Читать книгу Assassin’s Quest - Робин Хобб - Страница 16

As summer mellowed to an end, the Raiders redoubled their efforts to secure as much of the coast of Bearns Duchy as they could before the storms of winter set in. Once they had secured the major ports, they knew they could strike along the rest of the Six Duchies coastline at their pleasure. So although they had made raids as far as Shoaks Duchy that summer, as the pleasant days dwindled they concentrated their efforts on making the coast of Bearns their own.

Their tactics were peculiar. They made no effort to seize towns or conquer the folk. They were solely intent on destruction. Towns they captured were burned entirely, the folk slain, Forged or fled. A few were kept as workers, treated as less than beasts, Forged when they became useless to their captors, or for amusement. They set up their own rough shelters, disdaining to use the buildings they could simply have seized rather than destroyed. They made no effort to establish permanent settlements but instead simply garrisoned the best ports to be sure they could not be taken back.

Although Shoaks and Rippon Duchies gave aid to Bearns Duchy where they could, they had coasts of their own to protect and scant resources to employ. Buck Duchy wallowed along as best it could. Lord Bright had belatedly seen how Buck relied on its outlying holdings for protection, but he judged it too late to salvage that line of defence. He devoted his men and money to fortifying Buckkeep itself. That left the rest of Buck Duchy with but its own folk and the irregular troops that had devoted themselves to Lady Patience as a bulwark against the Raiders. Bearns expected no succour from that quarter, but gratefully accepted all that came to them under the Ivy badge.

Duke Brawndy of Bearns, long past his prime as a fighter, met the challenge of the Raiders with steel as grey as his hair and beard. His resolution knew no bounds. He did not scruple to beggar himself of personal treasure, nor to risk the lives of his kin in his final efforts to defend his duchy. He met his end trying to defend his home castle, Ripplekeep. But neither his death nor the fall of Ripplekeep stopped his daughters from carrying on the resistance against the Raiders.

My shirt had acquired a peculiar new shape from being rolled in my pack so long. I pulled it on anyway, grimacing slightly at its musty odour. It smelled faintly of wood smoke, and more strongly of mildew. Damp had got into it. I persuaded myself that the open air would disperse the smell. I did what I could with my hair and beard. That is, I brushed my hair and bound it back into a tail, and combed my beard smooth with my fingers. I detested the beard, but hated taking the time each day to shave. I left the riverbank where I had made my brief ablutions and headed toward the town lights. This time, I had resolved to be better prepared. My name, I had decided, was Jory. I had been a soldier, and had a few skills with horses and a pen, but had lost my home to Raiders. I was presently intent on making my way to Tradeford to start life anew. It was a role I could play convincingly.

As the last of the day’s light faded, more lamps were kindled in the riverside town and I saw I had been much mistaken as to the size of it. The sprawl of the town extended far up the bank. I felt some trepidation, but convinced myself that walking through the town would be much shorter than going around it. With no Nighteyes at my heels I had no reason to add those extra miles and hours to my path. I put my head up and affected a confident stride.

The town was a lot livelier after dark than most places I had been. I sensed a holiday air in those strolling the streets. Most were headed toward the centre of town, and as I drew closer, there were torches, folk in bright dress, laughter, and the sound of music. The lintels of the inn doors were adorned with flowers. I came to a brightly lit plaza. Here was the music, and merrymakers were dancing. There were casks of drink set out, and tables with bread and fruit piled upon them. My mouth watered at the sight of the food, and the bread smelled especially wonderful to one so long deprived of it.

I lingered at the edges of the crowd, listening, and discovered that the Capaman of the town was celebrating his wedding: hence the feasting and dancing. I surmised that the Capaman was some sort of Farrow title for a noble, and that this particular one was well regarded by his folk for his generosity. One elderly woman, noticing me, approached me and pushed three coppers into my hand. ‘Go to the tables, and eat, young fellow,’ she told me kindly. ‘Capaman Logis has decreed that on his wedding night all are to celebrate with him. The food is for the sharing. Go on, now, don’t be shy.’ She patted me reassuringly on the shoulder, standing on tiptoe to do so. I blushed to be mistaken for a beggar, but thought better of dissuading her. If so she thought me, so I appeared, and better to act as one. Still, as I slipped the three coppers into my pouch, I felt oddly guilty, as if I had tricked them away from her. I did as she had bid me, going to the table to join the line of those receiving bread and fruit and meat.

There were several young women managing the tables, and one piled up a trencher for me, handing it across the table hastily, as if reluctant to have any contact with me at all. I thanked her, which caused some giggling among her friends. She looked as affronted as if I had mistaken her for a whore, and I quickly took myself away from there. I found a corner of a table to sit at, and marked that no one sat near to me. A young boy setting out mugs and filling them with ale gave me one, and was curious enough to ask me where I had come from. I told him only that I had been travelling upriver, looking for work, and asked if he had heard of anyone hiring.

