Assassin's Quest tft-3

by Robin Hobb

  You are so aware of her, you will not see a rabbit if you step on it! Nighteyes chided me.

  At that moment, a hare started from a bush right beside my path. I sprang after it, going doubled over to follow it on the game trail. It was far faster than I, but I knew it would most likely circle. I also knew that Nighteyes was also moving swiftly to intercept it. I heard Starling hurrying after me but had no time to think of her as I kept the rabbit in sight as it dodged around trees and under snags. Twice I nearly had it, and twice it doubled away from me. But the second time it doubled, it raced straight into the jaws of the wolf. He sprang, pinned it to the earth with his front paws, then seized its small skull in his jaws. As he stood, he gave it a sharp shake, snapping its neck.

  I was opening its belly and spilling its entrails out for the wolf when Starling caught up with us. Nighteyes snapped the guts up with relish. Let's find another, he suggested, and moved swiftly off into the night.

  "He always gives up the meat to you like that?" Starling asked me.

  "He doesn't give it up. He lets me carry it. He knows that, now is the best hunting, and so he hopes to kill again swiftly. If not, he knows I will keep meat safe for him, and that we will share later." I secured the dead rabbit to my belt. I started off through the night, the warm body flopping lightly against my thigh as I walked.

  "Oh." Starling followed. A short time later, as if in answer to something I'd said, she observed, "I do not find your Wit-bond with the wolf offensive."

  "Neither do I," I replied quietly. Something in her choice of words nettled me. I continued to prowl along the trail, eyes and ears alert. I could hear the soft pad, pad, pad of Nighteyes feet off to my left and ahead of me. I hoped he would scare game toward me.

  A short time later, Starling added, "And I will stop calling the Fool 'she.' Whatever I may suspect."

  "That's good," I told her noncommittally. I did not slow my pace.

  I truly doubt you will be much good as hunter this night.

  This is not of my choosing.

  I know.

  "Do you want me to apologize as well?" Starling asked in a low strained voice.

  "I… uh," I stammered, and fell silent, unsure of what this was all about.

  "Very well then," she said in an icily determined voice. "I apologize, Lord FitzChivalry."

  I rounded on her. "Why are you doing this?" I demanded. I spoke in a normal voice. I could sense Nighteyes. He was already topping the hill, hunting alone now.

  "My lady queen bid me stop spreading discord within the company. She said that Lord FitzChivalry carried many burdens I could not know of, and did not deserve to bear also my disapproval," she informed me carefully.

  I wondered when all this had come to pass, but dared not ask it. "None of this is necessary," I said quietly. I felt oddly shamed, like a spoiled child who had sulked until the other children gave in. I took a deep breath, determined to simply speak honestly and see what came of it. "I do not know what made you withdraw your friendship, save that I disclosed my Wit to you. Nor do I understand your suspicions of the Fool, or why they seem to anger you. I hate this awkwardness between us. I wish we could be friends, as we were before." "You do not despise me, then? For giving my witness that you claimed Molly's child as your get?"

  I groped inside me after the lost feelings. It had been long since I had even thought about it. "Chade already knew of them." I said quietly. "He would have found a way, even if you had not existed. He is very… resourceful. And I have come to understand that you do not live by the same rules that I do."

  "I used to," she said softly. "A long time ago. Before the keep was sacked and I was left for dead. After that, it was hard to believe in the rules. Everything was taken from me. All that was good and beautiful and truthful was laid waste by evil and lust and greed. No. By something even baser than lust and greed, some drive I could not even understand. Even while the Raiders were raping me, they seemed to take no pleasure in it. At least, not the kind of pleasure… They mocked my pain and struggling. Those who watched were laughing as they waited." She was looking past me into the darkness of the past. I believe she spoke as much to herself as me, groping to understand something that defied meaning. "It was as if they were driven, but not by any lust or greed that could be sated. It was a thing they could do to me, so they did it. I had always believed, perhaps childishly, that if you followed the rules, you would be protected, that things like that would not happen to you. Afterward, I felt… tricked. Foolish. Gullible, that I had thought ideals could protect me. Honor and courtesy and justice… they are not real, Fitz. We all pretend to them, and hold them up like shields. But they guard only against folk who carry the same shields. Against those who have discarded them, they are no shields at all, but only additional weapons to use against their victims."

