Assassins Quest by Robin Hobb
Wolves are not meant to hunt alone. So Nighteyes had once told me, and before the day was out, I came to appreciate the wisdom of that statement. My meal that day consisted of rice-lily roots and some nuts a squirrel had hoarded in too obvious a hiding place. I would gladly have eaten the squirrel, who sat overhead scolding at me as I raided his cache, but I had not the means to make that wish a reality. Instead, as I pounded the nuts with a stone to open them, I reflected that one by one, my illusions about myself had been stripped away.
I had believed myself a self-sufficient and clever fellow. I had taken pride in my skills as an assassin, had even, deep down, believed that although I could not competently master my Skill ability, my strength at it was easily the equal of any in Galen’s Coterie. But take away both King Shrewd’s largesse and my wolf companion’s hunting ability, subtract from me Chade’s secret information and plotting skill and Verity’s Skill-guidance, and what I saw left was a starving man in stolen clothes, halfway between Buckkeep and the Mountains, with small prospect of getting any closer to either one.
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Satisfyingly bleak as such thoughts were, they did nothing to assuage the nagging of Verity’s Skill-suggestion. Come to me. Had he intended for those words to burn into my mind with such command? I doubted it. I think he had sought only to keep me from killing both Regal and myself. And yet now the compulsion was there, festering like an arrowhead. It even infected my sleep with anxiety, so that I dreamed often of going to Verity. It was not that I had given up my ambition of killing Regal; a dozen times a day, I constructed plots in my mind, ways in which I might return to Tradeford and come at him from an unexpected angle. But all such plots began with the reservation “after I have gone to Verity. ” It had simply become unthinkable to me that there was anything else that had a higher priority.
Several hungry days upriver of Tradeford is a town called Landing. While not nearly as large as Tradeford, it is a healthy settlement. Much good leather is made there, not just from cowhide, but from the tough pigskin of the haragar herds as well. The other main industry of the town seemed to be a fine pottery made from the banks of white clay that front the river. Much that one would expect to be made from wood or glass or metal elsewhere is made from leather or pottery in Landing. Not just shoes and gloves, but hats and other garments are of leather there, as are chair seats and even the roofs and walls of the stalls in the markets. In the shop windows I saw trenchers and candlesticks and even buckets made of finely glazed pottery, all inscribed or painted in a hundred styles and colors.
I also found, eventually, a small bazaar where one might sell whatever one had to sell and not be asked too many questions. I traded away my fine clothes for the loose trousers and tunic of a workingman, plus one pair of stockings. I should have got a better trade, but the man pointed out several brownish stains on the cuffs of the shirt that he believed would not come out. And the leggings were stretched from fitting me so poorly. He could launder them, but he was not sure he could get them back into their proper shape. . . . I gave it up and was content with the bargain I’d made. At least these clothes had not been worn by a murderer escaping from King Regal’s mansion.
In a shop farther down the street I parted with the ring, the medallion, and the chain for seven silver bits and seven coppers. It was not near the passage fare to join a caravan to the Mountains, but it was the best offer of the six I’d had. The chubby little woman who bought them from me reached out timidly to touch my sleeve as I turned away.
“I’d not ask this, sir, save I can see you’re in a desperate way,” she began hesitantly. “So I pray you, take no offense at my offer. ”
“Which is?” I asked. I suspected she would offer to buy the sword. I had already decided I would not part with it. I would not get enough money for it to make it worth my while to go unarmed.
She gestured shyly toward my ear. “Your freeman’s earring. I’ve a patron who collects such rarities. I believe that one is from the Butran Clan. Am I correct?” She asked it so hesitantly, as if expecting that at any moment I might fly into a rage.
“I do not know,” I told her honestly. “It was a gift from a friend. It’s not a thing I’d part with for silver. ”
She smiled knowingly, suddenly more confident. “Oh, I know we are speaking of golds for such a thing. I would not insult you with an offer of silvers. ”
“Golds?” I asked incredulously. I reached to touch the small bauble at my ear. “For this?”
