Читать книгу Assassin’s Quest - Робин Хобб - Страница 14

Lady Patience, the Lady of Buckkeep as she came to be called, rose to power in a unique fashion. She had been born into a noble family and was by birth a lady. She was raised to the loftier status of Queen-in-Waiting by her precipitous marriage to King-in-Waiting Chivalry. She never asserted herself in either position to take the power that birth and marriage had brought her. It was only when she was alone, almost abandoned, as eccentric Lady Patience at Buckkeep that she gathered to herself the reins of influence. She did it, as she had done everything else in her life, in a haphazard, quaint way that would have availed any other woman not at all.

She did not call on noble family connections, nor exert influential connections based on her deceased husband’s status. Instead she began with that lowest tier of power, the so-called men-at-arms, who were just as frequently women. Those few remaining of King Shrewd’s personal guard, and Queen Kettricken’s guard had been left in the peculiar position of guardians with nothing left to guard. The Buckkeep Guard had been supplanted in their duties by the personal troops that Lord Bright brought with him from Farrow, and delegated to lesser tasks that involved the cleaning and maintenance of the keep. The former guards were erratically paid, had lost respect among and for themselves, and were too often idle or occupied with degrading tasks. The Lady Patience, ostensibly because they were not otherwise busied, began to solicit their services. She began by requesting a guard when she abruptly began to ride out on her ancient palfrey, Silk. Afternoon rides gradually lengthened to all-day forays, and then to overnight visits to villages that had either been raided or feared raids. In the raided villages, she and her maid Lacey did what they could for the injured, logged down a tally of those slain or Forged, and provided, in the form of her guard, strong backs to aid in the clearing of rubble from the main streets and the raising of temporary shelter for folks left homeless. This, while not true work for fighters, was a sharp reminder of what they had been trained to fight against, and of what happened when there were no defenders. The gratitude of the folk they aided restored to the guard their pride and inner cohesiveness. In the unraided villages, the guard were a small show of force that Buckkeep and the Farseer pride still existed. In several villages and towns, makeshift stockades were raised where the folk could retreat from the Raiders and have a small chance of defending themselves.

There is no record of Lord Bright’s feelings regarding Lady Patience’s forays. She never declared these expeditions in any official way. They were her pleasure rides, the guards that accompanied her had volunteered to do so, and likewise for the duties she put them to in the villages. Some, as she came to trust them, ran ‘errands’ for her. Such errands might involve the distance carrying of messages to keeps in Rippon, Bearns and even Shoaks, requesting news of how the coastal towns fared, and giving news of Buck; they took her runners into and through occupied territories and were fraught with danger. Her messengers often were given a sprig of the ivy she grew year round in her rooms as a token to present to the recipients of her messages and support. Several ballads have been written about the so-called Ivy Runners, telling of the bravery and resourcefulness they showed, and reminding us that even the greatest walls must, in time, yield to the over-climbing ivy. Perhaps the most famous exploit was that of Pansy, the youngest runner. At the age of eleven, she travelled all the way to where the Duchess of Bearns was in hiding in the Ice Caves of Bearns, to bring her tidings of when and where a supply boat would beach. For part of that journey, Pansy travelled undiscovered amidst the sacks of grain in a wagon commandeered by the Raiders. From the very heart of a Raiders’ camp, she escaped to continue her mission, but only after she had set fire to the tent in which their leader slept in revenge for her Forged parents. Pansy did not live to be thirteen, but her deeds will be long remembered.

Others aided Patience in disposing of her jewellery and ancestral lands for coin, which she then employed ‘as she pleased, as was her right’ as she once informed Lord Bright. She bought grain and sheep from inland, and again her ‘volunteers’ saw to its transport and distribution. Small supply boats brought hope to embattled defenders. She made token payments to stonemasons and carpenters who helped to rebuild ravaged villages. And she gave coin, not much but accompanied by her sincerest thanks, to those guards who volunteered to assist her.

By the time the Ivy badge came into common usage among the Buckkeep guard, it was only to acknowledge what was already a fact. These men and women were Lady Patience’s guard, paid by her when they were paid at all, but more important to them, valued and used by her, doctored by her when they were injured, and sharply defended by her acid tongue against any who spoke disparagingly of them. These were the foundation of her influence, and the basis of the strength she came to wield. ‘A tower seldom crumbles from the bottom up,’ she told more than one, and claimed to have the saying from Prince Chivalry.

We had slept well and our bellies were full. Without the need to hunt, we travelled the whole night. We stayed off the road, and were far more cautious than we had previously been, but no Forged ones did we encounter. A large white moon silvered us a path through the trees. We moved as one creature, scarcely even thinking, save to catalogue the scents we encountered and the sounds we heard. The icy determination that had seized me infected Nighteyes as well. I would not carelessly trumpet to him my intention, but we could think of it without focusing on it. It was a different sort of hunting urge, driven by a different sort of hunger. Each night we walked the miles away beneath the moon’s peering stare.

