Assassin's Quest (UK), Page 4

  ‘Easy. Easy now.’ Burrich crossed swiftly to me, put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me down in a chair. ‘You’re shak­ing as if you’re go­ing into a seizure. Calm your­self.’

  I could not speak.

  ‘This is what Chade and I could not puzzle out,’ Burrich told me. ‘Who had be­trayed our plan? We thought of every­one. Even the Fool. For a time we feared we had sent Kettricken off in the care of a traitor.’

  ‘How could you think that? The Fool loved King Shrewd as no one else did.’

  ‘We could think of no one else who knew all our plans,’ Burrich said simply.

  ‘It was not the Fool who was our down­fall. It was I.’ And that, I think, was the mo­ment when I came fully back to my­self. I had said the most un­say­able thing, faced my most un­face­able truth. I had be­trayed them all. ‘The Fool warned me. He said I would be the death of kings, if I did not learn to leave things alone. Chade warned me. He tried to make me prom­ise I would set no more wheels in mo­tion. But I would not. So my ac­tions killed my king. If I had not been help­ing him to Skill, he would not have been so open to his killers. I opened him up, reach­ing for Ver­ity. But those two leeches came in in­stead. The King’s as­sas­sin. Oh, in so many, many ways, Shrewd. I am so sorry, my king. So sorry. But for me, Regal would have had no reason to kill you.’

  ‘Fitz.’ Burrich’s voice was firm. ‘Regal never needed a reason to kill his father. He needed only to run out of reas­ons to keep him alive. And you had no con­trol over that.’ A sud­den frown creased his brow. ‘Why did they kill him, right then? Why did they not wait un­til they had the Queen as well?’

  I smiled at him. ‘You saved her. Regal thought he had the Queen. They thought they’d stopped us when they kept you from get­ting horses out of the stables. Regal even bragged of it to me, when I was in my cell. That she’d had to leave with no horses. And with no warm winter things.’

  Burrich grinned hard. ‘She and the Fool took what had been packed for Shrewd. And they left on two of the best horses ever to come out of Buck­keep’s stables. I’ll wager they got to the Moun­tains safely, boy. Sooty and Rud are prob­ably graz­ing in Moun­tain pas­tures now.’

  It was too thin a com­fort. That night I went out and ran with the wolf, and Burrich made no re­buke to me. But we could not run far enough, nor fast enough, and the blood we shed that night was not the blood I wished to see run, nor could the hot fresh meat fill the void in­side me.

  So I re­membered my life and who I had been. As the days passed, Burrich and I began to speak openly, as friends again. He gave over his dom­in­ance of me, but not without mock­ingly ex­press­ing his re­grets for that. We re­called our old ways with one an­other, old ways of laugh­ing to­gether, old ways of dis­agree­ing. But as things stead­ied between us and be­came nor­mal, we were both re­minded, all the more sharply, of all we no longer had.

  There was not enough work in a day to busy Burrich. This was a man who had had full au­thor­ity over all of Buck­keep’s stables and the horses, hounds and hawks that in­hab­ited them. I watched him in­vent tasks to fill the hours, and knew how much he pined for the beasts he had over­seen for so long. I missed the bustle and folk of court, but hungered most keenly for Molly. I in­ven­ted con­ver­sa­tions I would have had with her, gathered mead­ow­sweet and daysedge flowers be­cause they smelled like her, and lay down at night re­call­ing the touch of her hand on my face. But these were not the things we spoke of. In­stead, we put our pieces to­gether to make a whole, of sorts. Burrich fished and I hunted, there were hides to scrape, shirts to wash and mend, wa­ter to haul. It was a life. He tried to speak to me, once, of how he had come to see me in the dun­geon, to bring me the poison. His hands worked with small twitch­ing mo­tions as he spoke of how he had had to walk away, to leave me in­side that cell. I could not let him go on. ‘Let’s go fish­ing,’ I sud­denly pro­posed. He took a deep breath and nod­ded. We went fish­ing and spoke no more that day.

  But I had been caged, and starved, and beaten to death. From time to time, when he looked at me, I knew he saw the scars. I shaved around the seam down my cheek, and watched the hair grow in white above my brow where my scalp had been split. We never spoke about it. I re­fused to think about it. But no man could have come through that un­changed.

  I began to dream at night. Short vivid dreams, frozen mo­ments of fire, sear­ing pain, hope­less fear. I awoke, cold sweat sleek­ing my hair, queasy with fear. Noth­ing re­mained of those dreams when I sat up in dark­ness, not the ti­ni­est thread by which I could un­ravel them. Only the pain, the fear, the an­ger, the frus­tra­tion. But above all, the fear. The over­whelm­ing fear that left me shak­ing and gulp­ing for air, my eyes tear­ing, sour bile up the back of my throat.

