by Robin Hobb
‘I was … coming back. I was on the steep bit, just outside of town. Where the alders grow?’
I nodded. I knew the spot.
‘I heard horses coming. In a hurry. So I stepped off the road, to make way for them.’ She started to tremble again. ‘I kept walking, thinking they would pass me. But suddenly they were right behind me, and when I looked back, they were coming right at me. Not on the road, but right at me. I jumped back into the brush, and still they rode right at me. I turned and ran, but they kept coming …’ Her voice was getting higher and higher.
‘Hush! Wait a bit. Calm down. Think. How many of them? Did you know them?’
She shook her head wildly. ‘Two. I couldn’t see their faces. I was running away, and they were wearing the kind of helm that comes down over your eyes and nose. They chased me. It’s steep there, you know, and brushy. I tried to get away, but they just rode their horses right through the brush after me. Herding me, like dogs herd sheep. I ran, and ran, but I couldn’t get away from them. Then, I fell, I caught my foot on a log and I fell. And they jumped from their horses. One pinned me down while the other snatched up my basket. He dumped it all out, like he was looking for something, but they were laughing and laughing. I thought …’
My heart was hammering as hard as Molly’s now. ‘Did they hurt you?’ I asked fiercely.
She paused, as if she could not decide, then shook her head wildly. ‘Not as you fear. He just … held me down. And laughed. The other one, he said, he said, I was pretty stupid, letting myself be used by a bastard. They said …’
She paused a moment. Whatever they had said to her, called her, was ugly enough that she could not repeat it to me. It was like a sword through me, that they had been able to hurt her so badly she would not even share the pain. ‘They warned me,’ she went on at last. ‘They said, stay away from the Bastard. Don’t do his dirty work for him. They said … things I didn’t understand, about messages and spies and treason. They said they could make sure that everyone knew I was the Bastard’s whore.’ She tried just to say the word, but it came out with greater force. She defied me to flinch from it. ‘Then they said … I would be hanged … if I didn’t pay attention. That to run errands for a traitor was to be a traitor.’ Her voice grew strangely calmer. ‘Then they spat on me. And they left me. I heard them ride away, but for a long time, I was afraid to get up. I have never been so scared.’ She looked at me and her eyes were like open wounds. ‘Not even my father ever scared me that badly.’
I held her close to me. ‘It’s all my fault.’ I did not even know I had spoken aloud until she drew back from me, to look up in puzzlement.
‘Your fault? Did you do something wrong?’
‘No. I am no traitor. But I am a bastard. And I’ve let that spill over onto you. Everything Patience warned me of, everything Ch … everyone warned me about, it’s all coming true. I’ve got you caught up in it.’
‘What is happening?’ she asked softly, eyes wide. Her breath suddenly caught. ‘You said … the guard wouldn’t let you out the gate. That you can’t leave Buckkeep? Why?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. There’s a lot I don’t understand. But one thing I do know. I have to keep you safe. That means staying away from you, for a time. And you from me. Do you understand?’
A glint of anger came into her eyes. ‘I understand you’re leaving me alone in this!’
‘No. That’s not it. We have to make them believe that they’ve scared you, that you’re obeying them. Then you’ll be safe. They’ll have no reason to come after you again.’
‘They have scared me, you idiot!’ she hissed at me. ‘One thing I know. Once someone knows you’re afraid of him, you’re never safe from that person. If I obey them now, they will come after me again. To tell me to do other things, to see how far I’ll obey them in my fear.’
These were the scars her father had left on her life. Scars that were a kind of strength, but also a vulnerability. ‘Now is not the time to stand up to them,’ I whispered. I kept looking over her shoulder, expecting that at any moment the guard would come to see where we had vanished. ‘Come,’ I said, and led her deeper into the maze of warehouses and outbuildings. She walked silently beside me for a way, then suddenly jerked her hand from mine.
‘It is time to stand up to them,’ she declared. ‘Because once you start putting it off, you never do it. Why should not this be the time?’
‘Because I don’t want you caught up in this. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want people saying you are the Bastard’s whore.’ I could barely force the words from my mouth.
