by Robin Hobb
I closed my eyes. I was so tired now. So tired. Tired of hurting people I loved. But it was done now. Tomorrow Burrich would leave and I would be free. Free to follow my heart’s desire, with no intervention from anyone.
Free to go to Tradeford and kill Regal.
THREE
The Quest
The Skill is the traditional magic of the Farseer royalty. While it seems to run strongest in the royal bloodlines, it is not all that rare to discover it in a lesser strength in those distantly related to the Farseer line, or in those whose ancestry includes both Outislanders and Six Duchy folk. It is a magic of the mind, giving the practitioner the power to communicate silently with those at a distance from him. Its possibilities are many; at its simplest, it may be used to convey messages, to influence the thoughts of enemies (or friends) to sway them to one’s purposes. Its drawbacks are twofold: it requires a great deal of energy to wield it on a daily basis, and it offers to its practitioners an attraction that has been misnamed as a pleasure. It is more of a euphoric, one that increases in power proportionately with the strength and duration of Skilling. It can lure the practitioner into an addiction to Skilling, one which eventually saps all mental and physical strength, to leave the mage a great, drooling babe.
Burrich left the next morning. When I awoke, he was up and dressed and moving about the hut, packing his things. It did not take him long. He took his personal effects, but left me the lion’s share of our provisions. There had been no drink the night before, yet we both spoke as softly and moved as carefully as if pained by the morning. We deferred to one another until it seemed to me worse than if we had not been speaking to one another at all. I wanted to babble apologies, to beg him to reconsider, to do something, anything, to keep our friendship from ending this way. At the same time, I wished him gone, wished it over, wished it to be tomorrow, a new day dawning and I alone. I held to my resolution as if gripping the sharp blade of a knife. I suspect he felt something of the same, for sometimes he would stop and look up at me as if about to speak. Then our eyes would meet and hold for a bit, until one or the other of us looked aside. Too much hovered unspoken between us.
In a horribly short time he was ready to leave. He shouldered his pack and took up a stave from beside the door. I stood staring at him, thinking how odd he appeared thus: Burrich the horseman, afoot. The early summer sunlight spilling in the open door showed me a man at the end of his middle years, the white streak of hair that marked his scar foretelling the grey that had already begun to show in his beard. He was strong and fit, but his youth was unquestionably behind him. The days of his full strength he had spent watching over me.
‘Well,’ he said gruffly. ‘Farewell, Fitz. And good luck to you.’
‘Good luck to you, Burrich.’ I crossed the room quickly, and embraced him before he could step back.
He hugged me back, a quick squeeze that nearly cracked my ribs, and then pushed my hair back from my face. ‘Go comb your hair. You look like a wild man.’ He almost managed a smile. He turned from me and strode away. I stood watching him go. I thought he would not look back, but on the far side of the pasture, he turned and lifted his hand. I raised mine in return. Then he was gone, swallowed into the woods. I sat for a time on the step, considering the place where I had last seen him. If I kept to my plan, it might be years before I saw him again. If I saw him again. Since I was six years old, he had always been a factor in my life. I had always been able to count on his strength, even when I didn’t want it. Now he was gone. Like Chade, like Molly, like Verity, like Patience.
I thought of all I had said to him the night before and shuddered with shame. It had been necessary, I told myself. I had meant to drive him away. But far too much of it had erupted from ancient resentments that had festered long inside me. I had not meant to speak of such things. I had intended to drive him away, not cut him to the bone. Like Molly, he would carry off the doubts I had driven into him. And by savaging Burrich’s pride, I had destroyed what little respect Chade had still held for me. I suppose some childish part of myself had been hoping that someday I could come back to them, that someday we would share our lives again. I knew now we would not. ‘It’s over,’ I told myself quietly. ‘That life is over, let it go.’
I was free of both of them now. Free of their limitations on me, free of their ideas of honour and duty. Freed of their expectations. I’d never again have to look either of them in the eyes and account for what I had done. Free to do the only thing I had the heart or the courage left to do, the only thing I could do to lay my old life to rest behind me.
