Assassin’s Quest

In a fraction of a second, I knew all this, and knew that Brawndy would not last much longer. Already the slickness of blood was battling with his failing grip on his axe, while every gasp of air he drew down his dry throat was a torment in itself. He was an old man, and his heart was broken and he knew that even if he survived this battle, Bearns had been lost to the Red Ships. My soul cried out at his misery, but still he took that one impossible step forward, and brought his axe down to end the life of the earnest young man who had fought him. In the moment that his axe sank into the Raider’s chest, the other man stepped forward, into the half-second gap and danced his blade in and out of Brawndy’s chest. The old man followed his dying opponent down to the bloodied stones of his keep.

Celerity, occupied with her own opponent, turned fractionally to her sister’s scream of anguish. The Raider she had been fighting seized his opportunity. His heavier weapon wrapped her lighter blade and tore it from her grip. She stepped back from his fiercely delighted grin, turned her head away from her death, in time to see her father’s killer grip Brawndy’s hair preparatory to taking his head as a trophy.

I could not stand it.

I lunged for the axe Brawndy had dropped, seized its blood-slick handle as if I were gripping the hand of an old friend. It felt oddly heavy, but I swung it up, blocked the sword of my assailant, and then, in a combination that would have made Burrich proud, doubled it back to take the path of the blade across his face. I gave a small shudder as I felt his facial bones cave away from that stroke. I had no time to consider it. I sprang forward and brought my axe down hard, severing the hand of the man who had sought to take my father’s head. The axe rang on the stone flags of the floor, sending a shock up my arms. Sudden blood splashed me as Faith’s sword ploughed up her opponent’s forearm. He was towering above me, and so I tucked my shoulder and rolled, coming to my feet as I brought the blade of my axe up across his belly. He dropped his blade and clutched at his spilling guts as he fell.

There was an insane moment of total stillness in the tiny bubble of battle we occupied. Faith stared down at me with an amazed expression that briefly changed to a look of triumph before being supplanted with one of purest anguish. ‘We can’t let them have their bodies!’ she declared abruptly. She lifted her head suddenly, her short hair flying like the mane of a battle stallion. ‘Bearns! To me!’ she cried, and there was no mistaking the note of command in her voice.

For one instant I looked up at Faith. My vision faded, doubled for an instant. A dizzy Celerity wished her sister, ‘Long life to the Duchess of Bearns’. I witnessed a look between them, a look that said neither of them expected to live out the day. Then a knot of Bearns warriors broke free of battle to join them. ‘My father and my sister. Bear their bodies away,’ Faith commanded two of the men. ‘You others, to me!’ Celerity rolled to her feet, looked at the heavy axe with puzzlement and stooped to regain the familiarity of her sword.

‘There, we are needed there,’ Faith declared, pointing, and Celerity followed her, to reinforce the battle line long enough to allow their folk to retreat.

I watched Celerity go, a woman I had not loved but would always admire. With all my heart I wished to go after her, but my grip on the scene was failing, all was becoming smoke and shadows. Someone seized me.

That was stupid.

The voice in my mind sounded so pleased. Will! I thought desperately as my heart surged in my chest.

No. But it could as easily have been so. You are getting sloppy about your walls, Fitz. You cannot afford to. No matter how they call to us, you must be cautious. Verity gave me a push that propelled me away, and I felt the flesh of my own body receive me again.

‘But you do it,’ I protested, but heard only the wan sound of my own voice in the inn room. I opened my eyes. All was darkness outside the single window in the room. I could not tell if moments had passed or hours. I only knew I was grateful that there was still some darkness left for sleeping, for the terrible weariness that pulled at me now would let me think of nothing else.

When I awoke the next morning, I was disoriented. It had been too long since I had awakened in a real bed, let alone awakened feeling clean. I forced my eyes to focus, then looked at the knots in the ceiling beam above me. After a time, I recalled the inn, and that I was not too far from Tradeford and Regal. At almost the same instant, I remembered that Duke Brawndy was dead. My heart plummeted inside me. I squeezed my eyes shut against the Skill-memory of that battle and felt the hammer and anvil of my headache begin. For one irrational instant I blamed it all on Regal. He had orchestrated this tragedy that took the heart out of me and left my body trembling with weakness. On the very morning when I had hoped to arise strong and refreshed and ready to kill, I could barely find the strength to roll over.