  The first time it happened, the first time I sat bolt up­right with a word­less cry, Burrich rolled from his bed and put his hand on my shoulder, to ask if I was all right. I shoved him away from me so sav­agely he crashed into the table and nearly over­set it. Fear and an­ger cres­ted into an in­stant of fury when I would have killed him simply be­cause he was where I could reach him. At that mo­ment I re­jec­ted and des­pised my­self so com­pletely that I de­sired only to des­troy everything that was me, or bordered on my­self. I re­pelled sav­agely at the en­tire world, al­most dis­pla­cing my own con­scious­ness. Brother, brother, brother, Nighteyes yelped des­per­ately within me, and Burrich staggered back with an in­ar­tic­u­late cry. After a mo­ment I could swal­low and mut­ter to Burrich, ‘A night­mare, that was all. Sorry. I was still dream­ing, just a night­mare.’

  ‘I un­der­stand,’ he said brusquely, and then, more thought­fully, ‘I un­der­stand.’ He went back to his bed. But I knew what he un­der­stood was that he could not help me with this, and that was all.

  The night­mares did not come every night, but of­ten enough to leave me dread­ing my bed. Burrich pre­ten­ded to sleep through them, but I was aware of him ly­ing awake as I fought my night battles alone. I had no re­col­lec­tion of the dreams, only the wrench­ing ter­ror they brought me. I had felt fear be­fore. Of­ten. Fear when I had fought Forged ones, fear when we had battled Red Ship war­ri­ors, fear when I had con­fron­ted Se­rene. Fear that warned, that spurred, that gave one the edge to stay alive. But the night fear was an un­man­ning ter­ror, a hope that death would come and end it, be­cause I was broken and knew I would give them any­thing rather than face more pain.

  There is no an­swer to a fear like that or the shame that comes after it. I tried an­ger, I tried hatred. Neither tears nor brandy could drown it. It per­meated me like an evil smell and col­oured every re­mem­brance I had, shad­ing my per­cep­tion of who I had been. No mo­ment of joy, or pas­sion, or cour­age that I could re­call was ever quite what it had been, for my mind al­ways trait­or­ously ad­ded, ‘yes, you had that, for a time, but after came this, and this is what you are now’. That de­bil­it­at­ing fear was a cower­ing pres­ence in­side me. I knew, with a sick cer­tainty, that if I were pressed I would be­come it. I was no longer FitzChiv­alry. I was what was left after fear had driven him from his body.

  On the second day after Burrich had run out of brandy, I told him, ‘I’ll be fine here if you want to go into Buck­keep Town.’

  ‘We’ve no money to buy more sup­plies, and noth­ing left to sell off.’ He said it flatly, as if it were my fault. He was sit­ting by the fire. He fol­ded his two hands to­gether and clasped them between his knees. They had been shak­ing, just a little. ‘We’re go­ing to have to man­age on our own now. There’s game in plenty to be had. If we can’t feed ourselves up here, we de­serve to starve.’

  ‘Are you go­ing to be all right?’ I asked flatly.

  He looked at me through nar­rowed eyes. ‘Mean­ing what?’ he asked.

  ‘Mean­ing there’s no more brandy,’ I said as bluntly.

  ‘And you think I can’t get by without it?’ His tem­per was r
ising already. It had be­come in­creas­ingly short since the brandy ran out.

  I gave a very small shrug. ‘I was ask­ing. That’s all.’ I sat very still, not look­ing at him, hop­ing he wouldn’t ex­plode.

  After a pause, he said, very quietly, ‘Well, I sup­pose that’s some­thing we’ll both have to find out.’

  I let a long time pass. Fi­nally I asked, ‘What are we go­ing to do?’

  He looked at me with an­noy­ance. ‘I told you. Hunt to feed ourselves. That’s some­thing you should be able to grasp.’

  I looked away from him, gave a bob­bing nod. ‘I un­der­stood. I mean … past that. Past to­mor­row.’

  ‘Well. We’ll hunt for our meat. We can get by for a bit that way. But sooner or later, we’ll want what we can’t get nor make for ourselves. Some Chade will get for us, if he can. Buck­keep is as picked over as bare bones now. I’ll have to go to Buck­keep Town, for a while, and hire out if I can. But for now …’

  ‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I meant … we can’t al­ways hide up here, Burrich. What comes after that?’

