by Robin Hobb
That resolve changed something in me. I'd never looked forward to something so much. This was not an assassination that would end in someone's death. No, I looked forward to a life, and imagined teaching her things, imagined her growing up bright and pretty and loving her father, knowing nothing, ever, of any other life he'd ever led. She wouldn't remember me with a smooth face and a straight nose. She'd only know me as I was now. That was oddly important to me. So I would go to Verity because I had to, because he was my king and I loved him, and because he needed me. But finding him no longer marked the end of my journey, but the beginning. Once I had found Verity, I could turn about and come home to them. For a time, I forgot Regal.
So I thought to myself sometimes, and when I did I walked behind the sheep in their dust and stink and smiled a tight upped smile behind the kerchief over my face. At other times, when I lay down alone at night, all I could think of was the warmth of a woman and a home and a child of my own. I think I felt every mile that stretched between us. Loneliness was a thing that ate at me then. I longed to know every detail of what was going on. Every night, every moment of quiet was a temptation to reach out with the Skill. But I understood Verity's admonition now. If I Skilled to them, then Regal's coterie could find them as well as me. Regal would not hesitate to use them against me in any way he could imagine. So I hungered for knowledge of them, but dared not attempt to satisfy that hunger.
We came to one village that was almost worthy of the name. It had sprouted up like a fairy ring of mushrooms around a deepwater spring. It had an inn, a tavern, and even several stores, all catering to travelers, with a scattering of houses surrounding it. We got there at midday, and Madge declared that we would have a rest, and not move on until the following morning. No one really objected. Once we'd watered our animals, we moved our beasts and wagons to the outskirts of town. The puppeteer decided to take advantage of the situation, and announced in the tavern and inn that his troupe would stage a performance for the whole town, with gratuities cheerfully accepted. Starling had already found a corner of the tavern to call her own and was introducing this Farrow town to some Buck ballads.
I was content to stay with the sheep on the outskirts of the town. I was soon the only one at our encampment. I did not especially mind. The horses' owner had offered me an extra copper, if I'd keep an eye on them. They scarcely needed watching. They were hobbled, but even so, all the animals were grateful to stop for a bit and search out whatever grazing they could find. The bull was staked out and likewise occupied with scavenging grass. There was a sort of peace to being still and alone. I was learning to cultivate an emptiness of spirit. I could now go for long stretches without thinking of anything in particular. It made my endless waiting less painful. I sat on the tail of Damon's cart and stared out over the animals and the gentle undulating of the brush spotted plain beyond them.
It did not last for long. In the late afternoon, the puppeteer's wagon came rattling into camp. Only Master Dell and the youngest apprentice were in it. The others had stayed in town to drink and talk and generally enjoy themselves. But the shouting of the master soon made it apparent that his youngest apprentice had disgraced herself with forgotten lines and incorrect movements. Her punishment was to stay in camp with the wagon. To this he added several sharp cuts with his strap. Both the snap of the leather and yelps of the girl were clearly audible across camp. I winced at the second one and was on my feet by the third one. I had no clear idea of my intention, and was actually relieved to see the master go striding off away from the wagon and back into town.
The girl wept noisily as she went about the task of unhitching the team and pegging it out. I'd noticed her before in a casual way. She was the youngest of the troupe, no more than sixteen, and seemed most often to be under her master's lash. Not that that was unusual. It was not uncommon for a master to have a lash to keep his apprentices devoted to their tasks. Neither Burrich nor Chade had ever taken a strap to me, but I'd had my share of cuffs and raps, and an occasional boot from Burrich if I wasn't moving fast enough to suit him. The puppeteer was no worse than many masters that I'd seen, and kinder than some. All of his underlings were well fed and well clothed. I suppose what irritated me about him was that one snap of his lash never seemed enough for him. It was always three or five or even more when he was in a temper.
The peace of the night was gone. Long after she'd finished staking out the horses, her deep sobbing rent the stillness. After a time I could not stand it. I went to the back of their traveling wagon and rapped on the small door. The weeping paused with a sniff. "Who is it?" she asked hoarsely.
