Assassin's Quest (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  Hap is a strange boy, one brown eye and one blue. His mother had not been mer­ci­ful, and his early memor­ies are not gentle ones. She had named him Mis­hap. Per­haps, to her, he was. I find I call him ‘boy’ as of­ten as not. He does not seem to mind. I have taught him his let­ters and his num­bers and the grow­ing and har­vest­ing of herbs. He was seven when she brought him to me. Now he is nearly ten. He is good with a bow. Nighteyes ap­proves of him. He hunts well for the old wolf.

  When Starling comes, she brings me news. I do not know that I al­ways wel­come it. Too many things have changed, too much is strange. Lady Pa­tience rules at Trade­ford. Their hemp fields yield fully as much pa­per now as they do fine rope. The size of the gar­dens there has doubled. The struc­ture that would have been the King’s Circle is now a botan­ical garden of plants gathered from every corner of the Six Duch­ies and bey­ond.

  Burrich and Molly and their chil­dren are well. They have Nettle and little Chiv­alry and an­other on the way. Molly tends her hives and candle shop, while Burrich has used stud fees from Reddy and Reddy’s colt to be­gin to breed horses again. Starling knows these things, for it was she who tracked them down and saw to it that Reddy, and Sooty’s colt were given over to him. Poor old Sooty was too old to sur­vive the jour­ney home from the Moun­tains. Molly and Burrich both be­lieve I am many years dead. Some­times I be­lieve that, too. I have never asked her where they live. I have never seen any of the chil­dren. In that, I am truly my father’s son.

  Kettricken bore a son, Prince Du­ti­ful. Starling told me he has his father’s col­our­ing, but looks as if he will be a tall slender man, like Kettricken’s brother Rurisk, per­haps. She thinks he is more ser­i­ous than a boy should be, but all of his tu­tors are fond of him. His grand­father jour­neyed all the way from the Moun­tain King­dom to see the lad who will someday rule both lands. He was well pleased with the child. I wondered what his other grand­father would have thought of all that had come to pass from his treaty-mak­ing.

  Chade no longer lives in the shad­ows, but is the hon­oured ad­vi­sor to the Queen. Ac­cord­ing to Starling, he is a fop­pish old man who is en­tirely too fond of the com­pany of young wo­men. But she smiles as she says it, and ‘Chade Fall­star’s Reck­on­ing’ will be the song she is re­membered for when she is gone. I am sure he knows where I am, but he has never sought me out. It is as well. Some­times, when Starling comes, she brings me curi­ous old scrolls, and seeds and roots for strange herbs. At other times she brings me fine pa­per and clear vel­lum. I do not need to ask the source. Oc­ca­sion­ally, I give her in re­turn scrolls of my own writ­ing; draw­ings of herbs, with their vir­tues and dangers; an ac­count of my time in that an­cient city; re­cords of my jour­neys through Chalced and the lands bey­ond. She bears them du­ti­fully away.

  Once it was a map of the Six Duch­ies that she brought to me from him. It was care­fully be­gun in Ver­ity’s hand and inks, but never com­pleted. Some­times I look at it and think of the places I could fill in upon it. But I have hung it as it is upon my wall. I do not think I will ever change it.

  As for the Fool, he re­turned to Buck­keep Castle. Briefly. Girl on a Dragon left him there, and he wept as she rose without him. He was im­me­di­ately ac­claimed as a hero and a great war­rior. I am sure that is why he fled. He ac­cep­ted neither title nor land from Regal. No one is quite sure where the Fool went or what be­came of him after that. Starling be­lieves he re­turned to his home­land. Per­haps. Per­haps, some­where there is a toy­maker who makes pup­pets that are a de­light and a mar­vel. I hope he wears an ear­ring of sil­ver and blue. The fin­ger­prints he left on my wrist have faded to a dusky grey.

  I think I will al­ways miss him.

  I was six years in find­ing my way back to Buck. One we spent in the Moun­tains. One was spent with Black Rolf. Nighteyes and I learned much of our own kind in our sea­sons there, but dis­covered we like our own com­pany best. Des­pite Holly’s best ef­fort, Ol­lie’s girl looked at me and de­cided I would most def­in­itely not do. My feel­ings were not in­jured in the least and it provided an ex­cuse to move on again.