There was a soldier’s logic to it, a strategy Verity would have approved. Will knew I lived. I did not know if he would reveal that to the others of the coterie, or even Regal. I suspected he hungered to drain off my Skill-strength as Justin and Serene had drained King Shrewd’s. I suspected there would be an obscene ecstasy to such a theft of power, and that Will would wish to savour it alone. I was also fairly certain that he would search for me, determined to ferret me out no matter where I hid. He knew also that I was terrified of him. He would not expect me to come straight for him, determined to kill not only him and the coterie, but also Regal. My swift march toward Tradeford might be my best strategy for remaining hidden from him.

Farrow’s reputation is for being as open as Buck is craggy and wooded. That first dawn found us in an unfamiliar type of forest, more open and deciduous. We bedded down for the day in a birch copse on a gentle hill overlooking open pasture. For the first time since the fight I took off my shirt and by daylight examined my shoulder where the club had connected. It was black and blue, and painful if I tried to lift my arm above my head. But that was all. Minor. Three years ago, I would have thought it a serious injury. I would have bathed it in cold water and poulticed it with herbs to hasten its healing. Now, although it purpled my whole shoulder and twinged whenever I moved it, it was only a bruise, and I left it to heal on its own. I smiled wryly to myself as I put my shirt back on.

Nighteyes was not patient as I looked at the slice in his shoulder. It was starting to close. As I pushed the hair back from the edges of the cut, he reached back suddenly and seized my wrist in his teeth. Not roughly, but firmly.

Let it alone. It will heal.

There’s dirt in it.

He gave it a sniff and a thoughtful lick. Not that much.

Let me look at it.

You never just look. You poke.

Then sit still and let me poke at it.

He conceded, but not graciously. There were bits of grass stuck in it and these had to be plucked loose. More than once he grabbed at my wrist. Finally he rumbled at me in a way that let me know he’d had enough. I wasn’t satisfied. He was barely tolerant of me putting some of Burrich’s salve on it.

You worry about these things too much, he informed me irritably.

I hate that you are injured because of me. It’s not right. This isn’t the sort of life a wolf should lead. You should not be alone, wandering from place to place. You should be with a pack, hunting your territory, perhaps taking a mate someday.

Someday is someday, and maybe it will be or maybe it won’t. This is a human thing, to worry about things that may or may not come to be. You can’t eat the meat until you’ve killed it. Besides, I am not alone. We are together.

That is true. We are together. I lay down beside Nighteyes to sleep.

I thought of Molly. I resolutely put her out of my mind and tried to sleep. It was no good. I shifted about restlessly until Nighteyes growled, got up, stalked away from me and lay down again. I sat up for a bit, staring down into a wooded valley. I knew I was close to a foolish decision. I refused to consider how completely foolish and reckless it was. I drew a breath, closed my eyes and reached for Molly.

I had dreaded I might find her in another man’s arms. I had feared I would hear her speak of me with loathing. Instead, I could not find her at all. Time and again, I centred my thoughts, summoned all my energies and reached out for her. I was finally rewarded with a Skill-image of Burrich thatching the roof of a cottage. He was shirtless and the summer sun had darkened him to the colour of polished wood. Sweat ran down the back of his neck. He glanced down at someone below him and annoyance crossed his features. ‘I know, my lady. You could do it yourself, thank you very much. I also know I have enough worries without fearing that both of you will tumble off here.’

Somewhere I panted with effort, and became aware of my own body again. I pushed myself away and reached for Burrich. I would at least let him know that I lived. I managed to find him, but I saw him through a fog. ‘Burrich!’ I called to him. ‘Burrich, it’s Fitz!’ But his mind was closed and locked to me; I could not catch even a glimmer of his thoughts. I damned my erratic Skill ability, and reached again into the swirling clouds.

Verity stood before me, his arms crossed on his chest, shaking his head. His voice was no louder than a whisper of wind, and he stood so still I could scarcely see him. Yet I sensed he used great force to reach me. ‘Don’t do this, boy,’ he warned me softly. ‘It will only hurt you.’ I was suddenly in a different place. He leaned with his back against a great slab of black stone and his face was lined with weariness. Verity rubbed at his temples as if pained. ‘I should not be doing this, either. But sometimes I so long for … Ah, well. Pay no mind. Know this, though. Some things are better not known, and the risks of Skilling right now are too great. If I can feel you and find you, so can another. He’ll attack you any way he can. Don’t bring them to his attention. He would not scruple to use them against you. Give them up, to protect them.’ He suddenly seemed a bit stronger. He smiled bitterly. ‘I know what it means to do that; to give them up to keep them safe. So did your father. You’ve the strength for it. Give it all up, boy. Just come to me. If you’ve still a mind to. Come to me, and I’ll show you what can be done.’

