The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy Omnibus

by Robin Hobb

  Coming up. A large ginger cat announced this to me at the same moment that he effortlessly elevated onto my lap. I stared at him in surprise. Never had an animal spoken so clearly to me via the Wit save for my own bond-animals. Nor had I ever been so completely ignored by an animal that had just spoken mind to mind with me. The cat stood, hind legs on my lap, front paws on the table, and surveyed the food. A plumey tail waved before my face.

  ‘Fennel! Shame on you, stop that. Come here.’ Jinna leaned across the table to scoop the cat from my lap. She picked up the conversation as she did so. ‘Yes, Hap’s told me of his ambitions, and it’s a fine thing to see a young man with dreams and hopes.’

  ‘He’s a good boy,’ I agreed with her fervently. ‘And he deserves a good chance at making something of himself. I’d do anything for him.’

  Fennel now stood on Jinna’s lap and stared at me across the table. She likes me better than you. He stole a piece of fish from the edge of her plate.

  Do all cats speak so rudely to strangers? I rebuked him.

  He leaned back to bump his head possessively against Jinna’s chest. His yellow-eyed stare was daunting. All cats talk however they want. To whomever they want. But only a rude human speaks out of turn. Be quiet. I told you. She likes me better than you. He twisted his head to look up at Jinna’s face. More fish?

  ‘That’s plain,’ she agreed. I tried to remember what I had said to her as I watched her give the cat a bit of fish at the edge of the table. I knew Jinna was not Witted. I wondered if the cat was lying to me about all cats talking. I knew little of cats. Burrich had never kept them in the stables. We’d had rat-dogs to keep the vermin down.

  Jinna misinterpreted my preoccupation. A touch of sympathy came into her eyes as she added, ‘Still, it must be hard to leave your own home and being your own master to come to town and serve, no matter how fine a man Lord Golden may be. I hope he’s as open-handed at paying you as he is when he comes down to Buckkeep Town to trade.’

  I forced a smile to my face. ‘You know of Lord Golden, then?’

  She bobbed a nod at me. ‘By coincidence, he was right here in this very room just last month. He wanted a charm to keep moths from his wardrobe. I told him I had never made such a thing before, but that I could attempt one. So gracious he was for such a noble man. He paid me for it, just on my word that I would make one. And then he insisted on looking at every charm I had in my shop, and bought no less than six of them. Six! One for sweet dreams, one for light spirits, another to attract birds – Oh, and he seemed quite entranced with that one, almost as if he were a bird himself. But when I asked to see his hands, to tune the charms to him, he told me they were all intended as gifts. I told him he might send each recipient to me, to have the charms tuned if they wished, but as yet none of them have come. Still, they will work well enough as I built them. I do like to tune the charms, though. It’s all the difference between a charm built by rote, and one created by a master. And I do regard myself as a master, thank you very much!’

  These last words she offered with a hint of laughter in her voice in response to my raised brows. We laughed together, and I had no right to feel as comfortable with her as I did at that moment. ‘You’ve put my mind at rest,’ I declared. ‘I know Hap is a good lad, and little in need of my care any more. Yet I’m afraid I’m always imagining the worst befalling him.’

  Don’t ignore me! Fennel threatened. He hopped up onto the table. Jinna put him on the floor. He floated back onto her lap. She petted him absently.

  ‘That’s just a part of being a father,’ she assured me. ‘Or a friend.’ A strange look came over her face. ‘I’m not above foolish worries myself. Even when they’re none of my business.’ She gave me a frankly speculative look that evaporated all the ease in my body. ‘I’m going to speak plainly,’ she warned me.

  ‘Please,’ I invited her but every bone in my body wished she would not.

  ‘You’re Witted,’ she said. It was not an accusation. It was more as if she commented on a disfiguring disease. ‘I travel quite a bit, in my trade, more perhaps than you have in the last few years. The mood of the folk has changed towards Witted ones, Tom. It’s become ugly everywhere I’ve been recently. I didn’t see it myself, but I heard that in a town in Farrow they displayed the dismembered bodies of the Witted ones they’ve killed, with each piece in a separate cage to prevent them coming back to life.’

