Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  "Did you know it could happen?" I didn't wait for her reply. "Why didn't you warn us?"

  "I didn't know!" she retorted, and then added guiltily, "I only suspected, and I never thought either of you would be so foolish as to…"

  "Never mind!" the Fool cut in. Abruptly he laughed and stood up, pushing away my arm. "Oh, this! This is such as I have not felt in years, not since I was a child. The certainty, the power of it. Kettle! Would you hear a White Prophet speak? Then hearken to this, and be glad as I am glad. We are not only where we must be, we are when we must be. All junctures coincide, we draw closer and closer to the center of the web. You and I." He clasped my head suddenly between his two hands and placed his brow against mine. "We are even who we must be!" He freed me suddenly and spun away. He launched the handspring I had expected earlier, came to his feet, curtsied deeply and laughed aloud again, exultantly. We all gawked at him.

  "You are in great danger!" Kettle told him severely.

  "I know," he replied, almost sincerely, and then added, "As I said. Exactly where we need to be." He paused, then asked me suddenly, "Did you see my crown? Wasn't it magnificent? I wonder if I shall be able to carve it from memory?"

  "I saw the rooster crown," I said slowly. "But what to make of any of this, I do not know."

  "You don't?" He cocked his head at me, then smiled pityingly. "Oh, Fitzy-fitz, I would explain it if I could. It is not that I wish to keep secrets, but these secrets defy telling in mere words. They are more than half a feeling, a grasping of rightness. Can you trust me in this?"

  "You are alive again," I said wonderingly. I had not seen such light in his eyes since the days when he had made King Shrewd bellow with laughter.

  "Yes," he said gently. "And when we have finished, I promise that you will be, also."

  The three women stood glaring and excluded. When I looked at the outrage on Starling's face, the rebuke in Kettle's and the exasperation in Kettricken's, I suddenly had to grin. Behind me the Fool chuckled. And try as we might, we could not explain to their satisfaction exactly what had happened. Nevertheless, we wasted quite some time in attempting it.

  Kettricken took out both maps and consulted them. Kettle insisted on accompanying me when I took my map back to the central pillar to compare the glyphs on it to the ones on the map. They shared a number of marks in common, but the only one that Kettricken recognized was the one she had named before. Stone. When I reluctantly offered to see if this pillar might not transport me as the other one had, Kettricken adamantly refused. I am ashamed to admit I was greatly relieved. "We began together, and I intend that we shall finish together," she said darkly. I knew she suspected that the Fool and I were keeping something from her.

  "What do you propose then?" I asked her humbly.

  "What I first suggested. We will follow that old road that goes off through the trees. It appears to match what is marked here. It cannot take us more than two marches to reach the end of it. Especially if we start now."

  And with no more announcement than that, she got up and clicked to the jeppas. The leader came immediately and the rest obediently fell into line behind her. I watched her long even strides as she led them off down the shady road.

  "Well, get along, both of you!" Kettle snapped at the Fool and me. She shook her walking stick and I almost suspected she wished she could prod us along like errant sheep. But the Fool and I both fell obediently into line behind the jeppas, leaving Starling and Kettle to follow us.

  That night the Fool and I left the tent's shelter and went with Nighteyes. Both Kettle and Kettricken had been dubious as to the wisdom of this, but I had assured them I would act with all caution. The Fool had promised not to let me out of his sight. Kettle rolled her eyes at this, but said nothing. Plainly we were both still suspected of being idiots, but they let us leave anyway. Starling was sulkily silent, but as we had not had words, I assumed her pique had some other source. As we left the fireside, Kettricken said quietly, "Watch over them, wolf," and Nighteyes replied with a wave of his tail.

