by Robin Hobb
“Can you really shoot well?” I asked her as I grudgingly surrendered it.
A funny smile twisted her face. She looked down at her crooked fingers. “I would not tell you I could do a thing if I could not. Some of my old skills are still mine,” she said quietly.
We set out to clamber back up onto the tumbled rock. Kettle went first, her probing staff in hand, and I came behind her, one staff length back as she had bid me. She didn’t say a word to me as she glanced back and forth between the ground at her feet and where she wished to take us. I could not discern what it was that decided her path, but the loose stone and crystalline snow remained quiet under her short steps. She made it look easy enough that I began to feel foolish.
They are eating now. And no one keeps a watch.
I relayed the information to Kettle, who nodded grimly. To myself I fretted and wondered if she would be able to do what needed doing. To be good with a bow is one thing. To shoot a man down while he is eating his dinner peacefully is another. I thought of Starling’s objection, and wondered what kind of man would show himself and issue a challenge before trying to kill all three men. I touched the hilt of my shortsword. Well, it was what Chade had promised me so long ago. Killing for my king, with none of the honor or glory of the soldier on the battlefield. Not that any of my battle memories had much of honor or glory in them.
We were suddenly clambering down from the loose rock of the slide area, going very quietly and carefully. Kettle spoke very softly. “We’ve a ways to go yet. But when we get there, let me choose my spot, and get my first shot off. As soon as the man is down, show yourself and draw their attention. They may not look for me, and I may get another clean shot. ”
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“Have you done this sort of thing before?” I asked softly.
“It’s not that different from our game, Fitz. From here, let us go silently. ”
I knew then she had not killed this way before, if she had ever killed a human before at all. I began to doubt the wisdom of giving her the bow. At the same time, I was selfishly grateful for her companionship. I wondered if I were losing my courage.
Perhaps you are learning that a pack is best for such things.
Perhaps.
There was little cover on the road. Above and below us, the mountainside rose sheer. The road itself was flat and bare. We rounded a shoulder of the mountain and their camp was in plain sight. All three guards still sat carelessly about the fire, eating and talking. The horses caught our scent and shifted with small snortings. But as the wolf had kept them uneasy for some time, the men paid them no mind. Kettle set an arrow to her bow as we walked and carried it ready. In the end, it was simple. Ugly mindless slaughter, but simple. She let go her arrow when one of the men noticed us. It took him through the chest. The other two leaped to their feet, turned to see us, and dived for their weapons. But in that short space of time, Kettle had nocked another arrow and let fly as the helpless wretch drew a sword clear. Nighteyes came suddenly from behind to bear the last man down and hold him until I could rush in to finish him with a sword.
It had happened swiftly, almost quietly. Three dead men sprawled in the snow. Six sweating, restless horses, one impassive mule. “Kettle. See what food they have on the horses,” I told her, to stop her awful staring. She swung her gaze to me, then slowly nodded.
I went over the bodies, to see what they might tell me. They did not wear Regal’s colors, but the origin of two were plain in the features of their faces and the cut of their clothes. Farrowmen. The third one, when I turned him over, near stopped my heart. I’d known him in Buckkeep. Not well, but enough to know his name was Tallow. I crouched looking down into his dead face, ashamed that I could recall no more of him than that. I supposed he had gone on to Tradeford when Regal moved the court there; many of the servants had. I tried to tell myself it did not matter where he had begun, he had ended here. I closed my heart and did my tasks.
I tumbled the bodies off the cliff’s edge. While Kettle went through their stores and sorted out what she thought we two could carry back, I stripped the horses of every bit of harness and tack. This followed the bodies down the cliff. I went through their bags, finding little besides warm clothes. The pack animal carried only their tent and such things. No papers. What need would coterie members have of written instructions?
Drive the horses well down the road. I doubt they’ll come back here on their own.
That much meat, and you want me to just chase it away?
If we kill one here, it’s more than we can eat and carry. Whatever we left would feed those three when they return. They were carrying dry meat and cheese. I’ll see your belly is full tonight.