  I kept my face still but I felt as if ice were creeping up my spine. Prince Dutiful. Stolen or run away, but in either case vulnerable. Outside the protective walls of Buckkeep where people were capable of such monstrosities, the young prince was at risk.

  ‘I’m a hedge-witch,’ Jinna said softly. ‘I know what it is to be born with magic already inside you. It’s not something you can change, even if you want to. More, I know what it’s like to have a sister who was born empty of it. She seemed so free to me sometimes. She could look at a charm my father had made, and to her it was just sticks and beads. It never whispered and nagged at her. The hours I spent beside my father, learning his skills were hours she spent with my mother in the kitchen. When we were growing up, the envy went both ways. But we were a family and we could be taught tolerance of our differences.’ She smiled at her memories, then shook her head, and her face grew graver. ‘Out in the wide world, it’s different. Folk may not threaten to tear me apart or burn me, but I’ve seen hatred and jealousy in more than one set of eyes. Folk think either that it isn’t fair that I’ve got something they can never have, or they fear that somehow I’ll use what I’ve got to hurt them. They never stop to think they’ve got talents of their own that I’ll never master. They might be rude to me, jostle me on the street or try to squeeze me out of my market space, but they won’t kill me. You don’t have that comfort. The smallest slip could be your death. And if someone provokes your temper … Well. You become a different man altogether. I confess it’s been bothering me since the last time I saw you. So, well … to put my own mind at rest, I made you something.’

  I swallowed. ‘Oh. Thank you.’ I could not even find the courage to ask what she had made me. Sweat was leaking down my spine despite the coolness of the dim room. She had not intended to threaten me, but her words reminded me how vulnerable I was to her. My assassin’s training went deep, I discovered. Kill her, suggested that part of me. She knows your secret and that makes her a threat. Kill her.

  I folded my hands on the table before me.

  ‘You must think me strange,’ she murmured as she rose and went to a cupboard. ‘To be interfering in your life so when we have only met once or twice.’ I could tell she was embarrassed, yet determined to give me the gift she had made.

  ‘I think you are kind,’ I said awkwardly.

  Her rising had displaced Fennel. He sat on the floor, wrapped his tail around his feet and glared up at me. There goes the lap! All your fault.

  She had taken a box from the cupboard. She brought it back to the table and opened it. Inside was an arrangement of beads and rods on leather thongs. She lifted it and gave it a shake and it became a necklace. I stared at it, but felt nothing. ‘What does it do?’ I asked.

  She laughed lightly. ‘Very little, I am afraid. I cannot make you seem unWitted, nor can I make you invulnerable to attack. I cannot even give you something that will help you master your temper. I tried to make something that would warn you of ill feelings towards you, but it became so bulky and large, it was more like war harness than a charm. You will forgive my saying that my first impression of you was that you were a rather forbidding fellow. It took me a while to warm to you, and if Hap had not spoken so well of you, I would not have given you a moment of my time. I would have thought you a dangerous man. So did many appraise you as they passed us in the market that day. And so, bluntly, did you later show yourself to be. A dangerous man, but not a wicked one, if you will excuse my judging you. Yet the set of your face, by habit, shows folk that darker aspect of yourself. And now, with a blade at your hip and your hair
in a warrior’s tail, well, it does not give you a friendly demeanour. And it is easiest to hate a man that you first fear. So. This is a variation on a very old love charm. I have made it, not to attract lovers, but to make people well disposed towards you, if it works as I hope it will. When you try to create a variation on a standard theme, it often lacks strength. Sit still, now.’

  She walked behind my chair with the dangling necklace. I watched her lower it past my face, and without being told, I bowed my head so she could fasten it at the nape of my neck. The charm made me feel no different, but her cool fingers against my skin sent a prickling chill over me. Her voice came from behind me. ‘I flatter myself that I got this fit right. It must not be too loose or it will dangle, nor so tight it chokes. Let me see it on you now. Turn around.’