  It was his turn to be quiet a while. ‘I sup­pose I hadn’t given it much thought. At first it was just a place to take you while you re­covered. Then, for a time, it seemed as if you’d never …’

  ‘But I’m here, now.’ I hes­it­ated. ‘Pa­tience,’ I began.

  ‘Be­lieves you dead,’ Burrich cut in, per­haps more harshly than he’d in­ten­ded. ‘Chade and I are the only ones who know dif­fer­ent. Be­fore we pulled you from that coffin, we weren’t sure. Had the dose been too strong, would you be really dead from it, or frozen from your days in the earth? I’d seen what they’d done to you.’ He stopped, and for a mo­ment stared at me. He looked haunted. He gave his head a tiny shake. ‘I didn’t think you could live through that, let alone the poison. So we offered no hope to any­one. And then, when we had you out …’ He shook his head, more vi­ol­ently. ‘At first, you were so battered. What they’d done to you – there was just so much dam­age … I don’t know what pos­sessed Pa­tience to clean and bind a dead man’s wounds, but if she hadn’t … Then later … it was not you. After those first few weeks, I was sickened at what we had done. Put a wolf’s soul in a man’s body, it seemed to me.’

  He looked at me again, his face go­ing in­cred­u­lous at the memory. ‘You went for my throat. The first day you could stand on your own, you wanted to run away. I wouldn’t let you and you went for my throat. I could not show Pa­tience that snarling, snap­ping creature, let alone …’

  ‘Do you think Molly … ?’ I began.

  Burrich looked away from me. ‘Prob­ably she heard you died.’ After a time, he ad­ded, un­com­fort­ably, ‘Someone had burned a candle on your grave. The snow had been pushed away, and the wax stump was there still when I came to dig you up.’

  ‘Like a dog after a bone.’

  ‘I was fear­ful you would not un­der­stand it.’

  ‘I did not. I just took Nighteyes’ word for it.’

  It was as much as I could handle, just then. I tried to let the con­ver­sa­tion die. But Burrich was re­lent­less. ‘If you went back to Buck­keep, or Buck­keep Town, they would kill you. They’d hang you over wa­ter and burn your body. Or dis­mem­ber it. But folk would be sure you stayed dead this time.’

  ‘Did they hate me so?’

  ‘Hate you? No. They liked you well enough, those that knew you. But if you came back, a man who had died and been bur­ied, again walk­ing among them, they’d fear you. It’s not a thing you could ex­plain away as a trick. The Wit is not a ma­gic that is well thought of. When a man is ac­cused of it and then dies and is bur­ied, well, in or­der for them to re­mem­ber you fondly, you’d have to stay dead. If they saw you walk­ing about, they’d take it as proof that Regal was right; that you were prac­tising Beast ma­gic, and used it to kill the King. They’d have to kill you again. More thor­oughly the second time.’ Burrich stood sud­denly, and paced the room twice. ‘Damn me, but I could use a drink,’ he said.

  ‘Me, too,’ I said quietly.

  Ten days later, Chade came up the path. The old as­sas­sin walked slowly, with a staff, and he car­ried his pack up high on his shoulders. The day was warm, and he had thrown back the hood of his cloak. His long grey hair blew in the wind and he had let his beard grow to cover more of his face. At first glance, he looked to be an it­in­er­ant tinker. A scarred old man, per­haps, but no longer the Pocked Man. Wind and sun had weathered his face. Burrich had gone fish­ing, a thing he pre­ferred to do alone. Nighteyes had come to sun him­self on our door­step in Burrich’s ab­sence, but had melted back into the woods be­hind the hut at the first waft of Chade’s scent on the air. I stood alone.

  For a time I watched him come. The winter had aged him, in the lines of his face and the grey of his hair. But he walked more strongly than I re­membered, as if priva­tion had toughened him. At last I went to meet him, feel­ing strangely shy and em­bar­rassed. When he looked up and saw me, he hal­ted and stood in the trail. I con­tin­ued to­ward him. ‘Boy?’ he asked cau­tiously when I was near. I man­aged a nod and a smile. The an­swer­ing smile that broke forth on his face humbled me. He dropped his staff to hug me, and then pressed his cheek to mine as if I were a child. ‘Oh, Fitz, Fitz, my boy,’ he said in a voice full of re­lief. ‘I thought we had lost you. I thought we’d done some­thing worse than let you die.’ His old arms were tight and strong about me.

  I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him that they had.

