Royal Assassin (UK)

by Robin Hobb

  You did.

  Nighteyes. I ac­know­ledged him. I had no spirit to do more than that.

  Come with me. Come with me and we will hunt. I can take you far from all of this.

  In a while, per­haps, I put him off. I did not have the strength to deal with him.

  I sat for a long time, ac­tu­ally. My en­counter with Burrich hurt as badly as the beat­ing had. I tried to think of one per­son in my life whom I had not failed, had not dis­ap­poin­ted. I could think of no one.

  I glanced down at Brawndy’s cloak. I was cold enough to want it, but too sore to pick it up. A pebble on the floor be­side it caught my eye. It puzzled me. I had looked at this floor long enough to know there were no loose dark pebbles in my cell.

  Curi­os­ity is a dis­turb­ingly strong force. Fi­nally, I leaned over and picked up the cloak, and the pebble next to it. It took some time to get the cloak around me. Then I ex­amined my pebble. It wasn’t a pebble. It was dark and wet. A wad of some­thing? Leaves. A pel­let of wad­ded leaves. A pel­let that had stung my chin when Burrich spat at me? Cau­tiously I held it up to the fickle light that wandered in the barred win­dow. Some­thing white se­cured the outer leaf. I picked it loose. What had caught my eye was the white end of a por­cu­pine quill, while the black, barbed tip had se­cured the leaf wrap­ping. Un­fol­ded, the leaf re­vealed a sticky brown wad. I lif­ted it to my nose and sniffed it cau­tiously. A mix­ture of herbs, but one dom­in­ated. I re­cog­nized the scent queas­ily. Car­ryme. A moun­tain herb. A power­ful paink­iller and sed­at­ive, some­times used to ex­tin­guish life mer­ci­fully. Kettricken had used it when she had tried to kill me in the moun­tains.

  Come with me.

  Not just now.

  This was Burrich’s part­ing gift to me? A mer­ci­ful end? I thought over what he had said. Bet­ter just to lie down and die. This, from the man who had taught me the fight wasn’t over un­til you had won it? The con­tra­dic­tion was too sharp.

  Heart of the Pack says you should come with me. Now. To­night. Lie down, he says. Be a bone for the dogs to dig up later, he says. I could feel the ef­fort Nighteyes was put­ting into re­lay­ing this mes­sage.

  I was si­lent, think­ing.

  He took the quill from my lip, brother. I think we can trust him. Come with me now, to­night.

  I con­sidered the three things that lay in my hand. The leaf, the quill, the pel­let. I re­wrapped the pel­let in the leaf, se­cured it with the quill again.

  I don’t un­der­stand what he wants me to do, I com­plained.

  Lie down and be still. Still your­self, and go with me, as my­self. A long pause as Nighteyes worked some­thing through in his head. Eat what he gave you only if you must. Only if you can­not come to me on your own.

  I have no idea what he is up to. But, like you, I think we can trust him. In the dim­ness, past all wear­i­ness, I sat pick­ing at the stitch­ing in my sleeve. When it fi­nally came loose, I coaxed the tiny pa­per packet of powder out, and then pushed the leaf-wrapped pel­let in. I man­aged to force the quill to hold it there. I looked at the pa­per packet in my hand. A tiny idea came to me, but I re­fused to dwell on it. I gripped it in my hand. Then I wrapped my­self in Brawndy’s cloak and slowly lay my­self down on the bench. I knew I should keep vi­gil, lest Will come back. I was too hope­less and too weary. I am with you, Nighteyes.

  We sped away to­gether, over crus­ted white snow, into a wolf world.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Ex­e­cu­tion

  Sta­ble­mas­ter Burrich was renowned dur­ing his years at Buck­keep as an ex­traordin­ary horse-hand­ler as well as a hounds­man and hawker. His skill with beasts was near le­gendary even in his own life­time.

  He began his years of ser­vice as a com­mon sol­dier. It is said he came from folk who had settled in Shoaks. Some say his grand­mother was of slave stock, who bought her­self free from a Bing­town mas­ter by an ex­traordin­ary ser­vice.

