Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

"Are you?" the man asked consideringly. He glanced at his sister and gave a small nod. "May I offer you some brandy?"

  "That would be most welcome," I told him.

  I managed to pry my arm free of Starling as we entered the chamber. As the door shut behind us, Starling sighed in the welcome warmth. This room was as opulent as the other was bare. Rugs coated the floor, tapestries lined the walls. There was a heavy oak table with a branch of white candles for illumination. A fire blazed in the huge hearth before a half circle of comfortable chairs. It was to this area our host led us. He snagged a glass decanter of brandy as he passed the table. "Find some cups," he peremptorily ordered the girl. She seemed to take no offense at it. I guessed his age at about twenty-five. Older brothers are not the kindest of heroes. She handed the whittler her pigeon, and gestured both of them out before she went to find cups.

  "Now. You were saying," he offered when we were settled before the fire.

  "Actually, you were saying," I suggested.

  He was silent as his sister came back with cups. He passed them to us as he filled them and the four of us raised cups together.

  "To King Regal," he suggested.

  "To my king," I offered affably, and drank. It was good brandy, one Burrich would have appreciated.

  "King Regal would see folk like our friend Nik swinging," the man suggested.

  "Or more likely in his circle," I suggested. I gave a small sigh. "It's a dilemma. On the one hand, King Regal threatens his life. On the other hand, without King Regal's embargo on the Mountain, what livelihood would Nik pursue? I heard all that his family's holdings grow these days is rocks."

  The man nodded in commiseration. "Poor Nik. A man must do something to survive."

  "That he must," I agreed. "And sometimes to survive, a man must cross a river, even if his king forbids it."

  "Must he?" the man asked. "Now, that's a bit different from sending something across the river."

  "Not that different," I told him. "If Nik is good at his trade, the one should no more tax him than the other. And I'd heard Nik was good."

  "The best," the girl said with quiet pride.

  Her brother shot her a warning glance. "What would this man be offering to cross?" he asked quietly.

  "He'd offer it to Nik himself," I said as softly.

  For a few breaths the man looked into the fire. Then he stood and extended a hand. "Nik Holdfast. My sister Pelf."

  "Tom," I said.

  "Starling," the minstrel added.

  Nik held his cup aloft again. "To a bargain in the making," he suggested, and again we drank. He sat and asked immediately, "Shall we speak plainly?"

  I nodded. "The plainest possible. We had heard that you were taking a group of pilgrims over the river and across the border into the Mountain Kingdom. We seek the same service."

  "At the same price," Starling chimed in smoothly.

  "Nik, I don't like this," Pelf broke in suddenly. "Someone's tongue has been wagging too freely. I knew we should never have agreed to the first lot. How do we know…"

  "Hush. I'm the one taking the risks, so I'll be the one to say what I will or will not do. You've naught to do but wait here and mind things while I'm gone. And see that your own tongue doesn't wag." He turned back to me. "It will be a gold each, up front. And another on the other side of the river. A third at the Mountain border."

  "Ah!" The price was shocking. "We can't…" Starling dug her nails suddenly into my wrist. I shut my mouth.

  "You will never convince me the pilgrims paid that much," Starling said quietly.

  "They have their own horses and wagons. Food supplies, too." He cocked his head at us. "But you look to be folk traveling with what's on your backs and no more."

  "And a lot easier to conceal than a wagon and team. We'll give you one gold now, and one at the Mountain border. For both of us," Starling offered.

  He leaned back in his chair and pondered a moment. Then he poured more brandy all round. "Not enough," he said regretfully. "But I suspect it's all you have."

  It was more than I had. I hoped, perhaps, it was what Starling had. "Take us over the river for that much," I offered. "From there, we're on our own."

  Starling kicked me under the table. She seemed to be speaking only to me as she said, "He's taking the others to the Mountain border and across it. We may as well enjoy the company that far." She turned back to Nik. "It will have to take us all the way to the Mountains."

  Nik sipped at his brandy. He sighed heavily. "I'll see your coin, begging your pardon, before we say it's a bargain."

