Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (31 page)

Molly? I called, stepping after her. She paused.
When she looked back at me, her face was empty of emotion, her
voice neutral.

Sir? Had you an errand for me?

An errand? Of course. I glanced about us, but
the corridor was empty. I took a step toward her, pitched my voice
low for her ears only. No. I've just missed you so. Molly,
I-

This is not seemly, sir. I beg you to excuse me.
She turned, proudly, calmly, and walked away from me.

What did I do? I demanded, in angry
consternation. I did not really expect an answer. But she paused.
Her blue clothed back was straight, her head erect under her tatted
haircloth. She did not turn back to me, but said quietly, to the
corridor, Nothing. You did nothing at all, my lord. Absolutely
nothing.

Molly! I protested, but she turned the corner
and was gone. I stood staring after her. After a moment I realized
I was making a sound somewhere between a whine and a
growl.

Let us go hunting instead.

Perhaps, I found myself agreeing, that would be
the best thing. To go hunting, to kill, to eat, to sleep. And to do
no more than that.

Why not now?

I don't really know.

I composed myself and knocked at Kettricken's
door. It was opened by little Rosemary, who dimpled a smile at me
as she invited me in. Once within, Molly's errand here was evident.
Kettricken was holding a fat green candle under her nose. On the
table were several others. Bayberry, I observed.

Kettricken looked up with a smile. FitzChivalry.
Welcome. Come in and be seated. May I offer you food?
Wine?

I stood looking at her. A sea change. I felt her
strength, knew she stood in the center of herself. She was dressed
in a soft gray tunic and leggings. Her hair was dressed in her
customary way. Her jewelry was simple, a single necklace of green
and blue stone beads. But this was not the woman I had brought back
to the Keep a few days ago. That woman had been distressed, angry,
hurt, and confused. This Kettricken welled serenity.

My queen, I began hesitantly.

Kettricken, she corrected me calmly. She moved
about the room, setting some of the candles on shelves. It was
almost a challenge in that she did not say more.

I came farther into her sitting room. She and
Rosemary were the only occupants. Verity had once complained to me
that her chambers had the precision of a military encampment. It
had not been an exaggeration. The simple furnishings were
spotlessly clean. The heavy tapestries and rugs that furnished most
of Buckkeep were missing here. Simple mats of straw were on the
floor, and frames supported parchment screens painted with delicate
sprays of flowers and trees. There was no clutter at all. In this
room, all was finished and put away, or not yet begun. That is the
only way I can describe the stillness I felt there.

I had come in a roil of conflicting emotions.
Now I stood still and silent, my breathing steadying and my heart
calming. One corner of the chamber had been turned into an alcove
walled with the parchment screens. Here there was a rug of green
wool on the floor, and low padded benches such as I had seen in the
mountains. Kettricken placed the green bayberry candle behind one
of the screens. She kindled it with a flame from the hearth. The
dancing candlelight behind the screen gave the life and warmth of a
sunrise to the painted scene. Kettricken walked around to sit on
one of the low benches within the alcove. She indicated the bench
opposite hers. Will you join me?

I did. The gently lit screen, the illusion of a
small private room, and the sweet scent of bayberry surrounded me.
The low bench was oddly comfortable. It took me a moment to recall
the purpose of my visit. My queen, I thought you might like to
learn some of the games of chance we play at Buckkeep. So you could
join in when the other folk are amusing themselves.

Perhaps another time, she said kindly. If you
and I wish to amuse ourselves, and if it would please you to teach
me the game. But for those reasons only. I have found the old
adages to be true. One can only walk so far from one's true self
before the bond either snaps, or pulls one back. I am fortunate. I
have been pulled back. I walk once more in trueness to myself,
FitzChivalry. That is what you sense today.

I don't understand.

She smiled. You don't need to.

She fell silent again. Little Rosemary had gone
to sit by the hearth. She took up her slate and chalk as if to
amuse herself. Even that child's normal merriment seemed placid
today. I turned back to Kettricken and waited. But she only sat
looking at me, a bemused smile on her face.

After a moment or two, I asked, What are we
doing?

Nothing, Kettricken said.