"Tom the shepherd. Are you all right?"
I'd hoped that she'd say she was and tell me to go away. Instead the door opened after a moment and she stood peering out at me. Blood was dripping from her jawline. I saw at a glance what had happened. The end of the strap had curled past her shoulder and the tip had bitten wickedly into her cheek. I didn't doubt that it hurt badly, but I suspected the amount of blood was scaring her even more. I saw a looking glass set up on a table behind her and a bloody cloth beside it. For a moment we looked at one another wordlessly. Then, "He's ruined my face," she sobbed.
I couldn't think of words to say. Instead I stepped up into the wagon and took her by the shoulders. I sat her down. She'd been using a dry rag to poke at her face. Had she no sense at all? "Sit still," I told her tersely. "And try to be calm. I'll be right back."
I took her rag and damped it in cool water. I went back in and dabbed the blood away. As I suspected, the cut was not large, but it was bleeding profusely as cuts to the face or scalp often do. I folded the rag into a square and pressed it against her face. "Hold that there. Press on it a bit, but don't move it. I'll be back." I looked up to find her eyes fastened to the scar on my cheek as tears brimmed over from her eyes. I added, "Skin as fair as yours doesn't scar all that easily. Even if it leaves a mark, it won't be large."
The hugeness of her eyes of my words let me know I'd said exactly the wrong thing. I left the wagon, berating myself for getting involved at all.
I'd lost all my healing herbs and my pot of Burrich's ointment when I had abandoned my things in Tradeford. I'd noticed a flower that looked a bit like a stunted goldenrod in the area where the sheep were grazing, however, and some succulents sort of like bloodroot. So I pulled up one of the succulents, but it smelled wrong, and the juice from the leaves was sticky rather than like jelly. I washed my hands and then looked at the stunted goldenrod. It smelled right. I shrugged. I started out picking just a handful of leaves, but then decided as long as I was at it, I could restock a bit of what I'd lost. It appeared to be the same herb, but growing smaller and more straggly in this dry rocky soil. I spread out my harvest on the tail of the cart and sorted through it. The fatter leaves I left to dry. The smaller tips I crushed between two cleaned stones, and then took the resulting paste on one of the stones to the puppeteer's wagon. The girl looked at it with doubt, but nodded hesitantly when I told her, "This will stop the bleeding. Soonest closed is smallest scar."
When she took the rag away from her face, I saw that it had almost stopped bleeding. I smoothed on a fingertip's worth of the woundwort paste anyway. She sat quietly under my touch, and it was suddenly unnerving to recall that I had not touched a woman's face since I'd last seen Molly. This girl had blue eyes and they were wide-open and looking up into my face. I looked aside from the earnest gaze. "There. Now leave it alone. Don't wipe at it, don't touch it with your fingers, don't wash it. Let the scab form and then do your best to leave that alone."
"Thank you," she said in a tiny voice.
"Welcome," I told her, and turned to leave.
"My name is Tassin," she said to my back.
"I know. I've heard him roaring it at you," I said. I started to go down the steps.
"He's an awful man. I hate him! I'd run away if I could."
It didn't seem like a good time simply to walk away from her. I stepped off the wagon and paused. "I
know it's hard to feel a strap when you're trying hard. But… that's how it is. If you ran away and had no food, no place to sleep, and your clothing all going to rags, that would be worse. Try to do better, so he won't take up the strap." I believed so little of what I said, I could scarcely form the words. But those words seemed better than to tell her to leave now and run away. She wouldn't survive a day on the open prairie.
"I don't want to do better." She'd found a spark of spirit, to be defiant. "I don't want to be a puppeteer at all. Master Dell knew that when he bought my years."
I edged away back toward my sheep, but she came down the steps and followed after me.
"There was a man I liked in our village. He'd made an offer for me to be his wife, but had no money just then. He was a farmer, you see, and it was spring. No farmer has money in spring. He told my mother he'd pay a bride-price for me at harvest time. But my mother said, 'If he's poor now with one mouth to feed, he'll only be poorer after he has two. Or more.' And then she sold me to the puppeteer, for half what he'd usually pay for an apprentice, because I wasn't willing."
