Assassin's Quest (47 page)

I had not intended to say the words aloud. Some note in my voice must have touched a kinder place in Starling’s nature. She gave over tormenting me. “Oh. Well, then. I still think you should send her word. So she has hope to keep her strong.”

“I will,” I promised myself. As soon as I reached Jhaampe. Kettricken would know some way by which I could get word back to Burrich. I could send back just a brief written message, not too plainly worded in case it was intercepted. I could ask him to tell her I was alive and I would return to her. But how would I get the message to him?

I lay silently musing in the dark. I did not know where Molly was living. Lacey would possibly know. But I could not send word via Lacey without Patience finding out. No. Neither of them must know. There had to be someone we both knew, someone I could trust. Not Chade. I could trust him, but no one would know how to find Chade, even if they knew him by that name.

Somewhere in the barn, a horse thudded a hoof against a stall wall. “You’re very quiet,” Starling whispered.

“I’m thinking.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t. You just made me think.”

“Oh.” A pause. “I am so cold.”

“Me, too. But it’s colder outside.”

“That doesn’t make me the least bit warmer. Hold me.”

It was not a request. She burrowed into my chest, tucking her head under my chin. She smelled nice. How did women always manage to smell nice? Awkwardly I put my arms around her, grateful for the added warmth but uneasy at the closeness. “That’s better,” she sighed. I felt her body relax against mine. She added, “I hope we get a chance to bathe soon.”

“Me, too.”

“Not that you smell that bad.”

“Thank you,” I said a bit sourly. “Mind if I go back to sleep now?”

“Go ahead.” She put a hand on my hip and added, “If that’s all you can think of to do.”

I managed to draw a breath. Molly, I told myself. Starling was so warm and near, smelling so sweet. Her minstrel’s ways made nothing of what she suggested. To her. But what was Molly, truly, to me? “I told you. I’m married.” It was hard to speak.

“Um. And she loves you, and you obviously love her. But we are the ones who are here, and cold. If she loves you that much, would she begrudge you an added bit of warmth and comfort on such a cold night?”

It was difficult, but I forced myself to think about it a bit, then smiled to myself in the darkness. “She wouldn’t just begrudge me. She’d knock my head off my shoulders.”

“Ah.” Starling laughed softly into my chest. “I see.” Gently she drew her body away from mine. I longed to reach out and pull her back to me. “Perhaps we’d better just go to sleep, then. Sleep well, Fitz.”

So I did, but not right away and not without regrets.

The night brought us rising winds, and when the barn doors were unbolted in the morning, a fresh layer of snow greeted us. I worried that if it got much deeper, we’d have serious problems with the wagons. But Nik seemed confident and genial as he loaded us up. He bid a fond farewell to his lady and we set forth again. He led us away from the place by a different trail from the one we had followed to get there. This one was rougher, and in a few places the snow had drifted deep enough that the wagon bodies gouged a path through it. Starling rode beside us for part of the morning, until Nik sent a man back to ask her if she’d come ride with them. She thanked him cheerily for the invitation and promptly went to join them.

In the early afternoon, we came back to the road. It seemed to me that we had gained little by avoiding the road for so long, but doubtless Nik had had his reasons. Perhaps he simply did not want to create a beaten track to his hiding place. That evening our shelter was crude, some tumbledown huts by the riverbank. The thatched roofs were giving way, so there were fingers of snow on the floors in places and a great plume of snow that had blown in under the door. The horses had no shelter at all other than the lee of the cabins. We watered them at the river and they each got a portion of grain, but no hay awaited them here.

Nighteyes went with me to gather firewood, for while there was enough by the hearths to start a fire for a meal, there was not enough to last the night. As we walked down to the river to look for driftwood I mused on how things had changed between us. We spoke less than we once had, but I felt that I was more aware of him than I had ever been before. Perhaps there was less need to speak. But we had also both changed in our time apart. When I looked at him now, I sometimes saw the wolf first and then my companion.

I think you have finally begun to respect me as I deserve.
There was teasing but also truth in that statement. He appeared suddenly in a patch of brush on the riverbank to my left, loped easily across the snowswept trail, and somehow managed to vanish in little more than snow dunes and leafless, scrubby bushes.

You’re no longer a puppy, that’s true.

Neither of us are cubs anymore. We’ve both discovered that on this journey. You no longer think of yourself as a boy at all.

I trudged wordlessly through the snow and pondered that. I did not know quite when I had finally decided I was a man and not a boy any longer, but Nighteyes was right. Oddly, I felt a moment of loss for that vanished lad with the smooth face and easy courage.

I think I made a better boy than I do a man,
I admitted ruefully to the wolf.