  We have been north to the Near Is­lands, where the wolves are as white as the bears. We have been south to Chalced, and even bey­ond Bing­town. We have walked up the banks of the Rain River and rid­den a raft back down. We have dis­covered that Nighteyes does not like trav­el­ling by ship, and I do not like lands that have no win­ters. We have walked bey­ond the edges of Ver­ity’s maps.

  I had thought I would never re­turn to Buck again. But we did. The au­tumn winds brought us here one year, and we have not left since. The cot­tage we claimed as ours once be­longed to a char­coal burner. It is not far from Forge, or rather where Forge used to be. The sea and the win­ters have de­voured that town and drowned the evil memor­ies of it. Someday, per­haps, men will come again to seek the rich iron ore. But not soon.

  When Starling comes, she chides me, and tells me I am a young man yet. What, she de­mands of me, be­came of all my in­sist­ence that one day I would have a life of my own? I tell her I have found it. Here, in my cot­tage, with my writ­ing and my wolf and my boy. Some­times, when she beds with me and I lie awake af­ter­wards listen­ing to her slow breath­ing, I think I will rise on the mor­row and find some new mean­ing to my life. But most morn­ings, when I awake aching and stiff, I think I am not a young man at all. I am an old man, trapped in a young man’s scarred body.

  The Skill does not sleep eas­ily in me. In sum­mers es­pe­cially, when I walk along the sea-cliffs and look out over the wa­ter, I am temp­ted to reach forth as Ver­ity once did. And some­times I do, and I know for a time, of the fish­er­wo­man’s catch, or the do­mestic wor­ries of the mate of the passing mer­chant ship. The tor­ment of it, as Ver­ity once told me, is that no one ever reaches back. Once, when the Skill-hun­ger was on me to the point of mad­ness, I even reached for Ver­ity-as-Dragon, im­plor­ing him to hear me and an­swer.

  He did not.

  Regal’s co­ter­ies long ago dis­ban­ded for lack of a Skill­mas­ter to teach them. Even on the nights when I Skill out in des­pair as lonely as a wolf’s howl­ing, beg­ging any­one, any­one to re­spond, I feel noth­ing. Not even an echo. Then I sit by my win­dow and look out through the mists past the tip of Antler Is­land. I grip my hands to keep them from trem­bling and I re­fuse to plunge my­self whole into the Skill river that is wait­ing, al­ways wait­ing to sweep me away. It would be so easy. Some­times all that holds me back is the touch of a wolf’s mind against mine.

  My boy has learned what that look means, and he meas­ures the elf­bark care­fully to deaden me. Carry me he adds that I may sleep, and ginger to mask the elf­bark’s bit­ter­ness. Then he brings me pa­per and quill and ink and leaves me to my writ­ing. He knows that when morn­ing comes, he will find me, head on my desk, sleep­ing amidst my scattered pa­pers, Nighteyes sprawled at my feet.

  We dream of carving our dragon.

  If you en­joyed As­sas­sin’s Quest, check out these other great Robin Hobb titles.

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  About the Au­thor

  Robin Hobb is the au­thor of five crit­ic­ally ac­claimed fantasy series: The Farseer Tri­logy, The Live­ship Traders Tri­logy, The Tawny Man Tri­logy, The Sol­dier Son Tri­logy and The Rain Wild Chron­icles. She lives and works in Ta­coma, Wash­ing­ton, and has been a pro­fes­sional writer for over 30 years.

  www.robin­hobb.com

  Fol­low Robin on Twit­ter @robin­hobb

  Also by the Au­thor

  AS ROBIN HOBB

  THE FARSEER TRI­LOGY

  As­sas­sin’s Ap­pren­tice

  Royal As­sas­sin

  As­sas­sin’s Quest

  THE LIVE­SHIP TRADERS

  Ship of Ma­gic

  The Mad Shipr />
  Ship of Des­tiny

  THE TAWNY MAN

  Fool’s Er­rand

  The Golden Fool

  Fool’s Fate

  THE SOL­DIER SON

  Shaman’s Cross­ing

  Forest Mage

  Reneg­ade’s Ma­gic

  THE RAIN WILD CHRON­ICLES

  The Dragon Keeper

  Dragon Haven

  City of Dragons

  Blood of Dragons

  The In­her­it­ance

  WRIT­ING AS MEGAN LIND­HOLM

  The Reindeer People

  Wolf’s Brother

  Harpy’s Flight

  The Wind­sing­ers

  The Limbreth Gate

  Luck of the Wheels

  Cloven Hooves

  Alien Earth

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