by Robin Hobb
CHAPTER TWELVE
Suspicions
The use of the Skill is addictive. All students of this magic are warned of this from the very beginning. There is a fascination to this power that draws the user in, tempting him to use it more and more often. As the user's expertise and power increase, so does the lure of the Skill. The fascination of the Skill eclipses other interests and relationships. Yet it is a difficult attraction to describe to anyone who has not experienced the Skill itself. A rising covey of pheasant on a crisp autumn morning, or catching the wind's benefit perfectly in a boat's sails, or the first mouthful of hot savory stew after a cold and hungry day; these are all sensations that hover for only a moment. The Skill sustains that sensation, for as long as the strength of the user lasts.
It was very late when the others came back to our campsite. My master Damon was drunk and leaning companionably on Creece, who was drunk and irritable and reeked of smoke. They dragged their blankets off the cart and rolled up in them. No one offered to relieve me in my watch. I sighed, doubting that I'd get any sleep until the next night.
Dawn came as early as it always does, and the caravan master was merciless in insisting that we rise and get ready for the road. I suppose she was wise. If she'd allowed them to sleep as long as they wanted, the earlier risers would have gone back to town, and she'd have had to spend the day rounding them up. But it made for a miserable morning. Only the teamsters and the minstrel Starling seemed to have known when to stop drinking. We cooked and shared porridge while the others compared headaches and complaints.
I've noticed that drinking together, especially to excess, forms a bond between folk. So when the master decided his head ached too badly for him to drive the cart, he allotted that task to Creece. Damon slept in the cart as it jostled along while Creece drowsed over the reins as the pony followed the other wagons. They'd tied the bellwether to the tail of the cart, and the flock followed. Somewhat. To me fell the task of trotting behind in the dust, keeping the flock as well bunched as I could. The sky was blue but the day remained chill, with rising winds that stirred and carried the dust we raised. The night had been sleepless for me, and my head soon pounded with pain.
Madge called a brief halt at noon. Most of the caravan folk had recovered enough by then that they wished to eat. I drank from the water casks on Madge's wagon, then wet my kerchief and sopped some of the dust from my face. I was trying to rinse grit from my eyes when Starling came up beside me. I stepped aside, thinking she wanted water. Instead, she spoke softly.
"I'd keep my kerchief on, were I you."
I wrung it out and retied it about my head. "I do. It does nothing to keep the dust from my eyes, though."
Starling looked at me levelly. "It's not your eyes you should worry about. It's that white shock of hair. You should black it with grease and ash tonight, if you get a private moment. It might make it a bit less noticeable."
I looked questioningly at her, trying to keep my expression bland.
She smiled at me archly. "King Regal's guards had been through that water town just a few days before we arrived. They told the folk there that the King believed that the Pocked Man would be crossing Farrow. And you with him." She paused, expecting me to say something. When I just looked at her, her grin widened. "Or perhaps it's some other fellow with a broken nose, scar down his face, white streak in his hair, and…" She gestured toward my arm. "…a fresh sword-slash up his forearm."
I found my tongue and a measure of my wits. I pushed back my sleeve, offered my arm for her inspection. "A sword-slash? This is just a scratch I got off a nail head in a tavern door. On my way out, a bit unwillingly. Take a look for yourself. It's almost healed now, anyway."
She leaned over and looked at my arm obligingly. "Oh. I see. Well. My mistake. Still," and she met my eyes again, "I'd keep your kerchief on anyway. To prevent anyone else from making the same mistake." She paused, then canted her head at me. "I'm a minstrel, you see. I'd rather witness history than make it. Or change it. But I doubt all the others in this caravan feel that way."
I watched mutely as she strolled away, whistling. Then I drank again, being careful not to take too much, and went back to my sheep.
Creece was on his feet and helping, somewhat, for the rest of the afternoon. Even so, it seemed a longer, wearier day than I'd had in a time. There was nothing complicated about my task to make it so. The problem, I decided, was that I'd begun thinking again. I let my despair over Molly and our child drag me down. I'd let my guard down, I hadn't been fearful enough on my own behalf. Now it occurred to me that if Regal's Guard managed to find me, they'd kill me. Then I'd never see Molly or our daughter. Somehow that seemed worse than the threat to my life.