Molly’s head came up. ‘I have done nothing I’m ashamed of,’ she said evenly. ‘Have you?’
‘No. But …’
‘“But.” Your favourite word,’ she said bitterly. She walked away from me.
‘Molly!’ I sprang after her, seized her by the shoulders. She spun and hit me. Not a slap. A solid punch in the mouth that rocked me back and put blood in my mouth. She stood glaring, daring me to touch her again. I didn’t. ‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t fight back. Only that I didn’t want you caught up in it. Give me a chance to fight this my way,’ I said. I knew blood was running over my chin. I let her look at it. ‘Trust that, given time, I can find them and make them pay. My way. Now. Tell me about the men. What they wore, how they rode. What did the horses look like? Did they speak like Buck folk, or Inlanders? Did they have beards? Could you tell the colour of their hair, their eyes?’
I saw her trying to think, saw her mind veer away from thinking about it. ‘Brown,’ she said at last. ‘Brown horses, with black manes and tails. And the men talked like anybody else. One had a dark beard. I think. It’s hard to see face-down in the dirt.’
‘Good. That’s good,’ I told her, though she had told me nothing at all. She looked down, away from the blood on my face. ‘Molly,’ I said more quietly. ‘I won’t be coming … to your room. Not for a while. Because …’
‘You’re afraid.’
‘Yes!’ I hissed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid. Afraid they’ll hurt you, afraid they’ll kill you. To hurt me. I won’t endanger you by coming to you.’
She stood still. I could not tell if she was listening to me or not. She folded her arms across her chest, hugged herself.
‘I love you too much to see that happen.’ My words sounded weak, even to myself.
She turned and walked away from me. She still hugged herself, as if to keep herself from flying apart. She looked very alone, in her draggled blue skirts with her proud head bowed. ‘Molly Red Skirts,’ I whispered after her, but I could no longer see that Molly. Only what I had made of her.
TWENTY-FOUR
Neatbay
The Pocked Man is the legendary harbinger of disaster for the folk of the Six Duchies. To see him striding down the road is to know that disease and pestilence will soon come to call. To dream of him is said to be a warning of a death to come. Often the tales of him show him appearing to those deserving of punishment, but sometimes he is used, most often in puppet-shows, as a general omen of disaster to come. A marionette of the Pocked Man, hung dangling across the scenery, is a warning to all in the audience that soon they will witness a tragedy.
The days of winter dragged agonizingly slow. With every passing hour, I was braced for something to happen. I never walked into a room without surveying it first, ate no food I had not seen prepared, drank only the water I drew from the well myself. I slept poorly. The constant watchfulness told on me in a hundred ways. I was snappish to those who spoke to me casually, moody when I checked on Burrich, reticent with the Queen. Chade, the only one to whom I could have unburdened myself, did not summon me. I was miserably alone. I dared not go to Molly. I kept my visits to Burrich as brief as possible for fear of bringing my troubles down on him. I could not openly leave Buckkeep to spend time with Nighteyes, and I feared to leave by our secret way lest I be watched. I waited and I watched, but that nothing further happened to me became a sophisticated torture of suspense.
I di
d call on King Shrewd daily. I watched him dwindle before my eyes, saw the Fool become daily more morose, his humour more acid. I longed for savage winter weather to match my mood, but the skies continued blue and the winds calm. Within Buckkeep, the evenings were noisy with gaiety and revel. There were masked balls, and summonings of minstrels to compete for fat purses. The Inland dukes and nobles ate well at Regal’s table, and drank well with him late into the night.
‘Like ticks on a dying dog,’ I said savagely to Burrich one day as I was changing the dressing on his leg for him. He had made comment that it was no trick to stay awake on his night guard-duty at Kettricken’s door, for the noise of the revelry would have made it difficult to sleep.
‘Who’s dying?’ he asked.
‘All of us. One day at a time, we’re all dying. Did no one ever tell you that? But this is healing, and surprisingly well for all you’ve done to it.’