  Nighteyes led us swiftly away from the grassy road and up into the wooded hills. The road had been leading us steadily downward into more sheltered country. The woods that we moved through were open groves of oaks with wide meadows between. I saw sign of wild boars but was relieved when we did not encounter any. Instead, the wolf ran down and killed two rabbits that he graciously allowed me to carry for him. As we were returning to the camp by a roundabout path we came on a stream. The water was icy and sweet and cress grew thick along one bank. The Fool and I tickled for fish until our hands and arms were numb with the cold water. As I hauled out a final fish, its lashing tail splashed the enthusiastic wolf. He leaped back from it then snapped at me in rebuke. The Fool playfully scooped up another handful and flung it at him. Nighteyes leaped, jaws wide to meet it. Moments later, all three of us were involved in a water battle, but I was the only one who landed bodily in the stream when the wolf sprang on me. Both Fool and wolf were laughing heartily as I staggered out, soaked and chilled. I found myself laughing also. I could not recall the last time I had simply laughed aloud about so simple a thing. We returned to camp late, but with fresh meat, fish, and watercress to share.

  There was a small, welcoming fire burning outside the tent. Kettle and Starling had already made porridge for our meal, but Kettle volunteered to cook again for the sake of the fresh food. While she was preparing it, Starling stared at me until I demanded, "What?"

  "How did you all get so wet?" she asked.

  "Oh. By the stream where we got the fish. Nighteyes pushed me in." I gave him a passing nudge with my knee as I headed toward the tent. He made a mock snap at my leg.

  "And the Fool fell in as well?"

  "We were throwing water at one another," I admitted wryly. I grinned at her, but she did not smile. Instead she gave a small snort as if disdainful. I shrugged and went into the tent. Kettricken glanced up at me from her map, but said nothing. I rucked through my pack and found clothes that were dry if not clean. Her back was turned so I changed hastily. We had grown accustomed to granting one another the privacy of ignoring such things.

  "FitzChivalry," she said suddenly in a voice that commanded my attention.

  I dragged my shirt down over my head and buttoned it. "Yes, my queen?" I came to kneel beside her, thinking she wanted to consult on the map. Instead, she set it aside and turned to me. Her blue eyes met mine squarely.

  "We are a small company, all dependent on one another," she abruptly told me. "Any kind of strife within our group serves the purpose of our enemy."

  I waited, but she said no more. "I do not understand why you tell me this," I said humbly at last.

  She sighed and shook her head. "I feared as much. And perhaps I do more harm than good to speak of it at all. Starling is tormented by your attentions to the Fool."

  I was speechless. Kettricken speared me with a blue glance, then looked aside from me again. "She believes the Fool is a woman and that you kept a tryst with her tonight. It chagrins her that you disdain her so completely."

  I found my tongue. "My lady queen, I do not disdain Mistress Starling." My outrage had rendered me formal. "In truth, she is the one who has avoided my company and put a distance between us since finding that I am Witted and sustain a bond with the wolf. Respecting her wishes, I have not pressed my friendship upon her. As to what she says of the Fool, surely you must find it as ludicrous as I do."

  "Should I?" Kettricken asked me softly. "All I can truthfully say I know of it is that he is not a man like other men."

  "I cannot disagree with that," I said quietly. "He is unique among all the people I have ever known."

  "Cannot you show some kindness to her, FitzChivalry?" Kettricken burst out suddenly. "I do not ask that you court her, only that you do not let her be rent with jealousy."

  I folded my lips, forced my feelings to find courteous answer. "My queen, I will offer her, as I ever have, my friendship. She has given me small sign of late of even
wanting that, let alone more. But as to that topic, I do not disdain her nor any other woman. My heart is given already. It is no more right to say that I disdain Starling than it is to say that you disdain me because your heart is filled with my Lord Verity."

  Kettricken shot me an oddly startled look. For a moment she seemed flustered. Then she looked down at the map she still gripped. "It is as I feared. I have only made it worse by speaking to you. I am so tired, Fitz. Despair drags at my heart always. To have Starling moody is like sand against raw flesh to me. I but sought to put things right between you. I beg your pardon if I have intruded. But you are a comely youth still, and it will not be the last time you have such cares."

  "Comely?" I laughed aloud, both incredulous and bitter. "With this scarred face and battered body? It haunts my nightmares that when next Molly sees me, she shall turn aside from me in horror. Comely." I turned aside from her, my throat suddenly too tight to speak. It was not that I mourned my appearance so much as I dreaded that Molly must look someday on my scars.