  I felt dizzied for an instant. I had never heard a woman speak of something like that so dispassionately. Mostly it was not spoken of at all. The rapes that occurred during a raid, the pregnancies that might follow, even the children that Six Duchies women bore to the Red-Ship Raiders were seldom spoken of as such. I suddenly realized we had been standing still a long time. The chill of the spring night was reaching me. "Let's go back to the camp," I suggested abruptly.

  "No," she said flatly. "Not yet. I fear I may cry, and if I do, I'd rather do it in the dark."

  It was getting close to full dark. But I led her back to a wider game trail, and we found a log to sit down on. Around us, the frogs and insects filled the night with mating songs.

  "Are you all right?" I asked her after we had sat some time in the silence.

  "No. I am not," she said shortly. "I need to make you understand. I did not sell your child cheaply, Fitz. I did not betray you casually. At first, I did not even think of it that way. Who would not want her daughter to become a princess, and eventually a queen? Who would not want lovely clothes and a fine home for his child? I did not think that you or your woman would see it as a misfortune befalling her."

  "Molly is my wife," I said quietly, but I truly believe she did not hear me.

  "Then, even after I knew it would not please you, I did it anyway. Knowing it would buy me a place here, at your side, witnessing… whatever it is you are going to do. Seeing strange sights no minstrel has ever sung of before, like those statues today. Because it was my only chance at a future. I must have a song, I must witness something that will assure me forever of a place of honor among minstrels. Something that will guarantee me my soup and wine when I am too old to travel from keep to keep."

  "Couldn't you have settled for a man to share your life and children?" I asked quietly. "It seems to me you have no problem catching a man's eye. Surely there must be one that…"

  "No man wants a barren woman to wed," she said. Her voice went flat, losing its music. "At the fall of Dimity Keep, Fitz, they left me for dead. And I lay there among the dead, sure that I would die soon, for I could not imagine continuing to live. Around me buildings were burning and injured folk were screaming and I could smell flesh scorching…" She stopped speaking. When she resumed, her voice was a bit more even. "But I didn't die. My body was stronger than my will. On the second day, I dragged myself to water. Some other survivors found me. I lived, and was better off than many. Until two months later. By then I was sure that what had been done to me was worse than killing me. I knew I carried a child fathered by one of those creatures.

  "So I went to a healer, who gave me herbs that did not work. I went to her again, and she warned me, saying if they had not worked, then I had better leave it to happen. But I went to another healer, who gave me a different potion. It… made me bleed. I shook the child loose from me, but the bleeding did not stop. I went back to the healers, both of them, but neither could help me.

  They said it would stop on its own, in time. But the one told me that it was likely I would never have other children." Her voice tightened, then thickened. "I know you think it slatternly, the way I am with men. But once you have be
en forced, it is… different. Ever after. I say to myself, Well, I know that it can happen to me at any time. So this way, at least I decide with whom and when. There will never be children for me, and hence there will never be a permanent man. So why should not I take my pick of what I can have? You made me question that for a time, you know. Until Moonseye. Moonseye proved me right again. And from Moonseye I came to Jhaampe, knowing that I was free to do whatever I must do to assure my own survival. For there will be no man and no children to look after me when I am old." Her voice went brittle and uneven as she said, "Sometimes I think it were better had they Forged me…"

  "No. Never say that. Never." I feared to touch her, but she turned suddenly and burrowed her face against me. I put an arm around her and found her trembling. I felt compelled to confess my stupidity. "I did not understand. When you said Burl's soldiers had raped some of the women… I did not know you had suffered that."

  "Oh." Her voice was very small. "I had thought you deemed it unimportant. I have heard it said in Farrow that rape bothers only virgins and wives. I thought perhaps you felt that to one such as I, it was no more than my due."