  Starling and I exchanged glances. "We'll require a private moment," she said smoothly. "Begging your pardon." She rose and taking my hand, led me to the corner of the room. Once there she whispered, "Have you never bargained before in your life? You give too much, too fast. Now. How much coin do you truly have?"

  For answer, I upended my purse in my hand. She picked through the contents as swiftly as a magpie stealing grain. She hefted the coins in her hand with a practiced air. "We're short. I thought you'd have more than this. What's that?" Her finger jabbed at Burrich's earring. I closed my hand around it before she could pick it up.

  "Something very important to me."

  "More important than your life?"

  "Not quite," I admitted. "But close. My father wore it, for a time. A close friend of his gave it to me."

  "Well, if it must go, I'll see that it goes dearly." She turned away from me without another word and walked back to Nik. She took her seat, tossed the rest of her brandy down and waited for me. When I was seated, she told Nik, "We'll give you what coin we have now. It's not as much as you ask. But at the Mountain border, I'll give you all my jewelry as well. Rings, earrings, all of it. What say you?"

  He shook his head slowly. "It's not enough for me to risk hanging over."

  "What's the risk?" Starling demanded. "If they discover you with the pilgrims, you'll hang. You've already been paid for that risk in what they gave you. We don't increase your risk, only your supply burden. Surely it's worth that."

  He shook his head, almost reluctantly. Starling turned and held out her hand to me. "Show it to him," she said quietly. I felt almost sick as I opened my pouch and fingered out the earring.

  "What I have might not seem like much at first glance," I told him. "Unless a person were knowledgeable about such things. I am. I know what I have and I know what it's worth. It's worth whatever trouble you'd have to go through for us."

  I spread it out on my palm, the fine silver net trapping the sapphire within. Then I picked it up by the pin and held it before the dancing fire. "It's not just the silver or the sapphire. It's the workmanship. Look how supple is the silver net, see how fine the links."

  Starling reached one fingertip to touch it. "King-in-Waiting Chivalry once owned it," she added respectfully.

  "Coins are more easily spent," Nik pointed out.

  I shrugged. "If coins to spend are all a man wants, that is true. Sometimes there is pleasure in the owning of something, pleasure greater than coins in the pocket. But when it is yours, you could change it for coins, if you wished. Were I to attempt it now, in haste, I'd get but a fraction of its worth. But a man with your connections, and the time to bargain well, could get well over four golds for it. But if you'd rather, I could go back to town with it and…"

  Greed had kindled in his eyes. "I'll take it," he conceded.

  "On the other side of the river," I told him. I lifted the jewelry and restored it to my ear. Let him look at it each time he looked at me. I made it formal. "You undertake to get us both safely to the other side of the river. And when we get there, the earring is yours."

  "As your sole payment," Starling added quietly. "Though we will allow you to hold all our coins until then. As a surety."

  "Agreed, and here's my hand on it," he acknowledged. We shook hands.

  "When do we leave?" I asked him.

  "When the weather's right," he said.

  "Tomorrow woul
d be better," I told him.

  He rose slowly. "Tomorrow, eh? Well, if the weather's right tomorrow, then is when we'll leave. Now I've a few things I need to attend to. I'll have to excuse myself, but Pelf can see to you, here."

  I had expected to walk back to town for the night, but Starling bargained with Pelf, her songs for a meal for us, and then to prepare us a room for the night. I was a bit ill at ease to sleep among strangers, but reflected it might actually be safer than going back to town. If the food Pelf cooked for us was not as fine as we had enjoyed at Starling's inn the night before, it was still far better than onion-and-potato soup. There was thick slices of fried ham and applesauce and a cake made with fruits and seeds and spices. Pelf brought us beer to go with it and joined us at table, speaking casually of general topics. After we'd eaten, Starling played a few songs for the girl, but I found I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I asked to be shown to a room, and Starling said she, too, was weary.