‘Oh, you want the hiring fair, up the water in Tradeford,’ he told me familiarly. ‘It’s less than another day’s walk. You might get harvest work this time of year. And if not, there’s always the King’s Great Circle being built. They’ll hire anyone for that as can lift a stone or use a shovel.’

‘The King’s Great Circle?’ I asked him.

He cocked his head at me. ‘So that all may witness the King’s justice being served.’

Then he was called away by someone waving a mug and I was left alone to eat and muse. They’ll hire anyone. So I appeared that wayward and strange. Well, it could not be helped. The food tasted incredibly good. I had all but forgotten the texture and fragrance of good wheaten bread. The savoury way it mingled with the meat juices on my trencher suddenly recalled Cook Sara and her generous kitchen to me. Somewhere up the river, in Tradeford, she would be making pastry dough now, or perhaps pricking a roast full of spices before putting it in one of her heavy black kettles and covering it well, to let it slow cook in the coals all night. Yes, and in Regal’s stables, Hands would be making his final rounds for the night as Burrich used to do in the stables at Buckkeep, checking to see that every beast had fresh clean water and that every stall was securely fastened. A dozen other stable-hands from Buckkeep would be there as well, faces and hearts well known to me from years spent together in Burrich’s domain and under his tutelage. House servants, too, Regal had taken with him from Buck. Mistress Hasty was probably there, and Brant and Lowden and …

Loneliness suddenly engulfed me. It would be so good to see them, to lean on a table and listen to Cook Sara’s endless gossip, or lie on my back in the hayloft with Hands and pretend I believed his outrageous tales of the women he had bedded since last I had seen him. I tried to imagine Mistress Hasty’s reaction to my present garb, and found myself smiling at her outrage and scandalized offence.

My reverie was broken by a man shouting a string of obscenities. Not even the drunkest sailor I had ever known would so profane a wedding feast. Mine was not the only head that turned and for a moment all normal conversation lapsed. I stared at what I had not noticed before.

Off one side of the square, at the edge of the torches’ reach, was a cart and team. A great barred cage sat upon it and three Forged ones were in it. I could make out no more than that, that there were three of them and that they registered not at all upon my Wit. A teamster woman strode up to the cage, cudgel in hand. She banged it loudly on the slats of the cage, commanding those within to be still, and then spun about to two young men lounging against the tail of her cart. ‘And you’ll leave them be as well, you great louts!’ she scolded them. ‘They’re for the King’s Circle, and whatever justice or mercy they find there. But until then, you’ll leave them be, you understand me? Lily! Lily, bring those bones from the roast over here and give them to these creatures. And you, I told you, get away from them! Don’t stir them up!’

The two young men stepped back from her threatening cudgel, laughing with upraised hands as they did so. ‘Don’t see why we shouldn’t have our fun with them first,’ objected the taller of the lads. ‘I heard that down at Rundsford, their town’s building their own justice circle.’

The second boy made a great show of rolling the muscles in his shoulders. ‘Me, I’m for the King’s Circle myself.’

‘As Champion or prisoner?’ someone hooted mockingly, and both the young men laughed, and the taller one gave his companion a rough push by way of jest.

I remained standing in my place. A sick suspicion was rising in me. The King’s Circle. Forged ones and Champions. I recalled the avaricious way Regal had watched his men beat me as I stood encircled by them. A dull numbness spread through me as the woman called Lily made her way to the cart and then flung a plateful of meat bones at the prisoners there. They fell upon them avidly, striking and snapping at one another as each strove to claim as much of the bounty as he could. Not a few folk stood around the cart pointing and laughing. I stared, sickened. Didn’t they understand those men had been Forged? They were not criminals. They were husbands and sons, fishers and farmers of the Six Duchies, whose only crime had been to be captured by the Red Ships.

I had no count of the number of Forged ones I had slain. I felt a revulsion for them, that was true, but it was the same revulsion I felt at seeing a leg that had gone to gangrene, or a dog so taken with mange that there was no cure for him. Killing Forged ones had nothing to do with hatred, or punishment, or justice. Death was the only solution to their condition and it should have been meted out as swiftly as possible, in mercy to the families that had loved them. Those young men had spoken as if there would be some sort of sport in killing them. I stared at the cage queasily.

I sat down slowly at my place again. There was still food on my platter but my appetite for it had faded. Common sense told me that I should eat while I had the chance. For a moment I just looked at the food. I made myself eat.

When I lifted my eyes, I caught two young men staring at me. For an instant I met their looks; then I recalled who I was supposed to be and cast my glance down. They evidently were amused by me, for they came swaggering over to sit down, one across the table from me and one uncomfortably close beside me. That one made a great show of wrinkling his nose and covering his nose and mouth for his comrade’s amusement. I gave them both good evening.

‘Good evening for you, perhaps. Haven’t had a feed like this in a while, eh, beggar?’ This from the one across from me, a tow-headed lout with a mask of freckles across his face.

