by Robin Hobb
‘That is all I ask,’ the Prince replied and in his words I heard the echo of the monarch he would be.
Chade turned his beetling gaze on me. ‘Why did you bring this up?’ he asked me crossly, as if I had sought to precipitate a quarrel between them.
‘Because I need to know what it is that Web seeks from me. I sense that he courts me, that he tries to draw me closer into his confidence. Why?’
There is no true silence on board a ship. Always there are the ongoing conversations between wood and water, canvas and wind. Those voices were the only ones in the cabin for a time. Then Dutiful gave a small snort. ‘Unlikely as you think it, Fitz, perhaps he only wishes to be your friend. I see nothing here for him to gain.’
‘He holds a secret,’ Chade said sourly. ‘There is always power in holding a secret.’
‘And danger,’ the Prince countered. ‘Revealing this secret is as dangerous to Web as it is to Fitz. Think what would follow if he revealed it. Would it not undermine my reign? Would not some of the nobles turn on my mother the Queen, angered that she had kept this secret from them and preserved Fitz’s life?’ In a lower voice he added, ‘Do not forget that in revealing to Fitz that he knew his identity, Web put himself at risk, also. This is a secret that some men would kill to preserve.’
I watched Chade sift it through his mind. ‘Truly, the threat is to your reign as much as to Fitz,’ he conceded worriedly. ‘Right now, you are correct. It benefits Web most to keep the secret a secret. As long as your reign is amiable toward the Witted, they have no interest in deposing you. But if you ever turned against them? What then?’
‘What then indeed?’ Dutiful scoffed. ‘Chade, ask yourself as you have so often asked me, “what would happen next?” If my mother and I were overthrown, who would seize power? Why, those who had overthrown us. And they would be the enemy of the Witted, a harsher enemy than Old Blood has had to confront in my lifetime. No. I think Fitz’s secret is safe. More, I think he should set aside his wariness and become Web’s friend.’
I nodded, wondering why such an idea made me so uneasy.
‘I still see little benefit in this Witted coterie,’ Chade muttered.
‘Do you not? Then why do you ask me each day what Web’s bird has seen? Does it not ease your mind to know that all the ships she has shown Web have been honest merchant or fishing vessels? And think what tidings she gave us today. She has flown over the harbour and town of Zylig, and Web has looked down on it through the bird’s eyes. He has seen no massing of folk as for battle or treachery. True, the city is swelled with people, but it seems to flaunt a festive air. Do you not take comfort in that?’
‘I suppose so. But it is a thin comfort, given that treachery is so easy to disguise.’
Thick rolled over, muttering, and I made that my excuse to leave them. Not long after, Chade departed for his own cabin, the Prince went to his bed and I made up my pallet beside Thick’s bunk. I thought of Web and Risk, and tried to imagine seeing the ocean and the Out Islands through a bird’s eyes. It would be a marvel and a wonder. Yet before my imagination could capture me completely, a wave of longing for Nighteyes swept over me. That night, I dreamed my own dreams, and they were of wolves hunting in the summer-seared hills.
EIGHT
The Hetgurd
This is how it was. Eda and El coupled in the darkness, but he did not find favour with her. Then she gave birth to the land, and the outrush of her waters which accompanied that birth was the sea. The land was shapeless, clay and still, until Eda took it in her hands. One at a time, she moulded the runes of her secret name, and El’s too, did she fashion. She spelled out the god name with the God’s Runes, setting them in careful order in the ocean. And all this El watched.
But when he would have taken up clay of his own to fashion his own runes, Eda would not give any over to him. ‘You gave me but a rush of fluid from your body as seed to make all this. The flesh of it came from me. So take back only what was yours to start with, and be content with it.’
El was little content with that. So he made for himself men, and gave them ships and put them on the sea’s face. Laughing to himself, he said, ‘There are too many for her to watch them all. Soon they will walk on her land and shape it to my liking, so it spells my name instead of hers.’
But Eda had already thought before him. And when El’s men came to land, they found Eda’s women, already walking on it and ordering the growing of fruit and grain and the proliferation of the cattle. And the women would not suffer the men to shape the lands, nor even to abide on them for long. Instead, the women said to the men, ‘We will let you give us the brine of your loins, with which we will shape flesh to follow ours. But never will the land that Eda bore belong to your sons, but only to our daughters.’