  Pelf showed us to a chamber above Nik's elaborate room. It had been a very fine room once, but I doubted it had been regularly used for years. She had started a fire in the hearth there, but the long chill of disuse and the must of neglect still filled the room. There was an immense bed with a feather bed on it and graying hangings. Starling sniffed critically at it, and as soon as Pelf left, she busied herself in draping the blankets from the bed over a bench and setting it by the fire. "They will both air and warm that way," she told me knowledgeably.

  I had been barring the door, and checking the latches on the windows and shutters. They all seemed sound. I was suddenly too weary to reply. I told myself it was the brandy followed by the beer. I dragged one chair to wedge it against the door while Starling watched me with amusement. Then I came back to the fire and sank down onto the blanket-draped bench and stretched my legs to the warmth. I toed my boots off. Well. Tomorrow I'd be on my way to the Mountains.

  Starling came to sit beside me. For a time she didn't speak. Then she lifted a finger and batted at my earring with it. "Was it truly Chivalry's?" she asked me.

  "For a while."

  "And you'd give it up to get to the Mountains. What would he say?"

  "Don't know. Never knew the man." I suddenly sighed. "By all accounts, he was fond of his little brother. I don't think he'd begrudge me spending it to get to Verity."

  "Then you do go to seek out your king."

  "Of course." I tried in vain to stifle a yawn. Somehow it seemed foolish to deny it now. "I'm not sure it was wise to mention Chivalry to Nik. He might make a connection." I turned to look at her. Her face was too close. I couldn't bring her features into focus. "But I'm too sleepy to care," I added.

  "You've no head for merrybud," she laughed.

  "There was no Smoke tonight."

  "In the cake. She told you it was spiced."

  "Is that what she meant?"

  "Yes. That's what spiced means all over Farrow."

  "Oh. In Buck it means there's ginger. Or citron."

  "I know that." She leaned against me and sighed. "You don't trust these people, do you?"

  "Of course not. They don't trust us. If we trusted them, they'd have no respect for us. They'd think us gullible fools, the sort who get smugglers into trouble by talking too much."

  "But you shook hands with Nik."

  "I did. And I believe he will keep his word. As far as it goes."

  We both fell silent, thinking about that. After a time, I started awake again. Starling sat up beside me. "I'm going to bed," she announced.

  "Me, too," I replied. I claimed a blanket and started to roll up in it by the fire.

  "Don't be ridiculous," she told me. "That bed's big enough for four. Sleep in a bed while you can, for I bet we aren't going to see another one soon."

  I took very little persuading. The feather bed was deep, if a trifle smelly from damp. We each had a share of the blankets. I knew I should retain some caution but the brandy and the merrybud had unloosed the knot of my will. I fell into a very deep sleep.

  Toward morning, I awoke once when Starling threw an arm over me. The fire had burned out and the room was cold. In her sleep she had migrated across the bed and was pressed up against my back. I started to ease away from her but it was too warm and companionable. Her breath was against the back of my neck. There was a woman smell to her that was not a perfume but a part of her. I closed my eyes and lay very still. Molly. The sudden desperate longing I felt for her was like a pain. I clenched my teeth to it. I willed myself into sleep again.

  It was a mistake.

  The baby was crying. Crying and crying. Molly was in her nightrobe with a blanket draped over her shoulders. She looked haggard and weary as she sat by the fire and rocked her endlessly. Molly sang a little song to her, over and over, but the tune had long since gone out of it. She turned her head slowly to the door as Burrich opened it. "May I come in?" he asked quietly.

  She nodded him in. "What are you doing awake at this hour?" she asked him tiredly.

  "I could hear her crying clear out there. Is she ill?" He went to the fire and poked it up a little. He added another piece of wood, then stooped to look in the baby's small face.

  "I don't know. She just cries and cries and cries. She doesn't even want to nurse. I don't know what's wrong with her." There was misery in Molly's voice far past the use of tears.

  Burrich turned to her. "Let me take her for a while. You go lie down and try to rest a bit, or you'll both be ill. You can't do this night after night."

  Molly looked up at him without comprehension. "You want to take care of her? You'd truly do that?"

  "I may as well," he told her wryly. "I can't sleep through her crying."