‘That’s true, and my thanks to your Capaman for his generosity,’ I said mildly. I was already looking for a way to extricate myself.

‘So. What brings you to Pome?’ the other asked. He was taller than his indolent friend, and more muscled.

‘Looking for work.’ I met his pale eyes squarely. ‘I’ve been told there’s a hiring fair in Tradeford.’

‘And what kind of work would you be good at, beggar? Scarecrow? Or do you perhaps draw the rats out of a man’s house with your smell?’ He set an elbow on the table, too close to me, and then leaned forward on it, as if to show me the bunching of muscle in his arm.

I took a breath, then two. I felt something I had not felt in a while. There was the edge of fear, and that invisible quivering that ran over me when I was challenged. I knew, too, that at times it became the trembling that presaged a fit. But something else built inside me as well, and I had almost forgotten the feel of it. Anger. No. Fury. The mindless, violent fury that gave me the strength to lift an axe and sever a man’s shoulder and arm from his body, or fling myself at him and choke the life out of his body regardless of how he pummelled at me as I did so.

In a sort of awe I welcomed it back and wondered what had summoned it. Had it been recalling friends taken from me for ever, or the battle scenes I had Skill-dreamed so often recently? It didn’t matter. I had the weight of a sword at my hip and I doubted that the dolts were aware of it, or aware of how I could use it. Probably they’d never swung any blade but a scythe, probably never seen any blood other than that of a chicken or cow. They’d never awakened at night to a dog’s barking and wondered if it were Raiders coming, never come in from a day’s fishing praying that when the cape was rounded, the town would still be standing. Blissfully ignorant farm-boys, living fat in soft river country far from the embattled coast, with no better way to prove themselves than to bait a stranger or taunt caged men.

Would that all Six Duchies boys were so ignorant.

I started as if Verity had laid his hand on my shoulder. Almost I looked behind me. Instead, I sat motionless, groping inside me to find him, but found nothing. Nothing.

I could not say for certain the thought had come from him. Perhaps it was my own wish. And yet it was so like him, I could not doubt its source. My anger was gone as suddenly as they had roused it, and I looked at them in a sort of surprise, startled to find they were still there. Boys, yes, no more than big boys, restless and aching to prove themselves. Ignorant and callous as young men often were. Well, I would neither be a proving ground for their manhood, nor would I spill their blood in the dust on their Capaman’s wedding feast.

‘I think perhaps I have overstayed my welcome,’ I said gravely, and rose from the table. I had eaten enough, and I knew I did not need the half-mug of ale that sat beside it. I saw them measure me as I stood and saw one startle plainly when he saw the sword that hung at my side. The other stood, as if to challenge my leaving, but I saw his friend give his head a minuscule shake. With the odds evened, the brawny farm-boy stepped away from me with a sneer, drawing back as if to keep my presence from soiling him. It was strangely easy to ignore the insult. I did not back away from them, but turned and walked off into the darkness, away from the merrymaking and dancing and music. No one followed me.

I sought the waterfront, purpose growing in me as I strode along. So I was not far from Tradeford, not far from Regal. I felt a sudden desire to prepare myself for him. I would get a room at an inn tonight, one with a bathhouse, and I would bathe and shave. Let him look at me, at the scars he had put upon me, and know who killed him. And afterwards? If I lived for there to be an afterwards, and if any who saw me knew me, so be it. Let it be known that the Fitz had come back from his grave to work a true King’s Justice on this would-be king.

Thus fortified, I passed by the first two inns I came to. From one came shouts that were either a brawl or an excess of good fellowship; in either case, I was not likely to get much sleep there. The second had a sagging porch and a door hung crooked on its hinges. I decided that did not bode well for the upkeep of the beds. I chose instead one that displayed an inn board of a kettle, and kept a night torch burning outside to guide travellers to its door.

Like most of the larger buildings in Pome, the inn was built of riverstone and mortar and floored with the same. There was a big hearth at the end of the room, but only a summer fire in it, just enough to keep the promised kettle of stew simmering. Despite my recent meal, it smelled good to me. The tap-room was quiet, much of the trade drawn off to the Capaman’s wedding celebration. The innkeeper looked as if he were ordinarily a friendly sort, but a frown creased his brow at the sight of me. I set a silver piece on the table before him to reassure him. ‘I’d like a room for the night, and a bath.’

He looked me up and down doubtfully. ‘If ye take the bath first,’ he specified firmly.

I grinned at him. ‘I’ve no problems with that, good sir. I’ll be washing out my clothes as well; no fear I’ll bring vermin to the bedding.’

He nodded reluctantly and sent a lad to the kitchens for hot water. ‘You’ve come a long way, then?’ he offered as a pleasantry as he showed me the way to the bathhouse behind the inn.

‘A long way and a bit beside. But there’s a job waiting for me in Tradeford, and I’d like to look my best when I go to do it.’ I smiled as I said it, pleased with the truth of it.