I copied her silence. After a long time she
observed, Our own ambitions and tasks that we set for ourselves,
the framework we attempt to impose upon the world, is no more than
a shadow of a tree cast across the snow. It will change as the sun
moves, be swallowed in the night, sway with the wind, and when the
smooth snow vanishes, it will lie distorted upon the uneven earth.
But the tree continues to be. Do you understand that? She leaned
forward slightly to look into my face. Her eyes were
kind.

I think so, I said uneasily. .

She gave me a look almost of pity. You would if
you stopped trying to understand it, if you gave up worrying about
why this is important to me, and simply tried to see if it is an
idea that has worth in your own life. But I do not bid you to do
that. I bid no one do anything here.

She sat back again, a gentle loosening that made
her straight spine seem effortless and restful. Again she did
nothing. She simply sat across from me and unfurled herself. I felt
her life brush up against me and flow around me. It was but the
faintest touching, and had I not experienced both the Skill and the
Wit, I do not think I would have sensed it. Cautiously, as softly
as if I assayed a bridge made of cobweb, I overlay my senses on
hers.

She quested. Not as I did, toward a specific
beast, or to read what might be close by. I discarded the word I
had always given to my sensing. Kettricken did not seek after
anything with her Wit. It was as she said, simply a being, but it
was being a part of the whole. She composed herself and considered
all the ways the great web touched her, and was content. It was a
delicate and tenuous thing and I marveled at it. For an instant I,
too, relaxed. I breathed out. I opened myself, Wit wide to all. I
discarded all caution, all worry that Burrich would sense me. I had
never done anything to compare it with before. Kettricken's
reaching was as delicate as droplets of dew sliding down a strand
of spiderweb. I was like a dammed flood, suddenly released, to rush
out to fill old channels to overflowing and to send fingers of
water investigating the lowlands.

Let us hunt! The Wolf, joyfully.

In the stables, Burrich straightened from
cleaning a hoof, to frown at no one. Sooty stamped in her stall.
Molly shrugged away and shook out her hair. Across from me,
Kettricken started and looked at me as if I had spoken aloud. A
moment more I was held, seized from a thousand sides, stretched and
expanded, illuminated pitilessly. I felt it all, not just the human
folk with their comings and goings, but every pigeon that fluttered
in the eaves, every mouse that crept unnoticed behind the wine
kegs, every speck of life, that was not and never had been a speck,
but had always been a node on the web of life. Nothing alone,
nothing forsaken, nothing without meaning, nothing of no
significance, and nothing of importance. Somewhere, someone sang,
and then fell silent. A chorus filled in after that solo, other
voices, distant and dim, saying, What? Beg pardon? Did you call?
Are you here? Do I dream? They plucked at me, as beggars pluck at
strangers' sleeves, and I suddenly felt that if I did not draw
away, I could come unraveled like a piece of fabric. I blinked my
eyes, sealing myself inside myself again. I breathed in.

No time had passed. A single breath, a wink of
an eye. Kettricken looked askance at me. I appeared not to notice.
I reached up to scratch my nose. I shifted my weight.

I resettled myself firmly. I let a few
more minutes pass before I sighed and shrugged apologetically. I do
not understand the game, I am afraid, I offered.

I had succeeded in annoying her. It is not a
game. You don't have to understand it, or `do' it. Simply stop all
else, and be.

I made a show of making another effort. I sat
still for several moments, then fidgeted absently with my cuff
until she looked at me doing it. Then I cast my eyes down as if
ashamed. The candle smells very sweet, I complimented
her.

Kettricken sighed and gave up on me. The girl
who makes them has a very keen awareness of scents. Almost she can
bring me my gardens and surround me with their fragrances. Regal
brought me one of her honeysuckle tapers, and after that I sought
out her wares myself. She is a serving girl here, and does not have
the time or resources to make too many. So I count myself fortunate
when she brings them to offer to me
.

Regal, I repeated. Regal speaking to Molly.
Regal knowing her well enough to know of her candle making.
Everything inside me clenched with foreboding. My queen, I think I
distract you from what you wish to be doing. That is not my desire.
May I leave you now, to return again when you wish to have
company?