  I did as I was bid, twisting in my chair. She looked at the necklace, looked at my face, and then grinned broadly. ‘Oh, yes, that will do. Though you are taller than I recalled. I should have used a narrower bead for that … Well, it will do. I had thought it might take some adjusting, but I fear if I tinker with it, I will take it back to its origin. Now, wear it with your collar pulled up, like so, so just a slice of it shows. There. If you are in a situation where you feel it might be useful, find an excuse to loosen your collar. Let it be seen, and folk will find you a more persuasive talker. Like so. Even your silences will seem charming.’

  She looked down into my face as she tugged my collar more open about the charm. I looked up at her and felt a sudden blush heat my face. Our eyes locked.

  ‘It works very well indeed,’ she observed, and unabashedly lowered her face to offer me her mouth. Not to kiss her was unthinkable. She pressed her mouth to mine. Her lips were warm.

  We sprang apart guiltily as the doorhandle rattled. The door scraped open, and a woman’s silhouette was outlined against the day’s brightness. Then she came inside, pushing the door shut behind her. ‘Whew. It’s cooler in here, thank Eda. Oh. Beg pardon. Were you doing a reading?’

  She had the same scattering of freckles on her nose and forearms. Clearly, this was Jinna’s niece. She looked about twenty or so, and carried a basket full of fresh fish on her arm.

  Fennel ran to greet her, wrapping around her ankles. You love me best. You know you do. Pick me up.

  ‘Not a reading. Testing a charm. It seems to work.’ Jinna’s voice invited me to share her amusement. Her niece glanced from Jinna to me, knowing she had been excluded from some joke, but taking it genially. She picked up Fennel and he rubbed his face against her, marking his possession.

  ‘And I should be going. I’m afraid I have several other errands to do before I am required back at the keep.’ I wasn’t sure that I wanted to leave. But how interested I was in staying did not fit in at all with what I was supposed to be doing in Buckkeep. Most of all, I felt I needed a bit of time alone to decide what had just happened, and what it meant to me.

  ‘Must you go so right away?’ Jinna’s niece asked me. She seemed genuinely disappointed at seeing me rise from my chair. ‘There’s plenty of fish, if you’d care to stay and eat with us.’

  Her impromptu invitation took me aback, as did the interest in her eyes.

  My fish. I’ll eat it soon. Fennel leaned down to look fondly at the food.

  ‘The charm seems to work very well indeed,’ Jinna observed in an aside. I found myself tugging at my collar.

  ‘I really must go, I’m afraid. I’ve work to do, and I’m expected back at the keep. But thank you for the invitation.’

  ‘Perhaps another time, then,’ the niece offered, and Jinna added, ‘Certainly another time, my dear. Before he leaves, let me introduce Tom Badgerlock. He has asked me to keep watch for his son, a young friend of mine named Hap. When Hap arrives, he may stay with us for a day or so. And Tom will certainly have supper with us then. Tom Badgerlock, my niece, Miskya.’

  ‘Miskya, a pleasure,’ I assured her. I lingered long enough to exchange parting pleasantries, and then hurried out into the sunlight and noise of the city. As I hastened back to Buckkeep, I watched the reactions of folk I met. It did seem that more smiled at me than usually did, but I realized that might simply be their reaction to my meeting their eyes. I usually looked aside from strangers on the street. A man unnoticed is a man unremembered, and that is the best that an assassin can hope for. Then I reminded myself that I was no longer an assassin. Nonetheless, I decided that I would remove the necklace as soon as I got home. I found that having strangers regard me benevolently for no reason was more unnerving than having them distrust me on sight.

  I made my steep way up to the keep gate and was admitted by the guardsmen there. The sun was high, the sky blue and clear, and if any of the passing folk were aware that the sole heir to the Farseer crown had vanished, they showed no sign of it. They moved about their ordinary tasks with no more than the concerns of a working day to vex them. By the stable, several tall boys had converged on a plump young man. I knew him for a dullard by his flat face and small ears and the way his tongue peeped out of his mouth. Dull fear showed in his small eyes as the boys spread to encircle him. One of the older stablehands looked towards them irritably.

  No, no, no.