I awoke at midday. The full sunlight falling on my face had given me a headache, and I felt slightly shaky with it. I made a tiny fire, intending to brew some elfbark tea to steady myself. I forced myself to be sparing of my supply, using only one small piece of bark and the rest nettles. I had not expected to need it so often. I suspected I should conserve it; I might need it after I faced Regal’s coterie. Now there was an optimistic thought. Nighteyes opened his eyes to watch me for a bit, then dozed off again. I sat sipping my bitter tea and staring out over the countryside. The bizarre dream had made me homesick for a place and time when people had cared for me. I had left all that behind me. Well, not entirely. I sat beside Nighteyes and rested a hand on the wolf’s shoulder. He shuddered his coat at the touch. Go to sleep, he told me grumpily.

You are all I have, I told him, full of melancholy.

He yawned lazily. And I am all you need. Now go to sleep. Sleeping is serious, he told me gravely. I smiled and stretched out again beside my wolf, one hand resting on his coat. He radiated the simple contentment of a full belly and sleeping in the warm sun. He was right. It was worth taking seriously. I closed my eyes and slept dreamlessly the rest of the day.

In the days and nights that followed, the nature of the countryside changed to open forests interspersed with wide grassland. Orchards and grainfields surrounded the towns. Once, long ago, I had travelled through Farrow. Then I had been with a caravan, and we had gone cross country rather than following the river. I had been a confident young assassin on my way to an important murder. That trip had ended in my first real experience of Regal’s treachery. I had barely survived it. Now once more I travelled across Farrow, looking forward to a murder at my journey’s end. But this time I went alone and upriver, the man I would kill was my own uncle and the killing was at my own behest. Sometimes I found that deeply satisfying. At other times, I found it frightening.

I kept my promise to myself, and avoided human company assiduously. We shadowed the road and the river, but when we came to towns, we skirted wide around them. This was more difficult than might be imagined in such open country. It had been one thing to circle about some Buck hamlet tucked into a bend in the river and surrounded by deep woods. It is another to cross grainfields, or slip through orchards and not rouse anyone’s dogs or interest. To some extent, I could reassure dogs that we meant no harm. If the dogs were gullible. Most farm dogs have a suspicion of wolves that no amount of reassurances could calm. And older dogs were apt to look askance at any human travelling in a wolf’s company. We were chased more than once. The Wit might give me the ability to communicate with some animals, but it did not guarantee that I would be listened to, nor believed. Dogs are not stupid.

Hunting in these open areas was different, too. Most of the small game was of the burrowing sort that lived in groups, and the larger animals simply outran us over the long flat stretches of land. Time spent in hunting was time not spent travelling. Occasionally I found unguarded hen-houses and slipped in quietly to steal eggs from the sleeping birds. I did not scruple to raid plums and cherries from the orchards we passed through. Our most fortuitous kill was an ignorant young haragar, one of the rangy swine that some of the nomadic folk herded as a food beast. Where this one had strayed from, we did not question. Fang and sword, we brought it down. I let Nighteyes gorge to his content that night, and then annoyed him by cutting the rest of the meat into strips and sheets which I dried in the sun over a low fire. It took the better part of a day before I was satisfied the fatty meat was dried enough to keep well, but in the days to follow, we travelled more swiftly for it. When game presented itself, we hunted and killed, but when it did not, we had the smoked haragar to fall back on.

In this manner we followed the Buck River northeast. When we drew close to the substantial trading town of Turlake, we veered wide of it, and for a time steered only by the stars. This was far more to Nighteyes’ liking, taking us over plains carpeted with dry sedgy grasses at this time of year. We frequently saw herds in the distance, of cattle and sheep or goats, and infrequently, haragar. My contact with the nomadic folk who followed those herds was limited to glimpses of them on horseback, or the sight of their fires outlining the conical tents they favoured when they settled for a night or so.

We were wolves again for these long trotting days. I had reverted once more, but I was aware of it and told myself that as long as I was it would do me little harm. In truth, I believe it did me good. Had I been travelling with another human, life would have been complicated. We would have discussed route and supplies and tactics once we arrived in Tradeford. But the wolf and I simply trotted along, night after night, and our existence was as simple as life could be. The comradeship between us grew deeper and deeper.

The words of Black Rolf had sunk deep into me and given me much to think about. In some ways, I had taken Nighteyes and the bond between us for granted. Once he had been a cub, but now he was my equal. And my friend. Some say ‘a dog’ or ‘a horse’ as if every one of them is like every other. I’ve heard a man call a mare he had owned for seven years ‘it’ as if he were speaking of a chair. I’ve never understood that. One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman. Nosy had been a friendly, inquisitive, boyish dog when he was mine. Smithy had been tough and aggressive, inclined to bully anyone who would give way to him, and his sense of humour had had a rough edge to it. Nighteyes was as unlike them as he was unlike Burrich or Chade. It is no disrespect to any of them to say I was closest to him.