After a time, the inn-boy arrived with my clothes. I gave him another two coppers and he returned a short time later with a tray. The look and smell of the bowl of porridge revolted me. I suddenly understood the aversion to food that Verity had always manifested during the summers when his Skilling had kept the Raiders from our coast. The only item on the tray that interested me was the mug and the pot of hot water. I clambered out of bed and crouched to pull my pack from under my bed. Sparks danced and floated before my eyes. By the time I got the pack open and located the elfbark, I was breathing as hard as if I had run a race. It took all my concentration to focus my thoughts past the pain in my head. Emboldened by my headache’s throbbing, I increased the amount of elfbark I crumbled into the mug. I was nearly up to the dose that Chade had been using on Verity. Ever since the wolf had left me, I had suffered from these Skill-dreams. No matter how I set my walls, I could not keep them out. But last night’s had been the worst in a long time. I suspected it was because I had stepped into the dream, and through Celerity, acted. The dreams had been a terrible drain both on my strength and my supply of elfbark. I watched impatiently as the bark leached its darkness into the steaming water. As soon as I could no longer see the bottom of the mug, I lifted it and drank it off. The bitterness nearly gagged me, but it didn’t stop me from pouring more hot water over the bark in the bottom of the mug.

I drank this second, weaker dose more slowly, sitting on the edge of my bed and looking off into the distance outside the window. I had quite a view of the flat river country. There were cultivated fields, and milk cows in fenced pastures just outside Pome, and beyond I could glimpse the rising smoke of small farmsteads along the road. No more swamps to cross, no more open wild country between Regal and me. From hence forward, I would have to travel as a man.

My headache had subsided. I forced myself to eat the cold porridge, ignoring my stomach’s threats. I’d paid for it and I’d need its sustenance before this day was over. I dressed in the clean clothes the boy had returned to me. They were clean, but that was as much as I could say for them. The shirt was misshapen and discoloured various shades of brown. The leggings were worn to thinness in the knees and seat and too short. As I pushed my feet into my self-made shoes, I became newly aware of how pathetic they were. It had been so long since I had stopped to consider how I must appear to others that I was surprised to find myself dressed more poorly than any Buckkeep beggar I could recall. No wonder I had excited both pity and disgust last night. I’d have felt the same for any fellow dressed as I was.

The thought of going downstairs dressed as I was made me cringe. The alternative however was to don my warm, woolly winter clothes, and swelter and sweat all day. It was only common sense to descend as I was, and yet I now felt myself such a laughing stock, I wished I could slink out unseen.

As I briskly repacked my bundle, I felt a moment of alarm when I realized how much elfbark I had consumed in one draught. I felt alert; no more than that. A year ago, that much elfbark would have had me swinging from the rafters. I told myself firmly it was like my ragged clothes. I had no choice in the matter. The Skill-dreams would not leave me alone, and I had no time to lie about and let my body recover on its own, let alone the coin to pay for an inn room and food while I did so. Yet as I slung my bundle over my shoulder and went down the stairs, I reflected that it was a poor way to begin the day. Brawndy’s death and Bearns Duchy falling to the Raiders and my scarecrow clothing and elfbark crutch. It had all put me in a fine state of the doldrums.

What real chance did I have of getting past Regal’s walls and guards and making an end of him?

A bleak spirit, Burrich had once told me, was one of the after-effects of elfbark. So that was all I was feeling. That was all.

I bade the innkeeper farewell and he wished me good luck. Outside the sun was already high. It bid to be another fine day. I set myself a steady pace as I headed out of Pome and toward Tradeford.

As I reached the outskirts, I saw an unsettling sight. There were two gallows, and a body dangled from each. This was unnerving enough, but there were other structures as well: a whipping post, and two stocks. Their wood had not silvered out in the sun yet; these were recent structures and yet by the look of them they had already seen a bit of use. I strode swiftly past them but could not help recalling how close I had come to gracing such a structure. All that had saved me was my bastard royal blood and the ancient decree that such a one could not be hung. I recalled, too, Regal’s evident pleasure at watching me beaten.