  I turned, seeking the source of the floating thought, but of course that availed me nothing. A faint snatch of music distracted me. A stable-boy, sent hurrying about his tasks, jolted into me, then, at my startled look, begged my pardon most abjectly. Without thinking, I had allowed my hand to ride my sword hilt. ‘No harm done,’ I assured him, and added, ‘Tell me, where would I find the Weaponsmaster this time of day?’

  The boy stopped suddenly, looked more closely at me, and smiled. ‘Down at the practice courts, man. They’re just past the new granary.’ He pointed the way.

  I thanked him, and as I turned away, I tugged my collar closed.

  THIRTEEN

  Bargains

  Hunting cats are not entirely unknown within Buck Duchy, but they have remained for years an anomaly. Not only is the terrain of Buck more suited to hound-hunting, but also hounds are more suited to the larger game that is usually the prey of mounted hunters. A lively pack of hounds, boiling and baying, is a fine accompaniment for a royal hunt. The cat, when it is employed, is usually seen as more fittingly the dainty hunting-companion of a lady, suitable for the taking of rabbits or birds. King Shrewd’s first queen, Queen Constance, kept a little hunting cat, but more for pleasure and companionship than sport. Her name was Hisspit.

  Sulinga’s A History of Coursing Beasts

  ‘The Queen wishes to see you.’

  ‘When?’ I asked, startled. It was hardly the greeting I had expected from Chade. I had opened the panel that admitted me to his tower to find him sitting in his chair before the hearth, waiting for me. He stood immediately.

  ‘Now, of course. She wants to know what progress we have made, and is naturally anxious to hear from you as soon as possible.’

  ‘But I haven’t made any progress,’ I protested. I had not even reported my day’s work to Chade yet. I probably stank of sweat from the weapons court.

  ‘Then she’ll want to hear that,’ he replied relentlessly. ‘Come. Follow me.’ He triggered the door and we left the tower chamber.

  It was evening. I had spent my afternoon doing as the Fool had advised me, playing the role of a servant learning his way about a new place. As such, I’d talked to quite a number of my fellow servitors, introduced myself to Weaponsmaster Cresswell, and successfully arranged it that he would suggest I freshen my blade skills against Delleree. She proved to be a formidable swordswoman, nearly as tall as I was, and both energetic and light-footed. I was pleased she could not get past my guard, but I was soon panting with the effort of maintaining it. Trying to penetrate her defences was not yet an option for me. The weapons training Hod had enforced on me long ago stood me in good stead, but my body simply could not react as swiftly as my mind. Knowing what to do under an attack is not the same thing as being able to do it.

  Twice I be
gged leave for breathing space and she granted it to me with the satisfaction of the insufferably young. Yet my leading questions about the Prince availed me little, until at my third rest interlude I loosened my collar and opened my shirt wide to the cool air. I almost felt guilty doing it, yet I will not deny that I wanted to test if the charm would coax her to be more loquacious with me.

  It worked. Leaning on the wall in the shade of the weapons shed, I caught my breath, and then looked up into her face. As our gaze met, her brown eyes widened, in the way that a person’s eyes widen at the sight of something pleasantly anticipated. Like a rapier rushing to its target, I thrust my question past her guard. ‘Tell me, do you press Prince Dutiful so hard when he practises with you?’

  She smiled. ‘No, I fear I do not, for I am usually more occupied with maintaining my own defences against him. He is a skilled swordsman, creative and unpredictable in his tactics. No sooner do I devise a new trick to use against him than he learns it and tries it against me.’

  ‘Then he loves his blade-work, as good fighters usually do.’

  She paused. ‘No. I do not think that is it. He is a youth who makes no half-measures in anything he does. He strives to be perfect in all he attempts.’

  ‘Competitive, is he?’ I tried to make my query casual. I busied my hands in smoothing my wayward hair back into its tail.

  Again she considered. ‘No. Not in the usual sense. There are some I practise with who think only of beating their opponents. That preoccupation can be used against them. But I do not think the Prince cares if he wins our matches, only that he fights each one perfectly. It is not the same thing as competing with my skills …’ Her voice trailed away as she pondered it.

  ‘He competes with himself, against an ideal he imagines.’

  My prompting seemed to startle her for an instant. Then, grinning, ‘That is it, exactly. You’ve met him, then?’