Читать книгу Assassin’s Quest - Робин Хобб - Страница 12

Buck, the oldest Duchy of the Six Duchies, has a coastline that stretches from just below the Highdowns southwards to include the mouth of the Buck River and Bay of Buck. Antler Island is included in the Duchy of Buck. Buck’s wealth has two major sources: the rich fishing grounds that the coastal folk have always enjoyed, and the shipping trade created by supplying the Inland Duchies with all they lack via the Buck River. The Buck River is a wide river, meandering freely in its bed, and often flooding the lowlands of Buck during the spring. The current is such that an ice-free channel has always remained open in the river year round, save for the four severest winters in Buck’s history. Not only Buck goods travel up the river to the Inland Duchies, but trade goods from Rippon and Shoaks Duchies, not to mention the more exotic items from the Chalced States and those of the Bingtown Traders. Down the river comes all that the Inland Duchies have to offer, as well as the fine furs and ambers from the Mountain Kingdom trade.

I awoke when Nighteyes nudged my cheek with a cold nose. Even then I did not startle awake, but became soddenly aware of my surroundings. My head pounded and my face felt stiff. The empty bottle from the elderberry wine rolled away from me as I pushed myself to a sitting position on the floor.

You sleep too soundly. Are you sick?

No. Just stupid.

I never before noticed that it made you sleep soundly.

He poked me with his nose again and I pushed him away. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again. Nothing had improved. I tossed a few more sticks of wood onto the embers of last night’s fire. ‘Is it morning?’ I asked sleepily, aloud.

The light is just starting to change. We should go back to the rabbit warren place.

You go ahead. I’m not hungry.

Very well. He started off, then paused in the open doorway. I do not think that sleeping inside is good for you. Then he was gone, a shifting of greyness from the threshold. Slowly I lay down again and closed my eyes. I would sleep for just a short time longer.

When I awoke again, full daylight was streaming in the open door. A brief Wit-quest found a satiated wolf drowsing in the dappling sunlight between two big roots of an oak tree. Nighteyes had small use for bright sunny days. Today I agreed with him, but forced myself back to yesterday’s resolution. I began to set the hut to rights. Then it occurred to me that I would probably never see this place again. Habit made me finish sweeping it out anyway. I cleared the ashes from the hearth, and set a fresh armload of wood there. If anyone did pass this way and need shelter, they would find all ready for them. I gathered up my now-dry clothing and set everything I would be taking with me on the table. It was pathetically little if one were thinking of it as all I had. When I considered that I had to carry all of it on my own back, it seemed plentiful. I went down to the stream to drink and wash before trying to make it into a manageable pack.

As I walked back from the stream, I was wondering how disgruntled Nighteyes was going to be about travelling by day. I had dropped my extra leggings on the doorstep somehow. I stooped and picked them up as I entered, tossing them onto the table. I suddenly realized I wasn’t alone.

The garment on the doorstep should have warned me, but I had become careless. It had been too long since I had been threatened. I had begun to rely too completely on my Wit-sense to let me know when others were around. Forged ones could not be perceived that way. Neither the Wit nor the Skill would avail me anything against them. There were two of them, both young men, and not long Forged by the look of them. Their clothing was mostly intact and while they were dirty, it was not the ground-in filth and matted hair that I had come to associate with the Forged.

Most of the times I had fought Forged ones it had been winter and they had been weakened by privation. One of my duties as King Shrewd’s assassin had been to keep the area around Buckkeep free of them. We had never discovered what magic the Red Ships used on our folk, to snatch them from their families and return them but hours later as emotionless brutes. We knew only that the sole cure was a merciful death. The Forged ones were the worst of the horrors that the Raiders loosed on us. They left our own kin to prey on us long after their ships were gone. Which was worse: to face your brother, knowing that theft, murder or rape were perfectly acceptable to him now, as long as he got what he wished? Or to take up your knife and go out to hunt him down and kill him?

I had interrupted the two as they were pawing through my possessions. Hands full of dried meat, they were feeding, each keeping a wary eye on the other. Though Forged ones might travel together, they had absolutely no loyalty to anyone. Perhaps the company of other humans was merely a habit. I had seen them turn savagely upon one another to dispute ownership of some plunder, or merely when they had become hungry enough. But now they swung their gazes to me, considering. I froze where I was. For a moment, no one moved.

They had the food and all my possessions. There was no reason for them to attack me, as long as I didn’t challenge them. I eased back toward the door, stepping slowly and carefully, keeping my hands down and still. Just as if I had come upon a bear on its kill, so I did not look directly at them as I gingerly eased back from their territory. I was nearly clear of the door when one lifted a dirty hand to point at me. ‘Dreams too loud!’ he declared angrily. They both dropped their plunder and sprang after me.

I whirled and fled, smashing solidly chest to chest with one who was just coming in the door. He was wearing my extra shirt and little else. His arms closed around me almost reflexively. I did not hesitate. I could reach my belt knife and did, and punched it into his belly a couple of times before he fell back from me. He curled over with a roar of pain as I shoved past him.