With a second chill I wondered where Chade was. If Regal’s soldiery did manage to capture him, I had no doubt that Regal would put a quick end to him. I tried not to imagine how he would stand, tall and thin and grey under bright sunlight on a scaffold.

Or would his end be quick?

I shook my head to rattle loose such thoughts and continued past the poor scarecrow bodies that tattered in the sun like forgotten laundry. Some black humour in my soul pointed out that even they were dressed better than I was.

As I hiked along the road I often had to give way to carts and cattle. Trade prospered between the two towns. I left Pome behind me and walked for a time past well-tended farmhouses that fronted the road with their grainfields and orchards behind them. A bit further and I was passing country estates, comfortable stone houses with shade trees and plantings about their sturdy barns and with riding and hunting horses in the pastures. More than once I was sure I recognized Buckkeep stock there. These gave way for a time to great fields, mostly of flax or hemp. Eventually I began to see more modest holdings and then the outskirts of a town.

So I thought. Late afternoon found me in the heart of a city, streets paved with cobbles and folk coming and going on every sort of business imaginable. I found myself looking around in wonder. I had never seen the like of Tradeford. There was shop after shop, taverns and inns and stables for every weight of purse, and all sprawled out across this flat land as no Buck town ever could. I came to one area of gardens and fountains, temples and theatres and schooling places. There were gardens laid out with pebbled walkways and cobbled drives that wound between plantings and statuary and trees. The people strolling down the walks or driving their carriages were dressed in finery that would have been at home at any of Buckkeep’s most formal occasions. Some of them wore the Farrow livery of gold and brown, yet even the dress of these servants was more sumptuous than any clothing I had ever owned.

This was where Regal had spent the summers of his childhood. Always he had disdained Buckkeep Town as little better than a backward village. I tried to imagine a boy leaving all this in fall, to return to a draughty castle on a rainswept and storm-battered sea-cliff above a grubby little port town. No wonder he had removed himself and his court here as soon as he could. I suddenly felt an inkling of understanding for Regal. It made me angry. It is good to know well a man you are going to kill; it is not good to understand him. I recalled how he had killed his own father, my king, and steeled myself to my purpose.

As I wandered through these thriving quarters, I drew more than one pitying glance. Had I been determined to make my living as a beggar, I could have prospered. Instead, I sought humbler abodes and folk where I might hear some talk of Regal and how his keep at Tradeford was organized and manned. I made my way down to the waterfront, expecting to feel more at home.

There I found the real reason for Tradeford’s existence. True to its name, the river flattened out here into immense rippling shallows over gravel and bedrock. It sprawled so wide that the opposite shore was obscured in mist, and the river seemed to reach to the horizon. I saw whole herds of cattle and sheep being forded across the Vin River, while downstream a series of shallow-draught cable barges took advantage of the deeper water to transport an endless shuttling of goods across the river. This was where Tilth met Farrow in trade, where orchards and fields and cattle came together, and where goods shipped upriver from Buck or Bearns or the far lands beyond were unloaded at last and sent on their way to the nobles who could afford them. To Tradeford, in better days, had come the trade-goods of the Mountain Kingdom and the lands beyond: amber, rich furs, carved ivory and the rare incense barks of the Rain Wilds. Here too was flax brought to be manufactured into fine Farrow linen, and hemp worked into fibre for rope and sailcloth.

I was offered a few hours’ work unloading grain sacks from a small barge to a wagon. I took it, more for the conversation than the coppers. I learned little. No one spoke of Red Ships or the war being fought along the coast, other than to complain of the poor quality of goods that came from the coast and how much was charged for the little that was sent. Little was said of King Regal, and what few words I did hear took pride in his ability to attract women and to drink well. I was startled to hear him spoken of as a Mountwell king, the name of his mother’s royal line. Then I decided it suited me just as well that he did not name himself a Farseer. It was one less thing I had to share with him.