I would kill Regal.
It only seemed fair. He had killed me first. The spectre of the promise I had made to King Shrewd, that I would never harm one of his own, rose briefly to haunt me. I laid it to rest by reminding myself that Regal had killed the man who had made that promise, as well as the man I had given it to. That Fitz no longer existed. I would never again stand before old King Shrewd and report the result of a mission, I would not stand as King’s Man to loan strength to Verity. Lady Patience would never harry me with a dozen trivial errands that were of the utmost importance to her. She mourned me as dead. And Molly. Tears stung my eyes as I measured my pain. She had left me before Regal had killed me, but for that loss, too, I held him responsible. If I had nothing else out of this crust of life Burrich and Chade had salvaged for me, I would have revenge. I promised myself that Regal would look at me as he died, and know that I killed him. This would be no quiet assassination, no silent venture of anonymous poison. I would deliver death to Regal myself. I wished to strike like a single arrow, like a thrown knife, going straight to my target unhampered by fears for those around me. If I failed, well, I was already dead in every way that mattered to me. It would hurt no one that I had tried. If I died killing Regal, it would be worth it. I would guard my own life only until I had taken Regal’s. Whatever happened after that did not matter.
Nighteyes stirred, disturbed by some inkling of my thoughts.
Have you ever considered what it would do to me if you died? Nighteyes asked me.
I shut my eyes tightly for an instant. But I had considered it. What would it do to us if I lived as prey?
Nighteyes understood. We are hunters. Neither of us was born to be prey.
I cannot be a hunter if I am always waiting to be prey. And so I must hunt him before he can hunt me.
He accepted my plans too calmly. I tried to make him understand all I intended to do. I did not wish him simply to follow me blindly.
I’m going to kill Regal. And his coterie. I’m going to kill all of them, for all they did to me, and all they took from me.
Regal? There is meat we cannot eat. I do not understand the hunting of men.
I took my image of Regal and combined it with his images of the animal trader who had caged him when he was a cub and beat him with a brass-bound club.
Nighteyes considered that. Once I got away from him, I was smart enough to stay away from him. To hunt that one is as wise as to go hunting a porcupine.
I cannot leave this alone, Nighteyes.
I understand. I am the same about porcupines.
And so he perceived my vendetta with Regal as equivalent to his weakness for porcupines. I found myself accepting my stated goals with less equanimity. Having stated them, I could not imagine turning aside for anything else. My words from the night before came back to rebuke me. What had happened to all my fine speeches to Burrich, about living a life for myself? Well, I hedged, and perhaps I would, if I survived tying up these loose ends. It was not that I could not live my own life. It was that I could not stomach the idea of Regal going about thinking he had defeated me, yes, and stolen the throne from Verity. Revenge, plain and simple, I told myself. If I was ever going to put the fear and shame behind me, I had to do this.
You can come in now, I offered.
Why would I want to?
I did not have to turn and see that Nighteyes had already come down to the hut. He ca
me to sit beside me, then peered into the hut.
Phew! You fill your den with such stinks, no wonder your nose works so poorly.
He crept into the hut cautiously and began a prowling tour of the interior. I sat on the doorstep, watching him. It had been a time since I had looked at him as anything other than an extension of myself. He was full grown now, and at the peak of his strength. Another might say he was a grey wolf. To me, he was every colour a wolf could be, dark-eyed, dark-muzzled, buff at the base of his ears and throat, his coat peppered with stiff, black guard-hairs, especially on his shoulders and the flat of his rump. His feet were huge, and spread even wider when he ran over crusted snow. He had a tail that was more expressive than many a woman’s face, and teeth and jaws that could easily crack a deer’s leg bones. He moved with that economy of strength that perfectly healthy animals have. Just watching him salved my heart. When his curiosity was mostly satisfied, he came to sit beside me. After a few moments, he stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes. Keep watch?
‘I’ll watch over you,’ I assured him. His ears twitched at my spoken words. Then he sank into a sun-soaked sleep.