He looked down at his bared leg and cautiously flexed it. The tissue pulled unevenly, but held. ‘Maybe the gash is closed up, but it doesn’t feel healed inside,’ he observed. It was not a complaint. He lifted his brandy cup and drained it off. I eyed it narrowly. His days had a pattern now. Once he left Kettricken’s door in the morning, he went to the kitchen and ate. Then he came back to his room and began drinking. After I appeared and helped him change the bandaging on his leg, he would drink until it was time for him to sleep. And wake up in the evening, just in time to eat and then go to guard Kettricken’s door. He no longer did anything in the stables. He had given them over to Hands, who went about looking as if the job were a punishment he hadn’t deserved.
Every other day or so, Patience sent Molly up to tidy Burrich’s room for him. I knew little of these visits other than they had happened, and that Burrich, surprisingly, tolerated them. I had mixed feelings about them. No matter how much Burrich drank, he always treated women graciously; yet the emptied brandy bottles in a row could not but remind Molly of her father. Still, I wished them to know one another. One day I told Burrich that Molly had been threatened because of her association with me. ‘Association?’ he had asked sharply.
‘Some few know that I care for her,’ I admitted gingerly.
‘A man does not bring his problems down on a woman he cares for,’ he told me severely.
I had no reply to that. Instead I gave him the few details Molly had recalled about her attackers, but they suggested nothing to him. For a time he had stared off, right through the walls of his room. After a time, he picked up his cup and drained it. He spoke carefully. ‘I am going to tell her that you are worried about her. I am going to tell her that if she fears danger, she must come to me. I am more in a position to deal with it.’ He looked up and met my eyes. ‘I am going to tell her that you are wise to stay away from her, for her sake.’ As he poured himself another drink, he had added quietly to the table-top, ‘Patience was right. And she was wise to send her to me.’
I blanched to consider the full implications of that statement. For once, I was smart enough to know when to be quiet. He drank his brandy down, then looked at the bottle. Slowly, he slid it across the table toward me. ‘Put that back on the shelf for me, will you?’ he requested.
Animals and winter stores continued to be drained from Buckkeep. Some were sold off cheaply to the Inland duchies. The very finest of the hunting and riding horses were barged up the Buck, to an area near Turlake. Regal announced this as a plan to preserve our best breeding stock far from the ravages of the Red Ships. The mutter of the folk in Buckkeep Town, so Hands told me, was that if the King could not hold his own castle, what hope was there for them? When a shipment of fine old tapestries and furniture was sent upriver as well, the murmur became that soon the Farseers would abandon Buckkeep entirely, without even a fight, without even waiting for an assault. I had the uncomfortable suspicion that the rumour was correct.
Confined as I was to Buckkeep, I had little direct access to the talk of the common folk. A silence greeted my entry to the watch-room now. With my restriction to the keep had come gossip and speculation. The talk that had flown about me on the day I had failed to save the little girl from the Forged ones found new life. Few of the guard spoke to me of anything other than the weather or other pleasantries. While they did not make me a total pariah, I was banished from the easy conversations and rambling arguments that usually filled the watch-room. To talk to me had become bad luck. I wouldn’t inflict that on men and women I cared about.
I was still welcome about the stables, but I strove not to talk to any one person too much, or appear too close to any of the beasts. The stable-workers were a morose lot these days. There was not enough work to busy them, so quarrels were more frequent. The stable-hands were my major source of news and rumours. None of it was cheery. There were garbled stories of raids on Bearns towns, gossip about brawls in the taverns and on the docks of Buckkeep Town, and accounts of folk moving south or inland as their means allowed. What talk there was of Verity and his quest was demeaning or ridiculing. Hope had perished. Like me, the folk of Buckkeep were waiting in suspense for disaster to come to their doorsteps.
We had a month of stormy weather, and the relief and rejoicing in Buckkeep were more destructive than the preceding period of tension had been. A waterfront tavern caught fire during an especially wild evening of revelry. The fire spread, and only the drenching rain that followed the gusting winds saved it from spreading to the dock warehouses. That would have been a disaster in more than one way, for as Regal drained the keep warehouses of grain and supplies, folk in the town saw little reason to conserve what was left. Even if the Raiders never came to Buckkeep itself, I was resigned to short rations before the winter was out.