Why not wait until you’ve been at it a bit longer and then decide?
he suggested.

The track we followed was barely a cart wide and visible only as a swatch where no brush poked up above the snow. The wind was busy sculpting the snow into dunes and banks. I walked into the wind, and my forehead and nose soon burned with its rough kiss. The terrain was little different from what we had passed for the last few days, but the experience of moving through it with only the wolf, silently, made it seem a different world. Then we came to the river.

I stood on top of the bank and looked across. Ice frosted the edges in places, and occasional knots of driftwood washing down the river sometimes carried a burden of dirty ice and clinging snow. The current was strong, as the swiftly bobbing driftwood showed. I tried to imagine it frozen over and could not. On the far side of that rushing flood were foothills dense with evergreens that gave onto a plain of oaks and willows that came right down to the water’s edge. I suppose the water had stopped the fire’s spread those years ago. I wondered if this side of the river had ever been as thickly treed as that.

Look,
Nighteyes growled wistfully. I could feel the heat of his hunger as we eyed a tall buck that had come down to the river to water. He lifted his antlered head, sensing us, but regarded us calmly, knowing he was safe. I found my mouth watering with Nighteyes’ thoughts of fresh meat.
Hunting will be much better on the other side.

I hope so.
He leaped from the bank to the snow-swathed gravel and rock of the river edge, and padded off upriver. I followed him less gracefully, finding dry sticks as I went. The walking was rougher down here, and the wind crueler, laden as it was with the river’s cold. But it was also more interesting walking, somehow laden with more possibility. I watched Nighteyes range ahead of me. He moved differently now. He had lost a lot of his puppyish curiosity. The deer skull that once would have required a careful sniffing now got no more than a swift flipping over to be sure it was truly bare bones before he moved on. He was purposeful as he checked tangles of driftwood to see if game might be sheltering underneath it. He watched the undercut banks of the river as well, sniffing for game sign. He sprang upon and devoured a small rodent of some kind that had ventured out of a den under the bank. He dug briefly at the den’s entrance, then thrust his muzzle in to snuff thoroughly. Satisfied there were no other inhabitants to dig out, he trotted on.

I found myself watching the river as I followed him. It became more daunting, not less, the more I saw of it. The depth of it and the strength of its current were attested to by the immense snaggle-rooted logs that swung and turned as the waters rushed them along. I wondered if the windstorm had been worse upriver to tear loose such giants, or if the river had slowly eaten away their foundations until the trees had tottered into the water.

Nighteyes continued to range ahead of me. Twice more I saw him leap and pin a rodent to the earth with his teeth and paws. I was not sure what they were; they did not look like rats exactly, and the sleekness of their coats seemed to indicate they’d be at home in the water.

Meat doesn’t really need a name,
Nighteyes observed wryly, and I was forced to agree with him. He flipped his prey gleefully into the air and caught it again as it somersaulted down. He worried the dead thing fiercely and then launched it once more, dancing after it on his hind legs. For a moment his simple pleasure was contagious. He had the satisfaction of a successful hunt, meat to fill his belly and time to eat it unmolested. This time it went winging over my head, and I leaped up to catch the limp body and then fling it up higher still. He sprang high after it, all four legs leaving the ground. He seized it cleanly, then crouched, showing it to me, daring me to chase him. I dropped my armload of wood and sprang after him. He evaded me easily, then looped back to me, daring me, rushing past me just out of arm’s reach as I flung myself at him.

“Hey!”

We both halted in our play. I got up slowly from the ground. It was one of Nik’s men, standing far up the riverbank and staring at us. He carried his bow. “Get some wood and come back now,” he ordered me. I glanced about, but could see no reason for the edgy tone to his voice. Nevertheless, I gathered my scattered armload of wood and headed back to the huts.

I found Kettle squinting at a scroll by the firelight, ignoring those who were trying to cook around her. “What are you reading?” I asked her.

“The writings of Cabal the White. A prophet and seer of Kimoalan times.”

I shrugged. The names meant nothing to me.

“Through his guidance, a treaty was wrought that put an end to a hundred years of war. It enabled three folk to become one people. Knowledge was shared. Many kinds of foods that once grew only in the southern valleys of Kimoala came into common usage. Ginger, for instance. And kim-oats.”

“One man did that?”

“One man. Or two, perhaps, if you count the general he persuaded to conquer without destroying. Here, he speaks of him. “A catalyst was DarAles for his time, a changer of hearts and lives. He came not to be hero, but to enable the hero in others. He came, not to fulfill prophecies, but to open the doors to new futures. Such is ever the task of the catalyst.’ Above, he has written that it is in every one of us to be a catalyst in our own time. What do you think of that, Tom?”