I rose quietly and went inside the hut. It took a remarkably short time for me to take stock of my possessions. Two blankets and a cloak. I had a change of clothes, warm woolly things ill-suited to summer travel. A brush. A knife and whetstone. Flint firestone. A sling. Several small cured hides from game we had taken. Sinew thread. A hand-axe. A small kettle and several spoons. The last were the recent work of Burrich’s whittling. There was a little sack of meal, and one of flour. The leftover honey. A bottle of elderberry wine.
Not much to begin this venture with. I was facing a long overland journey to Tradeford. I had to survive that before I could plan how to get past Regal’s guards and Skill coterie and kill him. I considered carefully. It was not yet the height of summer. There was time to gather herbs and dry them, time to smoke fish and meat for travelling rations. I needn’t go hungry. For now, I had clothing and the other basics. But eventually I’d need some coin. I had told Chade and Burrich that I could make my own way, on my skills with animals and scribing skills. Perhaps those abilities could get me as far as Tradeford.
It might have been easier if I could have remained FitzChivalry. I knew boatmen who plied the river trade, and I could have worked my passage to Tradeford. But that FitzChivalry had died. He couldn’t very well go looking for work at the docks. I could not even visit the docks, for fear of being recognized. I lifted my hand to my face, recalling what Burrich’s looking glass had shown me. A streak of white in my hair to remind me where Regal’s soldiers had laid my scalp open. I fingered the new configuration of my nose. There was also a fine seam down my right cheek under my eye, where Regal’s fist had split my face. No one would remember a Fitz that bore these scars. I would let my beard grow. And if I shaved my hair back from my brow as the scribes did, that might be enough change to put off the casual glance. But I would not deliberately venture among those who had known me.
I’d be afoot. I’d never made an extended journey on foot.
Why can’t we just stay right here? A sleepy inquiry from Nighteyes. Fish in the creek, game in the woods behind the hut. What more do we need? Why must we go?
I must. I must do this to be a man again.
You truly believe you wish to be a man again? I sensed his disbelief but also his acceptance that I would try. He stretched lazily without getting up, spreading wide the toes of his forepaws. Where are we going?
Tradeford. Where Regal is. A far journey up the river.
Are there wolves there?
Not in the city itself, I am sure. But there are wolves in Farrow. There are wolves in Buck still, too. Just not around here.
Save we two, he pointed out. And added, I should like to find wolves where we go.
Then he sprawled over and went back to sleep. That was part of what it meant to be a wolf, I reflected. He would worry no more until we left. Then he would simply follow me and trust his survival to our abilities.
But I had become too much a man again to do as he did. I began to gather provisions the very next day. Despite Nighteyes’ protest, I hunted for more than we needed to eat each day. And when we were successful, I did not let him gorge, but jerked some of the meat, and smoked some of it. I had enough leather skill from Burrich’s perpetual harness mending to make myself soft boots for the summer. I greased my old boots well and set them aside for winter use.
During the days, while Nighteyes dozed in the sun, I gathered my herbs. Some were the common medicinal herbs I wished to have on hand: willowbark for fever, raspberry root for cough, plantain for infection, nettle for congestion, and the like. Others were not so wholesome. I made a small cedar box and filled it. I gathered and stored the poisons as Chade had taught me: water-hemlock, deathcap mushroom, nightshade, elderberry pith, baneberry and heartseize. I chose as best I could, for ones that were tasteless and odourless, for ones that could be rendered as fine powders and clear liquids. Also I harvested elfbark, the powerful stimulant Chade had used to help Verity survive his sessions of Skilling.
Regal would be surrounded and protected by his coterie. Will was the one that I most feared, but I would underestimate none of them. I had known Burl as a big husky boy and Carrod had been something of a dandy with the girls. But those days were long past. I had seen what Skill use had made of Will. It had been long since I had made contact with either Carrod or Burl, and I would make no assumptions about them. They were all trained in the Skill, and though my natural talent had once seemed much stronger than theirs, I had found out the hard way that they knew ways of using the Skill that not even Verity had understood. If I were Skill attacked by them, and survived, I would need the elfbark to restore myself.
