Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  He was nodding like a puppet. "Then you should stand up, I suppose. Of course." He didn't move.

  She looked up at him pleadingly. "It can't be that different," she panted. "From a foal or a calf…"

  His eyes went so wide I could see the whites all round them. He shook his head fiercely, mutely.

  "But Burrich… there's no one else to help me. And I'm…" Her words were suddenly torn away from her in a sort of cry. She leaned forward on the table, her legs folding so her forehead rested on the edge of it. She made a low sound, full of fear as well as pain.

  Her fear broke through to him. He gave his head a tiny quick shake, a man awakening. "No. You're right, it can't be that different. Can't be. I've done this hundreds of times. Just the same, I'm sure of it. All right. Now. Let's see. It's going to be all right, let me just… uh." He tore off his cloak and let it drop to the floor. He hastily pushed his wet hair back from his face, then came to kneel beside her. "I'm going to touch you," he warned her, and I saw her bowed head give a small bob of agreement.

  Then his sure hands were on her belly, stroking down gently but firmly as I'd seen him do when a mare was having a bad time and he wished to hasten things for her. "Not long now, not much more," he told her. "It's really dropped." He was suddenly confident, and I felt Molly take heart from his tone. He kept his hands on her as another contraction took her. "That's good, that's right." I'd heard him say those same comforting words a hundred times in the stalls of Buckkeep. Between pains, he steadied her with his hands, talking all the while softly, calling her his good girl, his steady girl, his fine girl that was going to drop a fine baby. I doubt either of them heard the sense of what he said. It was all the tone of his voice. He rose once to get a blanket and folded it on the floor beside him. He said no awkward words as he lifted Molly's nightdress out of the way, but only spoke softly, encouragingly as Molly clenched the table's edge. I could see the ripple of muscle, and then she cried out suddenly and Burrich was saying, "Keep going, keep going, here we are, here we are, keep going, that's fine, and what do we have here, who's this?"

  Then the child was in his grasp, head in one cupped, callused hand, his other supporting the tiny, curled body, and Burrich sat down suddenly on the floor, looking as amazed as if he had never seen anything born before. The women's talk I had overheard had made me expect hours of screaming and pools of blood. But there was little blood on the babe that looked up at Burrich with calm blue eyes. The grayish cord coiling from the belly looked large and thick compared to the tiny hands and feet. All was silence save for Molly's panting.

  Then, "Is he all right?" Molly demanded. Her voice shook. "Is something wrong? Why doesn't he cry?"

  "She's fine," Burrich said softly. "She's fine. And as beautiful as she is, what would she have to cry about?" He was silent for a long time, a man transfixed. Finally he reluctantly set her gently aside on the blanket, turned a corner of it up to cover her. "You've a bit more work to do here, girl, before we're done," he told Molly gruffly.

  But it was not long before he had Molly seated in a chair by the fire, a blanket about her to keep her from taking a chill. He hesitated a moment, then cut the cord with his belt knife before wrapping the child in a clean cloth and taking her to Molly. Molly immediately unwrapped her. While Burrich was tidying the room, Molly examined every inch of her, exclaiming over her sleek black hair, the tiny fingers and toes with their perfect nails, the delicacy of her ears. Then Burrich did the same while he held the baby and turned his back so that Molly might change into a nightgown that wasn't soaked through with sweat. He studied her with an intentness I'd never seen him give to a foal or a pup. "You're going to have Chivalry's brow," he told the babe softly. He smiled at her and touched her cheek with one finger. She turned her head toward the touch.

  When Molly came back to her seat by the fire, he handed the child back to her, but crouched on the floor beside her chair as Molly put the babe to her breast. It took the baby a few tries to find and hold the nipple, but when she finally suckled, Burrich heaved such a sigh that I knew he had been holding his breath for fear she would not nurse. Molly had eyes only for the child, but I marked how Burrich lifted his hands to rub at his face and eyes, and that those hands trembled. He smiled as I had never seen him do before.