  "Starling!" I felt an irrational flash of anger that she could have believed me so heartless. Then I thought back. I had seen the bruises on her face. Why had not I guessed? I had never even spoken to her of how Burl had broken her fingers. I had assumed she had known how that had sickened me, that she knew it was Burl's threat of greater damage to her that had kept me leashed. I had thought that she withdrew friendship from me because of my wolf. What had she believed of my distance?

  "I have brought much pain into your life," I confessed. "Do not think I do not know the value of a minstrel's hands. Or that I discount the violation of your body. If you wish to speak of it, I am ready to listen. Sometimes, talking helps."

  "Sometimes it does not," she countered. Her grip on me suddenly tightened. "The day you stood before us all, and spoke in detail of what Regal had done to you. I bled for you that day. It did not undo anything that was done to you. No. I do not want to talk about it, or think about it."

  I lifted her hand and softly kissed the fingers that had been broken on my account. "I do not confuse what was done to you with who you are," I offered. "When I look at you, I see Starling Birdsong the minstrel."

  She nodded her face against me, and I knew it was as I surmised. She and I shared that fear. We would not live as victims.

  I said no more than that, but only sat there. It came to me again that even if we found Verity, even if by some miracle his return would shift the tides of war and make us victors, for some the victory would come far too late. Mine had been a long and weary road, but I still dared to believe that at the end of it there might be a life of my own choosing. Starling had not even that. No matter how far inland she might flee, she would never escape the war. I held her closer and felt her pain bleed over into me. After a time, her trembling stilled.

  "It's full dark," I said at last. "We had best go back to the camp."

  She sighed, but she straightened up. She took my hand. I started to lead her back to camp, but she tugged back on my hand. "Be with me," she said simply. "Just for here and just for now. With gentleness and friendship. To take the… other away. Give me that much of yourself."

  I wanted her. I wanted her with a desperation that had nothing to do with love, and even, I believe, little to do with lust. She was warm and alive and it would have been sweet and simple human comfort. If I could have been with her, and somehow arisen from it unchanged in how I thought of myself and what I felt for Molly, I would have done so. But what I felt for Molly was not something that was only for when we were together. I had given Molly that claim to me; I could not rescind it simply because we were apart for a time. I did not think there were words that could make Starling understand that in choosing Molly I was not rejecting her. So instead I said, "Nighteyes comes. He has a rabbit."

  Starling stepped close to me. She ran a hand up my chest to the side of my neck. Her fingers traced the line of my jaw and caressed my mouth. "Send him away," she said quietly.

  "I could not send him far enough that he would not know everything of what we shared," I told her truthfully.

  Her hand on my face was suddenly still. "Everything?" she asked. Her voice was full of dismay.

  Everything. He came and sat down beside us. Another rabbit dangled in his jaws.

  "We are Wit-bonded. We share everything."

  She took her hand from my face and stood clear of me. She stared down at the dark shape of the wolf. "Then all I just told you…"

  "He understands it in his own way. Not as another human would, but…"

  "How did Molly feel about that?" she abruptly demanded.

  I took a sharp breath. I had not expected our conversation to take this turn. "She never knew," I told her. Nighteyes started back to the camp. I followed him more slowly. Behind me came Starling.

  "And when she does know?" Starling pressed. "She will just accept this… sharing?"

  "Probably not," I muttered unwillingly. Why did Starling always make me think of things I had avoided considering?

  "What if she forces you to choose between her and the wolf?"

  I halted in my tracks for an instant. Then I started walking again, a bit faster. The question hung around me, but I refused to think about it. It could not be, it could never come to that. Yet a voice whispered inside me, "If you tell Molly the truth, it will come to that. It must."

  "You are going to tell her, aren't you?" Starling relentlessly asked me the one question I was hiding from.

  "I don't know," I said grimly.

  "Oh," she said. Then after a time, she added, "When a man says that, it usually means, 'No, I won't, but from time to time, I'll toy with the idea, so I can pretend I eventually intend to do it.'"