"They do it differently where I'm from," I said awkwardly. I couldn't grasp what she was telling me. "Parents pay a master to take on their child as apprentice, hoping the child can make a better life."
She smoothed her hair back from her face. It was light brown, with a lot of curl to it. "I've heard of that. Some do it that way, but most don't. They buy an apprentice, usually a willing one, and if he doesn't work out, then they can sell him for a drudge. Then you're not much better than a slave for six years." She sniffed. "Some say it makes an apprentice try harder, to know he may end up doing scut work in a kitchen or pumping a bellows in a smithy for six years if his master isn't pleased."
"Well. It sounds to me like you'd better learn to like puppets," I said lamely. I sat on the tail of my master's cart and looked out over my flock. She sat down next to me.
"Or hope someone buys me from my master," she said despondently.
"You make yourself sound like a slave," I said reluctantly. "It's not that bad, is it?"
"Doing something you think is stupid, day after day?" she asked me. "And being hit for not doing it perfectly? How is that better than being a slave?"
"Well, you're fed and clothed and sheltered. And he's giving you a chance to learn something, a trade that would let you travel all over the Six Duchies if you became good at it. You might end up performing for the King's Court at Buckkeep."
She looked at me oddly. "You mean Tradeford." She sighed and shifted herself closer to me. "It's lonely for me. All the others, they all want to be puppeteers. They get angry at me when I make mistakes, and always call me lazy and won't talk to me when they say I spoiled a performance. There's not one kind one among them; none of them would have cared about my face getting scarred as you did."
There seemed nothing to reply to that. I didn't know the others well enough to agree or disagree. So I said nothing and we sat watching the sheep. The silence lengthened as the night got darker. I thought that soon I should kindle a fire.
"So," she began after a few more minutes of my silence. "How did you become a shepherd?"
"My parents died. My sister inherited. She didn't particularly care for me, and here I am."
"What a bitch!" she said fiercely.
I took a breath to defend my fictitious sister, and then realized I'd only be extending the conversation. I tried to think of something I needed to go and do, but the sheep and other beasts were right there before us, grazing peacefully. Useless to hope that the others would soon return. Not with a tavern and new faces to talk to after our days on the road.
I finally made excuse that I was hungry and got up to gather stones and then dry dung and sticks for a fire. Tassin insisted on cooking. I was not truly hungry, but she ate with a hearty appetite, and fed me well from the puppeteer's traveling supplies. She made a pot of tea as well, and afterward we sat by the fireside sipping it from heavy red porcelain mugs.
Somehow the silence had changed from awkward to companionable. It had been pleasant to sit and watch someone else prepare the meal. She had chattered at first, asking if I liked this sort of spice and did I make my tea strong, but not really listening for any answers. Seeming to find some sort of acceptance in my silence, she had gone on to speak more intimately of herself. With a sort of despair, she spoke of days spent learning and practicing a thing she had no desire to learn nor practice. She spoke with a grudging marvel of the dedication of the other puppeteers, and their enthusiasm that she could not share. Her voice dwindled off and she looked up at me with eyes full of misery. She did not need to explain to me the loneliness she felt. She turned the talk to lighter things, the minor irritations she felt, the foods they ate that she disliked, the way one of the other puppeteers always smelled of old sweat, of one woman who reminded her to speak her lines by pinching her.
Even her complaints were pleasant in an odd way; filling my mind with her trivialities so that I could not focus on my larger problems. Being with her was in some ways like being with the wolf. Tassin was focused on the now, on this meal and this night, with little thought of anything else. From considering this my thoughts wandered to Nighteyes. I quested softly toward him. I could sense him, somewhere, alive, but could tell little more than that. Perhaps too great a distance separated us; perhaps he was too focused on his new life. Whatever the reason, his mind was not as open to me as it had once been. Perhaps he was simply becoming more attuned to the ways of his pack. I tried to feel glad that he had found such a life for himself, with many companions and possibly a mate.