He could not count. But, I could not read deer scent on the air and tell if it were a buck or doe. If he could not plan ahead to the day after tomorrow, neither was I capable of the fierce concentration he could bring to a stalk. There were differences between us, neither of us claimed superiority. No one issued a command to the other, or expected unquestioning obedience of the other. My hands were useful things for removing porcupine quills and ticks and thorns and for scratching especially itchy and unreachable spots on his back. My height gave me a certain advantage in spotting game and spying out terrain. So even when he pitied me for my ‘cow’s teeth’ and poor vision at night, and a nose he referred to as a numb lump between my eyes, he did not look down on me. We both knew his hunting prowess accounted for most of the meat that we ate. Yet he never begrudged me an equal share. Find that in a man, if you can.

‘Sit, hound!’ I told him once, jokingly. I was gingerly skinning out a porcupine that I had killed with a club after Nighteyes had insisted on pursuing it. In his eagerness to get at the meat, he was about to get us both full of quills. He settled back with an impatient quivering of haunches.

Why do men speak so? he asked me as I tugged carefully at the skin’s edge of the prickling hide.

‘How?’

Commanding. What gives a man a right to command a dog, if they are not pack?

‘Some are pack, or almost,’ I said aloud, consideringly. I pulled the hide tight, holding it by a flap of belly fur where there were no quills, and slicing along the exposed integument. The skin made a ripping sound as it peeled back from the fat meat. ‘Some men think they have the right,’ I went on after a moment.

Why? Nighteyes pressed.

It surprised me that I had never pondered this before. ‘Some men think they are better than beasts,’ I said slowly. ‘That they have the right to use them or command them in any way they please.’

Do you think this way?

I didn’t answer right away. I worked my blade along the line between the skin and the fat, keeping a constant pull on the hide as I worked up around the shoulder of the animal. I rode a horse, didn’t I, when I had one? Was it because I was better than the horse that I bent it to my will? I’d used dogs to hunt for me, and hawks on occasion. What right had I to command them? There I sat, stripping the hide off a porcupine to eat it. I spoke slowly. ‘Are we better than this porcupine that we are about to eat? Or is it only that we have bested it today?’

Nighteyes cocked his head, watching my knife and hands bare meat for him. I think I am always smarter than a porcupine. But not better. Perhaps we kill it and eat it because we can. Just as, and here he stretched his front paws out before him languorously, just as I have a well-trained human to skin these prickly things for me, that I may enjoy eating them the better. He lolled his tongue at me, and we both knew it was only part of the answer to the puzzle. I ran my knife down the porcupine’s spine, and the whole hide was finally free of it.

‘I should build a fire and cook off some of this fat before I eat it,’ I said consideringly. ‘Otherwise I shall be ill.’

Just give me mine, and do as you wish with your share, Nighteyes instructed me grandly. I cut around the hind legs and then popped the joints free and cut them loose. It was more than enough meat for me. I left them on the skin side of the hide as Nighteyes dragged his share away. I kindled a small fire as he was crunching through bones and skewered the legs to cook them. ‘I don’t think I am better than you,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t think, truly, that I am better than any beast. Though, as you say, I am smarter than some.’

Porcupines, perhaps, he observed benignly. But a wolf? I think not.

We grew to know every nuance of the other’s behaviour. Sometimes we were fiercely competent at our hunting, finding our keenest joy in a stalk and kill, moving purposefully and dangerously through the world. At other times, we tussled like puppies, nudging one another off the beaten trail into bushes, pinching and nipping at each other as we strode along, scaring off the game before we even saw it. Some days we lay drowsing in the late afternoon hours before we roused to hunt and then travel, the sun warm on our bellies or backs, the insects buzzing a sound like sleep itself. Then the big wolf might roll over on his back like a puppy, begging me to scratch his belly and check his ears for ticks and fleas, or simply scratch thoroughly all around his throat and neck. On chill foggy mornings we curled up close beside one another to find warmth before sleep. Sometimes I would be awakened by a rough poke of a cold nose against mine; when I tried to sit up, I would discover he was deliberately standing on my hair, pinning my head to the earth. At other times I might awaken alone, to see Nighteyes sitting at some distance, looking out over the surrounding countryside. I recall seeing him so, silhouetted against a sunset. The light evening breeze ruffled his coat. His ears were pricked forward and his gaze went far into the distance. I sensed a loneliness in him then that nothing from me could ever remedy. It humbled me, and I let him be, not even questing toward him. In some ways, for him, I was not better than a wolf.