Brother! I sensed, and knew Nighteyes was coming, but he was too far away, up on the ridge. A man hit me solidly from behind and I went down. I rolled in his grip, screaming in hoarse terror as he suddenly awakened in me every searing memory of Regal’s dungeon. Panic came over me like a sudden poison. I plunged back into nightmare. I was too terrified to move. My heart hammered, I could not take a breath, my hands were numb, I could not tell if I still gripped my knife. His hand touched my throat. Frantically I flailed at him, thinking only of escape, of evading that touch. His companion saved me, with a savage kick that grazed my side as I thrashed and connected solidly with the ribs of the man on top of me. I heard him gasp out his air, and with a wild shove I had him off me. I rolled clear, came to my feet and fled.

I ran powered by fear so intense I could not think. I heard one man close behind me, and thought I could hear the other behind him. But I knew these hills and pastures now as my wolf knew them. I took them up the steep hill behind the cottage and before they could crest it I changed direction and went to earth. An oak had fallen during the last of the winter’s wild storms, rearing up a great wall of earth with its tangled roots, and taking lesser trees down with it. It had made a fine tangle of trunks and branches, and let a wide slice of sunlight into the forest. The blackberries had sprung up rejoicing and overwhelmed the fallen giant. I flung myself to the earth beside it. I squirmed on my belly through the thorniest part of the blackberry canes, into the darkness beneath the oak’s trunk and then lay completely still.

I heard their angry shouting as they searched for me. In a panic I threw up my mental walls as well. ‘Dreams too loud,’ the Forged one had accused me. Well, Chade and Verity had both suspected that Skilling drew the Forged ones. Perhaps the keenness of feeling it demanded and the outreaching of that feeling in Skill touched something in them and reminded them of all they had lost.

And made them want to kill whomever could still feel? Maybe.

Brother?

It was Nighteyes, muted somehow, or at a very great distance. I dared open to him a bit.

I’m all right. Where are you?

Right here. I heard a rustling and suddenly he was there, bellying through to me. He touched his nose to my cheek. Are you hurt?

No. I ran away.

Wise, he observed, and I could sense that he meant it.

But I could sense too that he was surprised. He had never seen me flee from Forged ones. Always before I had stood and fought, and he had stood and fought beside me. Well, those times I had usually been well armed and well fed, and they had been starved and suffering from the cold. Three against one when you’ve only a belt knife as a weapon are bad odds, even if you know a wolf is coming to help you. There was nothing of cowardice in it. Any man would have done so. I repeated the thought several times to myself.

It’s all right, he soothed me. Then he added, Don’t you want to come out?

In a while. When they’ve gone, I hushed him.

They’ve been gone a long time, now, he offered me. They left while the sun was still high.

I just want to be sure.

I am sure. I watched them go, I followed them. Come out, little brother.

I let him coax me out of the brambles. I found when I emerged that the sun was almost setting. How many hours had I spent in there, senses deadened, like a snail pulled into its shell? I brushed dirt from the front of my formerly clean clothes. There was blood there as well, the blood of the young man in the doorway. I’d have to wash my clothes again, I thought dumbly. For a moment I thought of hauling the water and heating it, of scrubbing out the blood, and then I knew I could not go into the hut and be trapped in there again.

Yet the few possessions I had were there. Or whatever the Forged ones had left of them. By moonrise I had found the courage to approach the hut. It was a good full moon, lighting up the wide meadow before the hut. For some time I crouched on the ridge, peering down and watching for any shadows that might move. One man was lying in the deep grass near the door of the hut. I stared at him for a long time, looking for movement.

He’s dead. Use your nose, Nighteyes recommended.

That would be the one I had met coming out the door. My knife must have found something vital; he had not gone far. Still, I stalked him through the darkness as carefully as if he were a wounded bear. But soon I smelled the sweetish stench of something dead left all day in the sun. He was sprawled face down in the grass. I did not turn him over, but made a wide circle around him.

I peered through the window of the hut, studying the still darkness of the interior for some minutes.

There’s no one in there, Nighteyes reminded me impatiently.

You are sure?

As sure as I am that I have a wolf’s nose and not a useless lump of flesh beneath my eyes. My brother …

He let the thought trail off, but I could feel his wordless anxiety for me. I almost shared it. A part of me knew there was little to fear, that the Forged ones had taken whatever they wanted and moved on. Another part could not forget the weight of the man upon me, and the brushing force of that kick. I had been pinned like that against the stone floor of a dungeon and pounded, fist and boot, and I had not been able to do anything. Now that I had that memory back, I wondered how I would live with it.

I did, finally, go into the hut. I even forced myself to kindle a light, once my groping hands had found my flint. My hands shook as I hastily gathered what they had left me and bundled it into my cloak. The open door behind me was a threatening black gap through which they might come at any moment. Yet if I closed it, I might be trapped inside. Not even Nighteyes keeping watch on the doorstep could reassure me.

They had taken only what they had immediate use for. Forged ones did not plan beyond each moment. All the dried meat had been eaten or flung aside. I wanted none of what they had touched. They had opened my scribe’s case, but lost interest when they found nothing to eat in there. My smaller box of poisons and herbs they had probably assumed held my scribe’s colour pots. It had not been tampered with. Of my clothes, only the one shirt had been taken, and I had no interest in reclaiming it. I’d punched its belly full of holes anyway. I took what was left and departed. I crossed the meadow and climbed to the top of the ridge, where I had a good view in all directions. There I sat down and with trembling hands packed what I had left for travelling. I used my winter cloak to wrap it, and tied the bundle tightly with leather thongs. A separate strapping allowed me to sling it over a shoulder. When I had more light, I could devise a better way to carry it.