Nighteyes was not pleased, but he heeded me. I think he chased the horses farther and faster than he truly needed to, but at least he left them alive. I had no idea what their chances were in the mountains. Probably end up in a snowcat’s belly, or as a feast for the ravens. I was suddenly horribly tired of it all.
“Shall we go on?” I asked Kettle needlessly, and she nodded. It was a good trove of food she had packed for us to carry, but I privately wondered if I’d be able to stomach any of it. What little we could not carry nor the wolf stuff down, we kicked over the edge. I looked around us. “Dare I touch it, I’d try to push that pillar over the edge, too,” I told Kettle.
She gave me a look as if she thought I had asked it of her. “I fear to touch it also,” she said at last, and we both turned away from it.
Evening crept across the mountains as we went up the road, and night came swift on her heels. I followed Kettle and the wolf across the landslide in near darkness. Neither of them seemed afraid, and I was suddenly too weary to care if I survived the trek. “Don’t let your mind wander,” Kettle chided me as we finally came down off the tumble of stone and onto the road again. She took my arm and gripped it tightly. We walked for a time in almost blackness, simply following the straight flat road before us as it cut across the face of the mountain. The wolf went ahead of us, coming back frequently to check on us. Camp’s not much farther, he encouraged me after one such trip.
“How long have you been doing this?” Kettle asked me after a time.
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Since I was about twelve,” I told her.
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“How many men have you killed?”
It was not the cold question it sounded. I answered her seriously. “I don’t know. My . . . teacher advised me against keeping a count. He said it wasn’t a good idea. ” Those weren’t his exact words. I remembered them well. “How many doesn’t matter after one,” Chade had said. “We know what we are. Quantity makes you neither better nor worse. ”
I pondered now what he had meant by that as Kettle said to the dark, “I killed once before. ”
I made no reply. I’d let her tell me about it if she wished, but I really didn’t want to know.
Her arm in mine began to tremble slightly. “I killed her, in a temper. I didn’t think I could, she had always been stronger. But I lived and she died. So they burned me out, and turned me out. Sent me into exile forever. ” Her hand found mine and gripped it tightly. We kept on walking. Ahead of us, I spied a tiny glow. It was most likely the brazier burning inside the tent.
“It was so unthinkable, to do what I had done,” Kettle said wearily. “It had never happened before. Oh, between coteries, certainly, once in a great while, for rivalry for the King’s favor. But I Skill-dueled a member of my own coterie, and killed her. And that was unforgivable. ”
29
The Rooster Crown
THERE IS A game played among the Mountain folk. It is a complex game to learn, and a difficult one to master. It features a combination of cards and rune chips. There are seventeen cards, usually about the size of a man’s hand and made from any light-colored wood. Each of these cards features an emblem from Mountain lore, such as the Old Weav
er-Man or She Who Tracks. The renderings of these highly stylized images are usually done in paint over a burnt outline. The thirty-one rune chips are made from a gray stone peculiar to the Mountains, and are incised with glyphs for Stone, Water, Pasture, and the like. The cards and stones are dealt out to the players, usually three, until no more remain. Both cards and runes have traditional weights that are varied when they are played in combination. It is reputed to be a very old game.
We walked the rest of the way to the tent in silence. What she had told me was so immense I could not think of anything to say. It would have been stupid to voice the hundreds of questions that sprang up in me. She had the answers, and she would choose when to give them to me. I knew that now. Nighteyes came back to me silently and swiftly. He slunk close to my heels.
She killed within her pack?
So it seems.
It happens. It is not good, but it happens. Tell her that.
Not just now.
No one said much as we came into the tent. No one wanted to ask. So I quietly said, “We killed the guards and drove off the horses and threw their supplies off the cliff. ”
Starling only stared at us, without comprehension. Her eyes were wide and dark, birdlike. Kettricken poured mugs of tea for us and quietly added the stores of food we had brought to our own dwindling supplies. “The Fool is a bit better,” she offered by way of conversation.