  Molly lifted her gaze to him, her face like a sunrise. "Would you make me a cup of tea, please?" she softly asked him, and Burrich nodded, grinning like a simpleton.

  I came out of my dream hours before dawn, not knowing at first when I passed from thoughtfulness to wakefulness. I became aware my eyes were open and I was staring at the moon. It would be impossible to describe my feelings at that time. But slowly my thoughts took shape, and I understood the previous Skill dreams I'd had of Burrich. It explained much. I'd been seeing him through Molly's eyes. He'd been there, all this time, with Molly, taking care of her. She was the friend he'd gone to help, the woman who could use a man's strength for a bit. He'd been there with her, while I had been alone. I felt a sudden rising of anger that he had not come to me and told me that she carried my child. It was quickly quenched as I suddenly realized that perhaps he'd tried. Something had brought him back to the cabin that day. I wondered again what he had thought when he'd found it abandoned. That all his worst fears for me had come true? That I'd gone feral, never to return?

  But I would return. Like a door swinging open, I suddenly understood that I could do that. Nothing truly stood between Molly and me. There was no other man in her life, only our child. I grinned suddenly to myself. I would not let so small a thing as my death come between us. What was death, compared to a child's life shared? I would go to her, and explain, I'd tell her everything this time, and this time she would understand, and she'd forgive me, because there would never be any other secrets between us.

  I didn't hesitate. I sat up in the darkness, picked up my bundle that I'd been using as a pillow, and set out. Downriver was so much easier than up. I had a few silvers, I'd get onto a boat somehow, and when they ran out, I'd work my passage. The Vin was a slow river, but once I was past. Turlake, the Buck River would rush me along in its strong current. I was going back. Home, to Molly and our daughter.

  Come to me.

  I halted. It was not Verity Skilling to me. I knew that. This came from within me, the mark left by that sudden and powerful Skilling. I was certain that if he knew why I had to go home, he'd tell me to hurry, not to worry about him, that he'd be fine. It would be all right. All I had to do was keep walking.

  One step after another down a moonlit road. With each footfall, with each beat of my heart, I heard words in my mind. Come to me. Come to me. I can't, I pleaded. I won't, I defied them. I kept walking. I tried to think only of Molly, only of my tiny daughter. She would need a name. Would Molly have named her before I got there?

  Come to me.

  We'd need to get married right away. Find some local Witnesser in some small village. Burrich would vouch that I was a foundling, with no parentage for the Witnesser to memorize. I'd say my name was Newboy. An odd name, but I'd heard odder, and I could live with it the rest of my life. Names, once so important to me, no longer mattered. They could call me Horsedung, as long as I could live with Molly and my daughter.

  Come to me.

  I'd need to get work of some kind, any kind. I abruptly decided that the silvers in my pouch were far too important to spend, that I'd have to work for my entire passage home. And once I was there, what could I do to earn a living? What was I fit for? I pushed the thought aside angrily. I'd find something, I'd find a way. I'd be a good husband, a good father. They would want for nothing.

  Come to me.

  My steps had gradually slowed. Now I stood upon a small rise, looking down the road before me. Lights still burned in the river town below. I had to go down there and find a barge heading downriver, willing to take on an unproven hand. That was all. Just keep moving.

  I did not then understand why I could not. I took a step, I stumbled, the world swung aro
und me dizzily, and I went to my knees. I could not go back. I had to go on, to Verity. I still do not understand it, so I cannot explain it. I knelt on the rise, looking down at the town, knowing clearly what I wished with all my heart to do. And I could not do it. Nothing held me back, no man lifted a hand or sword to me and bid me turn aside. Only the small insistent voice in my mind, battering at me. Come to me, come to me, come to me.

  And I could not do otherwise.