This exercise does not exclude company,
FitzChivalry. She looked at me sadly. Will not you try again to let
go? For a moment I thought ... No? Ah, then, I let you go. I heard
regret and loneliness in her voice. Then she straightened herself.
She took a breath, breathed it out slowly. I felt again her
consciousness thrumming in the web. She has the Wit, I thought to
myself. Not strong, but she has it.

I left her room quietly. There was a tiny bit of
amusement to wondering what Burrich would think if he knew. Much
less amusing to recall how she had been alerted to me when I
quested out with the Wit. I thought of my night hunts with the
wolf. Would soon the Queen begin to complain of strange
dreams?

A cold certainty welled up in me. I would be
discovered. I had been too careless, too long. I knew that Burrich
could sense when I used the Wit. What if there were others? I could
be accused of Beast magic. I found my resolve and hardened myself
to it. Tomorrow, I would act.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

THE FOOL WILL always remain one of Buckkeep's
great mysteries. It is almost possible to say that nothing is
definitely known of him. His origin, age, sex, and race have all
been the subject of conjecture. Most amazing is how such a public
person maintained such an aura of privacy. The questions about the
Fool will always outnumber the answers. Did he ever truly possess
any mystical powers, any prescience, any magic at all, or was it
merely that his quick wits and razor tongue made it seem as if he
knew all before it came to pass? If he did not know the future, he
appeared to, and by his calm assumption of foreknowledge, he swayed
many of us to help him shape the future as he saw fit.

White on white. An ear twitched, and that minute
movement betrayed all.

You see? I prompted him.

I scent.

I see. I flicked my eyes toward the prey. No
more a movement than that. It was sufficient.

I see! He leaped, the rabbit started, and Cub
went floundering after it. The rabbit ran lightly over the unpacked
snow, while Cub had to surge and bound and leap through it. The
rabbit darted elusively, this way, that way, around the tree,
around the clump of bushes, into the brambles. Had he stayed in
there? Cub snuffed hopefully, but the density of the thorns turned
his sensitive nose back.

It's gone, I told him.

Are you sure? Why didn't you help?

I can't run down game in loose snow. I must
stalk and spring only when one spring is sufficient.

Ah. Enlightenment. Consideration. There are two
of us. We should hunt as a pair. I could start game and drive it
toward you. You could be ready to leap out and snap its
neck.

I shook my head slowly. You must learn to hunt
alone, Cub. I will not always be with you, in mind or in
flesh.

A wolf is not meant to hunt alone.

Perhaps not. But many do. As you will. But I did
not intend that you should start with rabbits. Come on.

He fell in at my heels, content to let me lead.
We had left the Keep before winter light had even grayed the skies.
Now they were blue and open, clear and cold above us. The trail we
were following was no more than a soft-shouldered groove in the
deep snow. I sank calf-deep at every step. About us, the forest was
a winter stillness, broken only by the occasional dart of a small
bird, or the far-off cawing of a crow. It was open forest, mostly
saplings with the occasional giant that had survived the fire that
had cleared this hillside. It was good pasturage for goats in
summer. Their sharp little hooves had cut the trail we were now
following. It led to a simple stone hut and a tumbledown corral and
shelter for the goats. It was only used in summer.

Cub had been delighted when I went to get him
this morning. He had shown me his roundabout path for slipping past
the guards. An old cattle gate, long firicked up, was his egress.
Some shift of the earth had unsettled the stone and mortar blocking
it, creating a crack wide enough for him to slip through. The
beaten-down snow showed me that he had used it often. Once outside
the walls, we had ghosted away from the Keep, moving like shadows
in the not-light of stars and moon on white snow. Once safely away
from the Keep, Cub had turned the expedition into stalking
practice. He raced ahead to lie in wait, to spring out and tag me
with a splayed paw or a sharp nip, and then race away in a great
circle, to attack me from behind. I had let him play, welcoming the
exertion that warmed me, as well as the sheer joy of the mindless
romping. Always, I kept us moving, so that by the time the sun and
light found us, we were miles from Buckkeep, in an area seldom
visited during the winter. My spotting of the white rabbit against
the white snow had been pure happenstance. I had even humbler game
in mind for his first solo hunt.

Why do we come here? Cub demanded as soon as we
came in sight of the hut.