  "Fitz," Kettricken said quietly. Her voice was suddenly that of a friend, not the Queen. "I speak to you as a woman, to tell you that although you bear scars, you are far from the grotesque you seem to believe yourself. You are, still, a comely youth, in ways that have nothing to do with your face. And were my heart not full with my Lord Verity, I would not disdain you." She reached out a hand and ran cool fingers down the old split down my cheek, as if her touch could erase it. My heart turned over in me, an echo of Verity's embedded passion for her amplified by my gratitude that she would say such a thing to me.

  "You well deserve my lord's love," I told her artlessly from a full heart.

  "Oh, do not look at me with his eyes," she said dolefully. She rose suddenly, clasping the map to her breast like a shield, and left the tent.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Stone Garden

  Dimity Keep, a very small holding on the coast of Buck, fell shortly before Regal crowned himself King of the Six Duchies. A great many villages were destroyed in that dread time, and there has never been a true count made of all the lives that were lost. Small keeps like Dimity were frequent targets for the Red-Ships. Their strategy was to attack simple villages and the smaller holdings to weaken the overall defense line. Lord Bronze, to whom the Keep of Dimity was entrusted, was an old man, but nonetheless he led his men in defending his small castle. Unfortunately, heavy taxation for general coastline protection had drained his resources for some time, and Dimity Keep's defenses were in poor repair. Lord Bronze was among the first to fall. The Red-Ships took the keep almost easily, and reduced it with fire and sword to the rubble-strewn mound that it is today.

  Unlike the Skill road, the road we traveled the next day had experienced the full ravages of time. Doubtless once a wide thoroughfare, it had been narrowed by the encroachments of the forest to little more than a track. While to me it seemed almost carefree to march down a road that did not at every moment threaten to steal my mind from me, the others muttered about the hummocks, upthrust roots, fallen branches, and other obstacles we scrambled through all day. I kept my thoughts to myself and enjoyed the thick moss that overlaid the once-cobbled surface, the branchy shade of the bud-leafed trees that overarched the road, and the occasional patter of fleeing animals in the underbrush.

  Nighteyes was in his element, racing ahead and then galloping back to us, to trot purposefully along beside Kettricken for a time. Then he would go ranging off again. At one time he came dashing back to the Fool and me, tongue lolling, to announce that tonight we would hunt wild pig, for their sign was plentiful. I relayed this to the Fool.

  "I did not lose any wild pigs. Therefore, I shall not hunt for any," he replied loftily. I rather agreed with his sentiments. Burrich's scarred leg had made me more than wary of the great tusked animals.

  Rabbits, I suggested to Nighteyes. Let us hunt rabbits.

  Rabbits for rabbits, he snorted disdainfully, and dashed off again.

  I ignored the insult. The day was just pleasantly cool for hiking and the verdant forest smells were like a homecoming to me. Kettricken led us on, lost in her own thoughts, while Kettle and Starling followed us, caught up in talk. Kettle still tended to walk more slowly, though the old woman seemed to have gained stamina and strength since our journey had begun. But they were a comfortable distance behind us when I quietly asked the Fool, "Why do you allow Starling to believe you are a woman?"

  He turned to me, waggled his eyebrows and blew me a kiss. "And am I not, fair princeling?"

  "I'm serious," I rebuked him. "She thinks you are a woman and in love with me. She thought that we had a tryst last night."

  "And did we not, my shy one?" He leered at me outrageously.

  "Fool," I said warningly.

  "Ah." He sighed suddenly. "Perhaps the truth is, I fear to show her my proof, lest ever afterward she find all other men a disappointment." He gestured meaningfully at himself.

  I looked at him levelly until he grew sober. "What does it matter what she thinks? Let her think whatever is easiest for her to believe."

  "Meaning?"

  "She needed someone to confide in and, for a time, chose me. Perhaps it was easier for her to do that if she believed I was a woman, also." He sighed again. "That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is."

  "Well, it is important…" I began.

  "Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "Mere plumbing, when all is said and done. Why is it important?"

  I stared at him, at a loss for words. It all seemed so obvious to me as to not need saying. After a time, I said, "Could you not simply tell her you are a man and let the issue be laid to rest?"