  Molly stood up as if her back ached. "Warm yourself first. I'll make some tea."

  For answer he took the babe from her arms. "No, you go back to bed for a while. No sense in all of us not sleeping."

  Molly seemed unable to grasp it. "You truly don't mind if I go back to bed?"

  "No, go ahead, we'll be fine. Go on, now." He settled the blanket about her and then set the infant to his shoulder. She looked very tiny with his dark hands against her. Molly walked slowly across the room. She looked back at Burrich but he was looking into the baby's face. "Hush now," he told her. "Hush."

  Molly clambered into bed and pulled the blankets up over herself. Burrich did not sit down. He stood before the fire, rocking slightly on his feet as he patted the baby's back slowly.

  "Burrich," Molly called to him quietly.

  "Yes?" He did not turn to look at her.

  "There's no sense your sleeping in that shed in this weather. You should move inside for the winter, and sleep by the hearth."

  "Oh. Well. It's not so very cold out there. It's all in what you're used to, you know."

  A small silence fell.

  "Burrich. I would feel safer, were you closer." Molly's voice was very small.

  "Oh. Well. Then I suppose I shall be. But there's nothing you need fear tonight. Go to sleep, now. Both of you." He bent his head and I saw his lips brush the top of the baby's head. Very softly he began singing to her. I tried to make out the words, but his voice was too deep. Nor did I know the language. The baby's wailing became less determined. He began to pace slowly around the room with her. Back and forth before the fire. I was with Molly as she watched him until she, too, fell asleep to Burrich's soothing voice. The only dream I had after that was of alone wolf, running, endlessly running. He was as alone as I was.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kettle

  Queen Kettricken was carrying Verity's child when she fled King-in-Waiting Regal to return to her Mountains. Some have criticized her, saying if she had remained at Buck and forced Regal's hand, the child would have been born safely there. Perhaps if she had, Buckkeep Castle would have rallied to her, perhaps all of Buck Duchy would have presented a more unified resistance to the Outislander Raiders. Perhaps the Coastal Duchies would have fought harder if they had had a queen at Buck. So some say.


  The general belief of those who lived in Buckkeep Castle at the time and were well informed of the internal politics of the Farseer Regency is very different. Without exception, they believed that both Kettricken and her unborn child would have met with foul play. It can be substantiated that even after Queen Kettricken had removed herself from Buckkeep, those who supported Regal as king did all that they could to discredit her, even to saying that the child she carried was not Verity's at all, but had been fathered by his bastard nephew FitzChivalry.

  Whatever suppositions might be made about what would have happened if Kettricken had remained at Buckkeep are but useless speculations now. The historical fact is that she believed her child would have the best chance of surviving if born in her beloved Mountain Kingdom. She also returned to the Mountains in the hope of being able to find Verity and restore her husband to power. Her search efforts, however, only yielded her grief. She found the battle site of his companions against unidentified attackers. The unburied remains were little more than scattered bones and draggled bits of clothing after the scavengers had finished with them. Among those remains, however, she found the blue cloak Verity had worn when she had last seen him, and his sheath knife. She returned to the royal residence at Jhaampe and mourned her husband as dead.

  More distressing to her was that for months afterward she received reports of sightings of folk in the garb of Verity's Guard in the mountains beyond Jhaampe. These individual guards were seen wandering alone by Mountain villagers. They seemed reluctant to have conversation with the villagers and despite their ragged condition often refused offers of aid or food. Without exception, they were described by those who saw them as "pathetic" or "piteous". Some few of these men trickled in to Jhaampe from time to time. They seemed unable to answer her questions about Verity and what had become of him coherently. They could not even recall when they had parted company with him or under what circumstances. Without exception, they seemed almost obsessed with returning to Buckkeep.

  In time she came to believe that Verity and his Guard had been attacked, not only physically but by magic. The ambushers who struck at him with arrow and sword, and the false coterie that disheartened and confused his Guard were, she surmised, in the employ of his younger brother, Prince Regal. This is what precipitated her unceasing ill will toward her brother-in-law.