‘Ready?’ I asked Nighteyes.

Do we hunt now?

No. We travel. I hesitated. Are you very hungry?

A bit. Are you in so much of a hurry to be away from here?

I didn’t need to think about that. ‘Yes. I am.’

Then do not be concerned. We can both travel and hunt.

I nodded, then glanced up at the night sky. I found the Tiller in the night sky, and took a bearing off it. ‘That way,’ I said, pointing down the far side of the ridge. The wolf made no reply, but simply rose and trotted purposefully off in the direction I had pointed. I followed, ears pricked and all senses keen for anything that might move in the night. I moved quietly and nothing followed us. Nothing followed me at all, save my fear.

The night travelling became our pattern. I had planned to travel by day and sleep by night. But after that first night of trotting through the woods behind Nighteyes, following whichever game trails led in a generally correct direction, I decided it was better. I could not have slept by night anyway. For the first few days I even had trouble sleeping by day. I would find a vantage point that still offered us concealment and lie down, certain of my exhaustion. I would curl up and close my eyes and then lie there, tormented by the keenness of my own senses. Every sound, every scent would jolt me back to alertness, and I could not relax again until I had arisen to assure myself there was no danger. After a time, even Nighteyes complained of my restlessness. When finally I did fall asleep, it was only to shudder awake at intervals, sweating and shaking. Lack of sleep by day made me miserable by night as I trotted along in Nighteyes’ wake.

Yet those sleepless hours and the hours when I trotted after Nighteyes, head pounding with pain, those were not wasted hours. In those hours I nurtured my hatred of Regal and his coterie. I honed it to a fine edge. This was what he had made of me. Not enough that he had taken from me my life, my lover, not enough that I must avoid the people and places I cared about, not enough the scars I bore and the random tremblings that overtook me. No. He had made me this, this shaking, frightened rabbit of a man. I had not even the courage to recall all he had done to me, yet I knew that when push came to shove, those memories would rise up and reveal themselves to unman me. The memories I could not summon by day lurked as fragments of sounds and colours and textures that tormented me by night. The sensation of my cheek against cold stone slick with a thin layer of my warm blood. The flash of light that accompanied a man’s fist striking the side of my head. The guttural sounds men make, the hooting and grunting that issues from them as they watch someone being beaten. Those were the jagged edges that sliced through my efforts at sleep. Sandy-eyed and trembling, I would lie awake beside the wolf and think of Regal. Once I had had a love that I had believed would carry me through anything. Regal had taken that from me. Now I nurtured a hatred fully as strong.

We hunted as we travelled. My resolution always to cook the meat soon proved futile. I managed a fire perhaps one night out of three, and only if I could find a hollow where it would not attract attention. I did not, however, allow myself to sink down to being less than a beast. I kept myself clean, and took as much care with my clothing as our rough life allowed me.

My plan for our journey was a simple one. We would travel cross country until we struck the Buck River. The river road paralleled it up to Turlake. A lot of people travelled the road; it might be difficult for the wolf to remain unseen, but it was the swiftest way. Once there, it was but a short distance to Tradeford on the Vin River. In Tradeford, I would kill Regal.

That was the total sum of my plan. I refused to consider how I would accomplish any of this. I refused to worry about all I did not know. I would simply move forward, one day at a time, until I had met my goals. That much I had learned from being a wolf.

I knew the coast from a summer of manning an oar on Verity’s warship the Rurisk, but I was not personally familiar with the inlands of Buck Duchy. True, I had travelled through it once before, on the way to the Mountains for Kettricken’s pledging ceremony. Then I had been part of the wedding caravan, well mounted and well provisioned. But now I travelled alone and on foot, with time to consider what I saw. We crossed some wild country, but much, too, had once been summer pasturage for flocks of sheep, goats and cattle. Time after time, we traversed meadows chest-high in ungrazed grasses, to find shepherds’ huts cold and deserted since last autumn. The flocks we did see were small ones, not nearly the size of flocks I recalled from previous years. I saw few swineherds and goose-girls compared to my first journey through this area. As we drew closer to the Buck River, we passed grainfields substantially smaller than I recalled, with much good land given back to wild grasses, not even ploughed.

It made small sense to me. I had seen this happening along the coast, where farmers’ flocks and crops had been repeatedly destroyed by the raids. In recent years, whatever did not go to the Red Ships in fire or plunder was taken by taxes to fund the warships and soldiers that scarcely protected them. But upriver, out of the Raiders’ reach, I had thought to find Buck more prosperous. It disheartened me.

We soon struck the road that followed the Buck River. There was much less traffic than I recalled, both on the road and the river. Those we encountered on the road were brusque and unfriendly, even when Nighteyes was out of sight. I stopped once at a farmstead to ask if I might draw cold water from their well. It was allowed me, but no one called off the snarling dogs as I did so, and when my waterskin was full, the woman told me I’d best be on my way. Her attitude seemed to be the prevailing one.

And the further I went, the worse it became. The travellers I encountered on the roads were not merchants with wagons of goods or farmers taking produce to market. Instead they were ragged families, often with all they possessed in a pushcart or two. The eyes of the adults were hard and unfriendly, while those of the children were often stricken and empty. Any hopes I had had of finding day-work along this road were soon surrendered. Those who still possessed homes and farms guarded them jealously. Dogs barked in the yards and farmworkers guarded the young crops from thieves after dark. We passed several ‘beggar-towns’, clusters of makeshift huts and tents alongside the road. By night, bonfires burned brightly in them and cold-eyed adults stood guard with staffs and pikes. By day, children sat along the road and begged from passing travellers. I thought I understood why the merchant wagons I did see were so well guarded.