Once we had avoided Turlake and the surrounding towns we swung north again to strike the Vin River. It was as different from the Buck River as a cow is from a stallion. Grey and placid, it slid along between open fields, wallowing back and forth in its wide gravelly channel. On our side of the river, there was a trail that more or less paralleled the water, but most of the traffic on it were goats and cattle. We could always hear when a herd or flock was being moved, and we easily avoided them. The Vin was not as navigable a river as the Buck, being shallower and given to shifting sandbars, but there was some boat trade on it. On the Tilth side of the Vin, there was a well-used road, and frequent villages and even towns. We saw barges being drawn upstream by mule teams along some stretches; I surmised that such cargo would have to be portaged past the shallows. Settlements on our side of the river seemed limited to ferry landings and infrequent trading posts for the nomadic herders. These might offer an inn, a few shops and a handful of houses clinging to the outskirts, but not much more than that. Nighteyes and I avoided them. The few villages we encountered on our side of the river were deserted at this time of year.

The nomadic herders, tent dwellers during the hotter months, pastured their herds on the central plains now, moving sedately from waterhole to waterhole across the rich grazing lands. Grass grew in the village streets and up the sides of the sod houses. There was a peace to these abandoned towns, and yet the emptiness still reminded me of a raided village. We never lingered close to one.

We both grew leaner and stronger. I wore through my shoes and had to patch them with rawhide. I wore my trousers off at the cuff and hemmed them up about my calves. I grew tired of washing my shirt so often; the blood of the Forged ones and our kills had left the front and the cuffs of it mottled brown. It was as mended and tattered as a beggar’s shirt, and the uneven colour made it only more pathetic. I bundled it into my pack one day and went shirtless. The days were mild enough that I did not miss it, and during the cooler nights we were on the move and my body made its own warmth. The sun baked me almost as dark as my wolf. Physically, I felt good. I was not as strong as I had been when I was pulling an oar and fighting, nor as muscled. But I felt healthy and limber and lean. I could trot all night beside a wolf and not be wearied. I was a quick and stealthy animal, and I proved over and over to myself my ability to survive. I regained a great deal of the confidence that Regal had destroyed. Not that my body had forgiven and forgotten all that Regal had done to it, but I had adapted to its twinges and scars. Almost, I had put the dungeon behind me. I did not let my dark goal overshadow those golden days. Nighteyes and I travelled, hunted, slept and travelled again. It was all so simple and good that I forgot to value it. Until I lost it.

We had come down to the river as evening darkened, intending to drink well before beginning our night’s travel. But as we drew near, Nighteyes had suddenly frozen, dropping his belly to the earth while canting his ears forward. I followed his example, and then even my dull nose caught an unfamiliar scent. What and where? I asked him.

I saw them before he could reply. Tiny deer, stepping daintily along on their way down to water. They were not much taller than Nighteyes, and instead of antlers, they had goat-like spiralling horns that shone glossy black in the full moon’s light. I knew of such creatures only from an old bestiary that Chade had, and I could not remember what they were properly called.

Food? Nighteyes suggested succinctly, and I immediately concurred. The trail they were following would bring them within a leap and a spring of us. Nighteyes and I held our positions, waiting. The deer came closer, a dozen of them, hurrying and careless now as they scented the cool water. We let the one in the lead pass, waiting to spring on the main body of the herd where they were most closely bunched. But just as Nighteyes gathered himself with a quiver to jump, a long wavering howl slid down the night.

Nighteyes sat up, an anxious whine bursting from him. The deer scattered in an explosion of hooves and horns, fleeing us even though we were both too distracted to pursue them. Our meal became suddenly a distant light thunder. I looked after them in dismay, but Nighteyes did not even seem to notice.

Mouth open, Nighteyes made sounds between a howl and a keen, his jaws quivering and working as if he strove to remember how to speak. The jolt I had felt from him at the wolf’s distant howl had made my heart leap in my chest. If my own mother had suddenly called out to me from the night, the shock could not have been greater. Answering howls and barks erupted from a gentle rise to the north of us. The first wolf joined in with them. Nighteyes’ head swivelled back and forth as he whined low in his throat. Abruptly he threw back his head and let out a jagged howl of his own. Sudden stillness followed his declaration, then the pack on the rise gave tongue again, not a hunting cry, but an announcement of themselves.

Nighteyes gave me a quick apologetic look, and left. In disbelief I watched him race off toward the ridge. After an instant of astonishment, I leaped to my feet and followed. He was already a substantial distance ahead of me, but when he became aware of me, he slowed, and then rounded to face me.

I must go alone, he told me earnestly. Wait for me here. He whirled about to resume his journey.

Panic struck me. Wait! You can’t go alone. They are not pack. We’re intruders, they’ll attack you. Better not to go at all.

I must! he repeated. There was no mistaking his determination. He trotted off.

I ran after him. Nighteyes, please! I was suddenly terrified for him, for what he was charging into so obsessedly.

He paused and looked back at me, his eyes meeting mine in what was a very long stare for a wolf. You understand. You know you do. Now is the time for you to trust as I have trusted. This is something I must do. And I must do it alone.