  As a sol­dier, his fierce­ness in battle brought him to the at­ten­tion of a young Prince Chiv­alry. It is ru­moured that he first ap­peared be­fore his prince on a dis­cip­lin­ary mat­ter re­gard­ing a tav­ern brawl. He served Chiv­alry for a time as a weapons part­ner, but Chiv­alry dis­covered his gift for an­im­als and put him in charge of his guards’ horses. He was soon caring for Chiv­alry’s hounds and hawks as well, and even­tu­ally came to over­see the en­tire stables of Buck­keep. His sage doc­tor­ing of beasts and know­ledge of their in­ternal work­ings ex­ten­ded to cattle, sheep and swine and the oc­ca­sional treat­ment of fowl. No one ex­ceeded him in his un­der­stand­ing of beasts.

  Severely in­jured in a boar-hunt­ing ac­ci­dent, Burrich ac­quired a limp he was to suf­fer the rest of his life. It seems to have mit­ig­ated the quick and sav­age tem­per that was his repu­ta­tion as a young man. How­ever, it is also true he re­mained a man that few crossed will­ingly to the end of his days.

  His herbal rem­edy was re­spons­ible for halt­ing the out­break of scallers that af­flic­ted the lambs in Bearns Duchy fol­low­ing the Blood Plague years. He saved the flocks from total decim­a­tion, and kept the dis­ease from spread­ing into Buck Duchy.

  A clear night un­der shin­ing stars. A sound healthy body, sur­ging down a snowy hill­side in a series of ex­uber­ant leaps. Our pas­sage left snow cas­cad­ing from bushes in our wake. We had killed, we had eaten. All hun­gers were sat­is­fied. The night was fresh and open, crack­ing cold. No cage held us, no men beat us. To­gether, we knew the full­ness of our free­dom. We went to where the spring welled up so strongly it al­most never froze, and lapped the icy wa­ter. Nighteyes shook ourselves all over, then took a deep snuff of the air.

  Morn­ing comes.

  I know. I do not wish to think of it. Morn­ing, when dreams must end and real­ity be en­dured.

  You must come with me.

  Nighteyes, I am already with you.

  No. You must come with me, all the way. You must let go.

  So he had told me, at least twenty times already. I could not mis­take the ur­gency of his thoughts. His in­sist­ence was plain, and his single-minded­ness amazed me. It was not like Nighteyes to cling so firmly to an idea that had noth­ing to do with food. This was a thing he and Burrich had de­cided. I must go with him.

  I could not fathom what he wanted me to do.

  Over and over, I had ex­plained to him that I was trapped, my body in a cage, just as he had once been trapped in a cage. My mind could go with him, for a time at least, but I could not go with him as he urged me to. Each time he told me that he un­der­stood that, but I was not un­der­stand­ing him. And now we were back to it again.

  I sensed him at­tempt­ing pa­tience. You must come with me, now. All the way. Be­fore they come to wake you.

  I can­not. My body is locked in a cage.

  Leave it! he said sav­agely. Let go!

  What?

  Leave it, let go of it, come with me.

  You mean, die? Eat the poison?

  Only if you have to. But do it now, quickly, be­fore they can hurt you more. Leave it and come with me. Let go of it. You did it once be­fore. Re­mem­ber?

  The ef­fort of mak­ing sense of his words was mak­ing me aware of our bond. The pain of my own racked body broke through to haunt me. Some­where I was stiff with the cold, and aching with pain. Some­where, every breath brought an an­swer­ing twinge from my ribs. I scrabbled away from that, back to the wolf’s strong sound body.

  That’s right, that’s right. Just leave it. Now. Let go of it. Just let go.

  I knew ab­ruptly what he wanted me to do. I did not know quite how to do it, and I was not sure that I could. Once, yes, I re­membered that I had let go of my body and left it in his care. Only to awaken hours later be­side Molly. But I was not sure how I had done it. And it had been dif­fer­ent. I had left the wolf to guard me, when I had gone wherever I had gone. This time he wanted me just to break
my con­scious­ness free from my body. To will­ingly let go the tie that bound mind to flesh. Even if I could dis­cover how to do it, I did not know if I had the will to do it.

  Just lie down and die, Burrich had told me.

  Yes. That’s right. Die if you must, but come with me.

  I made an ab­rupt de­cision. Trust. Trust Burrich, trust the wolf. What did I have to lose?

  I drew a deep breath, poised in­side my­self as for a dive into cold wa­ter.

  No. No, just let go.

  I am. I am. I groped about in­side my­self, look­ing for whatever bound me to my body. I slowed my breath­ing, I willed my heart to beat more slowly. I re­fused the sen­sa­tions of pain, of cold, of stiff­ness. I sank away from all of it, deep into my­self.

  No! No! Nighteyes howled in des­per­a­tion. To me! Come to me, let go of that, come to me!