I looked at him sleeping in his blankets and doubted it. His eyes had a sunken look. Sweat had plastered his fine hair to his skull and his restless sleep had stood it up in tufts. But when I set my hand to his face, it was almost cool to the touch. I snugged the blanket closer around him. “Did he eat anything?” I asked Kettricken.
“He drank some soup. I think he’ll be all right, Fitz. He was sick once before, for a day or so in Blue Lake. It was the same, fever and weakness. He said then that it might not be a sickness, but only a change his kind go through. ”
“He said somewhat the same to me yesterday,” I agreed. She put a bowl of warm soup in my hands. For an instant it smelled good. Then it smelled like the remains of the soup the panicked guards had spilled on the snowy road. I clenched my jaws.
“Did you see the coterie members at all?” Kettricken asked me.
I shook my head, then forced myself to speak. “No. But there was a big horse there, and the clothing in his bags would have fit Burl. In another there were blue garments such as Carrod favors. And austere things for Will. ”
I said their names awkwardly, in a way fearing to name them, lest I summon them. In another way, I was naming those I had killed. Skilled or not, the Mountains would make an end of them. Yet I took no pride in what I had done, nor would I completely believe it until I saw their bones. All I knew for now was that it was not likely they would attack me this night. For an instant I imagined them returning to the pillar, expecting to find food and fire and shelter awaiting them. They would find cold and dark. They would not see the blood on the snow.
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I realized the soup was getting cold. I forced myself to eat it, mouthfuls that I simply swallowed, not wishing to taste. Tallow had played the pennywhistle. I had a sudden memory of him sitting on the back steps outside the scullery, playing for a couple of kitchen maids. I shut my eyes, wishing vainly that I could recall something evil about him. I suspected his only crime had been serving the wrong master.
“Fitz. ” Kettle instantly poked me.
“I wasn’t wandering,” I complained.
“You would have, soon. Fear has been your ally this day. It has kept you focused. But you must sleep sometime tonight, and when you do, you must have your mind well warded. When they get back to the pillar, they will recognize your handiwork and come hunting you. Do you not think so?”
I knew it was so, but it was still unsettling to hear it spoken aloud. I wished Kettricken and Starling were not listening and watching us.
“So. We shall have a bit of our game again, shall we?” Kettle cajoled.
We played four chance games. I won twice. Then she set up a game with almost entirely white pieces, and gave me one black stone with which to win. I tried to focus my mind on the game, knowing it had worked before, but I was simply too tired. I found myself thinking that it had been over a year since I had left Buckkeep as a corpse. Over a year since I had slept in a real bed I called my own. Over a year since meals had been reliable. Over a year since I had held Molly in my arms, over a year since she had bid me leave her alone forever.
“Fitz. Don’t. ”
I lifted my eyes from the game cloth to find Kettle watching me closely.
“You can’t indulge that. You have to be strong. ”
“I am too tired to be strong. ”
“Your enemies were careless today. They did not expect you to discover them. They won’t be careless again. ”
“I hope they’ll be dead,” I said with a cheer I did not feel.
“Not that easily,” Kettle replied, unknowing of how her words chilled me. “You said it was warmer down in the city. Once they see they’ve no supplies, they’ll go back to the city. They have water there, and I’m sure they took at least some supplies for the day. I don’t think we can disregard them yet. Do you?”
“I suppose not. ”
Nighteyes sat up beside me with an anxious whine. I quelled my own despair and then quieted him with a touch. “I just wish,” I said quietly, “that I could simply sleep for a time. Alone in my mind, dreaming my own dreams, without fearing where I’ll go or who might attack me. Without fearing that my hunger for the Skill will overcome me. Just simple sleep. ” I spoke to her directly, knowing now she understood well what I meant.
“I can’t give you that,” Kettle told me calmly. “All I can give you is the game. Trust it. It’s been used by generations of Skill users to keep such dangers at bay. ”
And so I bent to the board once more, and fixed the game in my mind, and when I lay down by the Fool that night, I kept it before my eyes.