"What are you thinking about?" Tassin asked.
She spoke so softly that I replied without thinking, still staring into the fire. "That sometimes it only makes one more lonely to know that somewhere else, one's friends and family are well."
She shrugged. "I try not to think of them. I suppose my farmer found another girl, one whose parents would wait for a bride-price. As for my mother, I suspect her prospects were better without me. She was not so old that she could not catch another man." She stretched, an oddly catlike gesture, then turned her head to gaze into my face and added, "There's no sense in thinking of what's far away and what you haven't got. It will only make you unhappy. Be content with what you can have now."
Our eyes were locked suddenly. There was no mistaking her meaning. For an instant I was shocked. Then she leaned across the small space between us. She put one hand on each side of my face. Her touch was gentle. She pushed the kerchief back from my hair, then used both hands to smooth the hair back from my face. She looked into my eyes as the tip of her tongue moistened her lips. She slid her hands down the sides of my face, down my neck to my shoulders. I was as entranced as a mouse looking at a snake. She leaned forward and kissed me, opening her mouth against mine as she did so. She smelled like sweet smoky incense.
I wanted her with a suddenness that dizzied me. Not as Tassin, but as woman and gentleness and closeness. It was lust that raced through me, and yet it was not that at all. It was like the Skill-hunger that eats at a man, demanding closeness and total communion with the world. I was unutterably weary of being alone. I caught her to me so quickly I heard her gasp of surprise. I kissed her as if I could devour her and somehow be less lonely by doing so. Suddenly we were prone and she was making small pleased sounds that suddenly changed to her pushing at my chest. "Stop a moment," she hissed. "Just wait. There's a rock under me. And I mustn't spoil my clothes, give me your cloak to spread out… "I watched her avariciously as she spread my cloak out on the earth by the fire. She lay down upon it and patted a place beside her. "Well? Aren't you coming back?" she asked me flirtatiously. More lewdly, she added, "Let me show you all I can do for you." She smoothed her hands down the front of her shirt, inviting me to think of my hands doing the same.
If she had said nothing, if we had never paused, if she had simply looked up at me from the cloak… but her question and her manner were all wrong, suddenly. All
the illusion of gentleness and closeness was gone, replaced by the same sort of challenge another fighter might offer me in a practice-yard with staves. I am no better than any man. I didn't want to think, to consider anything. I longed to be able to simply throw myself down upon her and quench myself in her, but instead I heard myself asking, "And if I get you with child?"
"Oh," and she laughed lightly as if she had never considered such a thing. "Then you can marry me, and buy my prentice years from Master Dell. Or not," she added, as she saw my face change. "A baby's not so large a thing to be rid of as a man might think. A few silvers for the right herbs… but we needn't think of that now. Why worry about a thing that may never come to pass?"
Why indeed? I looked at her, wanting her with all the lust of my months alone and untouched. But I knew also that for that deeper hunger for companionship and understanding, she offered me no more solace than any man might find in his own hand. I shook my head slowly, more to myself than to her. She smiled up at me mischievously and reached a hand toward me.
"No." I said the word quietly. She looked up at me, so incredulously amazed that I nearly laughed. "This is not a good idea," I said, and hearing the words aloud, I knew they were true. There was nothing lofty in it, no thoughts of undying faithfulness to Molly or shame that I had already left one woman with the burden of bearing a child alone. I knew those feelings, but they were not what came to me then. What I sensed was a hollowness in me that would only be made worse by laying myself down beside a stranger. "It's not you," I said as I saw her cheeks redden suddenly and the smile fade from her face. "It's me. The fault's with me." I tried to make my voice comforting. It was a waste.
She stood up suddenly. "I know that, stupid," she said scathingly. "I only meant to be kind to you, nothing more." She stalked angrily away from the fire, blending with the shadows quickly. I heard the slam of the wagon door.
I stooped slowly to pick my cloak up and shake the dust from it. Then, the night having become suddenly colder with a rising wind, I put it around my shoulders and sat down again to stare into my fire.