  But there was the scuff of foot­steps, and the mut­ter of voices. A shud­der of fear went through me and des­pite my­self, I cowered deeper into Brawndy’s cloak. One eye would open a bit. It showed me the same dimly lit cell, the same tiny barred win­dow. There was a deep cold pain in­side me, some­thing more in­si­di­ous than hun­ger. They had broken no bones, but in­side me, some­thing was torn. I knew it.

  You are back in the cage! Nighteyes cried. Leave it! Leave your body and come to me!

  It’s too late, I whispered. Run away, run away. Don’t share this.

  Are we not pack? Des­per­a­tion as throb­bing as a wolf’s drawn-out howl.

  They were at my door, it was swinging open. Fear seized me in its jaws and shook me. Al­most I lif­ted my cuff to my mouth and chewed the pel­let from my sleeve right then. In­stead, I gripped the tiny pa­per packet in my fist, and made a de­term­ined res­ol­u­tion to for­get about it.

  The same man with the torch, the same two guards. The same com­mand. ‘You. On your feet.’

  I pushed Brawndy’s cloak aside. One of the guards was still hu­man enough to pale at what he saw. The other two were stolid. And when I could not move swiftly enough to suit them, one seized me by the arm and jerked me to my feet. I cried out word­lessly with pain; I could not help it. And that re­sponse set me to trem­bling with fear. If I could not keep from cry­ing out, how could I hold my de­fences against Will?

  They took me from my cell and down the hall. I do not say I walked. All my bruises had stiffened in the night. The beat­ing had re­opened the sword cuts on my right fore­arm and on my thigh. Those pains, too, had been re­newed. Pain was like air now; I moved through it, I breathed it in and out of my­self. In the centre of the guard-room, one shoved me and I fell. I lay on the floor on my side. I saw no point to strug­gling to sit up; I had no dig­nity to save. Bet­ter that they thought I could not stand. While I could, I would be still and mar­shal whatever strength I could still call my own. Slowly, la­bor­i­ously, I cleared my­self and began to set the guards on my mind. Over and over, through the pain haze, I went over the Skill walls I had erec­ted, strength­en­ing them, seal­ing my­self away be­hind them. The walls of my mind were what I must guard, not the flesh of my body. Around me in the room, men lined the walls. They shuffled, and spoke quietly amongst them­selves, wait­ing. I scarcely no­ticed them. My world was my walls and my pain.

  There was the creak and draught of an opened door. Regal came in. Will walked be­hind him, care­lessly ra­di­at­ing Skill strength. I was aware of him as I had never be­fore been aware of a man. Even without sight, I could sense him, the shape of him, the heat of the Skill that burned in­side him. He was dan­ger­ous. Regal sup­posed he was only a tool. I dared a tiny sat­is­fac­tion in know­ing Regal did not know the per­ils of such a tool as Will.

  Regal took his chair. Someone brought a small table for him. I heard a bottle opened, then smelled wine as it was poured. The pain had tuned my senses to an un­bear­able keen­ness. I listened to Regal drink. I re­fused to ac­know­ledge how much I longed for it.

  ‘Dear me. Look at him. Do you sup­pose we have gone too far, Will?’ Some­thing in the arch amuse­ment in Regal’s voice in­formed me that he had taken more than wine today. Smoke, per­haps? So early? The wolf had said dawn. Regal would never be up at dawn … some­thing was wrong with my time sense.

  Will walked slowly to­ward me, stood over me. I did not try to move to see his face. I gripped my tiny store of strength firmly. He nudged me sharply with his foot and I gasped des­pite my­self. At al­most the same in­stant, he slammed his Skill strength against me. There, at least, I held firm. Will took a short breath through his nose, snorted it out. He walked back to Regal.

  ‘Your majesty. You’ve done al­most as much as you can to his body, without risk­ing dam­age that would plainly show even a month hence. But within, he still res­ists. Pain can dis­tract him from ward­ing his mind, but it does not in­her­ently weaken his Skill strength. I do not think you will break him this way.’

  ‘I did not ask you that, Will!’ Regal re­buked him sharply. I listened to him shift him­self to a more com­fort­able po­s­i­tion. ‘Ah, this takes too long. My dukes grow im­pa­tient. He must be broken today.’ Al­most pens­ively, he asked Will, ‘Al­most as much as I can, you say, to his body? What then would you sug­gest as the next step?’

  ‘Leave him alone with me. I can get what you wish from him.’