“I’d rather be a shepherd,” I answered her truthfully. “Catalyst” was not a word I cherished.

That night I slept with Nighteyes at my side. Kettle snored softly not far from me, while the pilgrims huddled together in one end of the hut. Starling had chosen to sleep in the other hut with Nik and some of his men. For a time, the sound of her harp and voice were occasionally borne to me on gusts of wind.

I closed my eyes and tried to dream of Molly. Instead I saw a burning village in Buck as the Red Ships pulled away from it. I joined a young lad as he put on sail in the dark, to ram his dory into the side of a Red Ship. He flung a burning lantern on board her and followed it with a bucket of cheap fish oil such as poor folk burned in their lamps. The sail blazed up as the boy sheered away from the burning ship. Behind him the curses and cries of the burning men rose with the flames. I rode with him that night, and felt his bitter triumph. He had nothing left, no family, no home, but he had spilled some of the blood that had spilled his. I understood the tears that wet his grinning face only too well.

17

River Crossing

T
HE OUTISLANDERS HAVE
always spoken mockingly of the Six Duchies folk, declaring us slaves of the earth, farmers fit only for grubbing in the dirt. Eda, the mother goddess who is thanked for plentiful crops and multiplying flocks, is disdained by the OutIslanders as a goddess for a settled folk who have lost all spirit. The OutIslanders themselves worship only El, the god of the sea. He is not a deity to offer thanks to, but a god to swear by. The only blessing he sends his worshipers are storms and hardships to make them strong.

In this they misjudged the people of the Six Duchies. They believed folk who planted crops and raised sheep would soon come to have no more spirit than sheep. They came amongst us slaughtering and destroying and mistook our concern for our folk for weakness. In that winter, the small folk of Buck and Bearns, Rippon and Shoaks, the fisherfolk and herders, goose-girls and pig-boys, took up the war that our wrangling nobles and scattered armies waged so poorly and made it their own. The small folk of a land can only be oppressed so long before they rise up in their own defense, be it against outlanders or an unjust lord of their own.

The others grumbled the next morning about the cold and the need for haste. They spoke longingly of hot porridge and hearth cakes. There was hot water, but little more than that to warm our bellies. I filled Kettle’s teapot for her and then went back to fill my cup with hot water. I squinted my eyes against the pain as I dug in my pack for my elfbark. My Skill-dream of the night before had left me feeling sick and shaky. The very thought of food made me ill. Kettle sipped her tea and watched as I used my knife to scrape shavings from a lump of bark into my mug. It was hard to make myself wait for the liquid to brew. The extreme bitterness of it flooded my mouth, but almost immediately I felt my headache ease. Kettle abruptly reached a clawlike hand to pluck the chunk of bark from my fingers. She looked at it, sniffed it, and “Elfbark!” she exclaimed. She gave me a look of horror. “That’s a vicious herb for a young man to be using.”

“It calms my headaches,” I told her. I took a breath to steel myself, then drank off the rest of the mug. The gritty remnants of bark stuck to my tongue. I forced myself to swallow them, then wiped out my mug and returned it to my pack. I held out my hand and she gave back the chunk of bark, but reluctantly. The look she was giving me was very strange.

“I’ve never seen anyone just drink it down like that. Do you know what that stuff is used for, in Chalced?”

“I’ve been told they feed it to galley slaves, to keep their strength up.”

“Strength up and hopes down. A man on elfbark is easily discouraged. Easier to control. It may dull the pain of a headache, but it dulls the mind as well. I’d be wary of it, were I you.”

I shrugged. “I’ve used it for years,” I told her as I put the herb back in my pack.

“All the more reason to stop now,” she replied tartly. She handed me her pack to put back in the wagon for her.

It was midafternoon when Nik ordered our wagons to a halt. He and two of his men rode ahead, while the others assured us all was fine. Nik went ahead to ready the crossing place before we arrived there. I did not even need to glance at Nighteyes. He slipped away to follow Nik and his men. I leaned back on the seat and hugged myself, trying to stay warm.

“Hey, you. Call your dog back!” one of Nik’s men commanded me suddenly.

I sat up and made a show of looking around for him. “He’s probably just scented a rabbit. He’ll be back. Follows me everywhere, he does.”

“Call him back now!” the man told me threateningly.

So I stood up on the wagon seat and called Nighteyes. He did not come. I shrugged an apology at the men and sat down again. One continued to glare at me, but I ignored him.