At the evening meal that night, I sat back farther from the fire than usual, even though it meant wrapping myself in my cloak against the cold. My silence was taken as normal. The rest of them talked, much more than usual, about the last evening in town. I gathered the beer had been good, the wine poor, while the resident minstrel had had small goodwill toward Starling for performing for his captive audience. The members of our caravan seemed to take it as a personal victory that Starling's songs had been well received by the villagers. "You sang well, even if all you knew was those Buck ballads," Creece even conceded magnanimously. Starling nodded to that dubious praise.
As she did every evening, Starling unwrapped her harp after the meal. Master Dell was giving his troupe a rare night off from their constant rehearsing, by which I gathered he had been pleased with his performers save Tassin. Tassin had not even a glance for me that evening, but instead perched by one of the teamsters, smiling up at his every word. I noticed that her injury was little more than a scratch on her face with some bruising around it. It would heal well.
Creece went off to stand night watch over our flock. I stretched out on my cloak just beyond reach of the firelight, thinking to drowse off immediately. I expected the others would soon be off to bed as well. The hum of their conversation was lulling, as was the lazy strumming of Starling's fingers on her harp strings. Gradually the strumming changed to a rhythmic plucking, and her voice lifted in song.
I was floating at the edge of sleep when the words "Antler Island Tower" jolted me awake. My eyes flew open as I realized she was singing about the battle there last summer, the Rurisk's first real engagement with the Red-Ship Raiders. I recalled both too much and very little about that battle. As Verity had observed more than once, despite all Hod's weapons instruction, I tended to revert to brawling in any sort of a fight. So I'd carried an axe into that battle and used it with a savagery I'd never expected of myself. Afterward, it had been said that I'd killed the chief of the raiding party we'd cornered. I'd never known if that was true or not.
In Starling's song, it certainly was. My heart nearly stood still when I heard her sing of "Chivalry's son, with eyes of flame, who carried his blood if not his name." The song went on with a dozen improbable embellishments of blows I'd dealt and warriors I'd felled. It was strangely humiliating to hear those deeds sung of as noble and now almost legendary. I knew there were many fighters who dreamed of having songs sung of their exploits. I found the experience uncomfortable. I didn't recall the sun striking flames from my axehead or that I fought as bravely as the buck on my crest. Instead I recalled the clinging smell of blood and treading on a man's entrails, a man who squirmed and moaned still. All the ale in Buckkeep that night had not been enough to bring me any sort of peace.
When the song was finally done, one of the teamsters snorted. "So, that's the one ye daren't sing in the tavern last night, eh, Starling?"
Starling gave a deprecating laugh. "Somehow I doubted it would be enjoyed. Songs about Chivalry's Bastard would not have been popular enough to earn me a penny there."
"It's an odd song," observed Dell. "Here's the King offering gold for his head, and the Guard telling all, beware, the Bastard has the Wit and used it to trick death. But your song makes him out to be some sort of hero."
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br /> "Well, it's a Buck song, and he was well thought of in Buck, at least for a time," Starling explained.
"But not anymore, I'd wager. Save that any man would think well of a hundred gold coins if one could turn him over to the King's Guard," one of the teamsters observed.
"Like as not," Starling agreed easily. "Though there's still some in Buck who would tell you that not all his tale has been told, and the Bastard was not so black as he's been tarred of late."
"I still don't understand it. I thought he was executed for using the Wit to kill King Shrewd," complained Madge.
"So some say," Starling replied. "Truth of it was, he died in his cell before he could be executed and was buried instead of burned. And the tale goes," and here Starling's voice dropped to a near whisper, "that when spring came, not a leaf of greenery would grow on his grave. And an old wise woman, hearing this, knew that meant his Wit magic still slept in his bones and might be claimed by any bold enough to pull a tooth from his mouth. And so she went, by full moonlight, and took a manservant with a spade with her. She put him to digging up the grave. But he hadn't turned but a shovelful of earth before he found splintered wood from the Bastard's coffin."