  I could not tell my heart to stop beating, I could not cease breathing and die. And I could not ignore that summoning. I stood alone in the night, trapped and suffocating in another man's will for me. A coolheaded portion of myself said, There, well, you see, that is how it is for them. For Will and the rest of the coterie, Skill imprinted by Galen to be loyal to Regal. It did not make them forget they had had another king, it did not make them believe what they did was right. They simply had no choice about it anymore. And to take it back a generation, that was how it had been for Galen, forced to be so fanatically loyal to my father. Verity had told me that his loyalty was a Skill-imprinting, done by Chivalry when they were all little more than boys. Done in anger against some cruelty Galen had wrought against Verity. The act of an older brother taking revenge on someone who had been mean to his little brother. It had been done to Galen in anger and ignorance, not even knowing fully that such a thing was possible. Verity said Chivalry had regretted it, would have undone it if he had known how. Had Galen ever awakened to what had been done to him? Did that account for his fanatical hatred of me, had it been a passing down to the son of the anger he could not allow himself to feel toward Chivalry, my father?

  I tried to get to my feet and failed. I sank slowly to the dirt in the center of the moonlit road, then sat there hopelessly. It didn't matter. None of it mattered, save that there were my lady and my child, and I could not go to them. Could no more go to them than I could climb the night sky and take down the moon. I gazed afar to the river, shining blackly in the moonlight, rippled like black slate. A river that could carry me home, but would not. Because the fierceness of my will was still not enough to break past that command in my mind. I looked up to the moon. "Burrich," I pleaded aloud, as if he could hear me. "Oh, take care of them, see they come to no harm, guard them as if they were your own. Until I can come to them."

  I do not recall going back to the holding pens, or lying down to sleep. But morning came and when I opened my eyes, that was where I was. I lay, looking up at the blue arch of the sky, hating my life. Creece came to stand between me and the heavens and look down on me.

  "You'd better get up," he told me, and then, peering closer, he observed. "Your eyes are red. You got a bottle you didn't share?"

  "I've got nothing to share with anybody," I told him succinctly. I rolled to my feet. My head was pounding.

  I wondered what Molly would name her. A flower name, probably. Lilac, or something like that. Rose. Marigold. What would I have named her? It didn't matter.

  I stopped thinking. For the next few days, I did what I was told. I did it well and thoroughly, distracted by no thoughts of my own. Somewhere inside me, a madman raged in his cell, but I chose not to know of that. Instead I herded sheep. I ate in the morning, I ate in the evening. I lay down at night and I rose in the morning. And I herded sheep. I followed them, in the dust of the wagons and the horses and the sheep themselves, dust that clotted thick on my eyelashes and skin, dust that coated my throat with dryness, and I thought of nothing. I did not need to think to know that every step carried me closer to Verity. I spoke so little that even Creece wearied of my company, for he could not provoke me to argument. I herded the sheep as single-mindedly as the best sheepdog that ever lived. When I lay down to sleep at night, I did not even dream.

  Life went on for the rest of them. The caravan master guided us well and the trip was blessedly uneventful. Our misfortunes were limited to dust, little water, and sparse grazing, and those misfortunes were ones we accepted as part of the road. In the evenings, after the sheep were settled and the meal cooked and eaten, the puppeteers rehearsed. They had three plays and they seemed bent on perfecting all of them before we reached Blue Lake. Some nights it was merely the motions of the puppets and their dialogue, but several times they set up completely, torches, stage, and backdrops, the puppeteers dressed in the pure white drapings that signified their invisibility, and went through the entire repertoire of plays. The master was a strict one, very ready with his strap, and he did not spare even his journeyman a lash or two if he thought he deserved it. A single line intoned incorrectly, one flip of a marionette's hand that was not as Master Dell dictated it, and he was amongst his cast, flaying about with the strap. Even if I had been in the mood for amusements, that would have spoiled it for me. So more often I went and sat looking out over the sheep, while the others watched the performances.