We had travelled on the road for several nights, ghosting silently through many small hamlets before we came to a town of any size. Dawn overtook us as we approached the outskirts. When some early merchants with a cart of caged chickens overtook us, we knew it was time to get out of sight. We settled for the daylight hours on a small rise that let us look down on a town built half out onto the river. When I could not sleep, I sat and watched the commerce on the road below us. Small boats and large were tied at the docks of the town. Occasionally the wind brought me the shouts of the crews unloading from the ships. Once I even heard a snatch of song. To my surprise, I found myself drawn to my own kind. I left Nighteyes sleeping, but only went as far as the creek at the foot of the hill. I set myself to washing out my shirt and leggings.

We should avoid this place. They will try to kill you if you go there, Nighteyes offered helpfully. He was sitting on a creek bank beside me, watching me wash myself as evening darkened the sky. My shirt and leggings were almost dry. I had been attempting to explain to him why I wished to have him wait for me while I went into the town to the inn there.

Why would they want to kill me?

We are strangers, coming into their hunting grounds. Why shouldn’t they try to kill us?

Humans are not like that, I explained patiently.

No. You are right. They will probably just put you in a cage and beat you.

No they won’t, I insisted firmly to cover my own fears that perhaps someone might recognize me.

They did before, he insisted. Both of us. And that was your own pack.

I could not deny that. So I promised, I will be very, very careful. I shall not be long. I just want to go listen to them talk for a bit, to find out what is happening.

Why should we care what is happening to them? What is happening to us is that we are neither hunting, nor sleeping, nor travelling. They are not pack with us.

It may tell us what to expect, further on our journey. I may find out if the roads are heavily travelled, if there is work I can take for a day or so to get a few coins. That sort of thing.

We could simply travel on and find out for ourselves, Nighteyes pointed out stubbornly.

I dragged on my shirt and leggings over my damp skin. I combed my hair back with my fingers, squeezed the moisture from it. Habit made me tie it back in a warrior’s tail. Then I bit my lip, considering. I had planned to represent myself as a wandering scribe. I took it out of its tail and shook it loose. It came almost to my shoulders. A bit long for a scribe’s hair. Most of them kept their hair short, and shaved it back from the brow line to keep it from their eyes when they worked. Well, with my untrimmed beard and shaggy hair, perhaps I could be taken for a scribe who had been long without work. Not a good recommendation for my skills, but given the poor supplies I had, perhaps that was best.

I tugged my shirt straight to make myself presentable. I fastened my belt, checked to be sure my knife sat securely in its sheath, and then hefted the paltry weight of my purse. The flint in it weighed more than the coins. I did have the four silver bits from Burrich. A few months ago it would not have seemed like much money. Now it was all I had, and I resolved not to spend it unless I must. The only other wealth I had was the earring Burrich had given me and the pin from Shrewd. Reflexively my hand went to the earring. As annoying as it could be when we were hunting through dense brush, the touch of it always reassured me. Likewise the pin in the collar of my shirt.

The pin that wasn’t there.

I took the shirt off and checked the entire collar, and then the complete garment. I methodically kindled a small fire for light. Then I undid my bundle completely and went through everything in it, not once, but twice. This despite my almost certain knowledge of where the pin was. The small red ruby in its nest of silver was in the collar of a shirt worn by a dead man outside the shepherd’s hut. I was all but certain, and yet I could not admit it to myself. All the while I searched, Nighteyes prowled in an uncertain circle around my fire, whining in soft agitation about an anxiety he sensed but could not comprehend. ‘Shush!’ I told him irritably and forced my mind to go back over the events as if I were going to report to Shrewd.

The last time I could remember having the pin was the night I had driven Burrich and Shrewd away. I had taken it out of the shirt’s collar and showed it to them both, and then sat looking at it. Then I had put it back. I could not recall handling it since then. I could not recall taking it out of the shirt when I washed it. It seemed I should have jabbed myself with it when I washed it if it was still there. But I usually pushed the pin into a seam where it would hold tighter. It had seemed safer so. I had no way of knowing if I had lost it hunting with the wolf, or if it were still in the shirt the dead man wore. Perhaps it had been left on the table, and one of the Forged ones had picked up the bright thing when they pawed through my possessions.

It was just a pin, I reminded myself. With a sick longing I wished I would suddenly see it, caught in the lining of my cloak or tumbled inside my boot. In a sudden flash of hope, I checked inside both boots again. It still wasn’t there. Just a pin, just a bit of worked metal and a gleaming stone. Just the token King Shrewd had given me when he claimed me, when he created a bond between us to replace the blood one that could never be legitimately recognized. Just a pin, and all I had left of my king and my grandfather. Nighteyes whined again, and I felt an irrational urge to snarl back at him. He must have known that, but still he came, flipping my elbow up with his nose and then burrowing his head under my arm until his great grey head was up against my chest and my arm around his shoulders. He tossed his nose up suddenly, clacking his muzzle painfully against my chin. I hugged him hard, and he turned to rub his throat against my face. The ultimate gesture of trust, wolf to wolf, that baring of the throat to another’s possible snarl. After a moment I sighed, and the pain of loss I felt over the thing was less.

