by Robin Hobb
I smell carrion.
I don’t. It was the last thing I wanted to think about just now.
I didn’t expect you would, with your nose. But there is something very dead not far from here.
‘So go roll in it and have done with it,’ I told him with some asperity.
‘Fitz,’ Kettle rebuked me as Nighteyes trotted purposefully away.
‘I was talking to the wolf,’ I told her lamely. The Fool nodded, almost vacantly. He had not been at all himself. Kettle had insisted that he continue taking the elfbark, though our small supply limited him to a very weak dose of the same bark brewed over again. From time to time, I thought I caught a brief hint of the Skill-bond between us. If I looked at him, he would sometimes turn and return my look, even across camp. It was little more than that. When I spoke of it to him, he said he sometimes felt something, but was not sure what it was. Of what the wolf had told me, I made no mention. Elfbark tea or no, he remained solemn and lethargic. His sleep at night did not seem to rest him; he moaned or muttered through his dreams. He reminded me of a man recovering from a long illness. He hoarded his strength in many small ways. He spoke little; even his bitter merriment had vanished. It was but one more worry for me to bear.
It’s a man!
The stench of the corpse was thick in Nighteyes’ nostrils. I nearly retched with it. Then, ‘Verity,’ I whispered to myself in horror. I set out at a run in the direction the wolf had taken. The Fool followed more slowly in my wake, drifting like down on the wind. The women watched us go without comprehension.
The body was wedged between two immense blocks of stone. It was huddled as if even in death it sought to hide. The wolf circled it restlessly, hackles up. I halted at some distance, then tugged the cuff of my shirt down over my hand. I lifted it to cover my nose and mouth. It helped a bit, but nothing could have completely drowned that stink. I walked closer, steeling myself to what I knew I must do. When I got close to the body, I reached down, seized hold of its rich cloak, and dragged it out into the open.
‘No flies,’ the Fool observed almost dreamily.
He was right. There were no flies and no maggots. Only the silent rot of death had been at work on the man’s features. They were dark, like a ploughman’s tan, only darker. Fear had contorted them, but I knew it was not Verity. Yet I had stared at him for some moments before I recognized him. ‘Carrod,’ I said quietly.
‘A member of Regal’s coterie?’ the Fool asked, as if there could be another Carrod about.
I nodded. I kept my shirt cuff over my nose and mouth as I knelt beside him.
‘How did he die?’ the Fool asked. The smell did not seem to bother him, but I did not think I could speak without gagging. I shrugged. To answer I would have had to take a breath. I reached gingerly to tug at his clothes. The body was both stiff and softening. It was hard to examine it, but I could find no sign of any violence on him. I took a shallow breath and held it, then used both hands to unbuckle his belt. I pulled it free of the body with his purse and knife still on it, and hastily retreated with it.
Kettricken, Kettle and Starling came up on us as I was coaxing the mouth of his purse open. I did not know what I had hoped to find, but I was disappointed. A handful of coins, a flint, and a small whetstone were all he carried. I tossed it to the ground, and rubbed my hand down my trouser leg. The stench of death clung to it.
‘It was Carrod,’ the Fool told the others. ‘He must have come by the pillar.’
‘What killed him?’ Kettle asked.
I met her gaze. ‘I don’t know. I believe it was the Skill. Whatever it was, he tried to hide from it. Between those rocks. Let’s get away from this smell,’ I suggested. We retreated back to the pillar. Nighteyes and I came last and more slowly. I was puzzled. I realized I was putting everything I could into keeping my Skill walls strong. Seeing Carrod dead had shocked me. One less coterie member, I told myself. But he was here, right here in the quarry when he died. If Verity had killed him with the Skill, perhaps that meant Verity had been here as well. I wondered if we would stumble across Burl and Will somewhere in the quarry, if they too had come here to attack Verity. Colder was my suspicion that it was more likely we would find Verity’s body. But I said nothing to Kettricken of these thoughts.
I think the wolf and I sensed it at the same time. ‘There’s something alive back there,’ I said quietly. ‘Deeper in the quarry.’
‘What is it?’ the Fool asked me.