  The minstrel, a handsome woman named Starling, was often my companion. I doubted that it was from any desire for my company. Rather it was that we were far enough from the camp that she could sit and practice her own songs and harpings, away from the endless rehearsals and the weeping of the corrected apprentices. Perhaps it was that I was from Buck, and could understand what she missed when she spoke quietly of the gulls crying and the blue sky over a sea after a storm. She was a typical Buck woman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and no taller than my shoulder. She dressed simply, blue leggings and tunic. There were holes in her ears for earrings, but she wore none, nor were there any rings on her fingers. She would sit not far from me, and run her fingers over her harp strings and sing. It was good to hear a Buck accent again, and the familiar songs of the Coastal Duchies. Sometimes she talked to me. It was not a conversation. She spoke to herself in the night and I just happened to be within earshot, as some men talk to a favorite dog. So it was that I knew she had been one of the minstrels in a small keep in Buck, one I'd never been to, held by a minor noble whose name I didn't even recognize. Too late to worry about visiting or knowing; the keep and the noble were no more, swept through and burned out by the Red-Ships. Starling had survived, but without a place to rest her head or a master to sing for. So she had struck out on her own, resolved to head so far inland that she'd never again see a ship of any color. I could understand that drive. By walking away she saved Buck for herself, as a memory of how it had been once.

  Death had come close enough to her to brush her with its wingtips, and she wasn't going to die as she was, a minor minstrel for a lesser noble. No, somehow she was going to make her name, was going to witness some great event and make a song about it that would be sung down the years. Then she'd be immortal, remembered as long as her song was sung. It seemed to me she would have had a better chance of witnessing such an event if she'd stayed on the coast where the war was, but as if in answer to my unspoken thought, Starling assured me that she was going to witness something that left its witnesses alive. Besides, if you've seen one battle, you've seen them all. She saw nothing especially musical about blood. To that I nodded mutely.

  "Ah. I thought you looked more like a man-at-arms than a shepherd. Sheep don't break one's nose, or leave a scar like that down your face."

  "They do if you tumble down a cliff looking for some in a mist," I told her dourly, and turned my face aside from her.

  For a long time, that was as close as I came to having a conversation with anyone.

  We journeyed on, moving only as fast as laden wagons and a herd of sheep would permit. The days were remarkably similar. The countryside we passed was remarkably similar. There were a few novelties. Sometimes there were other folk camped at the watering places we came to. At one, there was a tavern of sorts, and here the caravan master delivered some small kegs of brandy.

  Once we were followed for half a day by folk on horseback who might have been bandits. But they veered off and left our trail in the afternoon, either bound to a destination of their own, or deciding what we possessed wasn't worth the effort of a raid. Sometimes other folk passed us, messengers and
folk traveling on horseback, unslowed by sheep and wagons. Once it was a troop of guards in the Farrow colors, pushing their horses hard as they passed us. I felt an uneasiness as I watched them pass our caravan, as if an animal scrabbled briefly against the walls that shielded my mind. Did a Skilled one ride amongst them, Burl or Carrod, or even Will? I tried to persuade myself it was merely the sight of the gold-and-brown livery that unnerved me.

  On another day we were intercepted by three of the nomadic folk whose grazing territory we were in. They came to us on tough little ponies that wore no more harness than a hackamore. The two grown women and the boy were all blond with faces baked brown by the sun. The boy's face was tattooed with stripes like a cat's. Their arrival occasioned a complete halting of the caravan, while Madge set up a table and cloth and brewed a special tea which she served to them with candied fruit and barley-sugar cakes. No coin exchanged hands that I saw, only this ceremonial hospitality. I suspected from their manner that Madge was long known to them, and that her son was being groomed to continue this passage arrangement.

  But most days were the same plodding routine. We rose, we ate, we walked. We stopped, we ate, we slept. One day I caught myself wondering if Molly would teach her to make candles and tend bees. What could I teach her? Poisons and strangling techniques, I thought bitterly. No. Her letters and numbers she'd learn from me. She'd still be young enough when I returned for me to teach her that. And all Burrich had ever taught me about horses and dogs. That was the day when I realized I was looking ahead again, was planning for a life after I'd found Verity and somehow taken him safely back to Buck. My baby was just an infant now, I told myself, suckling at Molly's breast and looking about with wide eyes and seeing all new. She was too young to know something was missing, too young to know her father wasn't there. I'd be back with them soon, before she learned to say "Pa." I'd be there to see her first steps.