And if you do not come back? I asked in sudden desperation.

You came back from your visit into that town. And I shall come back to you. Continue to travel along the river. I shall find you. Go on, now. Go back.

I stopped trotting after him. He kept going. Be careful! I flung the plea after him, my own form of howling into the night. Then I stood and watched him trot away from me, the powerful muscles rippling under his deep fur, his tail held out straight in determination. It took every bit of strength I had to refrain from crying out to him to come back, to plead with him not to leave me alone. I stood alone, breathing hard from running, and watched him dwindle in the distance. He was so intent on his seeking that I felt closed out and set aside. For the first time I experienced the resentment and jealousy that he had felt during my sessions with Verity, or when I had been with Molly and had commanded him to stay away from my thoughts.

This was his first adult contact with his own kind. I understood his need to seek them out and see what they were, even if they attacked him and drove him away. It was right. But all the fears I had for him whined at me to run after him, to be by his side in case he were attacked, to be at least within striking distance if he should need me.

But he had asked me not to.

No. He had told me not to. Told me, exerting the same privilege of self that I had exerted with him. I felt it wrenched my heart sideways in my chest to turn away from him and walk back toward the river. I felt suddenly half blind. He was not trotting beside and ahead of me, relaying his information to supplement what my own duller senses delivered to me. Instead, I could sense him in the distance. I felt the thrilling of anticipation, fear and curiosity that trembled through him. He was too intent on his own life at the moment to share with me. Suddenly I wondered if this was akin to what Verity had felt, when I was out on the Rurisk, harrying the Raiders while he had to sit in his tower and be content with whatever information he could glean from me. I had reported much more fully to him, had made a conscious effort to keep up a stream of information to him. Still, he must have felt something of this wrenching exclusion that now sickened me.

I reached the riverbank. I halted there, to sit down and wait for him. He had said he would come back. I stared out over the darkness of the moving water. My life felt small inside me. Slowly I turned to look upstream. All inclination to hunt had fled with Nighteyes.

I sat and waited for a long time. Finally I got up and moved on through the night, paying scant attention to myself and my surroundings. I walked silently on the sandy riverbank, accompanied by the hushing of the waters.

Somewhere, Nighteyes scented other wolves, scented them clean and strong, well enough to know how many and what sexes they were. Somewhere he showed himself to them, not threatening, not entering their company, but simply announcing to them that he was there. For a time they watched him. The big male of the pack advanced and urinated on a tussock of grass. He then scratched deep furrows with the claws on his hind feet as he kicked dirt at it. A female stood and stretched and yawned, and then sat, staring green-eyed up at him. Two half-grown cubs stopped chewing one another long enough to consider him. One started toward him, but a low rumble from his mother brought him hastening back. He went back to chewing at his littermate. And Nighteyes sat down, a settling on the haunches that showed he meant no harm and let them look at him. A skinny young female gave half a hesitant whine, then broke it off with a sneeze.

After a time, most of the wolves got up and set out purposefully together. Hunting. The skinny female stayed with the cubs, watching over them as the others left. Nighteyes hesitated, then followed the pack at a discreet distance. From time to time, one of the wolves would glance back at him. The lead male stopped frequently to urinate and then scuff at the ground with his back legs.

As for me, I walked on by the river, watching the night age around me. The moon performed her slow passage of the night sky. I took dry meat from my pack and chewed it as I walked, stopping once to drink the chalky water. The river had swung toward me in its gravelly bed. I was forced to forsake the shore and walk on a tussocky bank above it. As dawn created a horizon, I cast about for a place to sleep. I settled for a slightly higher rise on the bank and curled up small amidst the coarse grasses. I would be invisible unless someone almost stepped on me. It was as safe a spot as any.

I felt very alone.

I did not sleep well. A part of me sat watching other wolves, still from a distance. They were as aware of me as I was of them. They had not accepted me, but neither had they driven me off. I had not gone so close as to force them to decide about me. I had watched them kill a buck, of a kind of deer I did not know. It seemed small to feed all of them. I was hungry, but not so hungry that I needed to hunt yet. My curiosity about this pack was a more pressing hunger. I sat and watched them as they sprawled in sleep.

My dreams moved away from Nighteyes. Again I felt the disjointed knowledge that I was dreaming, but was powerless to awaken. Something summoned me, tugging at me with a terrible urgency. I answered that summons, reluctant but unable to refuse. I found another day somewhere, and the sickeningly familiar smoke and screams rising together into the blue sky by the ocean. Another town in Bearns was fighting and falling to the Raiders. Once more I was claimed as witness. On that night, and almost every night to follow, the war with the Red Ships was forced back on me.