It was just a thing from a yesterday, Nighteyes wondered hesitantly. A thing no longer here? It is not a thorn in your paw, or a pain in your belly?

‘Just a thing from yesterday,’ I had to agree. A pin that had been given to a boy who no longer existed by a man who had died. Perhaps it was as well, I thought to myself. One less thing that might connect me to FitzChivalry the Witted. I ruffled the fur on the back of his neck, then scratched behind his ears. He sat up beside me, then nudged me to get me to rub his ears again. I did, thinking as I did so. Perhaps I should take off Burrich’s earring and keep it concealed in my pouch. But I knew I would not. Let it be the one link I carried forward from that life to this one. ‘Let me up,’ I told the wolf, and he reluctantly stopped leaning on me. Methodically I repacked my possessions into a bundle and fastened it, then trampled out the tiny fire.

‘Shall I come back here or meet you on the other side of town?’

Other side?

If you circle about the town and then come back toward the river, you will find more of the road there, I explained. Shall we find one another there?

That would be good. The less time we spend near this den of humans, the better.

Fine, then. I shall find you there before morning, I told him.

More likely, I shall find you, numb nose. And I shall have a full belly when I do.

I had to concede that was likelier.

Watch out for dogs, I warned him as he faded into the brush.

You watch out for men, he rejoined, and then was lost to my senses save for our Wit-bond.

I slung my pack over my shoulder and made my way down to the road. It was full dark now. I had intended to reach town before dark and stop at a tavern for the talk and perhaps a mug, and then be on my way. I had wanted to walk through the market square and listen in on the talk of the merchants. Instead I walked into a town that was mostly abed. The market was deserted save for a few dogs nosing in the empty stalls for scraps. I left the square and turned my steps toward the river. Down there I would find inns and taverns aplenty to accommodate the river trade. A few torches burned here and there throughout the town, but most of the light in the streets was what spilled from poorly-shuttered windows. The roughly-cobbled streets were not well kept up. Several times I mistook a hole for a shadow and nearly stumbled. I stopped a town watchman before he could stop me, to ask him to recommend a waterfront inn to me. The Scales, he told me, was as fair and honest to travellers as its name implied, and was easily found as well. He warned me sternly that begging was not tolerated there, and that cutpurses would be lucky if a beating was all they got. I thanked him for his warnings and went on my way.

I found the Scales as easily as the watchman had said I would. Light spilled out from its open door, and with it the voices of two women singing a merry round. My heart cheered at the friendly sound of it, and I entered without hesitation. Within the stout walls of mud brick and heavy timbers was a great open room, low-ceilinged and rich with the smells of meat and smoke and riverfolk. A cooking hearth at one end of the room had a fine spit of meat in its maw, but most folk were gathered at the cooler end of the room on this fine summer evening. There the two minstrels had dragged chairs up on top of a table and were twining their voices together. A grey-haired fellow with a harp, evidently part of their group, was sweating at another table as he fastened a new string to his instrument. I judged them a master and two journey singers, possibly a family group. I stood watching them sing together, and my mind went back to Buckkeep and the last time I had heard music and seen folk gathered together. I did not realize I was staring until I saw one of the women surreptitiously elbow the other and make a minute gesture at me. The other woman rolled her eyes, then returned my look. I looked down, reddening. I surmised I had been rude and turned my eyes away.

I stood on the outskirts of the group, and joined in the applause when the song ended. The fellow with the harp was ready by then, and he coaxed them into a gentler tune, one with the steady rhythm of oars as its beat. The women sat on the edge of the table, back to back, their long black hair mingling as they sang. Folk sat down for that one, and some few moved to tables against the wall for quiet talk. I watched the man’s fingers on the strings of the harp, marvelling at the swiftness of his fingers. In a moment a red-cheeked boy was at my elbow, asking what I would have. Just a mug of ale, I told him, and swiftly he was back with it and the handful of coppers that were the remains of my silver piece. I found a table not too far from the minstrels, and rather hoped someone would be curious enough to join me. But other than a few glances from obviously regular customers, no one seemed much interested in a stranger. The minstrels ended their song and began talking amongst themselves. A glance from the older of the two women made me realize I was staring again. I put my eyes on the table.

Halfway down the mug, I realized I was no longer accustomed to ale, especially not on an empty stomach. I waved the boy back to my table and asked for a plate of dinner. He brought me a fresh cut of meat from the spit with a serving of stewed root vegetables and broth spilled over it. That, and a refilling of my mug took away most of my copper pieces. When I raised my eyebrows over the prices, the boy looked surprised. ‘It’s half what they’d charge you at the Yardarm Knot, sir,’ he told me indignantly. ‘And the meat is good mutton, not someone’s randy old goat come to a bad end.’

I tried to smooth things over, saying, ‘Well, I suppose a silver bit just doesn’t buy what it used to.’

‘Perhaps not, but it’s scarcely my fault,’ he observed cheekily, and went back to his kitchens.

‘Well, there’s a silver bit gone faster than I expected,’ I chided myself.

‘Now that’s a tune we all know,’ observed the harper. He was sitting with his back to his own table, apparently watching me as his two partners discussed some problem they were having with a pipe. I nodded at him with a smile, and then spoke aloud when I noticed that his eyes were hazed over grey.