Birth of the World, as told by Out Island bards
Despite Chade’s misgivings, Web’s bird had shown him accurately what we could expect. The next morning, the lookout cried out his sighting, and by afternoon the nearest islets of the Out Islands were streaming past on our port side. Green banked islands, tiny houses and small fishing vessels enlivened a view that had been watery for too long. I tried to convince Thick to rise and come on deck to see how close we were to the end of our journey but he refused to be tempted. When he spoke, his words were slow and measured. ‘It won’t be home,’ he moaned. ‘We’re too far from home, and we’ll never get back there again. Never.’ Coughing, he turned away from me.
Yet even his sour attitude could not dampen my relief. I convinced myself that once he was on shore, he would regain both his health and spirits. The knowledge that we were close to getting off that cramped vessel made every moment stretch into a day. It was only the next afternoon that we sighted Zylig, but it seemed a month had passed. When small boats rowed out to greet us and guide our ships through the narrow channel to their harbour, I longed to be on deck with Chade and Prince Dutiful.
Instead, I paced the Prince’s cabin, staring out at the frustrating view from the aft windows. I could hear our captain bellowing and the thunder of the sailors’ feet on the deck. Chade and Prince Dutiful and his contingent of nobles and his Witted coterie were all up on the deck, looking on as the ship approached Zylig. I felt like a dog chained in the kennel while the hounds streamed off to the hunt. I felt the change in the ship’s movements as our canvas was lowered and the towlines of our pilot boats took up their slack. When they had us in position, the Out Island guides brought us about so that our stern now faced Zylig. As I heard the splash of our anchor, I stared restlessly out at the foreign city that awaited us. The other Six Duchies ships were being manoeuvred into anchorage nearby.
I do not think there is anything so ponderously slow as a ship coming into port, save perhaps the process of unloading. Suddenly the water about us swarmed with small craft, their oars dipping and rising as if they were many-legged water bugs. One, grander than the rest, soon bore Prince Dutiful, Chade, a selected entourage and a handful of his guards away from the ship. I watched them go, certain they had forgotten about Thick and me. Then there was a tap at the door. It was Riddle, freshly attired in his guard’s uniform. His eyes shone with excitement.
‘I’m to watch your half-wit while you get yourself ready. There’s a boat waiting to take you and him and the rest of the guard ashore. Step lively now. Everyone else is ready to go.’
So they had not forgotten me, but neither had they served me with much warning of their plans. I took Riddle at his word, leaving him with Thick while I went below. The guards’ area was deserted. The others had donned their clean uniforms as soon as we’d approached harbour. Those who hadn’t accompanied the Prince lined the railing on deck, eager to be away. I changed swiftly and hurried back to the Prince’s quarters. Harrying Thick into clean clothing was not going to be pleasant or easy, but when I arrived, I found that Riddle had already undertaken that task.
Thick swayed on the edge of his bunk. His blue tunic and trousers hung on his wasted frame. Until I saw him dr
essed, I had not realized how much flesh he had lost. Riddle knelt by the bunk, good-naturedly trying to chivvy him into his shoes. Thick was moaning feebly and making vaguely helpful motions. His face was crumpled with misery. If I had doubted it at all before, I was now certain that Riddle was one of Chade’s men. No ordinary guardsman would have undertaken that task.
‘I’ll finish that,’ I told him, and could not keep the brusqueness from my voice. I could not have said why I felt protective of the small man looking at me blearily from his little round eyes, but I did.
‘Thick,’ I told him as I finished getting his shoes on. ‘We’re going ashore. Once we’re on solid ground again, you’re going to feel much better. You’ll see.’
‘No, I won’t,’ he promised me. He coughed again and the rattle in it frightened me. Nonetheless, I found a cloak for him and heaved him to his feet. He staggered along beside me as we left the cabin. Out on the deck in the fresh wind for the first time in days, he shivered and clutched his cloak tightly around him. The sun shone brightly, but the day was not as warm as a summer day in Buck. Snow still owned the peaks of the higher hills, and the wind carried its chill to us.