  ‘No.’ Regal’s re­fusal was flat. ‘I know what you want from him, Will. You see him as a fat wine­skin, full of Skill strength, which you would like to drain. Well, per­haps, at the end, there will be a way for you to have him. But not just yet. I want him to stand be­fore the dukes and con­fess him­self a traitor. More, I want him to grovel be­fore the throne, and beg for mercy. I will have him de­nounce all those who have de­fied me. He, him­self, shall ac­cuse them. No one will doubt it when he says they are trait­ors. Let Duke Brawndy see his own daugh­ter ac­cused, let all the court hear that the Lady Pa­tience who cries so loudly for justice has her­self be­trayed the crown. And for him … that candle-maker girl, that Molly.’

  My heart lurched side­ways in­side me.

  ‘I have not yet found her, my lord,’ Will ven­tured.

  ‘Si­lence!’ Regal thundered. Al­most, he soun­ded like King Shrewd. ‘Do not hearten him with that. She need not be found to be de­clared a traitor by his own lips. We can find her at our leis­ure. He can go to his death, know­ing she will fol­low him, be­trayed by his words. I will cleanse Buck­keep from dungheap to tower top of all who have sought to be­tray me and defy me!’ He lif­ted his cup in a toast to him­self and drank deeply.

  He soun­ded, I thought to my­self, very like Queen De­sire had in her cups. One part brag­gart and one part sniv­el­ling cow­ard. He would fear every­one he did not con­trol. And the next day he would fear those he con­trolled even more.

  Regal set his wine cup down with a thud. He leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, let’s con­tinue, shall we? Kel­fry, stand him up for us.’

  Kel­fry was a com­pet­ent man who took no joy in his work. He was not gentle, but neither was he rougher than he needed to be. He stood be­hind me, grip­ping me by the up­per arms to keep me up­right. Hod had not trained him. I knew if I snapped my head back swiftly, I could break his nose and pos­sibly take out some of his front teeth. Snap­ping my head back swiftly struck me as only slightly sim­pler than pick­ing up the floor un­der my own feet would be. I stood, hands curled de­fens­ively over my belly, push­ing the pain aside, gath­er­ing my strength. After a mo­ment, I lif­ted my head and re­garded Regal.

  I ran my tongue about the in­side of my mouth to free my lips from my teeth, then spoke. ‘You killed your own father.’

  Regal stiffened in his chair. The man hold­ing me tensed. I leaned in his arms, for­cing him to sup­port my weight.

  ‘Se­rene and Justin did it, but you ordered it,’ I said quietly. Regal came to his feet.

  ‘But not be­fore we had Skilled to Ver­ity,’ I made my voice louder. The
ef­fort broke sweat on me. ‘Ver­ity knows everything.’ Regal was com­ing at me, with Will right be­hind him. I swung my gaze to Will, put threat in my voice. ‘He knows about you, too, Will. He knows it all.’

  The guard held me as Regal back­han­ded me. Once. An­other slap, and I felt the swollen skin of my face split un­der the im­pact. Regal drew his fist back. I set my­self to take it, pushed away all pain, centred my­self, got ready.

  ‘Look out!’ Will yelled, and sprang to knock Regal aside.

  I had wanted it too badly, he had Skilled what I in­ten­ded to do. As Regal swung, I jerked free of my guard, slipped aside from Regal’s blow, then stepped in. With one hand I seized the back of Regal’s neck, to pull his face to­ward my other hand that gripped the now-crushed pa­per of powder. My in­tent had been to rub it into his nose and mouth, to hope against hope he’d get enough of it to kill him.

  Will spoiled it all. My swollen fin­gers would not close on Regal’s neck. Will snatched Regal from my wooden grasp, swung him side­ways away from me. As Will’s shoulder col­lided with my chest, I reached for his face in­stead, grind­ing the torn pa­per and fine white powder into his nose and mouth and eyes. Most of it floated up in a fine cloud between us. I saw him gasp at the bit­ter­ness and then we were down, both of us, un­der a wave of Regal’s guards.

  I dived for un­con­scious­ness, but it eluded me. I was struck, kicked and throttled be­fore Regal’s fren­zied cries of, ‘Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!’ seemed to mat­ter to any­one save me. I felt them get off me, felt them drag Will from un­der me, but I could not see. Blood was sheet­ing down over my face. My tears mingled with it. My last chance, and I had failed. I had not even killed Will. Oh, he would be sick for a few days, but I doubted he would die of it. Even now I heard them mut­ter­ing over him.