‘Oh, a job waiting. I see, then, I see. Yes, best to show up clean and rested, and there’s the pot of soap in the corner, and don’t be shy about using it.’

Before he left, I begged the use of a razor, for the washroom boasted a looking-glass, and he was glad to furnish me one. The boy brought it with the first bucket of hot water. By the time he had finished filling the tub, I had taken off the length of my beard to make it shavable. He offered to wash my clothes out for me for an extra copper, and I was only too happy to let him. He took them from me with a wrinkling of his nose that showed me I smelled far worse than I had suspected. Evidently my trek through the swamps had left more evidence than I had thought.

I took my time, soaking in the hot water, slathering myself with the soft soap from the pot, then scrubbing vigorously before rinsing off. I washed my hair twice before the lather ran white instead of grey. The water that I left in the tub was thicker than the chalky river water. For once I went slowly enough with my shaving that I only cut myself twice. When I sleeked my hair back and bound it in a warrior’s tail I looked up to find a face in the mirror that I scarcely recognized.

It had been months since I’d last seen myself, and then it had been in Burrich’s small looking-glass. The face that looked back at me now was thinner than I had expected, showing me cheekbones reminiscent of those in Chivalry’s portrait. The white streak of hair that grew above my brow aged me, and reminded me of a wolverine’s markings. My forehead and the tops of my cheeks were tanned dark from my summer outside, but my face was paler where the beard had been, so that the lower half of the scar down my cheek seemed much more livid than the rest. What I could see of my chest showed a lot more ribs than it ever had before. There was muscle there, true, but not enough fat to grease a pan, as Cook Sara would have said. The constant travelling and mostly meat diet had left their marks on me.

I turned aside from the looking-glass smiling wryly. My fears of being instantly recognized by any who had known me were laid to rest completely. I scarcely knew myself.

I changed into my winter clothes to make the trip up to my room. The boy assured me he would hang my other clothes by the hearth and have them to me dry by morning. He saw me to my room and left me with a good night and a candle.

I found the room to be sparsely furnished but clean. There were four beds in it, but I was the only customer for the night, for which I was grateful. There was a single window, unshuttered and uncurtained for summer. Cool night air off the river blew into the room. I stood for a time, looking out through the darkness. Upriver, I could see the lights of Tradeford. It was a substantial settlement. Lights dotted the road between Pome and Tradeford. I was plainly into well-settled country now. Just as well I was travelling alone, I told myself firmly, and pushed aside the pang of loss I felt whenever I thought of Nighteyes. I tossed my bundle under my bed. The bed’s blankets were rough but smelled clean, as did the straw-stuffed mattress. After months of sleeping on the ground, it seemed almost as soft as my old feather bed in Buckkeep. I blew out my candle and lay down expecting to fall asleep at once.

Instead I found myself staring up at the darkened ceiling. In the distance, I could hear the faint sounds of the merrymaking. Closer to hand were the now-unfamiliar creakings and settling of a building, the sounds of folk moving in other rooms of the inn. They made me nervous, as the wind through the branches of a forest, or the gurgling of the river close by my sleeping spot had not. I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.

My mind wandered to Nighteyes, to wondering what he was doing and if he were safe this evening. I started to quest out toward him, then stopped myself. Tomorrow I would be in Tradeford, to do a thing he could not help me with. More than that, I was in an area now where he could not safely come to me. If I succeeded tomorrow, and lived to go on to the Mountains to seek Verity, then I could hope that he would remember me and join me. But if I died tomorrow, then he was better off where he was, attempting to join his own kind and have his own life.

Arriving at the conclusion and recognizing my decision as correct were easy. Remaining firm in it was the difficult part. I should not have paid for that bed, but have spent the night in walking, for I would have got more rest. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Even in Regal’s dungeon, facing death, I had been able to reach out to my wolf. Now on this night I was alone, contemplating a murder I was unable to plan, fearing Regal would be guarded by a coterie of Skill-adepts whose talents I could only guess at. Despite the warmth of the late summer night, I felt chilled and sickened whenever I considered it. My resolution to kill Regal never wavered; only my confidence that I would succeed. I had not done so well on my own but tomorrow I resolved to perform in a way that would make Chade proud.

When I considered the coterie, I felt a queasy certainty that I had deceived myself regarding my strategy. Had I come here of my own will, or was this some subtle tweaking that Will had wrought on my thoughts, to convince me that to run toward him was the safest thing to do? Will was subtle with the Skill. So insidiously gentle a touch he had that one could scarcely feel when he was using it. I longed suddenly to attempt to Skill out, to see if I could feel him watching me. Then I became sure that my impulse to Skill out was actually Will’s influence on me, tempting me to open my mind to him. And so my thoughts went, chasing themselves in tighter and tighter circles until I almost felt his amusement as he watched me.