“Of course,” she assented easily, thinking I was feeling for a bid. “I can see the workmanship is superior. Such is the reputation of the Butran Clan. There is also the rarity of it. The Butran Clan grants freedom to a slave but rarely. Even this far from Chalced, that is known. Once a man or woman wears the Butran tattoos, well . . . ”
It took very little to draw her into a learned conversation about Chalced’s slave trade and slave tattoos and freedom rings. It soon became apparent that she desired Burrich’s earring, not for any patron, but for herself. She’d had an ancestor who had won his way out of slavery. She still possessed the freedom ring he’d been granted by his owners as the visible sign that he was no longer a slave. The possession of such an earring, correctly matching the last clan symbol tattooed on a slave’s cheek, was the only way a former slave might move freely in Chalced, let alone leave that country. If a slave was troublesome, it was easily seen from the number of tattoos across the face, tracking the history of ownership. So that “mapface” was a byword for a slave that had been sold all over Chalced, a troublemaker fit for nothing but galley or mine work. She bade me take the earring off and truly look at it, at the fineness of the linked silver that made up the mesh that entrapped what was definitely a sapphire. “You see,” she explained, “a slave has not only to win himself free, but to then earn from his master the cost of such an earring. For without it, his freedom is little more than an extended leash. He can go nowhere without being stopped at the checkpoints, can accept no freeman’s work without the written consent of his former owner. The former master is no longer liable for his food or shelter, but the former slave has no such freedom from his old owner. ”
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She offered me three golds without hesitation. That was more than caravan fare; I could have bought a horse, a good horse, and not only joined a caravan but traveled in comfort on that. Instead I left her shop before she would try to dissuade me with a higher offer. With a copper I bought a loaf of coarse bread and sat down to eat it near the docks. I wondered a great many things. The earring had probably been Burrich’s grandmother’s. He had mentioned she had been a slave but had won free of that life. I wondered what the earring had come to mean to him, that he had given it to my father, and what it had meant to my father that he had kept it. Had Patience known any of this when she had passed it on to me?
I am human. I tempted myself with her offer of golds. I reflected that if Burrich knew of my situation, he would tell me to go ahead and sell it, that my life and safety were worth more to him than an earring of silver and sapphire. I could get a horse and go to the Mountains and find Verity and put an end to the constant nagging of his Skill-order that was like an itch I could not scratch.
I stared out over the river and finally confronted the enormous journey before me. From here I must journey through near-desert to get to Blue Lake. I had no idea how I would cross Blue Lake itself. On the other side, forest trails wound through the foothills up into the rugged lands of the Mountain Kingdom. To Jhaampe the capital city I must go, to somehow obtain a copy of the map Verity had used. It had been based on old writings in the Jhaampe library; perhaps the original was still there. Only it could lead me to Verity somewhere in the unknown territory beyond the Mountain Kingdom. I would need every coin, every resource I could command.
But despite all that, I decided to keep the earring. Not for what it meant to Burrich, but what it had come to mean to me. It wa
Afterward I walked about the city, listening to folk talk and trying to learn what I needed to know without asking questions. I loitered in the marketplace, wandering from stall to stall idly. I allotted myself the lavish sum of four coppers, and spent them on what seemed exotic luxuries: a small bag of tea herbs, dried fruit, a piece of looking glass, a small cooking pot, and a cup. I asked at several herb stalls for elfbark, but either they did not know it or they knew it by another name in Farrow. I told myself it was all right, for I did not expect to have any need for its restorative powers. I hoped I was right. Instead I dubiously purchased something called sunskirt seeds, which I was assured would revive a man to wakefulness no matter how weary he might be.
I found a rag woman who let me go through her cart for two more coppers. I found a smelly but serviceable cloak and some leggings that promised to be as itchy as they were warm. I traded her my remaining scraps of yellow silk for a head kerchief, and with many leering remarks she showed me how to tie it about my head. I did as I had done before, making the cloak into a bundle to carry my things, and then went down to the slaughter yards east of town.
I had never encountered such a stench as I found there. There was pen after pen after pen of animals, veritable mountains of manure, the smell of blood and offal from the slaughter sheds, and the harsh stinks of the tannery pits. As if the assault on my nose was not enough, the air was likewise filled with the bawling of cattle, the squealing of haragars, the buzzing of the blowflies, and the shouts of the folk moving the animals from pen to pen or dragging them off to slaughter. Steel myself as I would, I could not insulate myself from the blind misery and panic of the waiting animals. They had no clear knowledge of what awaited them, but the smell of the fresh blood and the cries of the other beasts awoke in some of them a terror equivalent to what I had felt as I sprawled on the dungeon floor. Yet here I must be, for this was where the caravans ended, and also where some began. Folk who had driven animals here to sell would most likely be returning. Most would be buying other trade goods to take back with them, so as not to waste a trip. I had hopes of finding some sort of work with one of them that would gain me the companionship of a caravan at least as far as Blue Lake.
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.
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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
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“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.