Assassin's Quest (30 page)

I soon found I was not the only one with such hopes. There was a ragtag hiring fair in a space between two taverns that fronted on the holding pens. Some of the folk there were herders who had come from Blue Lake with one herd, stayed in Landing to spend their earnings, and now, out of coin and far from home, were looking for passage back. For some of them, that was the pattern of their lives as drovers. There were a few youngsters there, obviously looking for adventure and travel and a chance to strike out on their own. And there were those who were obviously the dregs of the town, folk who could get no steady work, or had not the character to live in one place for long. I did not blend very well with any group, but I ended up standing with the drovers.

My tale was that my mother had recently died and turned over her estates to my older sister, who had little use for me. And so I had set out to travel to my uncle, who lived past Blue Lake, but my coin had run out before I had reached there. No, I’d not been a drover before, but we’d been wealthy enough to have horses, cattle, and sheep, and I knew the basic care of them and, so some said, “had a way” with dumb beasts.

I was not hired that day. Few were, and night found most of us bedding down right where we had stood all day. A baker’s apprentice came amongst us with a tray of leftover wares, and I parted with another copper for a long loaf of dark bread studded with seeds. I shared it with a stout fellow whose pale hair kept creeping out of his kerchief and over his face. In return, Creece offered me some dried meat, a drink of the most appalling wine I’d ever tasted, and a great deal of gossip. He was a talker, one of those men who take the most extreme stance on any topic and have not conversations but arguments with their fellows. As I had little to say, Creece soon needled the other folk about us into a contentious discussion of the current politics in Farrow. Someone kindled a small fire, more for light than any need for warmth, and several bottles were passed about. I lay back, my head pillowed on my bundle, and pretended to be dozing as I listened.

There was no mention of the Red Ships, no talk at all of the war that raged along the coast. I understood abruptly how much these folk would resent being taxed for troops to protect a coast they’d never even seen, for warships to sail an ocean they could not even imagine. The arid plains between Landing and Blue Lake were their ocean, and these drovers the sailors who traveled on it. The Six Duchies were not by nature six regions of land bound into a whole, but were a kingdom only because a strong line of rulers had fenced them together with a common boundary and decreed them to be one. Should all of the Coastal Duchies fall to the Red Ships, it would mean little for these folk here. There would still be cattle to herd, and loathsome wine to drink; there would still be grass and the river and the dusty streets. Inevitably I must wonder what right we had to force these folk to pay for a war so far from their homes. Tilth and Farrow had been conquered and added to the duchies; they had not come to us asking for military protection or the benefits of trade. Not that they hadn’t prospered, freed of all their petty inland herdlords and given an eager market for their beef and leather and rope. How much sailcloth, how many coils of good hemp rope had they sold before they were part of the Six Duchies? But it still seemed a minor return.

I grew weary of such thoughts. The only constant to their conversation was complaint about the trade embargo with the Mountains. I had begun to doze off when my ears pricked up to the words “Pocked Man.” I opened my eyes and lifted my head slightly.

Someone had mentioned him in the traditional way, as the harbinger of disaster, laughingly saying that Hencil’s sheep had all seen him, for they were dying in their pen before the poor man could even sell them. I frowned to myself at the thought of disease in such close quarters, but another man laughed and said that King Regal had decreed it was no longer bad luck to see the Pocked Man, but the greatest good that could befall one. “If I saw that old beggar, I’d not blanch and flee, but tackle him and take him to the King himself. He’s offered one hundred golds to any man can bring him the Pocked Man from Buck.”

“Was fifty, only fifty golds, not a hundred,” Creece interrupted jeeringly. He took another drink from his bottle. “What a story, a hundred golds for a gray old man!”

“No, it’s a hundred, for him alone, and another hundred for the man-wolf that dogs his heels. I heard it cried anew just this afternoon. They crept into the King’s Mansion at Tradeford, and slew some of his guard with Beast magic. Throats torn right out that the wolf might drink the blood. He’s the one they want bad now. Dresses like a gentleman, they said, with a ring and a necklace and a silver dangle at his ear. Streak of white in his hair from an old battle with our king, and a scar down his face and a broken nose from the same. Yes, and a nice new sword-slash up his arm is what the King give him this time.”