Past midnight I finally felt myself drawn down into sleep. I surrendered my tormenting thoughts without a qualm, flinging myself down into sleep as if I were a diver intent on plumbing the depths. Too late I recognized the imperatives of that sinking. I would have struggled if I could have recalled how. Instead I recognized about me the hangings and trophies that decorated the great hall of Ripplekeep, the main castle of Bearns Duchy.

The great wooden doors sagged open on their hinges, victims of the ram that lay halfway inside them, its terrible work done. Smoke hung in the air of the hall, twining about the banners of past victories. There were bodies piled thickly there, where fighters had tried to hold back the torrent of Raiders that the heavy oaken planks had yielded to. A few strides past that wall of carnage a line of Bearns’ warriors still held, but raggedly. In the midst of a small knot of battle was Duke Brawndy, flanked by his younger daughters, Celerity and Faith. They wielded swords, trying vainly to shield their father from the press of the foe. Both fought with a skill and ferocity I would not have suspected in them. Like matched hawks they seemed, their faces framed by short, sleek black hair, their dark blue eyes narrowed with hatred. But Brawndy was refusing to be shielded, refusing to yield to the murderous surge of Raiders. He stood splay-legged, spattered with blood, and wielded a battle axe in a two-handed grip.

Before and below him, in the shelter of his axe’s swing, lay the body of his eldest daughter and heir. A sword blow had cloven deep between her shoulder and neck, splintering her collar-bones before the weapon wedged in the ruin of her chest. She was dead, hopelessly dead, but Brawndy would not step back from her body. Tears runnelled with blood on his cheeks. His chest heaved like a bellows with every breath he took, and the ropy old muscles of his torso were revealed beneath his rent shirt. He held off two swordsmen, one an earnest young man whose whole heart was intent on defeating this duke, and the other an adder of a man who held back from the press of the fighting, his longsword ready to take advantage of any opening the young man might create.

In a fraction of a second, I knew all this, and knew that Brawndy would not last much longer. Already the slickness of blood was battling with his failing grip on his axe, while every gasp of air he drew down his dry throat was a torment in itself. He was an old man, and his heart was broken and he knew that even if he survived this battle, Bearns had been lost to the Red Ships. My soul cried out at his misery, but still he took that one impossible step forward, and brought his axe down to end the life of the earnest young man who had fought him. In the moment that his axe sank into the Raider’s chest, the other man stepped forward, into the half-second gap and danced his blade in and out of Brawndy’s chest. The old man followed his dying opponent down to the bloodied stones of his keep.

Celerity, occupied with her own opponent, turned fractionally to her sister’s scream of anguish. The Raider she had been fighting seized his opportunity. His heavier weapon wrapped her lighter blade and tore it from her grip. She stepped back from his fiercely delighted grin, turned her head away from her death, in time to see her father’s killer grip Brawndy’s hair preparatory to taking his head as a trophy.

I could not stand it.

I lunged for the axe Brawndy had dropped, seized its blood-slick handle as if I were gripping the hand of an old friend. It felt oddly heavy, but I swung it up, blocked the sword of my assailant, and then, in a combination that would have made Burrich proud, doubled it back to take the path of the blade across his face. I gave a small shudder as I felt his facial bones cave away from that stroke. I had no time to consider it. I sprang forward and brought my axe down hard, severing the hand of the man who had sought to take my father’s head. The axe rang on the stone flags of the floor, sending a shock up my arms. Sudden blood splashed me as Faith’s sword ploughed up her opponent’s forearm. He was towering above me, and so I tucked my shoulder and rolled, coming to my feet as I brought the blade of my axe up across his belly. He dropped his blade and clutched at his spilling guts as he fell.

There was an insane moment of total stillness in the tiny bubble of battle we occupied. Faith stared down at me with an amazed expression that briefly changed to a look of triumph before being supplanted with one of purest anguish. ‘We can’t let them have their bodies!’ she declared abruptly. She lifted her head suddenly, her short hair flying like the mane of a battle stallion. ‘Bearns! To me!’ she cried, and there was no mistaking the note of command in her voice.

For one instant I looked up at Faith. My vision faded, doubled for an instant. A dizzy Celerity wished her sister, ‘Long life to the Duchess of Bearns’. I witnessed a look between them, a look that said neither of them expected to live out the day. Then a knot of Bearns warriors broke free of battle to join them. ‘My father and my sister. Bear their bodies away,’ Faith commanded two of the men. ‘You others, to me!’ Celerity rolled to her feet, looked at the heavy axe with puzzlement and stooped to regain the familiarity of her sword.

‘There, we are needed there,’ Faith declared, pointing, and Celerity followed her, to reinforce the battle line long enough to allow their folk to retreat.

I watched Celerity go, a woman I had not loved but would always admire. With all my heart I wished to go after her, but my grip on the scene was failing, all was becoming smoke and shadows. Someone seized me.

That was stupid.

The voice in my mind sounded so pleased. Will! I thought desperately as my heart surged in my chest.