  "That would scarcely lay it to rest, Fitz," he replied judiciously. He clambered over a fallen tree and waited for me to follow. "For then she would need to know why, if I am a man, I do not desire her. It would have to be either a fault in me, or something I perceived as a fault in her. No. I do not think anything needs to be said on that topic. Starling, however, has the minstrel's failing. She thinks that everything in the world, no matter how private, should be a topic for discussion. Or better yet, made into a song. Ah, yes!"

  He struck a sudden pose in the middle of the forest trail. His stance was so artfully reminiscent of Starling when she readied herself to sing that I was horrified. I glanced back at her as the Fool launched into sudden, hearty song:

  "Oh, when the Fool pisses

  Pray tell, what's the angle?

  Did we take down his pants

  Would he dimple or dangle?"

  My eyes darted from Starling to the Fool. He bowed, an embroidery of the elaborate bow that often marked the end of her performances. I wanted at once to laugh aloud and to sink into, the earth. I saw Starling redden and start forward, but Kettle caught at her sleeve and said something severely. Then they both glared at me. It was not the first time that one of the Fool's escapades had embarrassed me, but it was one of the most keenly edged ones. I made a helpless gesture back at them, then rounded on the Fool. He was capering down the path ahead of me. I hastened to catch up with him.

  "Did you ever stop to think you might hurt her feelings?" I asked him angrily.

  "I gave it as much thought as she gave to whether such an allegation might hurt mine." He rounded on me suddenly, wagging a long finger. "Admit it. You asked that question with never a thought as to whether it would hurt my vanity. How would you feel if I demanded proof that you were a man? Ah!" His shoulders slumped suddenly and he seemed to lose all energy. "Such a thing to waste words on, with all else we must confront. Let it go, Fitz, and I will as well. Let her refer to me as 'she' as much as she wishes. I will do my best to ignore it."

  I should have left it alone. I did not. "It is only that she thinks that you love me," I tried to explain.

  He gave me an odd look. "I do."

  "I mean, as a man and a woman love."

  He took a breath. "A
nd how is that?"

  "I mean…" It half-angered me that he pretended not to understand me. "For bedding. For…"

  "And is that how a man loves a woman?" he interrupted me suddenly. "For bedding?"

  "It's a part of it!" I felt suddenly defensive but could not say why.

  He arched an eyebrow at me and said calmly, "You are confusing plumbing and love again."

  "It's more than plumbing!" I shouted at him. A bird abruptly flew off, cawing. I glanced back at Kettle and Starling, who exchanged puzzled glances.

  "I see," he said. He thought a bit as I strode ahead of him on the path. Then, from behind me he called out, "Tell me, Fitz, did you love Molly or that which was under her skirts?"

  Now it was my turn to be affronted, But I was not going to let him baffle me into silence. "I love Molly and all that is a part of her," I declared. I hated the heat that rose in my cheeks.

  "There, now you have said it," the Fool replied as if I had proven his point for him. "And I love you, and all that is a part of you." He cocked his head and the next words held a challenge. "And do you not return that to me?"

  He waited. I desperately wished I had never started this discussion. "You know I love you," I said at last, grudgingly. "After all that has been between us, how can you even ask? But I love you as a man loves another man…" Here the Fool leered at me mockingly. Then a sudden glint lit his eyes, and I knew that he was about to do something awful to me.

  He leaped to the top of a fallen log. From that height, he gave Starling a triumphant look and cried dramatically, "He loves me, he says! And I love him!" Then with a whoop of wild laughter he leapt down and raced ahead of me on the trail.

  I ran my hand back through my hair and then slowly clambered over the log. I heard Kettle laughing and Starling's angry comments. I walked silently through the forest, wishing I'd had the sense to keep my mouth shut. I was certain that Starling was simmering with fury. It was bad enough that lately she had almost no words for me. I had accepted that she found my Wit something of an abomination. She was not the first to be dismayed by it at least she showed some tolerance for me. But now the anger she carried would have a more personal bite to it. One more small loss of what little I had left. A part of me greatly missed the closeness we had shared for a time. I missed the human comfort of having her sleep against my back, or suddenly take my arm when we were walking. I thought I had closed my heart against those needs, but I suddenly missed that simple warmth.