That battle, and each of the ones that followed are etched somewhere on my heart, in relentless detail. Scent and sound and touch, I lived them all. Something in me listened, and each time I slept, it dragged me mercilessly to where Six Duchies folk fought and died for their homes. I was to experience more of the fall of Bearns than any one who actually lived in that Duchy. For from day to day, whenever I tried to sleep, I might at any time find myself called to witness. I knew no logic for it. Perhaps the penchant for the Skill slept in many folk of the Six Duchies and faced with death and pain they cried out to Verity and me with voices they did not know they possessed. More than once, I sensed my king likewise stalking the nightmare-wracked towns, though never again did I see him so plainly as I had that first time. Later, I would recall that once I had dream-shared a time with King Shrewd when he was similarly called to witness the fall of Siltbay. I have wondered since how often he was tormented by witnessing the raids on towns he was powerless to protect.

Some part of me knew that I slept by the Vin River, far from this rampaging battle, surrounded by tall river grass and swept by a clean wind. It did not seem important. What mattered was the sudden reality of the ongoing battles the Six Duchies faced against the Raiders. This nameless little village in Bearns was probably not of great strategic importance, but it was falling as I watched, one more brick crumbling out of a wall. Once the Raiders possessed the Bearns coast, the Six Duchies would never be freed of them. And they were taking that coast, town by town, hamlet by hamlet, while the erstwhile King sheltered in Tradeford. The reality of our struggle against the Red Ships had been imminent and pressing when I had pulled an oar on the Rurisk. Over the past few months, insulated and isolated from the war, I had allowed myself to forget the folk who lived that conflict every day. I had been as unfeeling as Regal.

I finally awoke as evening began to steal the colours from the river and plain. I did not feel I had rested, and yet it was a relief to awaken. I sat up, looked about myself. Nighteyes had not returned to me. I quested briefly toward him. My brother, he acknowledged me, but I sensed he was annoyed at my intrusion. He was watching the two cubs tumble each other about. I pulled my mind back to myself wearily. The contrast between our two lives was suddenly too great even to consider. The Red Ship Raiders, the Forgings and Regal’s treacheries, even my plan to kill Regal were suddenly nasty human things I had foisted off on the wolf. What right was there in letting such ugliness shape his life? He was where he was supposed to be.

As little as I liked it, the task I had set myself was mine alone.

I tried to let go of him. Still, the stubborn spark remained. He had said he would come back to me. I resolved that if he did, it must be his own decision. I would not summon him to me. I arose, and pressed on. I told myself that if Nighteyes decided to rejoin me, he could overtake me easily. There is nothing like a wolf’s trot for devouring the miles. And it was not as if I were travelling swiftly without him. I very much missed his night vision. I came to a place where the riverbank dropped down to become little better than a swamp. I could not decide at first whether to press through it or to try to go around it. I knew it could stretch for miles. At length I decided to stay as close to the open river as I could. I spent a miserable night, swishing through bulrushes and cattails, stumbling over their tangled roots, my feet wet more often than not, and bedevilled by enthusiastic midges.

What kind of a moron, I asked myself, tried to walk through an unfamiliar swamp in the dark? Serve me right if I found a bog-hole and drowned in it. Above me were only the stars, around me the unchanging walls of cattails. To my right I caught glimpses of the wide, dark river. I kept moving upstream. Dawn found me still slogging along. Tiny single-leaved plants with trailing roots coated my leggings and shoes and my chest was welted with insect bites. I ate dried meat as I walked. There was no place to rest, so I walked on. Resolving to take some good from this place, I gathered some cattail root-stocks as I trudged. It was past midday before the river began to have a real bank again, and I pushed myself on for another hour beyond that to get away from the midges and mosquitoes. Then I washed the greenish swamp slime and mud off my leggings, shoes and skin before flinging myself down to sleep.

Somewhere, Nighteyes stood still and unthreatening as the skinny female came closer to him. As she came closer, he dropped to his belly, rolled over on his side, then curled onto his back and exposed his throat. She came closer, a single step at a time. Then she stopped suddenly, sat down and considered him. He whined lightly. She put her ears back suddenly, bared all her teeth in a snarl, then whirled and dashed away. After a time Nighteyes got up, and went to hunt for meadow mice. He seemed pleased.

Again, as his presence drifted away from me, I was summoned back to Bearns. Another village was burning.

I awoke discouraged. Instead of pushing on, I kindled a small fire of driftwood. I boiled water in my kettle to cook the root-stocks while I cut some of my dried meat into chunks. I stewed the dried meat with the starchy root-stocks and added a bit of my precious store of salt and some wild greens. Unfortunately the chalky taste of the river predominated. Belly full, I shook out my winter cloak, rolled up in it as protection against the night insects and drowsed off again.

Nighteyes and the lead wolf stood looking at one another. They were far enough apart that there was no challenge in it, but Nighteyes kept his tail down. The lead wolf was rangier than Nighteyes and his coat was black. Not so well fed, he bore the scars of both fights and hunts. He carried himself confidently. Nighteyes did not move. After a time the other wolf walked a short way, cocked his leg on a tuft of grass and urinated. He scuffed his front feet in the grass, then walked off without a backward glance. Nighteyes sat down and was still, considering.