No. But it could as easily have been so. You are getting sloppy about your walls, Fitz. You cannot afford to. No matter how they call to us, you must be cautious. Verity gave me a push that propelled me away, and I felt the flesh of my own body receive me again.

‘But you do it,’ I protested, but heard only the wan sound of my own voice in the inn room. I opened my eyes. All was darkness outside the single window in the room. I could not tell if moments had passed or hours. I only knew I was grateful that there was still some darkness left for sleeping, for the terrible weariness that pulled at me now would let me think of nothing else.

When I awoke the next morning, I was disoriented. It had been too long since I had awakened in a real bed, let alone awakened feeling clean. I forced my eyes to focus, then looked at the knots in the ceiling beam above me. After a time, I recalled the inn, and that I was not too far from Tradeford and Regal. At almost the same instant, I remembered that Duke Brawndy was dead. My heart plummeted inside me. I squeezed my eyes shut against the Skill-memory of that battle and felt the hammer and anvil of my headache begin. For one irrational instant I blamed it all on Regal. He had orchestrated this tragedy that took the heart out of me and left my body trembling with weakness. On the very morning when I had hoped to arise strong and refreshed and ready to kill, I could barely find the strength to roll over.

After a time, the inn-boy arrived with my clothes. I gave him another two coppers and he returned a short time later with a tray. The look and smell of the bowl of porridge revolted me. I suddenly understood the aversion to food that Verity had always manifested during the summers when his Skilling had kept the Raiders from our coast. The only item on the tray that interested me was the mug and the pot of hot water. I clambered out of bed and crouched to pull my pack from under my bed. Sparks danced and floated before my eyes. By the time I got the pack open and located the elfbark, I was breathing as hard as if I had run a race. It took all my concentration to focus my thoughts past the pain in my head. Emboldened by my headache’s throbbing, I increased the amount of elfbark I crumbled into the mug. I was nearly up to the dose that Chade had been using on Verity. Ever since the wolf had left me, I had suffered from these Skill-dreams. No matter how I set my walls, I could not keep them out. But last night’s had been the worst in a long time. I suspected it was because I had stepped into the dream, and through Celerity, acted. The dreams had been a terrible drain both on my strength and my supply of elfbark. I watched impatiently as the bark leached its darkness into the steaming water. As soon as I could no longer see the bottom of the mug, I lifted it and drank it off. The bitterness nearly gagged me, but it didn’t stop me from pouring more hot water over the bark in the bottom of the mug.

I drank this second, weaker dose more slowly, sitting on the edge of my bed and looking off into the distance outside the window. I had quite a view of the flat river country. There were cultivated fields, and milk cows in fenced pastures just outside Pome, and beyond I could glimpse the rising smoke of small farmsteads along the road. No more swamps to cross, no more open wild country between Regal and me. From hence forward, I would have to travel as a man.

My headache had subsided. I forced myself to eat the cold porridge, ignoring my stomach’s threats. I’d paid for it and I’d need its sustenance before this day was over. I dressed in the clean clothes the boy had returned to me. They were clean, but that was as much as I could say for them. The shirt was misshapen and discoloured various shades of brown. The leggings were worn to thinness in the knees and seat and too short. As I pushed my feet into my self-made shoes, I became newly aware of how pathetic they were. It had been so long since I had stopped to consider how I must appear to others that I was surprised to find myself dressed more poorly than any Buckkeep beggar I could recall. No wonder I had excited both pity and disgust last night. I’d have felt the same for any fellow dressed as I was.

The thought of going downstairs dressed as I was made me cringe. The alternative however was to don my warm, woolly winter clothes, and swelter and sweat all day. It was only common sense to descend as I was, and yet I now felt myself such a laughing stock, I wished I could slink out unseen.

As I briskly repacked my bundle, I felt a moment of alarm when I realized how much elfbark I had consumed in one draught. I felt alert; no more than that. A year ago, that much elfbark would have had me swinging from the rafters. I told myself firmly it was like my ragged clothes. I had no choice in the matter. The Skill-dreams would not leave me alone, and I had no time to lie about and let my body recover on its own, let alone the coin to pay for an inn room and food while I did so. Yet as I slung my bundle over my shoulder and went down the stairs, I reflected that it was a poor way to begin the day. Brawndy’s death and Bearns Duchy falling to the Raiders and my scarecrow clothing and elfbark crutch. It had all put me in a fine state of the doldrums.

What real chance did I have of getting past Regal’s walls and guards and making an end of him?

A bleak spirit, Burrich had once told me, was one of the after-effects of elfbark. So that was all I was feeling. That was all.

I bade the innkeeper farewell and he wished me good luck. Outside the sun was already high. It bid to be another fine day. I set myself a steady pace as I headed out of Pome and toward Tradeford.

As I reached the outskirts, I saw an unsettling sight. There were two gallows, and a body dangled from each. This was unnerving enough, but there were other structures as well: a whipping post, and two stocks. Their wood had not silvered out in the sun yet; these were recent structures and yet by the look of them they had already seen a bit of use. I strode swiftly past them but could not help recalling how close I had come to gracing such a structure. All that had saved me was my bastard royal blood and the ancient decree that such a one could not be hung. I recalled, too, Regal’s evident pleasure at watching me beaten.