‘I don’t know.’ A shivering ran all over me. My Wit-sense of whatever was back there ebbed and flowed. The more I tried for a feel of what it was, the more it eluded me.
‘Verity?’ Kettricken asked. It broke my heart to see hope quicken once more in her eyes.
‘No,’ I told her gently. ‘I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like a human. It’s like nothing I’ve ever sensed before.’ I paused and added, ‘I think you should all wait here while the wolf and I go see what it is.’
‘No.’ Kettle spoke, not Kettricken, but when I glanced back at my queen, I saw her complete agreement.
‘If anything, I should have you and the Fool hang back while we investigate,’ she told me severely. ‘You are the ones at risk here. If Carrod has been here, Burl and Will could be back there.’
In the end it was decided we would all approach, but with great caution. We spread out in a fan and moved forward across the quarry floor. I could not tell them specifically where I sensed the creature, and so we were all on edge. The quarry was like a nursery floor with some immense child’s blocks and toys scattered across it. We passed one partially carved block of stone. It had none of the finesse of the carvings we had seen in the stone garden. It was lumpish and crude, and somehow obscene. It reminded me of the foetus of a miscarried foal. It repulsed me and I slipped past it as swiftly as I could to my next vantage point.
The others were doing likewise, moving from cover to cover, all of us endeavouring to keep at least one other of our party in sight. I had thought I could see nothing more disturbing than that crude stone carving, but the next one we passed wrenched at me. Someone had carved, in heart-breaking detail, a mired dragon. The thing’s wings were half spread and its half-lidded eyes were rolled up in agony. A human rider, a young woman, bestrode it. She clutched the undulant neck and leaned her cheek against it. Her face was a mask of agony, her mouth open and the lines of her face taut, the muscles of her throat standing out like cords. Both the girl and the dragon had been worked in detailed colours and lines. I could see the woman’s eyelashes, the individual hairs on her golden head, the fine green scales about the dragon’s eyes, even the droplets of saliva that clung to its lips. But where the dragon’s mighty feet and lashing tail should have been, there was only puddled black stone, as if the two had landed in a tar pit and been unable to escape it.
Just as a statue, it was wrenching. I saw Kettle turn her face aside from it, tears starting in her eyes. But what unnerved Nighteyes and me was the writhing of Wit-sense that it gave off. It was fainter than what we had sensed in the statues back in the garden, but all the more poignant for that. It was like the final death throes of a trapped creature. I wondered what talent had been used to infuse such a living nuance into a statue. Even as I appreciated the artistry of what had been done, I was not sure I approved it. But that was true of much that this ancient Skilled race had wrought. As I crept past the statue, I wondered if this was what the wolf and I had sensed. It prickled my skin to see the Fool turn and stare back at it, his brow furrowed in discomfort. Plainly he sensed it, though not as well. Perhaps this is what we sensed, Nighteyes. Perhaps there is no living creature in the quarry after all, only this monument to slow death.
No. I smell something.
I widened my nostrils, cleared them with a silent snort, then took in a deep slow breath of air. My nose was not as keen as Nighteyes’, but the wolf’s senses augmented my own. I smelled sweat and the faint tang of blood. Both were fresh. Suddenly the wolf pressed close to me and as one we
slunk around the end of a block of stone the size of two huts.
I peered around the corner, then cautiously crept forth. Nighteyes slipped past me. I saw the Fool round the other end of the stone, and felt the others drawing near as well. No one spoke.
It was another dragon. This one was the size of a ship. It was all of black stone, and it sprawled sleeping upon the block of stone it was emerging from. Chips and chunks and grindings of rock dust surrounded the ground around the block. Even from a distance, it impressed me. Despite its sleep, every line of the creature spoke of both strength and nobility. The wings folded alongside it were like furled sails while the arch of the powerful neck put me in mind of a battle charger. I had looked at it for some moments before I saw the small grey figure that sprawled alongside it. I stared at him and tried to decide if the flickering life I sensed came from him or the stone dragon.
The discarded fragments of stone were almost a ramp up to the block the dragon was emerging from. I thought the figure would stir to my crunching footsteps, but he did not move. Nor could I detect any small motions of breath. The others hung back, watching my ascent. Only Nighteyes accompanied me, and he came hackles abristle. I was within arm’s reach of the figure when he jerkily arose and faced me.