There was a low mutter of admiration from several of them at this. Even I had to admire Regal’s audacity at claiming that, even as I turned my face back into my bundle and burrowed down as if to sleep. The gossip continued.

“Supposed to be Wit-bred, he is, and able to turn himself into a wolf whenever the moon is on him. They sleep by day and prowl by night, they do. It’s said it’s a curse put on the King by that foreigner queen he chased out of Buck for trying to steal the crown. The Pocked Man, it’s told, is a half-spirit, charmed from the body of old King Shrewd by her Mountain magic, and he travels all the roads and streets, anywhere in the Six Duchies, bringing ill wherever he goes, and wearing the face of the old King himself.”

“Dung and rot,” Creece said disgustedly. He took another swig himself. But some of the others liked this wild tale and leaned closer, whispering for him to go on, go on.

“Well, that’s what I heard,” the storyteller said huffily. “That the Pocked Man is Shrewd’s half-spirit, and he can’t know any rest until the Mountain queen that poisoned him is in her grave as well.”

“So, if the Pocked Man is Shrewd’s ghost, why is King Regal offering a hundred golds’ reward for him?” Creece asked sourly.

“Not his ghost. His half-spirit. He stole part of the King’s spirit as he was dying, and King Shrewd can know no rest until the Pocked Man is dead so the King’s spirit can be rejoined. And some say,” and he dropped his voice lower, “that the Bastard was not killed well enough, that he walks again as a man-wolf. He and the Pocked Man seek vengeance against King Regal, to destroy the throne he could not steal. For he was in league to be king to the Vixen Queen once they’d done away with Shrewd.”

It was the right sort of night for such a tale. The moon was swollen and orange and riding low in the sky, while the wind brought us the mournful lowing and shifting of the cattle in their pens mixed with the stench of rotting blood and tanning hides. High tattered clouds drifted from time to time across the face of the moon. The storyteller’s words put a shiver up my back, probably for a different reason than he thought. I kept waiting for someone to nudge me with a foot, or cry out, “Hey, let’s have a better look at him.” No one did. The tone of the man’s tale had them looking for wolf eyes in the shadows, not for a weary workman sleeping in their midst. Nonetheless, my heart was thudding in my chest as I looked back down my trail. The tailor where I’d traded clothes would recognize that description. Possibly the earring woman. Even the old rag woman who had helped me tie the kerchief over my hair. Some might not want to come forward, some might want to avoid dealing with the King’s guards. Some would, though. I should behave as if they all would.

The speaker was going on, embroidering his tale of Kettricken’s evil ambitions and how she had lain with me to conceive a child we could use to claim the throne. There was loathing in the storyteller’s voice as he spoke of Kettricken, and no one scoffed at his words. Even Creece at my side was acquiescent, as if these bizarre plots were common knowledge. Confirming my worst fears, Creece spoke up suddenly.

“You tell it like it’s all new, but all knew her big belly came not from Verity but from the Wit-Bastard. Had Regal not driven off the Mountain whore, we would eventually have had one like the Piebald Prince in line for the throne.”

There was a low murmur of assent to this. I closed my eyes and lay back as if bored, hoping that my stillness and lowered lids could conceal the rage that threatened to consume me. I reached up to tug my kerchief more snugly about my hair. What could be Regal’s purpose in letting such evil gossip be noised about? For I knew this kind of poison must come from him. I did not trust my voice to ask any questions, nor did I wish to appear ignorant of what was evidently common knowledge. So I lay still and listened with savage interest. I gathered that all knew Kettricken had returned to the Mountains. The freshness of the contempt they had for her suggested to me that this was recent news. There was muttering too that it was the fault of the Mountain witch that the passes were closed to honest Tilth and Farrow traders. One man even ventured to say that now that trade with the coast was shut down, the Mountains saw a chance to fence Farrow and Tilth in and force them to come to terms or lose all trade routes. One man recounted that even a simple caravan escorted by Six Duchies men in Regal’s own colors had been turned back from the Mountain border.