With a second chill I wondered where Chade was. If Regal’s soldiery did manage to capture him, I had no doubt that Regal would put a quick end to him. I tried not to imagine how he would stand, tall and thin and grey under bright sunlight on a scaffold.

Or would his end be quick?

I shook my head to rattle loose such thoughts and continued past the poor scarecrow bodies that tattered in the sun like forgotten laundry. Some black humour in my soul pointed out that even they were dressed better than I was.

As I hiked along the road I often had to give way to carts and cattle. Trade prospered between the two towns. I left Pome behind me and walked for a time past well-tended farmhouses that fronted the road with their grainfields and orchards behind them. A bit further and I was passing country estates, comfortable stone houses with shade trees and plantings about their sturdy barns and with riding and hunting horses in the pastures. More than once I was sure I recognized Buckkeep stock there. These gave way for a time to great fields, mostly of flax or hemp. Eventually I began to see more modest holdings and then the outskirts of a town.

So I thought. Late afternoon found me in the heart of a city, streets paved with cobbles and folk coming and going on every sort of business imaginable. I found myself looking around in wonder. I had never seen the like of Tradeford. There was shop after shop, taverns and inns and stables for every weight of purse, and all sprawled out across this flat land as no Buck town ever could. I came to one area of gardens and fountains, temples and theatres and schooling places. There were gardens laid out with pebbled walkways and cobbled drives that wound between plantings and statuary and trees. The people strolling down the walks or driving their carriages were dressed in finery that would have been at home at any of Buckkeep’s most formal occasions. Some of them wore the Farrow livery of gold and brown, yet even the dress of these servants was more sumptuous than any clothing I had ever owned.

This was where Regal had spent the summers of his childhood. Always he had disdained Buckkeep Town as little better than a backward village. I tried to imagine a boy leaving all this in fall, to return to a draughty castle on a rainswept and storm-battered sea-cliff above a grubby little port town. No wonder he had removed himself and his court here as soon as he could. I suddenly felt an inkling of understanding for Regal. It made me angry. It is good to know well a man you are going to kill; it is not good to understand him. I recalled how he had killed his own father, my king, and steeled myself to my purpose.

As I wandered through these thriving quarters, I drew more than one pitying glance. Had I been determined to make my living as a beggar, I could have prospered. Instead, I sought humbler abodes and folk where I might hear some talk of Regal and how his keep at Tradeford was organized and manned. I made my way down to the waterfront, expecting to feel more at home.

There I found the real reason for Tradeford’s existence. True to its name, the river flattened out here into immense rippling shallows over gravel and bedrock. It sprawled so wide that the opposite shore was obscured in mist, and the river seemed to reach to the horizon. I saw whole herds of cattle and sheep being forded across the Vin River, while downstream a series of shallow-draught cable barges took advantage of the deeper water to transport an endless shuttling of goods across the river. This was where Tilth met Farrow in trade, where orchards and fields and cattle came together, and where goods shipped upriver from Buck or Bearns or the far lands beyond were unloaded at last and sent on their way to the nobles who could afford them. To Tradeford, in better days, had come the trade-goods of the Mountain Kingdom and the lands beyond: amber, rich furs, carved ivory and the rare incense barks of the Rain Wilds. Here too was flax brought to be manufactured into fine Farrow linen, and hemp worked into fibre for rope and sailcloth.

I was offered a few hours’ work unloading grain sacks from a small barge to a wagon. I took it, more for the conversation than the coppers. I learned little. No one spoke of Red Ships or the war being fought along the coast, other than to complain of the poor quality of goods that came from the coast and how much was charged for the little that was sent. Little was said of King Regal, and what few words I did hear took pride in his ability to attract women and to drink well. I was startled to hear him spoken of as a Mountwell king, the name of his mother’s royal line. Then I decided it suited me just as well that he did not name himself a Farseer. It was one less thing I had to share with him.

I heard much of the King’s Circle however, and what I heard soured my guts.

The concept of a duel to defend the truth of one’s words was an old one in the Six Duchies. At Buckkeep there were the great standing pillars of the Witness Stones. It is said that when two men meet there to resolve a question with their fists, El and Eda themselves witness it and see that justice does not go awry. The stones and the custom are very ancient. When we spoke of the King’s Justice at Buckkeep, often enough it referred to the quiet work that Chade and I did for King Shrewd. Some came to make public petition to King Shrewd himself and to abide by whatever he might see as right. But there were times when other injustices came to be known by the King, and then he might send forth Chade or me to work his will quietly upon the wrongdoer. In the name of the King’s Justice I had meted out fates both mercifully swift and punitively slow. I should have been hardened to death.