I heard much of the King’s Circle however, and what I heard soured my guts.

The concept of a duel to defend the truth of one’s words was an old one in the Six Duchies. At Buckkeep there were the great standing pillars of the Witness Stones. It is said that when two men meet there to resolve a question with their fists, El and Eda themselves witness it and see that justice does not go awry. The stones and the custom are very ancient. When we spoke of the King’s Justice at Buckkeep, often enough it referred to the quiet work that Chade and I did for King Shrewd. Some came to make public petition to King Shrewd himself and to abide by whatever he might see as right. But there were times when other injustices came to be known by the King, and then he might send forth Chade or me to work his will quietly upon the wrongdoer. In the name of the King’s Justice I had meted out fates both mercifully swift and punitively slow. I should have been hardened to death.

But Regal’s King’s Circle had more of entertainment than justice to it. The premise was simple. Those judged by the King as deserving of punishment or death were sent to his Circle. There they might face animals starved and taunted to madness, or a fighter, a King’s Champion. Some occasional criminal who put up a very good show might be granted royal clemency, or even become a Champion for the King. Forged ones had no such chance. Forged ones were put out for the beasts to maul, or starved and turned loose on other offenders. Such trials had become quite popular of late, so popular that the crowds were outgrowing the market circle at Tradeford where the ‘justice’ was currently administered. Now Regal was having a special circle built. It would be conveniently closer to his manorhouse, with holding cells and secure walls that would confine both beasts and prisoners more strongly, with seats for those who came to observe the spectacle of the King’s Justice being meted out. The construction of the King’s Circle was providing new commerce and jobs for the city of Tradeford. All welcomed it as a very good idea in the wake of the shutdown of trade with the Mountain Kingdom. I heard not one word spoken against it.

When the wagon was loaded, I took my pay and followed the other stevedores to a nearby tavern. Here, in addition to ale and beer, one could buy a handful of herbs and a smoke censer for the table. The atmosphere inside the tavern was heavy with the fumes, and my eyes soon felt gummy and my throat raw from it. No one else seemed to pay it any mind, or even to be greatly affected by it. The use of burning herbs as an intoxicant had never been common at Buckkeep and I had never developed a head for it. My coins bought me a serving of meal pudding with honey and a mug of very bitter beer that tasted to me of river water.

I asked several folk if it were true that they were hiring stable-hands for the King’s own stable, and if so, where a man might go to ask for the work. That one such as I might seek to work for the King himself afforded most of them some amusement, but as I had affected to be slightly simple the whole time I was working with them, I was able to accept their rough humour and suggestions with a bland smile. One rake at last told me that I should go ask the King himself, and gave me directions to Tradeford Hall. I thanked him and drank off the last of my beer and set out.

I suppose I had expected some stone edifice with walls and fortifications. This was what I watched for as I followed my directions inland and up away from the river. Instead, I eventually reached a low hill, if one could give that name to so modest an upswelling. The extra height was enough to afford a clear view of the river in both directions, and the fine stone structures upon it had taken every advantage of it. I stood on the busy road below, all but gawking up at it. It had none of Buckkeep’s forbidding martial aspects. Instead, the white-pebbled drive and gardens and trees surrounded a dwelling at once palatial and welcoming. Tradeford Hall and its surrounding buildings had never seen use as fortress or keep. It had been built as an elegant and pensive residence. Patterns had been worked into the stone walls and there were graceful arches to the entryways. Towers there were, but there were no arrow-slits in them. One knew they had been constructed to afford the dweller a wider view of his surroundings, more for pleasure than for any wariness.

There were walls, too, between the busy public road and the mansion, but they were low, fat stone walls, mossy or ivied, with nooks and crannies where statues were framed by flowering vines. One broad carriageway led straight up to the great house. Other narrower walks and drives invited one to investigate lily ponds and cleverly-pruned fruit trees or quiet, shady walks. For some visionary gardener had planted here oaks and willows, at least one hundred years ago, and now they towered and shaded and whispered in the wind off the river. All of this beauty was spread over more acreage than a good-sized farm. I tried to imagine a ruler who had both the time and resources to create all this.