  TWO

  The Part­ing

  After crown­ing him­self King of the Six Duch­ies, Prince Regal Farseer es­sen­tially aban­doned the Coastal Duch­ies to their own devices. He had stripped Buck­keep it­self and a good part of Buck Duchy of as much coin as he could wring from it. From Buck­keep, horses and stock had been sold off, with the very best taken in­land to Regal’s new res­id­ence at Trade­ford. The fur­nish­ings and lib­rary of the tra­di­tional royal seat had been plundered as well, some to feather the new nest, some div­vied out to his In­land dukes and nobles as fa­vours or sold out­right to them. Grain ware­houses, wine­cel­lars, the ar­mour­ies, all had been plundered and the loot car­ried off in­land.

  His an­nounced plan had been to move the ail­ing King Shrewd, and the wid­owed and preg­nant Queen-in-Wait­ing Kettricken in­land to Trade­ford, that they might be safer from the Red Ship raids that plagued the Coastal Duch­ies. This, too, was the ex­cuse for the loot­ing of fur­nish­ings and valu­ables from Buck­keep. But with the death of Shrewd and the dis­ap­pear­ance of Kettricken, even this flimsy reason van­ished. Non­ethe­less he left Buck­keep as soon after his coron­a­tion as he could. The tale has been told that when his Coun­cil of Nobles ques­tioned his de­cision, he told them that the Coastal Duch­ies rep­res­en­ted only war and ex­pense to him, that they had al­ways been a leech upon the re­sources of the In­land Duch­ies and he wished the Outis­landers the joy of tak­ing such a rocky and cheer­less place. Regal was later to deny hav­ing ever uttered such words.

  When Kettricken van­ished, King Regal was left in a po­s­i­tion for which there was no his­tor­ical pre­ced­ent. The child Kettricken car­ried had ob­vi­ously been next in line for the crown. But both Queen and un­born child had van­ished, un­der very sus­pi­cious cir­cum­stances. Not all were cer­tain that Regal him­self had not en­gin­eered it. Even if the Queen had re­mained at Buck­keep, the child could not as­sume even the title of King-in-Wait­ing for at least sev­en­teen years. Regal be­came very anxious to as­sume the title of King as swiftly as pos­sible, but by law he needed the re­cog­ni­tion of all Six Duch­ies to claim it. He bought the crown with a num­ber of con­ces­sions to his Coastal Dukes. The ma­jor one was Regal’s prom­ise that Buck­keep would re­main manned and ready to de­fend the coast.

  The com­mand of the an­cient keep was fois­ted off on his eld­est nephew, heir to the title Duke of Far­row. Lord Bri
ght, at twenty-five, had grown rest­less wait­ing for his father to pass power to him. He was more than will­ing to as­sume au­thor­ity over Buck­keep and Buck, but had little ex­per­i­ence to draw on. Regal took him­self in­land to Trade­ford Castle on the Vin River in Far­row, while young Lord Bright re­mained at Buck­keep with a picked guard of Far­row men. It is not re­por­ted that Regal left him any funds to op­er­ate from, so the young man en­deav­oured to wring what he needed from the mer­chants of Buck­keep Town, and the already em­battled farm­ers and shep­herds of sur­round­ing Buck Duchy. While there is no in­dic­a­tion that he felt any malice to­ward the folk of Buck or the other Coastal Duch­ies, neither did he have any loy­alty to­ward them.

  Also in res­id­ence at Buck­keep at this time were a hand­ful of minor Buck no­bil­ity. Most land­hold­ers of Buck were at their own lesser keeps, do­ing what little they could to pro­tect their local folk. The most not­able to re­main at Buck­keep was Lady Pa­tience, she who had been Queen-in-Wait­ing un­til her hus­band Prince Chiv­alry ab­dic­ated the throne to his younger brother Ver­ity. Man­ning Buck­keep were the Buck sol­diers, as well as Queen Kettricken’s per­sonal guard, and the few men who re­mained of King Shrewd’s guard. Mor­ale was poor among the sol­diers, for wages were in­ter­mit­tent and the ra­tions poor. Lord Bright had brought his own per­sonal guard with him to Buck­keep, and ob­vi­ously pre­ferred them to the Buck men. The situ­ation was fur­ther com­plic­ated by a muddled chain of com­mand. Os­tens­ibly the Buck troops were to re­port to Cap­tain Kef­fel of the Far­row men, the com­mander of Lord Bright’s guard. In real­ity, Fox­glove of the Queen’s Guard, Kerf of the Buck­keep Guard, and old Red of King Shrewd’s guard ban­ded to­gether and kept their own coun­sels. If they re­por­ted reg­u­larly to any­one, it was Lady Pa­tience. In time the Buck sol­diers came to speak of her as the Lady of Buck­keep.