Starling paused theatrically. There wasn't a sound save the crackling of the fire.
"The box was empty, of course. And those who saw it said that the coffin had been splintered out from inside, not stove in. And one man told it to me that caught in the splintered edge of the coffin lid were the coarse gray hairs of a wolf's coat."
A moment longer the silence held. Then, "Not truly?" Madge asked Starling.
Her fingers ran lightly over her harp strings. "So I heard it told in Buck. But I also heard the Lady Patience, she that buried him, say it was all nonsense, that his body had been cold and stiff when she washed it and wrapped it in a grave cloth. And of the Pocked Man, that King Regal so fears, she declared he is no more than an old adviser of King Shrewd's, some old recluse with a scarred face, come out of his hermitage to keep alive a belief that Verity still lives and lend heart to those who must go on battling the Red-Ships. So. I suppose you can choose to believe whichever you wish."
Melody, one of the puppeteers, gave a mock shiver. "Brrr. So. Sing us something merry now, to go to sleep on. I've no wish to hear more of your ghost tales before I seek my blankets tonight."
So Starling willingly swept into a love ballad, an old one with a lilting refrain that Madge and Melody joined in singing. I lay in the darkness, pondering all I'd heard. I was uncomfortably aware that Starling had stirred it up intending for me to hear it. I wondered if she thought she was doing me a favor, or if she simply wished to see if any of the others had suspicions of me. One hundred gold coins for my head. That was enough to make a duke greedy, let alone a strolling minstrel. Despite my weariness, it was a long time before I dozed off that night.
The next day's drive was almost comforting in its monotony.
I paced along behind my sheep, and tried not to think. It was not as easy to do as previously. It seemed that whenever I blanked my mind to my worries, I heard Verity's Come to me echoing inside my head. When we made camp that night, it was on the banks of a giant sinkhole with water at its center. The talk about the fire was desultory. I think we were all more than a little weary of our trudging pace and longed to see the shores of Blue Lake. I wished simply to go to sleep, but I had first watch over the flock.
I climbed slightly up the hillside to where I could sit looking down on my woolly charges. The great bowl of the sinkhole cupped our whole caravan, with the small cook fire near the water showing like a star at the bottom of a well. Whatever wind blew passed us by, leaving us sheltered in a great stillness. It was almost peaceful.
Tassin probably thought she was being stealthy. I watched her come silently, her cloak pulled well up over her hair and about her face. She circled widely as if to pass by me. I did not follow her with my eyes, but listened to her as she went above me on the hillside and then came back down behind me. I caught her scent even in the still air and felt an involuntary anticipation. I wondered if I'd have the strength of will to refuse her a second time. Mistake it might be, but my body was all in favor of making it. When I judged her about a dozen steps away, I turned to look at her. She startled back from my gaze.
"Tassin," I greeted her quietly, and then turned to look back at my sheep. After a moment, she came down the slope to stand a few steps away from me. I turned slightly and looked up at her without speaking. She pushed her hood back from her face and confronted me, challenge in her eyes and stance.
"You're him, aren't you?" she demanded breathlessly. There was a very slight edge of fear in her voice.
It was not what I'd expected her to say. I didn't have to pretend surprise. "I'm him? I'm Tom the shepherd if that's the him you mean."
"No, you're him, that Wit-Bastard the King's Guard is seeking. Drew the teamster told me what they were saying in town, after Starling told that tale last night."
"Drew told you I was a Wit-Bastard?" I spoke carefully, as if baffled by her tumbling words. A terrible cold fear was welling up inside me.
"No." A trace of anger mixed with her fear. "Drew told me what the King's Guard said of him. A broken nose and a scar on the cheek and a white streak in his hair. And I saw your hair that night. You've a white streak in it."