He was old and thin, grey of both hair and beard. His ragged garments were grey with stone dust, and a smear of grey coated one of his cheeks. The knees that showed through the legs of his trousers were scabbed and bloody from kneeling on broken stone. His feet were wrapped in rags. He gripped a much-notched sword in a grey-gauntleted hand, but he did not bring it up to the ready. I felt it taxed his strength to hold the blade at all. Some instinct made me lift my arms wide of my body, to show him I held no weapon. He looked at me dully for a bit; then he slowly lifted his eyes to my face. For a time we stared at one another. His peering, near-blind gaze reminded me of Harper Josh. Then his mouth gaped wide in his beard, baring surprisingly white teeth. ‘Fitz?’ he said hesitantly.
I knew his voice, despite the rust. He had to be Verity. But all I was cried out aghast that he could have come to this, this wreckage of a man. Behind me I heard the swift crunching of footsteps and turned in time to see Kettricken charging up the ramp of crumbling stone. Hope and dismay battled in her face, yet, ‘Verity!’ she cried, and there was only love in the word. She charged, arms reaching for him, and I was barely able to catch her as she hurtled past me.
‘No!’ I cried aloud to her. ‘No, don’t touch him!’
‘Verity!’ she cried again, and then struggled against my grip, crying out, ‘Let me go, let me go to him.’ It was all I could do to hold her back.
‘No,’ I told her quietly. As sometimes happens, the softness of my command made her stop struggling. She looked her question at me.
‘His hands and arms are covered with magic. I do not know what would happen to you, were he to touch you.’
She turned her head in my rough embrace to stare at her husband. He stood watching us, a kindly, rather confused smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side as if considering us, then stooped carefully to set down his sword. Kettricken saw then what I had glimpsed before. The betraying shimmer of silver crawled over his forearms and fingers. Verity wore no gauntlets; the flesh of his arms and hands was impregnated with raw power. The smudge on his face was not dust, but a smear of power where he had touched himself.
I heard the others come up behind us, their footsteps crunching slowly over the stone. I did not need to turn to feel them staring. Finally the Fool said softly, ‘Verity, my prince, we have come.’
I heard a sound between a gasp and a sob. That turned my head, and I saw Kettle slowly settling, going down like a holed ship. She clasped one hand to her chest and one to her mouth as she sank to her knees. Her eyes goggled as she stared at Verity’s hands. Starling was instantly beside her. In my arms, I felt Kettricken calmly push against me. I looked at her stricken face, then let her go. She advanced to Verity a slow step at a time and he watched her come. His face was not impassive, but neither did he show any sign of special recognition. An arm’s length away from him, she stopped. All was silence. She stared at him for a time, then slowly shook her head, as if to answer the question she voiced. ‘My lord husband, do you not know me?’
‘Husband,’ he said faintly. His brow creased deeper, his demeanour that of a man who recalls something once learned by rote. ‘Princess Kettricken of the Mountain Kingdom. She was given me to wife. Just a little slip of a girl, a wild little mountain cat, yellow-haired. That was all I could recall of her, until they brought her to me.’ A faint smile eased his face. ‘That night, I unbound golden hair like a flowing stream, finer than silk. So fine I durst not touch it, lest it snag in my callused hands.’
Kettricken’s hands rose to her hair. When word had reached her of Verity’s death, she had cut her hair to no more than a brush on her skull. It now reached almost to her shoulders, but the fine silk of it was gone, roughened by sun and rain and road-dust. But she freed it from the fat braid that confined it and shook it loose around her face. ‘My lord,’ she said softly. She glanced from me to Verity. ‘May I not touch you?’ she begged.
‘Oh –’ He seemed to consider the request. He glanced down at his arms and hands, flexing his silvery fingers. ‘Oh, I think not, I’m afraid. No. No, it were better not.’ He spoke regretfully, but I had the sense that it was only that he must refuse her request, not that he regretted being unable to touch her.