Was this what one could have, if one did not need warships and standing armies? Had Patience ever known this sort of beauty in her parents’ home? Was this what the Fool echoed in the delicate vases of flowers and bowls of silver fish in his room? I felt grubby and uncouth, and it was not because of my clothes. This, indeed, I suddenly felt, was how a king should live. Amid art and music and graciousness, elevating the lives of his people by providing a place for such things to flourish. I glimpsed my own ignorance, and worse, the ugliness of a man trained only to kill others. I felt a sudden anger, too, at all I had never been taught, never even glimpsed. Had not Regal and his mother had a hand in that as well, in keeping the Bastard in his place? I had been honed as an ugly, functional tool, just as craggy, barren Buckkeep was a fort, not a palace.

But how much beauty would survive here, did not Buckkeep stand like a snarling dog at the mouth of the Buck River?

It was like a dash of cold water in my face. It was true. Was not that why Buckkeep had been built in the first place, to gain control of the river trade? If Buckkeep ever fell to the Raiders, these broad rivers would become highroads for their shallow-draught vessels. They would plunge like a dagger into this soft underbelly of the Six Duchies. These indolent nobles and cocky farm-lads would waken to screams and smoke in the night, with no castle to run to, no guards to stand and fight for them. Before they died, they might come to know what others had endured to keep them safe. Before they died, they might rail against a king who had fled those ramparts to come inland and hide himself in pleasures.

But I intended that king would die first.

I began a careful walk of the perimeter of Tradeford Keep. The easiest way in must be weighed against the least-noticed one, and the best ways out must be planned as well. Before nightfall, I would find out all I could about Tradeford Hall.

NINE Assassin

The last true Skillmaster to preside over royal pupils at Buckkeep was not Galen, as is often recorded, but his predecessor, Solicity. She had waited, perhaps overlong, to select an apprentice. When she chose Galen, she had already developed the cough that was to end her life. Some say she took him on in desperation, knowing she was dying. Others, that he was forced on her by Queen Desire’s wish to see her favourite advanced at court. Whatever the case, he had been her apprentice for scarcely two years before Solicity succumbed to her cough and died. As previous Skillmasters had served apprenticeships as long as seven years before achieving journey status, it was rather precipitate that he declared himself Skillmaster immediately following Solicity’s death. It scarcely seems possible that she could have imparted her full knowledge of the Skill and all its possibilities in such a brief time. No one challenged his claim, however. Although he had been assisting Solicity in the training of the two princes Verity and Chivalry, he pronounced their training complete following Solicity’s death. Thereafter, he resisted suggestions that he train any others until the years of the Red Ship wars, when he finally gave in to King Shrewd’s demand and produced his first and only coterie.

Unlike traditional coteries that selected their own membership and leader, Galen created his from hand-picked students and during his life retained a tremendous amount of control over them. August, the nominal head of the coterie, had his talent blasted from him in a Skill mishap while on a mission to the Mountain Kingdom. Serene, who next assumed leadership following Galen’s death, perished along with another member, Justin, during the riot that followed the discovery of King Shrewd’s murder. Will was next to assume the leadership of what has come to be known as Galen’s Coterie. At that time but three members remained: Will himself, Burl and Carrod. It seems likely that Galen had imprinted all three with an unswerving loyalty to Regal, but this did not prevent rivalry among them for Regal’s favour.

By the time dusk fell, I had explored the outer grounds of the royal estate rather thoroughly. I had discovered that anyone might stroll the lower walks freely, enjoying the fountains and gardens, the yew hedges and the chestnut trees, and there were a number of folk in fine clothes doing just that. Most looked at me with stern disapproval, a few with pity and the one liveried guard I encountered reminded me firmly that no begging was allowed within the King’s Gardens. I assured him that I had come only to see the wonders I had so often heard of in tales. In turn, he suggested that tales of the gardens were more than sufficient for my ilk, and pointed out to me the most direct path for leaving the gardens. I thanked him most humbly and walked off. He stood watching me leave until the path carried me around the end of a hedge and out of his sight.