I hovered that night, like a nectar bird, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. I could reach a place just short of sleep and keep myself there by contemplating Kettle’s game. More than once, I drifted back to wakefulness. I would become cognizant of the dim light from the brazier and the sleeping forms beside me. Several times I reached out to check the Fool; each time his skin seemed cooler and his own sleep deeper. Kettricken, Starling, and Kettle rotated through watches that night. I noticed that the wolf shared Kettricken’s. They still did not trust me to remain wary through one, and I was selfishly grateful for that.
Just short of dawn, I stirred once more to find all still quiet. I checked the Fool, and then lay back and closed my eyes, hoping to find a few more moments of rest. Instead, in horrific detail, I beheld a great eye, as if the closing of my own eyes had opened this one. I struggled to open my own eyes again, I floundered desperately toward wakefulness, but I was held. There was a terrible pull on my mind, like the sucking pull of an undertow on a swimmer. I resisted with all my will. I could feel wakefulness just above me, like I bubble I could break into, if only I could touch it. But I could not. I struggled, grimacing my face, trying to pull my wayward eyes open.
The eye watched me. One single immense dark eye. Not Will’s. Regal’s. He stared at me, and I knew he took delight in my struggles. It seemed effortless for him to hold me there, like a fly under a glass bowl. Yet even in my panic, I knew that if he could have done more than hold me, he would. He had got past my walls, but had not the power to do more than threaten me. That was still enough to make my heart pound with terror.
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“Bastard,” he said fondly. The word broke over my mind like a cold ocean wave. I was drenched in its threat. “Bastard, I know about the child. And your woman. Molly. Tit for tat, Bastard. ” He paused and his amusement grew as my terror swelled. “Now, there’s a thought. Has she pretty t
its, Bastard? Would I find her amusing?”
“NO!”
I wrenched clear of him, sensing for an instant Carrod, Burl, and Will as well. I flung myself free.
I came awake abruptly. I scrabbled from my bedding and fled outside, bootless and uncloaked. Nighteyes followed at my heels, snarling in every direction. The sky was black and scattered with stars. The air was cold. I drew breath after shuddering breath of it, trying to still the sick fear in me. “What is it?” Starling demanded fearfully. She was on watch outside the tent.
I just shook my head at her, unable to voice the horror of it. After a time, I turned and went back inside. Sweat was coursing down my body as if I had been poisoned. I sat down in my muddle of blankets. I could not stop panting. The more I tried to still my panic, the greater it became. I know about the child. And your woman. Those words echoed and echoed through me. Kettle stirred in her bedding, then rose and came across the tent to sit behind me. She set her hands on my shoulders. “They broke through to you, did they?”
I nodded, tried to swallow with a dry throat.
She reached for a waterskin and handed it to me. I took a drink, almost choked, and then managed another swallow. “Think about the game,” she urged me. “Clear your mind of everything but the game. ”
“The game!” I cried out savagely, jerking both the Fool and Kettricken awake. “The game? Regal knows about Molly and Nettle. He threatens them. And I am powerless! Helpless. ” I felt the panic building in me again, the unfocused fury. The wolf whined, then growled deep in his throat.
“Can’t you Skill to them, warn them somehow?” Kettricken asked.
“No!” Kettle cut in. “He should not even think of them. ”
Kettricken gave me a look that mingled apology and righteousness. “I fear Chade and I were correct. The princess will be safer in the Mountain Kingdom. Do not forget that his task was to fetch her. Take heart. Perhaps even now Nettle is with him, on her way to safety, out of Regal’s reach. ”
Kettle called my gaze away from the Queen. “Fitz. Focus on the game. Only on the game. His threats could be a ploy, to trick you into betraying them. Don’t talk about them. Don’t think about them. Here. Look here. ” Her trembling old hands moved my blanket away and spread out the gamecloth. She spilled stones into her hand, and plucked out white ones to re-create the problem. “Solve this. Focus on this, and this only. ”