Kettricken drew a ragged breath. ‘My lord,’ she began, and then her voice broke. ‘Verity, I lost our child. Our son died.’
I did not understand until then what a burden it had been for her, seeking for her husband, knowing she must tell him this news. She dropped her proud head as if expecting his wrath. What she got was worse.
‘Oh,’ he said. Then, ‘Had we a son? I do not recall …’
I think that was what broke her, to discover that her earthshaking tidings did not anger nor sorrow him, but only confused him. She had to feel betrayed. Her desperate flight from Buckkeep Castle and all the hardships she had endured to protect her unborn child, the long lonely months of her pregnancy, culminating in the heart-rending stillbirth of her child, and her dread that she must tell her lord how she had failed him: that had been her reality for the past year. And now she stood before her husband and her king, and he fumbled to recall her and of the dead child said only ‘Oh.’ I felt shamed for this doddering old man who peered at the Queen and smiled so wearily.
Kettricken did not scream or weep. She simply turned and walked slowly away. I sensed great control in that passage, and great anger. Starling, crouched by Kettle, looked up at the Queen as she passed. She started to rise and follow, but Kettricken made a tiny movement of her hand that forbade it. Alone she descended from the great stone dais and strode off.
Go with her?
Please. But do not bother her.
I am not stupid.
Nighteyes left me, to shadow off after Kettricken. Despite my caution to him, I knew he went straight to her, to come up beside her and press his great head against her leg. She dropped suddenly to one knee and hugged him, pushing her face against his coat, her tears falling into his rough fur. He turned and licked her hand. Go away, he chided me, and I pulled my awareness back from them. I blinked, realizing I had been staring at Verity all the while. His eyes met mine.
He cleared his throat. ‘FitzChivalry,’ he said, and drew a breath to speak. Then he let half of it out. ‘I am so weary,’ he said piteously. ‘And there is still so much to do.’ He gestured at the dragon behind him. Ponderously he sank, to sit beside the statue. ‘I tried so hard,’ he said to no one in particular.
The Fool recovered his senses before I did mine. ‘My lord Prince Verity,’ he began then paused. ‘My king. It is I, the Fool. May I be of service to you?’
Verity looked up at the slender pale man who stood before him. ‘I would be honoured,’ he said after a moment. His head swayed on his neck. ‘To accept t
he fealty and service of one who served both my father and my queen so well.’ For an instant I glimpsed something of the old Verity. Then the certainty flickered out of his face again.
The Fool advanced and then knelt suddenly beside him. He patted Verity on the shoulder, sending up a small cloud of rock dust. ‘I will take care of you,’ he said. ‘As I did your father.’ He stood up suddenly and turned to me. ‘I am going to fetch firewood, and find clean water,’ he announced. He glanced past me to the women. ‘Is Kettle all right?’ he asked Starling.
‘She nearly fainted,’ Starling began. But Kettle cut in abruptly with, ‘I was shocked to my core, Fool. And I am in no hurry to stand up. But Starling is free to go and do whatever must be done.’
‘Ah. Good.’ The Fool appeared to have taken complete control of the situation. He sounded as if he were organizing tea. ‘Then, if you would be so kind, Mistress Starling, would you see to the setting up of the tent? Or two tents, if such a thing can be contrived. See what food we have left, and plan a meal. A generous meal, for I think we all need it. I shall return shortly with firewood, and water. And greens, if I am lucky.’ He cast a quick look at me. ‘See to the King,’ he said in a low voice. Then he strode away. Starling was left gaping. Then she arose and went in search of the straying jeppas. Kettle followed her more slowly.
And so, after all that time and travel, I was left standing alone before my king. ‘Come to me’, he had told me, and I had. There was an instant of peace in realizing that that nagging voice was finally stilled. ‘Well, I am here, my king,’ I said quietly, to myself as much as to him.
Verity made no reply. He had turned his back to me and was busy digging at the statue with his sword. He knelt, clutching the sword by the pommel and by the blade and scraped the tip along the stone at the edge of the dragon’s foreleg. I stepped close to watch him scratching at the black rock of the dais. His face was so intent, his movement so precise that I did not know what to make of it. ‘Verity, what are you doing?’ I asked softly.