I made a second case, large enough to hold my poison box, but otherwise designed like a scribe’s case, to thus create the guise of a wandering scribe. The case would proclaim me as that to the chance acquaintance. Quills for pens I obtained from a nesting goose we ambushed. Some of the powders for pigments I could make, and I fashioned bone tubes and stoppers to hold them. Nighteyes grudgingly furnished me hair for coarse brushes. Finer brushes I attempted with rabbit hair, but with only partial satisfaction. It was very discouraging. A proper scribe was expected by folk to have the inks, brushes and pens of his trade. I reluctantly concluded that Patience had been right when she told me I wrote a fine hand, but could not claim the skills of a full scribe. I hoped my supplies would suffice for any work I might pick up on the way to Tradeford.
There came a time when I knew I was as well provisioned as I could be and that I should leave soon, to have the summer weather for travelling. I was eager for revenge, and yet strangely reluctant to leave this cabin and life. For the first time that I could recall, I arose from sleep when I awoke naturally, and ate when I was hungry. I had no tasks save those I set myself. Surely it would not hurt if I took a bit of time to recover my physical health. Although the bruises of my dungeon time had long faded, and the only external signs of my injuries were scars, I still felt oddly stiff some mornings. Occasionally, my body would shock me with a twinge when I leaped after something, or turned my head too quickly. A particularly strenuous hunt would leave me trembling and dreading a seizure. It would be wiser, I decided, to be fully healed before I departed.
So we lingered a time. The days were warm, the hunting was good. As the days slipped by, I made peace with my body. I was not the physically hardened warrior I had been the summer before, but I could keep pace with Nighteyes through a night’s hunting. When I sprang to make a kill, my actions were quick and sure. My body healed, and I set behind me the pains of the past, acknowledging them, but not dwelling on them. The nightmares that had plagued me were shed like the last remnants of Nighteyes’ winter coat. I had never known a life so simple. I had finally made peace with myself.
No peace lasts long. A dream came to wake me. Nighteyes and I arose before dawn, hunted, and together killed a br
ace of fat rabbits. This particular hillside was riddled with their warrens, and catching enough to fill ourselves had degenerated quickly to a silly game of leaping and digging. It was past dawn before we left off our play. We flung ourselves down in dappling birch shade, fed again from our kills and drowsed off. Something, perhaps the uneven sunlight on my closed eyelids, had plunged me into a dream.
I was back in Buckkeep. In the old watchroom, I sprawled on a cold stone floor in the centre of a circle of hard-eyed men. The floor beneath my cheek was sticky-slick with cooling blood. As I panted open-mouthed, the smell and the taste of it combined to fill my senses. They were coming for me again, not just the man with the leather-gloved fists, but Will, elusive invisible Will, slipping silently past my walls to creep into my mind. ‘Please, wait, please,’ I begged them. ‘Stop, I beg you. I am nothing you need fear or hate. I’m only a wolf. Just a wolf, no threat to you. I’ll do you no harm, only let me be gone. I’m nothing to you. I’ll never trouble you again. I’m only a wolf.’ I lifted my muzzle to the sky and howled.
My own howling woke me.
I rolled to my hands and knees, shook myself all over and then came to my feet. A dream, I told myself. Only a dream. Fear and shame washed over me, dirtying me in their passage. In my dream I had pleaded for mercy as I had not in reality. I told myself I was no craven. Was I? It seemed I could still smell and taste the blood.
Where are you going? Nighteyes asked lazily. He lay deeper in the shade and his coat camouflaged him surprisingly well there.
Water.
I went to the steam, splashed sticky rabbit blood from my face and hands, and then drank deeply. I washed my face again, dragging my nails through my beard to get the blood out. Abruptly I decided I couldn’t stand the beard. I didn’t intend to go where I expected to be recognized anyway. I went back to the shepherd’s hut to shave.