The Outislanders provided our transportation to shore. Getting Thick from the deck into the dancing boat below required both Riddle and myself. I silently cursed at those guards who laughed at our predicament. At their oars, the Outislanders discussed us freely in their own tongue, unaware that I understood the disdain they expressed for a Prince who chose an idiot as his companion. Once settled on the seat beside Thick, I had to put my arm around him to settle him against the terrors of a small, open boat. He wept, the round tears rolling down his cheeks as our little dory rose and fell with every passing wave. I blinked at the bright sunlight glancing off the moving water and stared stolidly at the wharves and houses of Zylig as the straining sailors rowed us to our destination.
It was not an inspiring view. Peottre Blackwater’s disdain for the city was not misplaced. Zylig offered all the worst aspects of a lively port. Wharves and docks jutted haphazardly into the bay. Vessels of every description crowded them. Most were fat-hulled, greasy whale-hunters, with a permanent reek of oil and butchery clinging to them. A few were merchanters from the Six Duchies. I saw one that looked Chalcedean and one that could have been Jamaillian. Moving amongst them were the small fishing boats that daily fed the bustling town, and even smaller craft that were hawking smoked fish, dried seaweed and other provisions to the outward bound vessels. Masts forested the skyline and the docked ships grew taller as we approached them.
Beyond them, I caught glimpses of warehouses, sailors’ inns and supply stores. Stone structures predominated over wood. Narrow streets, some little more than trails, meandered amongst the crowded little buildings. At one end of the bay where the water ran shallower and rocky, unfit for anchorage, little stone houses clustered by the water. Rowing-boats were pulled out above the tide-line, and spread fish hung like laundry drying from poles. Smoking fires in trenches beneath the fish added flavour as it preserved the catch. I glimpsed a pack of children racing along the beach, shrieking raucously in some wild game.
The section of the town we were approaching seemed recently built. In contrast to the rest of the settlement, the streets were wide and straight. Timber supplemented the native stone, and most of the structures were taller. Some had windows of swirled glass in the upper storeys. I recalled hearing that the Six Duchies dragons had visited this port city, bringing death and destruction to our enemies. The structures in this area were all of an age, the streets straight and well cobbled. It was strange to see this orderly section amongst the haphazard port town and wonder what it had looked like before Verity as Dragon had paid a call here. Stranger still to think that the destruction of war could result in such rebuilt tidiness.
Above the harbour, the land rose in rocky hillsides. Dark evergreens hunched in sheltered areas. Cart tracks wound among the hillsides where sheep and goats grazed. Smoke wandered up through the tree cover from scarcely visible huts. Mountains and taller hills, crowned still with snow, loomed beyond them.
We had arrived on a low tide, and the docks towered above us, supported on thick timbers crusted with barnacles and black mussels. The rungs of the ladder up to the dock were still wet from the retreating tide, and festoons of seaweed hung from them. The Prince and several boatloads of nobles had already disembarked. More Buckkeep noblemen were unloading as we approached. Grudgingly they gave way to us, to allow the Prince’s guard to clamber up the ladders onto the docks and form up to escort Dutiful to his welcome.
I was the last out of the tippy little boat, having shoved a moaning Thick ahead of me up the slippery ladder. Once on the docks, I moved us away from the edge and looked around me. The Prince, flanked by his advisors, was being greeted by the Hetgurd. I was left standing to one side with Thick, unsure of what was expected of me. I needed to get him to a place where he would be comfortable and out of the public eye. I wondered uneasily if it would not have been wiser for me to remain on the ship with him. The open looks of disgust and dismay that he was receiving did not indicate a warm welcome for us. Evidently the Outislanders shared the Mountain opinion of children that were born less than perfect. If Thick had been born in Zylig, his life would not have lasted a day.