The next morning I arose and continued on my way. Nighteyes had left me two days ago. Only two days. Yet it seemed very long to me that I had been alone. And how, I wondered, did Nighteyes measure our separation? Not by days and nights. He had gone to find out a thing, and when he had found it out, then his time to be away from me would be over and he would come back to me. But what, really, had he gone to find out? What it was like to be a wolf among wolves, a member of a pack? If they accepted him, what then? Would he run with them for a day, a week, a season? How long would it take for me to fade from his mind into one of his endless yesterdays?

Why should he want to return to me, if this pack would accept him?

After a time, I allowed myself to realize I was as heartsore and hurt as if a human friend had snubbed me for the company of others. I wanted to howl, to quest out to Nighteyes with my loneliness for him. By an effort of will, I did not. He was not a pet dog, to be whistled to heel. He was a friend and we had travelled together for a time. What right did I have to ask him to give up a chance at a mate, at a true pack of his own, simply that he might be at my side? None at all, I told myself. None at all.

At noon I struck a trail that followed the bank. By late afternoon I had passed several small farmsteads. Melons and grain predominated. A network of ditches carried river-water inland to the crops. The sod houses were set well back from the river’s edge, probably to avoid flooding. I had been barked at by dogs, and honked at by flocks of fat white geese, but had seen no folk close enough to hail. The trail had widened to a road, with cart-tracks.

The sun was beating on my back and head from a clear blue sky. High above me, I heard the shrill ki of a hawk. I glanced up at him, wings open and still as he rode the sky. He gave cry again, folded his wings and plummeted toward me. Doubtless, he dived on some small rodent in one of the fields. I watched him come at me, and only at the last moment realized I was truly his target. I flung up an arm to shield my face just as he opened his wings. I felt the wind of his braking. For a bird his size, he landed quite lightly on my upflung arm. His talons clenched painfully in my flesh.

My first thought was that he was a trained bird gone feral, who had seen me and somehow decided to return to man. A scrap of leather dangling from one of his legs might be the remainder of jesses. He sat blinking on my arm, a magnificent bird in every way. I held him out from me to have a better look at him. The leather on his leg secured a tiny scroll of parchment. ‘Can I have a look at that?’ I asked him aloud. He turned his head to my voice and one gleaming eye stared at me. It was Sleet.

Old Blood.

I could make no more of his thoughts than that, but it was enough.

I had never been much good with the birds at Buckkeep. Burrich had finally bid me leave them alone, for my presence always agitated them. Nevertheless, I quested gently toward his flame-bright mind. He seemed quiet. I managed to tug the tiny scroll loose. The hawk shifted on my arm, digging his talons into fresh flesh. Then, without warning, he lifted his wings and launched away from me into the air. He spiralled up, beating heavily to gain altitude, cried once more his high ki, ki, and went sliding off down the sky. I was left with blood trickling down my arm where his talons had scored my flesh, and one ringing ear from the beating of his wings as he launched. I glanced at the punctures in my arm. Then curiosity made me turn to the tiny scroll. Pigeons carried messages, not hawks.

The handwriting was in an old style, tiny, thin and spidery. The brightness of the sun made it even harder to read. I sat down at the edge of the road and shaded it with my hand to study it. The first words almost stilled my heart. ‘Old Blood greets Old Blood.’

The rest was harder to puzzle out. The scroll was tattered, the spellings quaint, the words as few as would suffice. The warning was from Holly, though I suspected Rolf had penned it. King Regal actively hunted down Old Blood now. To those he captured, he offered coins if they would help find a wolf – man pair. They suspected Nighteyes and I were the ones he wanted. Regal threatened death to those who refused. There was a little more, something about giving my scent to others of Old Blood and asking that they aid me as they could. The rest of the scroll was too tattered to read. I tucked the scroll into my belt. The bright day seemed edged with darkness now. So Will had told Regal I yet lived. And Regal feared me enough to set these wheels in motion. Perhaps it was as well that Nighteyes and I had parted company for a time.

As twilight fell, I ascended a small rise on the riverbank. Ahead of me, tucked into a bend of the river, were a few lights. Probably another trading post or a ferry dock to allow farmers and herders easy passage across the river. I watched the lights as I walked toward them. Ahead there would be hot food, and people, and shelter for the night. I could stop and have a word with the folk there if I wished. I still had a few coins to call my own. No wolf at my heels to excite questions, no Nighteyes lurking outside hoping no dogs would pick up his scent. No one to worry about except myself. Well, maybe I would. Maybe I’d stop and have a glass and a bit of talk. Maybe I’d learn how much farther it was to Tradeford, and hear some gossip of what went on there. It was time I began formulating a real plan as to how I would deal with Regal.

It was time I began depending only on myself.