But Regal’s King’s Circle had more of entertainment than justice to it. The premise was simple. Those judged by the King as deserving of punishment or death were sent to his Circle. There they might face animals starved and taunted to madness, or a fighter, a King’s Champion. Some occasional criminal who put up a very good show might be granted royal clemency, or even become a Champion for the King. Forged ones had no such chance. Forged ones were put out for the beasts to maul, or starved and turned loose on other offenders. Such trials had become quite popular of late, so popular that the crowds were outgrowing the market circle at Tradeford where the ‘justice’ was currently administered. Now Regal was having a special circle built. It would be conveniently closer to his manorhouse, with holding cells and secure walls that would confine both beasts and prisoners more strongly, with seats for those who came to observe the spectacle of the King’s Justice being meted out. The construction of the King’s Circle was providing new commerce and jobs for the city of Tradeford. All welcomed it as a very good idea in the wake of the shutdown of trade with the Mountain Kingdom. I heard not one word spoken against it.

When the wagon was loaded, I took my pay and followed the other stevedores to a nearby tavern. Here, in addition to ale and beer, one could buy a handful of herbs and a smoke censer for the table. The atmosphere inside the tavern was heavy with the fumes, and my eyes soon felt gummy and my throat raw from it. No one else seemed to pay it any mind, or even to be greatly affected by it. The use of burning herbs as an intoxicant had never been common at Buckkeep and I had never developed a head for it. My coins bought me a serving of meal pudding with honey and a mug of very bitter beer that tasted to me of river water.

I asked several folk if it were true that they were hiring stable-hands for the King’s own stable, and if so, where a man might go to ask for the work. That one such as I might seek to work for the King himself afforded most of them some amusement, but as I had affected to be slightly simple the whole time I was working with them, I was able to accept their rough humour and suggestions with a bland smile. One rake at last told me that I should go ask the King himself, and gave me directions to Tradeford Hall. I thanked him and drank off the last of my beer and set out.

I suppose I had expected some stone edifice with walls and fortifications. This was what I watched for as I followed my directions inland and up away from the river. Instead, I eventually reached a low hill, if one could give that name to so modest an upswelling. The extra height was enough to afford a clear view of the river in both directions, and the fine stone structures upon it had taken every advantage of it. I stood on the busy road below, all but gawking up at it. It had none of Buckkeep’s forbidding martial aspects. Instead, the white-pebbled drive and gardens and trees surrounded a dwelling at once palatial and welcoming. Tradeford Hall and its surrounding buildings had never seen use as fortress or keep. It had been built as an elegant and pensive residence. Patterns had been worked into the stone walls and there were graceful arches to the entryways. Towers there were, but there were no arrow-slits in them. One knew they had been constructed to afford the dweller a wider view of his surroundings, more for pleasure than for any wariness.

There were walls, too, between the busy public road and the mansion, but they were low, fat stone walls, mossy or ivied, with nooks and crannies where statues were framed by flowering vines. One broad carriageway led straight up to the great house. Other narrower walks and drives invited one to investigate lily ponds and cleverly-pruned fruit trees or quiet, shady walks. For some visionary gardener had planted here oaks and willows, at least one hundred years ago, and now they towered and shaded and whispered in the wind off the river. All of this beauty was spread over more acreage than a good-sized farm. I tried to imagine a ruler who had both the time and resources to create all this.

Was this what one could have, if one did not need warships and standing armies? Had Patience ever known this sort of beauty in her parents’ home? Was this what the Fool echoed in the delicate vases of flowers and bowls of silver fish in his room? I felt grubby and uncouth, and it was not because of my clothes. This, indeed, I suddenly felt, was how a king should live. Amid art and music and graciousness, elevating the lives of his people by providing a place for such things to flourish. I glimpsed my own ignorance, and worse, the ugliness of a man trained only to kill others. I felt a sudden anger, too, at all I had never been taught, never even glimpsed. Had not Regal and his mother had a hand in that as well, in keeping the Bastard in his place? I had been honed as an ugly, functional tool, just as craggy, barren Buckkeep was a fort, not a palace.

But how much beauty would survive here, did not Buckkeep stand like a snarling dog at the mouth of the Buck River?

It was like a dash of cold water in my face. It was true. Was not that why Buckkeep had been built in the first place, to gain control of the river trade? If Buckkeep ever fell to the Raiders, these broad rivers would become highroads for their shallow-draught vessels. They would plunge like a dagger into this soft underbelly of the Six Duchies. These indolent nobles and cocky farm-lads would waken to screams and smoke in the night, with no castle to run to, no guards to stand and fight for them. Before they died, they might come to know what others had endured to keep them safe. Before they died, they might rail against a king who had fled those ramparts to come inland and hide himself in pleasures.

But I intended that king would die first.

I began a careful walk of the perimeter of Tradeford Keep. The easiest way in must be weighed against the least-noticed one, and the best ways out must be planned as well. Before nightfall, I would find out all I could about Tradeford Hall.