‘I’ve been away from the river road for a while. A long while, actually, about two years. The last time I was through here, inns and food were less expensive.’

‘Well, I’d wager you could say that about anywhere in the Six Duchies, at least the coastal ones. The saying now is that we get new taxes more often than we get a new moon.’ He glanced about us as if he could see, and I guessed he had not been blind long. ‘And the other new saying is that half the taxes go to feed the Farrow men who collect them.’

‘Josh!’ one of his partners rebuked him, and he turned to her with a smile.

‘You can’t tell me there are any about just now, Honey. I’ve a nose that could smell a Farrow man at a hundred paces.’

‘And can you smell who you are talking to, then?’ she asked him wryly. Honey was the older of the two women, perhaps my age.

‘A lad a bit down on his luck, I’d say. And therefore, not some fat Farrow man come to collect taxes. Besides, I knew he couldn’t be one of Bright’s collectors the moment he started snivelling over the price of dinner. When have you known one of them to pay for anything at an inn or tavern?’

I frowned to myself at that. When Shrewd had been on the throne, nothing was taken by his soldiers or tax-collectors without some recompense offered. Evidently it was a nicety Lord Bright did not observe, at least in Buck. But it did recall me to my own manners.

‘May I offer to refill your mug, Harper Josh? And those of your companions as well?’

‘What’s this?’ asked the old man, between a smile and a raised eyebrow. ‘You growl about spending coin to fill your belly, but you’d put it down willingly to fill mugs for us?’

‘Shame to the lord that takes minstrels’ songs, and leaves their throats dry from the singing of it,’ I replied with a smile.

The women exchanged glances behind Josh’s back, and Honey asked me with gentle mockery, ‘And when were you last a lord, young fellow?’

‘’Tis but a saying,’ I said after a moment, awkwardly. ‘But I wouldn’t grudge the coin for the songs I’ve heard, especially if you’ve a bit of news to go with it. I’m headed up the river road; have you perchance just come down?’

‘No, we’re headed up that way ourselves,’ put in the younger woman brightly. She was perhaps fourteen, with startlingly blue eyes. I saw the other woman make a hushing motion at her. She introduced them. ‘As you’ve heard, good sir, this is Harper Josh, and I am Honey. My cousin is Piper. And you are … ?’

Two blunders in one short conversation. One, to speak as if I still resided at Buckkeep and these were visiting minstrels, and the other, to have no name planned out. I searched my mind for a name, and then after a bit too much of a pause, blurted out, ‘Cob’. And then wondered with a shiver why I had taken to myself the name of a man I’d known and killed.

‘Well … Cob,’ and Honey paused before saying the name just as I had, ‘we might have a bit of news for you, and we’d welcome a mug of anything, whether you’re lately a lord or not. Just who are you hoping we won’t have seen on the road looking for you?’

‘Beg pardon?’ I asked quietly, and then lifted my own empty mug to signal the kitchen-boy.

‘He’s a runaway ’prentice, Father,’ Honey told her father with great certainty. ‘He carries a scribe’s case strapped to his bundle, but his hair’s grown out, and there’s not even a dot of ink on his fingers.’ She laughed at the chagrin on my face, little guessing the cause. ‘Oh, come, … Cob, I’m a minstrel. When we aren’t singing, we’re witnessing anything we can to find a deed to base a song on. You can’t expect us not to notice things.’

‘I’m not a runaway apprentice,’ I said quietly, but had no ready lie to follow the statement. How Chade would have rapped my knuckles over this blundering!

‘We don’t care if you are, lad,’ Josh comforted me. ‘In any case, we haven’t heard any cry of angry scribers looking for lost apprentices. These days, most would be happy if their bound lads ran away … one less mouth to feed in hard times.’

‘And a scriber’s boy scarcely gets a broken nose, or a scarred face like that from a patient master,’ Piper observed sympathetically. ‘So small blame to you if you did run away.’

The kitchen-boy came at last, and they were merciful to my flat purse, ordering no more than mugs of beer for themselves. First Josh, and then the women came to share my table. The kitchen-boy must have thought better of me for treating the minstrels well, for when he brought their mugs, he refilled mine as well, and did not charge me for it. Still, it broke another silver bit to coppers to pay for their drinks. I tried to be philosophical about it, and reminded myself to leave a copper bit for the boy when I left.

‘So, then,’ I began when the boy had left, ‘what news from downriver, then?’

‘And have not you just come from there yourself?’ Honey asked tartly.

‘No, my lady, in truth I had come cross country, from visiting some shepherd friends,’ I extemporized. Honey’s manner was beginning to wear on me.

‘My lady,’ she said softly to Piper and rolled her eyes. Piper giggled. Josh ignored them.

‘Downriver is much the same as up these days, only more so,’ he told me. ‘Hard times, and harder to come for those who farm. The food grain went to pay the taxes, so the seed grain went to feed the children. So only what was left went into the fields, and no man grows more by planting less. Same is true for the flocks and herds. And no signs that the taxes will be less this harvest. And even a goose-girl that can’t cipher her own age knows that less take away more leaves naught but hunger on the table. It’s worst along the salt water. If a person goes out fishing, who knows what will happen to home before he returns? A farmer plants a field, knowing it won’t yield enough both for taxes and family, and that there will be less than half of it left standing if the Red Ships come to pay a call. There’s been a clever song made about a farmer who tells the tax-collector that the Red Ships have already done his job for him.’

