cept it. Ac­cept it. Breathe deep, breathe deep.’

  All the while she spoke, she tugged at the Fool’s arm un­til he re­luct­antly drew his hand from the wa­ter. Kettle im­me­di­ately over­set the bucket with her foot. She scuffed rock dust and gravel over the spilled wa­ter, all the while grip­ping the Fool’s arm. I craned my neck to peer past her. His first three fin­gers on his left hand were now tipped with sil­ver. He looked at them with a shud­der. I had never seen the Fool so un­nerved.

  Kettle spoke firmly. ‘It won’t wash off. It won’t wipe off. It’s with you now, so ac­cept it. Ac­cept it.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Don’t ask him that!’ Kettle snapped at me. ‘Don’t ask him any­thing just now. See to the King, FitzChiv­alry, and leave the Fool to me.’

  In my worry over the Fool, I had all but for­got­ten my king. I stooped to enter the tent. Ver­ity sat on two fol­ded blankets. He was strug­gling to lace up one of my shirts. I de­duced that Starling had ran­sacked all the packs to find clean clothes for him. It smote me to see him so thin that one of my shirts fit him.

  ‘Al­low me, my king,’ I sug­ges­ted.

  He not only dropped his hands away, he put them be­hind his back. ‘Is the Fool much hurt?’ he asked me as I fought with the knot­ted strings. He soun­ded al­most like my old Ver­ity.

  ‘Just three fin­ger­tips are silvered,’ I told him. I saw that the Fool had laid out a brush and thong. I stepped be­hind Ver­ity, and began to brush his hair back. He hast­ily snatched his hands around in front of him. Some of the grey in his hair had been rock dust, but not all. His war­rior’s queue was now grey with black streaks in it and coarse as a horse’s tail. I struggled to smooth it back. As I tied the thong I asked him, ‘What does it feel like?’

  ‘These?’ he asked, hold­ing up his hands and wag­gling the fin­gers. ‘Oh. Like Skill. Only more so, and on my hands and arms.’

  I saw he thought he had answered my ques­tion. ‘Why did you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, to work the stone, you know. When this power is on my hands, the stone must obey the Skill. Ex­traordin­ary stone. Like the Wit­ness Stones in Buck, did you know that? Only they are not nearly as pure as what is here. Of course, hands are poor tools for work­ing stone. But once you have cut away all the ex­cess, down to where the dragon waits, then he can be awakened with your touch. I draw my hands over the stone, and I re­call to it the dragon. And all that is not dragon shivers away in shards and chips. Very slowly, of course. It took a whole day just to re­veal his eyes.’

  ‘I see,’ I mur­mured, at a loss. I did not know whether he was mad or if I be­lieved him.

  He stood up as far as he could in the low tent. ‘Is Kettricken angry with me?’ he asked ab­ruptly.

  ‘My lord king, it is not for me to say …’

  ‘Ver­ity,’ he in­ter­rup­ted wear­ily. ‘Call me Ver­ity, and for Eda’s sake, an­swer the ques­tion, Fitz.’

  He soun­ded so like his old self I wanted to em­brace him. In­stead, I said, ‘I do not know if she is angry. She is def­in­itely hurt. She came a long and weary way to find you, bear­ing ter­rible news. And you did not seem to care.’

  ‘I care, when I think of it,’ he said gravely. ‘When I think of it, I grieve. But there are so many things I must think of, and I can­not think of them all at once. I knew when the child died, Fitz. How could I not know? He, too, and all I felt, I have put into the dragon.’

  He walked slowly away from me, and I fol­lowed him out of the tent. Out­side, he stood up straight, but did not lose the stoop in his shoulders. Ver­ity was an old man now, far older than Chade some­how. I did not un­der­stand that, but I knew it was true. Kettricken glanced up at his ap­proach. She looked back into the fire, and then, al­most un­will­ingly she stood, step­ping clear of the sleep­ing wolf. Kettle and Starling were bind­ing the Fool’s fin­gers in strips of cloth. Ver­ity went straight to Kettricken and stood be­side her. ‘My queen,’ he said gravely. ‘If I could, I would em­brace you. But you have seen that my touch …’ He ges­tured at the Fool and let his words trail away.

  I had seen the look on her face when she had told Ver­ity about the still­birth. I ex­pec­ted her to turn aside from him, to hurt him as he had hurt her. But Kettricken’s heart was lar­ger than that. ‘Oh, my hus�
�band,’ she said, and her voice broke on the words. He held his silvered arms wide, and she came to him, tak­ing him in her em­brace. He bowed his grey head over the rough gold of her hair, but could not al­low his hand to touch her. He turned his silvered cheek away from her. His voice was husky and broken as he asked her, ‘Did you give him a name? Our son?’

  ‘I named him ac­cord­ing to the cus­toms of your land.’ She took a breath. The word was so soft I scarce heard it. ‘Sac­ri­fice,’ she breathed. She clung to him tightly and I saw his thin shoulders con­vulse in a sob.

  ‘Fitz!’ Kettle hissed at me sharply. I turned to find her scowl­ing at me. ‘Leave them alone,’ she whispered. ‘Make your­self use­ful. Get a plate for the Fool.’

  I had been star­ing at them. I turned away, shamed to have been gawk­ing, but glad to see them em­brace, even in sor­row. I did as Kettle had ordered, get­ting food for my­self at the same time. I took the plate to the Fool. He sat cradling his in­jured hand in his lap.

  He looked up as I sat be­side him. ‘It doesn’t rub off on any­thing else,’ he com­plained. ‘Why did it cling to my fin­gers?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Be­cause you’re alive,’ Kettle said suc­cinctly. She sat down across from us as if we needed su­per­vis­ing.

  ‘Ver­ity told me he can shape rock with his fin­gers be­cause of the Skill on them,’ I told her.

  ‘Is your tongue hinged in the middle so that it flaps at both ends? You talk too much!’ Kettle re­buked me.

  ‘Per­haps I would not talk too much if you spoke a bit more,’ I replied. ‘Rock is not alive.’

  She looked at me. ‘You know that, do you? Well, what is the point of my talk­ing when you already know everything?’ She at­tacked her food as if it had done her a per­sonal wrong.

  Starling joined us. She sat down be­side me, her plate on her knees, and said, ‘I don’t un­der­stand about the sil­very stuff on his hands. What is it?’