To me, such talk was obviously stupid. The Mountains needed the trade with Farrow and Tilth. Grain was more important to the Mountain folk than the lumber and furs of the Mountains to these lowlanders. Such free trade had been openly admitted as a reason for wedding Kettricken to Verity. Even if Kettricken had fled back to the Mountains, I knew her well enough to be sure she would not support any cutting off of trade between her folk and the Six Duchies. She was too bonded to both groups, so intent on being Sacrifice for all of them. If there were a trade embargo as I had heard, I was sure it had begun with Regal. But the men about me grumbled on about the Mountain witch and her vendetta against the King.

Was Regal fomenting a war with the Mountains? Had he been attempting to send armed troops there under the guise of escorts for traders? It was a foolish idea. Long ago my father had been sent to the Mountains to formalize boundaries and trade agreements with them, marking the end of long years of border skirmishes and raids. Those years of battle had taught King Shrewd that no one was going to take and hold the Mountain Kingdom passes and trails by force. Unwillingly I followed that thought. Regal had been the one to suggest Kettricken as a bride for Verity. He had done all the courtier’s work of wooing her for his brother. Then, as the time for the wedding drew near, he had attempted to kill Verity, with the aim of securing the Princess as his own bride. He had failed, and his plots and plans had been revealed to only a few. The chance for him to claim Princess Kettricken as his own, and all that went with her, such as her eventual inheritance of the Mountain crown, had slipped through his fingers. I recalled some talk I had once heard between Regal and the traitorous Galen. They had seemed to think that Tilth and Farrow would be best secured if they could control the Mountain ranges and passes that backed them. Did Regal now think to take by force what he had once hoped to claim by marriage? Did he think he could rally enough ill will against Kettricken to make his followers believe they were waging a just war, one of vengeance against a Mountain witch, one to keep open key trade routes?

Regal, I reflected, was capable of believing anything he wished to believe. In the depths of his cups, head wreathed with his Smokes, I did not doubt that he now believed his own wild tales. A hundred golds for Chade, and another hundred for me. I knew well enough what I had done lately to merit such a head-price, but I wondered keenly just what Chade had been up to. In all my years with Chade, he had always worked unnamed and unseen. He still had no name, but his pocked skin and resemblance to his half-brother were known now. That meant he had been seen somewhere, by someone. I hoped he was well and safe this night wherever he was. A part of me yearned to turn back, to return to Buck and track him down. As if somehow I could keep him safe.

Come to me.

No matter what I longed to do, no matter what I felt, I knew that first I would go to Verity. I promised myself that over and over and was finally able to drop off into a wary doze. I dreamed, but they were pale dreams, barely touched by the Skill, shifting and turning as if blown by the autumn winds. My mind seemed to have caught up and jumbled together thoughts of every person I missed. I dreamed of Chade taking tea with Patience and Lacey. He wore a robe of red silk patterned over with stars, cut in a very old style, and he smiled charmingly at the women over his cup and brought laughter even to Patience’s eyes, although she looked strangely worn and weary. I then dreamed of Molly peeping out of a cottage door while Burrich stood outside it, pulling his cloak tight against the wind and telling her not to worry, he’d not be gone that long and any heavy chores could keep until he returned, that she should stay within doors and have only a care for herself. Even of Celerity did I dream, that she had taken shelter in the fabled Ice Caves of the Hungry Glacier in Bearns, and hid there with what troops she could still rally and many of her folk made homeless by the Raider wars. I dreamed she tended Faith, who lay suffering with a fever and a festering arrow wound in her belly. I dreamed finally of the Fool, his white face turned to ivory as he sat before a hearth and stared into the flames. There was no hope left in his face, and I felt that I was within the flames, looking deeply into his eyes. Somewhere nearby and yet not very near, Kettricken was weeping inconsolably. My dreams withered in my mind, and then I dreamed of wolves hunting, hunting, running down a buck, but they were wild wolves, and if my wolf was among them, he was theirs and mine no longer.

I awoke with a headache and a crick in my back from a stone I’d slept on. The sun had only begun to crack the sky, but I rose anyway, to go to a well and draw water for washing, and to drink as much as I could hold. Burrich had once told me that drinking a lot of water was a good way to stave off hunger. It was a theory I’d have to test today. I put an edge on my knife, considered shaving, then decided against it. Better to let my beard grow over the scar as swiftly as possible. I rubbed reluctantly at the coarse growth that already irritated me. I went back to where the others still slept.