‘Save that clever minstrels don’t sing it,’ Honey reminded him tartly.

‘Red Ships raid Buck’s coast as well, then,’ I said quietly.

Josh gave a snort of bitter laughter. ‘Buck, Bearns, Rippon or Shoaks … I doubt the Red Ships care where one duchy ends and another begins. If the sea brushes up against it, they’ll raid there.’

‘And our ships?’ I asked softly.

‘The ones that have been taken away from us by the Raiders are doing very well. Those left defending us, well, they are as successful as gnats at bothering cattle.’

‘Does no one stand firm for Buck these days?’ I asked, and heard the despair in my own voice.

‘The Lady of Buckkeep does. Not only firmly, but loudly. There’s some as say all she does is cry out and scold, but others know that she doesn’t call on them to do what she hasn’t already done herself.’ Harper Josh spoke as if he knew this at first hand.

I was mystified, but did not wish to appear too ignorant. ‘Such as?’

‘Everything they can. She wears no jewellery at all any more. It’s all been sold and put toward paying patrol ships. She sold off her own ancestral lands, and put the money to paying mercenaries to man the towers. It’s said she sold the necklace given her by Prince Chivalry, his grandmother’s rubies, to King Regal himself, to buy grain and timber for Buck villages that wanted to rebuild.’

‘Patience,’ I whispered. I had seen those rubies once, long ago, when we had first been getting to know one another. She had deemed them too precious a thing even to wear, but she had shown them to me and told me some day my bride might wear them. Long ago. I turned my head aside and struggled to control my face.

‘Where have you been sleeping this past year … Cob, that you know none of this?’ Honey demanded sarcastically.

‘I have been away,’ I said quietly. I turned back to the table and managed to meet her eyes. I hoped my face showed nothing.

She cocked her head and smiled at me. ‘Where?’ she countered brightly.

I did not like her much at all. ‘I’ve been living by myself, in the forest,’ I said at last.

‘Why?’ She smiled at me as she pressed me. I was certain she knew how uncomfortable she was making me.

‘Obviously, because I wished to,’ I said. I sounded so much like Burrich when I said it, I almost looked over my shoulder for him.

She made a small mouth at me, totally unrepentant, but Harper Josh set his mug down on the table a bit firmly. He said nothing, and the look he gave her from his blind eyes was no more than a flicker, but she subsided abruptly. She folded her hands at the edge of the table like a rebuked child, and for a moment I thought her quashed, until she looked up at me from under her lashes. Her eyes met mine directly, and the little smile she shot me was defiant. I looked away from her, totally mystified as to why she wished to peck at me like this. I glanced at Piper, only to find her face bright red with suppressed laughter. I looked down at my hands on the table, hating the blush that suddenly flooded my face.

In an effort to start the conversation again, I asked, ‘Are there any other new tidings from Buckkeep?’

Harper Josh gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Not much new misery to tell. The tales are all the same, with only the names of the villages and towns different. Oh, but there is one small bit, a rich one. Word is now that King Regal will hang the Pocked Man himself.’

I had been swallowing a sip of ale. I choked abruptly and demanded, ‘What?’

‘It’s a stupid joke,’ Honey declared. ‘King Regal has had it cried about that he will give gold coin reward to any who can turn over to him a certain man, much scarred with the pox, or silver coin to any man who can give information as to where he may be found.’

‘A pox-scarred man? Is that all the description?’ I asked carefully.

‘He is said to be skinny, and grey-haired, and to sometimes disguise himself as a woman.’ Josh chuckled merrily, never guessing how his words turned my bowels to ice. ‘And his crime is high treason. Rumour says the King blames him for the disappearance of Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken and her unborn child. Some say he is just a cracked old man who claims to have been an adviser to Shrewd, and as such he has written to the Dukes of the Coastal Duchies, bidding them be brave, that Verity shall return and his child inherit the Farseer throne. But rumour also says, with as much wit, that King Regal hopes to hang the Pocked Man and thus end all bad luck in the Six Duchies.’ He chuckled again, and I plastered a sick smile on my face and nodded like a simpleton.

Chade, I thought to myself. Somehow Regal had picked up Chade’s trail. If he knew he was pock-scarred, what else might he know? He had obviously connected him to his masquerade as Lady Thyme. I wondered where Chade was now, and if he was all right. I wished with sudden desperation that I knew what his plans had been, what plot he had excluded me from. With a sudden sinking of heart, my perception of my actions flopped over. Had I driven Chade away from me, to protect him from my plans, or had I abandoned him just when he needed his apprentice?

‘Are you still there, Cob? I see your shadow still, but your place at the table’s gone very quiet.’

‘Oh, I’m here, Harper Josh!’ I tried to put some life into my words. ‘Just mulling over all you’ve told me, that’s all.’

‘Wondering what pocked old man he could sell to King Regal, by the look on his face,’ Honey put in tartly. I suddenly perceived that she saw her constant belittlement and stings as a sort of flirtation. I quickly decided I had had enough companionship and talk for an evening. I was too much out of practice at dealing with folk. I would leave now. Better they thought me odd and rude than that I stayed longer and made them curious.

‘Well, I thank you for your songs, and your conversation,’ I said as gracefully as I could. I fingered out a copper to leave under my mug for the boy. ‘And I had best take myself back to the road.’