I woke one night to stark stillness. The howl of the storm winds and the rattling of rain had stilled. My heart sank. A terrible premonition filled me, and when I rose to a clear blue morning, my dread increased. Despite the sunny day, the atmosphere in the keep was oppressive. Several times I felt the tickling of the Skill against my senses. It nearly drove me mad, for I did not know if it was Verity attempting better contact, or Justin and Serene prying. A late afternoon visit to King Shrewd and the Fool disheartened me further. The King, wasted to little more than bones, was sitting up and smiling vaguely. He Skilled feebly toward me as I came in the door, and then greeted me with, ‘Ah, Verity, my lad. How did your sword lesson go today?’ The rest of his conversation made as much sense. Regal appeared almost immediately after I arrived. He sat on a straight-backed chair, arms crossed on his chest and looked at me. No words were exchanged between us. I could not decide if my silence were cowardice or self-restraint. I escaped him as soon as I decently could, despite a rebuking look from the Fool.
The Fool himself looked little better than the King. On so colourless a creature as the Fool, the dark circles under his eyes looked painted on. His tongue had grown as still as the clappers in his bells. When King Shrewd died, nothing would stand between the Fool and Regal. I wondered if there were any way I could aid him.
As if I could aid myself, I reflected sourly.
In the solitude of my room that evening, I drank more than I should of the cheap blackberry brandy that Burrich despised. I knew I would be sick from it tomorrow. I didn’t care. Then I lay on my bed, listening to the distant sounds of merriment from the Great Hall. I wished Molly were there to scold me for being drunk. The bed was too large, the linens glacier-white and cold. I closed my eyes and sought comfort in the company of a wolf. Confined as I was to the keep, I had begun to seek his dream company on a nightly basis, just to have an illusion of freedom.
I came awake just before Chade seized me and shook me. It was good I had recognized him in that split instant, for otherwise I am sure I would have tried to kill him. ‘Up!’ he hissed hoarsely. ‘Get up, you sodden fool, you idiot! Neatbay is under siege. Five Red Ships. I wager they’ll leave nothing standing if we delay. Get up, damn you!’
I staggered to my feet, the muzziness of drink giving way before the s
hock of his words.
‘What can we do?’ I asked stupidly.
‘Tell the King. Tell Kettricken, tell Regal. Surely not even Regal can ignore this, it is at our very doorstep. If the Red Ships take and hold Neatbay, they will have us bracketed. No ships will get out of Buck Harbour. Even Regal will see that. Now go! Go!’
I dragged on trousers and a tunic, ran for the door barefoot with my hair draggling about my face. I halted there. ‘How do I know this? Whence do I say this warning comes?’
Chade hopped up and down in frustration. ‘Damn and damn! Tell them anything! Tell Shrewd you had a dream of the Pocked Man scrying it in a pool of water! He at least should understand that! Tell them an Elderling brought you the news! Say anything, but get them to act and now!’
‘Right!’ I raced off down the hallway, skidded down the steps and raced down the corridor to King Shrewd’s chambers. I hammered on Shrewd’s door. At the far end of the hall, Burrich stood beside his chair outside Kettricken’s door. He looked at me, drew his short sword, and took a ready stance, eyes darting everywhere. ‘Raiders!’ I called down the hall to him, not caring who overheard or how they reacted. ‘Five Red Ships in Neatbay! Rouse her majesty, tell her they need our aid now!’
Burrich turned without a question, to tap on Kettricken’s door and be immediately admitted. It did not go so easily for me. Wallace finally opened the door a grudging crack, but would not budge until I suggested he should be the one to race down the stairs and inform Regal of my tidings. I believe it was the prospect of making a dramatic entrance and conferring with the Prince before all the merry-makers that decided him. He left the door unguarded as he hurried to his small antechamber to make himself presentable.
The King’s bedchamber was in total darkness and heavy with the reek of Smoke. I took a candle from his sitting room, kindled it at the dwindling fire and hastened in. In the darkness, I nearly trod upon the Fool, who was curled up like a cur at the King’s bedside. I gaped in astonishment. He had not so much as a blanket or cushion for comfort, but huddled on the rug beside the King’s bed. He uncurled stiffly, coming awake, and then alarmed in an instant. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ he demanded.