My status as both bastard and assassin had often left me lurking in the shadows at official proceedings so I did not feel slighted. If I had been alone, I would have known that my task was to mingle and observe while being nondescript. But here, in a foreign land, saddled with a sick and miserable simpleton and clad in a guard’s uniform, I could do neither. So I stood awkwardly at the edge of the crowd, my arm supporting Thick, and listened to the exchange of carefully-phrased greetings, welcome and thanks. The Prince seemed to be acquitting himself well, but the look of concentration on his face warned me not to distract him with a Skill-query. Those who had come to meet him represented a variety of clans, judging by the differing animal sigils featured in their jewellery and tattoos. Most were men, richly attired in the lush furs and heavy jewellery that signified both rank and wealth among the Outislanders; but there were four women also. They wore woven wool garments trimmed with fur, and I wondered if this was to show the wealth of their land holdings. The Narcheska’s father, Arkon Bloodblade, was there, along with at least six others displaying the boar of his clan. Peottre Blackwater accompanied him, his narwhal an ivory carving on a gold chain around his neck. It seemed odd to me that I saw no other narwhal sigils. That was the Narcheska’s maternal clan, and among the Outislanders, her significant family line. We were here to finalize the terms of the marriage between Dutiful and her. Surely it was a momentous occasion for her clan. Why did only Peottre come to represent them? Did the rest oppose this alliance?
The formalities of greeting satisfied at length, the Prince and his entourage were escorted away. The guard formed up without me and marched off behind him. For a moment I feared that Thick and I would be left standing on the docks. Just as I was wondering if I could bribe someone to take us back to the ship, an old man approached us. He wore a collar of wolf fur and sported the boar sigil of Bloodblade’s clan, but did not seem as prosperous as the other men. He obviously believed he could speak my language, for I could understand about one word in four of his barbarously mangled Duchy tongue. Fearing to insult him by asking him to speak Outislander, I waited and finally grasped that the Boar Clan had appointed him to guide Thick and I to our lodging.
He made no offer to assist me with Thick. In fact, he assiduously avoided getting any closer to him than was absolutely necessary, as if the little man’s mental deficiency was a contagion that might leap to him like a plague of lice. I felt it as a slur, but counselled myself to patience. He walked briskly ahead of us, and did not slacken his pace, even though he often had to halt completely to wait for us. Obviously, he did not wish to share the gawking stares we attracted. We made a strange sight, me in my guard’s uniform and poor miserable Thick, swathed in a clo
ak and staggering along under my arm.
Our guide led us through the reconstructed part of town and then up a steeper, narrower road. Thick’s breath was a moaning wheeze. ‘How much farther?’ I demanded of our guide, calling the words to him as he hastened ahead of us.
He turned abruptly, scowling, and made a brusque motion for me to keep my voice down. He gestured up the street at an old building, all of stone and much larger than the houses we had passed in the lower part of town. It was rectangular, with a peaked roof of slates, and three storeys high. Windows interrupted the stonework at regular intervals. It was a plain and functional building, stoutly built and probably amongst the oldest structures in the town. I nodded, unspeaking. A boar, his tusks and tail lifted defiantly, was etched into the stone above the entry. So. We would be housed in the Boar Clan’s stronghouse.
By the time we reached the courtyard around the building, our guide was practically chewing his moustache in his teeth-gnashing impatience at our slow pace. I no longer cared. When he opened a side door and gestured to me to hurry, I slowly drew myself up to my full height and glared down at him. In my best Outislander, and all too aware of how poor my accent was, I told him, ‘It is not the pleasure of the Prince’s companion that we hurry. I serve at his command, not yours.’
I saw uncertainty wash over the man’s face as he wondered if he had offended someone of a much higher rank than he knew. He was somewhat more courteous as he showed us up two steep flights of stairs and into a chamber that looked out over the town and the harbour through a swirl of thick glass. By then I’d had enough of him. I gauged him as a lesser lackey to some minor Boar war-leader. As such, I dismissed him brusquely once we were inside, and shut the door even though he lingered in the hallway.
I sat Thick down on the bed and then assessed the room quickly. There was a door that connected to another, much grander chamber. I decided that we had been put in a servant’s room adjacent to the Prince’s quarters. The bed was adequate, the furnishings simple in Thick’s small room. Even so, it seemed a palace after his closet on the ship. ‘Sit there,’ I told Thick. ‘Don’t go to sleep yet.’