The day had been clear and cold, the wind cutting. Kettle had been miserably silent all day. Sleeping on the ground had awakened the old pain in my shoulder to a constant jab. I did not even want to imagine what she was feeling. I tried to think only that we would soon be across the river, and that after that the Mountains were not far. Perhaps in the Mountains I would finally feel safe from Regal’s coterie.

Some men pull ropes by the river.
I closed my eyes and tried to see what Nighteyes did. It was difficult, for he directed his eyes at the men themselves, while I wished to study the task they did. But just as I discerned they were using a guideline to restring a heavier rope across the river, two other men on the far side began energetically digging through a pile of driftwood in the curve of a bank. The concealed barge was soon revealed, and the men went to work chopping away the ice that had formed on it.

“Wake up!” Kettle told me irritably, and gave me a poke in the ribs. I sat up to see the other wagon already in motion. I stirred the mare’s reins and followed the others. We traveled a short way down the river road before turning off it onto an open section of bank. There were some burned-out huts by the river that had apparently perished in the fires years ago. There was also a crude ramp of logs and mortar, much decayed now. On the far side of the river, I could see the remains of the old barge, half sunken. Ice covered parts of it, but dead grass also stuck up from it. It had been many seasons since it had floated. The huts on the other side were in as poor repair as the ones over here, for their thatched roofs had collapsed completely. Behind them rose gentle hills covered in evergreens. Beyond them, towering in the distance, were the peaks of the Mountain Kingdom.

A team of men had attached the revealed barge and were working it across the river to us. The bow was pointed into the current. The barge was tightly bridled to the pulley line; even so, the angry river strove to tear it loose and wash it downstream. It was not a large vessel. A wagon and team was going to be a snug fit. There were railings down the side of the barge, but other than that it was simply a flat, open deck. On our side, the ponies that Nik and his men had been riding had been harnessed to pull on the barge’s towline while on the other side a team of patient mules backed slowly toward the water. As the barge came slowly toward us, her bow rose and fell as the river pushed against it. The current foamed and churned around its sides, while an occasional dip of the bow allowed a surge of water to fly up and over. It was not going to be a dry ride across.

The pilgrims muttered amongst themselves anxiously, but one man’s voice suddenly rose to quell them. “What other choice do we have?” he pointed out. Thereafter silence fell. They watched the barge come toward us with dread.

Nik’s wagon and team were the first load across. Perhaps Nik did it that way to give the pilgrims courage. I watched as the barge was brought up snug to the old ramp and secured stern-in. I sensed the displeasure of his team, but also that they were familiar with this. Nik himself led them onto the barge and held their heads while two of his men scrambled about and tied the wagon down to the cleats. Then Nik stepped off, and waved his hand in signal. The two men stood, one by each horse’s head, as the mule team on the other side took up the slack. The barge was cast off and moved out into the river. Laden, it sat more deeply in the water, but it did not bob as freely as it had. Twice the bow lifted high and then plunged back deeply enough to take a wash of water over it. All was silence on our side of the river as we watched the barge’s passage. On the other side, it was pulled in and secured bow-first, the wagon was unfastened, and the men drove it off and up the hill.

“There. You see. Nothing to worry about.” Nik spoke with an easy grin, but I doubted that he believed his own words.

A couple of men rode the barge back as it came across. They did not look happy about it. They clung to the railings and winced away from the flying spray off the river. Nevertheless they were both soaked by the time the barge reached our side and they stepped off. One man gestured Nik to one side and began to confer with him angrily, but he clapped him on the shoulders and laughed loudly as if it were all a fine joke. He held out his hand and they passed him a small pouch. He hefted it approvingly before hanging it from his belt. “I keep my word,” he reminded them, and then strode back to our group.

The pilgrims went across next. Some of them wished to cross in the wagon, but Nik patiently pointed out that the heavier the load, the lower the barge rode in the river. He herded them onto the barge and made sure that each person had a good place to grip along the rail. “You, too,” he called, motioning to Kettle and Starling.

“I’ll go across with my cart,” Kettle declared, but Nik shook his head.

“Your mare isn’t going to like this. If she goes crazy out there, you don’t want to be on the barge. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” He glanced at me. “Tom? You mind riding across with the horse? You seem to handle her well.”

I nodded, and Nik said, “There, now, Tom’ll see to your mare. You go on, now.”

Kettle scowled, but had to own the sense of that. I helped her down, and Starling took her arm and walked her to the barge. Nik stepped onto the barge and spoke briefly to the pilgrims, telling them to simply hold on and not fear. Three of his men boarded the barge with them. One insisted on holding the smallest pilgrim child himself. “I know what to expect,” he told the anxious mother. “I’ll see she gets across. You just have a care to yourself.” The little girl began to cry at that and her shrill wailing could be heard even over the rushing of the river water as the barge was pulled out onto the river. Nik stood beside me watching them go.