To hunt, I said simply. I halted some distance
away. The cub sank down beside me, waiting. Well, go ahead, I told
him. Go check for game sign.

Oh, this is worthy hunting, this. Sniffing about
some man den for scraps. Disdainful. .

Not scraps. Go look.

He surged forward, and then angled toward the
hut. I watched him go. Our dream hunts together had taught him
much, but now I wished him to hunt entirely independently of me. I
did not doubt that he could do it. I chided myself that demanding
this proof was just one more procrastination.

He stayed in the snowy brush as much as he
could. He approached the hut cautiously, ears alert and nose
working. Old scents. Humans. Goats. Cold and gone. He froze an
instant, then took a careful step forward. His motions now were
calculated and precise. Ears forward, tail straight, he was totally
intent and focused. MOUSE! He sprang and had it. He shook his head,
a quick snap, and then let the little animal go flying. He caught
it again as it came down. Mouse! he announced gleefully. He flipped
his kill up into the air and danced up after it on his hind legs.
He caught it again, delicately, in his small front teeth, and
tossed it up again. I radiated pride and approval at him. By the
time he had finished playing with his kill, the mouse was little
more than a sodden rag of fur. He gulped it down finally in a
single snap and came bounding back to me.

Mice! The place is riddled with them. Their
smell and sign are everywhere all about the hut.

I thought there would be plenty here. The
shepherds complain about them, that the mice overrun this place and
spoil their provisions in the summer. I guessed they would winter
here, too.

Surprisingly fat, for this time of year, Cub
opined, and was off again with a bound. He hunted with frantic
enthusiasm, but only until his hunger was sated. Then it was my
turn to approach the hut. Snow had drifted up against the rickety
wooden door, but I shouldered it open. The interior was dismal.
Snow had sifted in through the thatched roof and lay in streaks and
stripes on the frozen dirt floor. There was a rudimentary hearth
and chimney, with a kettle hook. A stool and a wooden bench were
the only furnishings. There was still a bit of firewood left beside
the hearth, and I used it to build a careful fire on the blackened
stones. I kept it small, just enough to warm myself and to thaw the
bread and meat I had packed with me. Cub came for a taste of that,
more for the sharing than for any hunger. He made a leisurely
exploration of the hut's interior.

Lots of mice!

I know. I hesitated, then forced myself to add,
You won't starve here.

He lifted his nose abruptly from the corner he'd
been sniffing. He advanced a few steps toward me, then stopped,
standing stiff-legged. His eyes met mine and held. The wilds were
in their darkness. You're abandoning me here.

Yes. There is food in plenty here. In a while I
will come back, to be sure you are all right. I think you will be
fine here. You will teach yourself to hunt. Mice at first, and then
larger game ...

You betray me. You betray pack.

No. We are not pack. I am setting you free, Cub.
We are becoming too close. That is not good, for either of us. I
warned you, long ago, that I would not bond. We can have no part of
each other's lives. It is better for you to go off, alone, to
become what you were meant to be.

I was meant to be a member of a
pack
.
He leveled his
stare at me. Will you tell me that there are wolves near here, ones
who will accept an intruder into their territory and make me part
of their pack?

I was forced to look aside from him. No. There
are no wolves here. One would have to travel many days to come to a
place wild enough for wolves to run freely.

Then what is there here for me?

Food. Freedom. Your own life, independent of
mine.

Isolation. He bared his teeth at me, and then
abruptly turned aside. He circled past me, a wide circle as he went
to the door. Men. He sneered. Truly you are not pack, but man. He
paused in the open door to look back at me. Men it is who think
they can rule others' lives but have no bonds to them. Do you think
that to bond or not to bond is for you alone to decide? My heart is
my own. I give it where I will. I will not give it to one who
thrusts me aside. Nor will I obey one who denies pack and bond. Do
you think I will stay here and snuff about this men's lair, to snap
at the mice who have come for their leavings, to be like the mice,
things that live on the droppings of men? No. If we are not pack,
then we are not kin. I owe you nothing, and least of all obedience.
I shall not stay here. I shall live as I please.

A slyness to his thoughts. He was hiding
something, but I guessed it. You shall do as you wish, Cub, but for
one thing. You shall not follow me back to Buckkeep. I forbid
it.