‘But it’s full dark outside!’ Piper objected in surprise. She set down her mug and glanced at Honey, who looked shocked.

‘And cool, my lady,’ I observed blithely. ‘I prefer the night for walking. The moon’s close to full, which should be light enough on a road as wide as the river road.’

‘Have you no fear of the Forged ones?’ Harper Josh asked in consternation.

Now it was my turn to be surprised. ‘This far inland?’

‘You have been living in a tree,’ Honey exclaimed. ‘All the roads have been plagued with them. Some travellers hire guards, archers and swordsmen. Others, such as we, travel in groups when we can, and only by day.’

‘Cannot the patrols at least keep them from the roads?’ I asked in astonishment.

‘The patrols?’ Honey sniffed disdainfully. ‘Most of us would as soon meet Forged ones as a pack of Farrow men with pikes. The Forged ones do not bother them, and so they do not bother the Forged ones.’

‘What, then, do they patrol for?’ I asked angrily.

‘Smugglers, mainly.’ Josh spoke before Honey could. ‘Or so they would have you believe. Many an honest traveller do they stop to search his belongings and take whatever they fancy, calling it contraband, or claiming it was reported stolen in the last town. Methinks Lord Bright does not pay them as well as they think they deserve, so they take whatever pay they are able.’

‘And Prince … King Regal, he does nothing?’ How the title and the question choked me.

‘Well, perhaps if you go so far as Tradeford, you might complain to him yourself,’ Honey told me sarcastically. ‘I am sure he would listen to you, as he has not the dozens of messengers who have gone before.’ She paused, and looked thoughtful. ‘Though I have heard that if any Forged ones do make it far enough inland to be a bother, he has ways of dealing with them.’

I felt sickened and wretched. It had always been a matter of pride to King Shrewd that there was little danger of highwaymen in Buck, so long as one kept to the main roads. Now, to hear that those who should guard the king’s roads were little more than highwaymen themselves was like a small blade twisted in me. Not enough that Regal had claimed the throne to himself, and then deserted Buckkeep. He did not keep up even the pretence of ruling wisely. I wondered numbly if he were capable of punishing all Buck for the lacklustre way he had been welcomed to the throne. Foolish wonder; I knew he was. ‘Well, Forged ones or Farrow men, I still must be on my way, I fear,’ I told them. I drank off the last of my mug and set it down.

‘Why not wait at least until the morning, lad, and then travel with us?’ Josh suddenly offered. ‘The days are not too hot for walking, for there’s always a breeze off the river. And four are safer than three, these days.’

‘I thank you kindly for the offer,’ I began, but Josh interrupted me.

‘Don’t thank me, for I wasn’t making an offer, but a request. I’m blind, man, or close enough. Certainly you’ve noticed that. Noticed, too, that my companions are comely young women, though from the way Honey’s nipped at you, I fancy you’ve smiled more at Piper than at her.’

‘Father!’ indignantly from Honey, but Josh ploughed on doggedly.

‘I was not offering you the protection of our numbers, but asking you to consider offering your right arm to us. We’re not rich folk; we’ve no coin to hire guards. And yet we must travel the roads, Forged ones or no.’

Josh’s fogged eyes met mine unerringly. Honey looked aside, lips folded tightly, while Piper openly watched me, a pleading look on her face. Forged ones. Pinned down, fists falling on me. I looked down at the table-top. ‘I’m not much for fighting,’ I told him bluntly.

‘At least you would see what you were swinging at,’ he replied stubbornly. ‘And you’d certainly see them coming before I did. Look, you’re going the same direction we are. Would it be that hard for you to walk by day for a few days rather than by night?’

‘Father, don’t beg him!’ Honey rebuked him.

‘I’d rather beg him to walk with us, than beg Forged ones to let you go unharmed!’ he said harshly. He turned his face back to me as he added, ‘We met some Forged ones, a couple of weeks back. The girls had the sense to run when I shouted at them to do so, when I could not keep up with them any longer. But we lost our food to them, and they damaged my harp, and …’

‘And they beat him,’ Honey said quietly. ‘And so we have vowed, Piper and I, that the next time we will not run from them, no matter how many. Not if it means leaving Papa.’ All the playful teasing and mockery had gone out of her voice. I knew she meant what she said.

I will be delayed, I sighed to Nighteyes. Wait for me, watch for me, follow me unseen.

‘I will travel with you,’ I conceded. I cannot say I made the offer willingly. ‘Though I am not a man who does well at fighting.’

‘As if we couldn’t tell that from his face,’ Honey observed in an aside to Piper. The mockery was back in her voice, but I doubted that she knew how deeply her words cut me.

‘My thanks are all I have to pay you with, Cob.’ Josh reached across the table for me, and I gripped hands with him in the ancient sign of a bargain settled. He grinned suddenly, his relief plain. ‘So take my thanks, and a share of whatever we’re offered as minstrels. We’ve not enough coin for a room, but the innkeeper has offered us shelter in his barn. Not like it used to be, when a minstrel got a room and a meal for the asking. But at least the barn has a door that shuts between us and the night. And the innkeeper here has a good heart; he won’t begrudge extending shelter to you if I tell him you’re travelling with us as a guard.’

‘It will be more shelter than I’ve known for many a night,’ I told him, attempting to be gracious. My heart had sunk into a cold place in the pit of my belly.

What have you got yourself into now? Nighteyes wondered. As did I.