“They’ll be fine,” he said, as much to himself as to me. He turned to me with a grin. “Well, Tom, a few more trips and I’ll be wearing that pretty earring of yours.”

I nodded to that silently. I’d given my word on the bargain but I was not happy about it.

Despite Nik’s words, I heard him sigh with relief when the barge reached the other side. The drenched pilgrims scuttled off even as the men were securing it. I watched Starling help Kettle off, and then some of Nik’s men hurried them up the bank and into the shelter of the trees. Then the barge was coming back to us again, bearing two more men. The pilgrims’ empty wagon went next, along with a couple of ponies. The pilgrims’ horses were not at all pleased. It took blindfolds and three men tugging to get them onto the barge. Once there and tied down, the horses still shifted as much as they could, snorting and shaking their heads. I watched them cross. On the other side, the team needed no urging to get the wagon swiftly off the barge. A man took the reins and the wagon rattled up the hill and out of sight.

The two men who rode back that time had the worst crossing yet. They were halfway across the river when an immense snag came in sight, bearing directly down on the barge. The clawing roots looked like a monstrous hand as the log bobbed in the fierce current. Nik shouted at our ponies and all of us sprang to help them haul on the rope, but even so the log struck the barge a glancing blow. The men on board yelled as the impact shook them from their grips on the railing. One was nearly flung off, but managed to catch a second post and hung on for dear life. Those two came off glaring and cursing, as if they suspected the mishap had been deliberate. Nik had the barge secured and himself checked all the lines fastening her to the pulley rope. The impact had knocked one railing loose. He shook his head over that, and warned his men about it as they drove the last wagon aboard.

Its crossing was no worse than any of the others. I watched with some trepidation, knowing that my turn was next.
Fancy a bath, Nighteyes?

It will be worth it if there’s good hunting on the other side,
he replied, but I could sense he shared my nervousness.

I tried to calm myself and Kettle’s mare as I watched them fasten the barge to the landing. I spoke soothingly to her as I led her down, doing all I could to assure her that she would be fine. She seemed to accept it, stepping calmly onto the scarred timbers of the deck. I led her out slowly, explaining it all as I went. She stood quietly as I tied her to a ring set in the deck. Two of Nik’s men roped the cart down fast. Nighteyes leaped on, then sank down, belly low, his claws digging into the wood. He didn’t like the way the river tugged at the barge greedily. Truth to tell, neither did I. He ventured over to crouch beside me, feet splayed.

“You go on across with Tom and the cart,” Nik told the soaked men who had already made one trip. “Me and my boys will bring our ponies on the last trip. Stay clear of that mare, now, in case she decides to kick.”

They came aboard warily, eyeing Nighteyes almost as distrustfully as they watched the mare. They clustered at the back of the cart, and held on there. Nighteyes and I remained at the bow. I hoped we’d be out of reach of the mare’s hooves there. At the last moment, Nik declared, “I think I’ll ride this one over with you.” He cast the barge off himself with a grin and a wave at his men. The mule team on the other side of the river started up, and with a lurch we moved out into the river.

Watching something is never the same as doing it. I gasped as the first slashing spray of river water struck me. We were suddenly a toy in the clutches of an unpredictable child. The river rushed past us, tearing at the barge and roaring its frustration that it could not drag us free. The furious water near deafened me. The barge took a sudden plunge and I found myself gripping the railing as a surge of water flowed over the deck and clutched at my ankles in passing. The second time a plume of water smacked up from the bow and drenched us all, the mare screamed. I let go of my grip of the railing, intending to take hold of her headstall. Two of the men seemed to have the same idea. They were working their way forward, clinging to the cart. I waved them away and turned to the mare.

I will never know what the man intended. Perhaps to club me with the pommel of his knife. I caught the motion from the corner of my eye and turned to face him just as the barge gave another lurch. He missed me and staggered forward against the mare. The horse, already anxious, panicked into a frenzy of kicking. She threw her head wildly, slamming it against me so that I staggered away. I had almost caught my balance when the man made another flailing try at me. On the back of the cart, Nik was struggling with another man. He angrily shouted something about his word and his honor. I ducked my attacker’s blow just as a crash of water came over the bow. The force of it washed me toward the center of the barge. I caught hold of a cartwheel and clung there, gasping. I clawed my sword half-free just as someone else grabbed me from behind. My first attacker came at me, grinning, his knife blade-first this time. Suddenly a wet furry body streaked past me. Nighteyes hit him squarely in the chest, slamming him back against the railing.