You forbid? You forbid? Forbid the wind to blow
past your stone den, then, or the grass to grow in the earth around
it. You have as much right. You forbid.

He snorted and turned away from me. I hardened
my will, and spoke a final time to him. Cub! I said in my man
voice. He turned back to me, startled. His small ears went back at
my tone. Almost he sneered his teeth at me. But before he could, I
repelled at him. It was a thing I had always known how to do, as
instinctively as one knows to pull the finger back from the flame.
It was a force I had used but seldom, for once Burrich had turned
it against me, and I did not always trust it. This was not a push,
such as I had used on him when he was caged. I put force into it,
the mental repulsing becoming almost a physical thing as he
recoiled from me. He leaped back a stride then stood splay-legged
on the snow, ready for flight. His eyes were shocked.

GO! I shouted at him, man's word, man's voice,
and at the same time repelled him again with every bit of Wit I
had. He fled, not gracefully, but leaping and scrabbling away
through the snow. I held myself within myself, refusing to follow
him with my mind and make sure that he did not stop. No. I was done
with that. The repelling was a breaking of that bond, not only a
withdrawing of myself from him, but a pushing back of every tie he
had to me. Severed. And better to let them remain that way. Yet as
I stood staring at the patch of brush where he had disappeared, I
felt an emptiness that was very like to cold, a tingling itch of
something lost, something missing. I have heard men speak so of an
amputated limb. A physical groping about for a part gone
forever.

I left the hut and began my hike home. The
farther I walked, the more I hurt. Not physically, but that is the
only comparison I have. As raw and flayed as if stripped of skin
and meat. It was worse than when Burrich had taken Nosy, for I had
done it to myself. The waning afternoon seemed chillier than the
dark of dawn had. I tried to tell myself that I did not feel
ashamed. I had done what was necessary. As I had with Virago. I
pushed that thought aside. No. Cub would be fine. He would be
better off than if he were with me. What life would it be for that
wild creature, skulking about, always in danger of discovery, by
the Keep dogs or hunters or anyone who might spot him? He might be
isolated, he might be lonely, but he would be alive. Our connection
was severed. There was an insistent temptation to quest out about
me, to see if I could sense him still, to grope and find if his
mind still touched mine at all. I sternly resisted it, and sealed
my thoughts against his as firmly as I could. Gone. He would not
follow me. Not after I had repelled him like that. No. I tramped on
and refused to look back.

Had I not been so deep in thought, so intent on
remaining isolated inside myself, I might have had some warning.
But I doubt it. The Wit was never any use against Forged ones. I do
not know if they stalked me, or if I blundered right past their
hiding place. The first I knew of them was when the weight hit my
back and I went down face-first in the snow. At first I thought it
was Cub, come back to challenge my decision. I rolled and came
almost to my feet before another one seized hold of my shoulder.
Forged ones, three males, one young, two large and once well
muscled. My mind recorded it all quickly, categorizing them as
neatly as if this were one of Chade's exercises. One big one with a
knife, the others had sticks. Torn and filthy clothing. Faces
reddened and peeling from the cold, filthy beards, shaggy hair.
Faces bruised and cut. Did they fight among themselves, or had they
attacked someone else before me?

I broke the one's grip and leaped back, trying
to get as clear of them as I could. I had a belt knife. It was not
a long blade, but it was all I had. I had thought I would not need
any weapon today; I had thought there were no more Forged ones
anywhere near Buckkeep. They circled wide of me, keeping me in the
center of their ring. They let me get my knife clear. It didn't
seem to worry them.

What do you want? My cloak? I undid the catch
and let it fall. One's eyes followed it down, but none of them
leaped for it as I had hoped. I shifted, turning, trying to watch
all three at once, trying to have none of them completely behind
me. It wasn't easy. Mittens? I stripped them from my hands, tossed
them as a pair toward the one who appeared youngest. He let them
fall at his feet. They grunted as they shuffled, rocking on their
feet, watching me. No one wanted to be the first to attack. They
knew I had a knife; whoever went first would meet the blade. I took
a step or two toward an opening in the ring. They shifted to block
my escape.