  "Would you please shut up?" There was no strength in my words.

  Starling followed me silently. After a time, she observed, "I don't know who to pity. You, or her."

  "Both of us, perhaps," I suggested stonily. I wanted no more words about it.

  The Fool was on watch when we got back to camp. Kettle and Kettricken were asleep. "Good hunting?" he asked in a comradely way as we approached.

  I shrugged. Nighteyes was already gnawing his way through the rabbit he had carried. He sprawled contentedly by the Fool's feet. "Good enough." I held up the other rabbit. The Fool took it from me and casually hung it from the tent pole.

  "Breakfast," he told me calmly. His eyes darted to Starling's face, but if he could tell she had been weeping, he made no jest of it. I don't know what he read in my face, for he made no comment on it. She followed me into the tent. I pulled off my boots and sank gratefully into my bedding. When I felt her settle herself against my back a few moments later, I was not very surprised. I decided it meant she had forgiven me. It did not make it easy to fall asleep.

  But eventually I did. I had set up my walls, but somehow I managed a dream of my very own. I dreamed that I sat by Molly's bed and watched over her as she and Nettle slept. The wolf was at my feet, while in the chimney corner the Fool sat on a stool and nodded to himself well pleased. Kettle's gamecloth was spread on the table, but instead of stones, it had tiny statues of different dragons in white and black. The red stones were ships, and it was my move. I had the piece in my hand that could win the game, but I only wished to watch Molly sleep. It was almost a peaceful dream.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Elfbark

  There are a number of old "White Prophecies" that to the betrayal of the Catalyst. White Column says of this event, "By his love is he betrayed, and his love betrayed also." A lesser known scribe and prophet, Gant the White, goes into more detail. "The heart of the Catalyst is bared to a trusted one. All confidence is given, and all confidence betrayed. The child of the Catalyst is given into his enemies' hands by one whose love and loyalty are above question." The other prophecies are more oblique, but in each case the inference is that the Catalyst is bet
rayed by one who has his implicit trust.

  Early the next morning, as we ate toasted bits of rabbit meat, Kettricken and I consulted her map again. We scarcely needed it anymore, we both knew it so well. But it was a thing to set between us and point at as we discussed things. Kettricken traced a fading line on the battered scroll. "We shall have to return to the column in the stone circle, and then follow the Skill road for some little way beyond it. Right up to our final destination, I believe."

  "I have no great wish to walk upon that road again," I told her honestly. "Even walking beside it strains me. But I suppose there is no help for it."

  "None that I can see."

  She was too preoccupied to offer much sympathy. I looked at the woman. The once gleaming blond hair was a short scruffy braid. Cold and wind had weathered her face, chapping her lips and etching fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, to say nothing of the deeper worry lines in her brow and between her eyes. Her clothing was travel-stained and worn. The Queen of the Six Duchies could not even have passed muster as a chambermaid in Tradeford. I suddenly wanted to reach out to her. I could think of no way to do so. So I simply said, "We will get there, and we will find Verity."

  She lifted her eyes to meet mine. She tried to put faith into her gaze and voice as she said, "Yes, we will." I heard only courage.

  We had torn down and moved our camp so often, it no longer took any thought. We moved as a unit, almost as a single creature. Like a coterie, I thought to myself.

  Like a pack, Nighteyes corrected me. He came to push his head against my hand. I paused and scratched his ears and throat thoroughly. He closed his eyes and laid back his ears in pleasure. If your mate makes you send me away, I shall miss this greatly.

  I won't let that happen.

  You believe she will make you choose.

  I refuse to think about it just now.

  Ah! He fell over on his side, then rolled to his back so I could scratch his belly. He bared his teeth in a wolfish smile. You live in the now and refuse to think of what may come. But I, I find I can think of little else save what may come to be. These times have been good for me, my brother. Living with others, hunting together, sharing meat. But the howling bitch had it aright last night. Cubs are needed to make a pack. And your cub…