"Any man who's been hit on the head can have a white streak in his hair. It's an old scar." I tilted my head and looked at her critically. "I'd say your face is healing well."
"You're him, aren't you?" She sounded even angrier that I'd tried to change the subject.
"Of course not. Look. He's got a sword-slash on his arm, hasn't he? Look at this." I bared my right arm for her inspection. The knife-slash I'd given myself was down the back of my left forearm. I was gambling that she'd know a slash taken defending myself should have been on my sword arm.
She scarcely glanced at my arm. "Do you have any coin?" she asked me suddenly.
"If I'd had any coin, why would I have stayed in camp when the others went to town? Besides, why would you care?"
"I wouldn't. But you would. You could use it to buy my silence. Otherwise, I might go to Madge with what I suspect. Or the teamsters." She lifted her chin defiantly at me.
"Then they could look at my arm, as easily as you've done," I said wearily. I turned away from her to look back over my sheep. "You're being a silly little girl, Tassin, letting Starling's ghost tales get you all stirred up. Go back to bed." I tried to sound disgusted with her.
"You've a scratch on your other arm. I saw it. Some might take it for a sword-slash."
"Probably the same ones that would take you for intelligent," I said derisively.
"Don't make mock of me," she warned me in a voice gone flat with ugliness. "I won't be made fun of."
"Then don't say stupid things. What's the matter with you, anyway? Is this some sort of revenge? Are you angry because I wouldn't bed you? I told you, it's nothing to do with you. You're pretty to look at, and I don't doubt there'd be pleasure in touching you. But not for me."
She spat suddenly on the ground beside me. "As if I'd have let you. I was amusing myself, shepherd. No more than that." She made a small sound in her throat. "Men. How can you look at yourself and think anyone would want you for your own sake? You stink of sheep, you're skinny, and your face looks like you've lost every fight you've ever been in." She turned on her heel, then seemed to abruptly remember why she'd come. "I won't tell any of them. Yet. But when we get to Blue Lake, your master must pay you something. See you bring it to me, or I'll have the whole town seeking you out."
I sighed. "Whatever amuses you, I'm sure you'll do. Create all the fuss you wish. When it comes to naught and folk laugh about it, it will probably give Dell one more reason to beat you."
She turned away from me and went stalking off down the hillside. She lost her footing in the moonlight's uncertainty and nearly took a tumble. But she recovered herself and then glared back at me, as if daring me to
laugh. I had no such inclination. Despite my defiance of her, my stomach was clenched up under my throat. A hundred gold coins. Spread a rumor of it, and that much money was enough to start a riot. After I was dead, they'd probably decide they had the wrong man.
I wondered how well I'd do at crossing the rest of the Farrow plains alone. I could leave right after Creece relieved me on watch. I'd go to the wagon and get my things quietly and sneak away into the night. How much farther could it be to Blue Lake anyway? I was pondering that as I watched yet another figure slip away from the campsite and come up the slope toward me.
Starling came quietly, but not stealthily. She lifted a hand to me in greeting before she sat down companionably at my side. "I hope you didn't give her any money," she greeted me affably.
"Umph," I said, letting her take it however she wished.
"Because you're at least the third man who's supposedly got her pregnant on this trip. Your master had the honor of being the first accused. Madge's son was the second. At least I think he was. I don't know how many fathers she's selected for this possible child."
"I haven't been with her, so she could scarcely accuse me of, that," I said defensively.
"Oh? Then you're probably the only man in the caravan who hasn't."
That jolted me a bit. Then I thought about it and wondered if I would ever reach a place in which I ceased finding out how stupid I could be. "So you think she's with child and is looking for a man to buy her out of her apprenticeship?"
Starling snorted. "I doubt she's with child at all. She wasn't asking to be married, only for coin to buy herbs to shake the child loose. I think Madge's boy might have actually given her some. No. I don't think she wants a husband, just some money. So she looks for ways that allow her a bit of a tumble, and a man who might pay her for it afterward." She shifted, tossed aside an offending stone. "So. If you haven't got her pregnant, what have you done to her?"