Assassin's Apprentice (The Illustrated Edition) Read online

  “The Pocked Man!” cried a man close to the end of the line, and he lifted a hand to point at us. His face was drawn with weariness and white with fear. His voice cracked on the words. “It’s the legends come to life,” he warned the others, who halted fearfully to stare back at us. “Heartless ghosts walk embodied through our village ruins, and the black-cloaked Pocked Man brings his disease upon us. We have lived too soft, and the old gods punish us. Our fat lives will be the death of us all.”

  “Oh, damn it all. I didn’t mean to be seen like this,” Chade breathed. I watched his pale hands gather his reins, turning his bay. “Follow me, boy.” He did not look toward the man who still pointed a quivering finger at us. He moved slowly, almost languorously, as he guided his horse off the road and up a tussocky hillside. It was the same unchallenging way of moving that Burrich had when confronting a wary horse or dog. His tired horse left the smooth trail reluctantly. Chade was headed up into a stand of birches on the hilltop. I stared at him uncomprehendingly. “Follow me, boy,” he directed me over his shoulder when I hesitated. “Do you want to be stoned in the road? It’s not a pleasant experience.”

  I moved carefully, swinging Sooty aside from the road as if I were totally unaware of the panicky folk ahead of us. They hovered there, between anger and fear. The feel of it was a black-red smear on the day’s freshness. I saw a woman stoop, saw a man turn aside from his barrow.

  “They’re coming!” I warned Chade, even as they raced toward us. Some gripped stones and others green staffs freshly taken from the forest. All had the bedraggled look of townsfolk forced to living in the open. Here were the rest of Forge’s villagers, those not taken hostage by the Raiders. All of that I realized in the instant between digging in my heels and Sooty’s weary plunge forward. Our horses were spent; their efforts at speed were grudging, despite the hail of rocks that thudded to the earth in our wake. Had the townsfolk been rested, or less fearful, they would have easily caught us. But I think they were relieved to see us flee. Their minds were more fixed on what walked the streets of their village than in fleeing strangers, no matter how ominous.

  They stood in the road and shouted and waved their sticks until we were among the trees. Chade had taken the lead and I didn’t question him as he took us on a parallel path that would keep us out of the sight of the folk leaving Forge. The horses had settled back into a grudging plod. I was grateful for the rolling hills and scattered trees that hid us from any pursuit. When I saw a stream glinting, I gestured to it without a word. Silently we watered the horses and shook out for them some grain from Chade’s supplies. I loosened harness and wiped their draggled coats with handfuls of grass. For ourselves, there was cold stream water and coarse travel bread. I saw to the horses as best as I could. Chade seemed full of his own thoughts, and for a long time I respected their intensity. But finally I could contain my curiosity no longer and I asked the question.

  “Are you really the Pocked Man?”

  Chade started, and then stared at me. There were equal parts amazement and ruefulness in that look. “The Pocked Man? The legendary harbinger of disease and disaster? Oh, come, boy, you’re not simple. That legend is hundreds of years old. Surely you can’t believe I’m that ancient.”

  I shrugged. I wanted to say, “You are scarred, and you bring death,” but I did not utter it. Chade did seem very old to me sometimes, and other times so full of energy that he seemed but a very young man in an old man’s body.

  “No, I am not the Pocked Man,” he went on, more to himself than to me. “But after today, the rumors of him will be spread across the Six Duchies like pollen on the wind. There will be talk of disease and pestilence and divine punishments for imagined wrongdoing. I wish I had not been seen like this. The folk of the kingdom already have enough to fear. But there are sharper worries for us than superstitions. However you knew it, you were right. I have been thinking, most carefully, of everything I saw in Forge. And recalling the words of those villagers who tried to stone us. And the look of them all. I knew the Forge folk, in times past. They were doughty folk, not the type to flee in superstitious panic. But those folk we saw on the road, that was what they were doing. Leaving Forge, forever, or at least so they intend. Taking all that is left that they can carry. Leaving homes their grandfathers were born in. And leaving behind relatives who sift and scavenge in the ruins like witlings.

  “The Red-Ship threat was not an empty one. I think of those folk and I shiver. Something is sorely wrong, boy, and I fear what will come next. For if the Red-Ships can capture our folk, and then demand that we pay them to kill them, on fear that they will otherwise return them to us like those ones were—what a bitter choice! And once more they have struck when we were least prepared to deal with it.” He turned to me as if to say more, then suddenly staggered. He sat down abruptly, his face graying. He bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.

  “Chade!” I cried out in panic, and sprang to his side, but he turned aside from me.

  “Carris seed,” he said through muffling hands. “The worst part is that it abandons you so suddenly. Burrich was right to warn you about it, boy. But sometimes there are no choices but poor ones. Sometimes, in bad times like these.”

  He lifted his head. His eyes were dull, his mouth almost slack. “I need to rest now,” he said as piteously as a sick child. I caught him as he toppled and eased him to the ground. I pillowed his head on my saddlebags and covered him with our cloaks. He lay still, his pulse slow and his breathing heavy, from that time until afternoon of the next day. I slept that night against his back, hoping to keep him warm, and the next day used what was left of our supplies to feed him.

  By that evening he was recovered enough to travel, and we began a dreary journey. We went slowly, going by night. Chade chose our paths, but I led, and often he was little more than a load upon his horse. It took us two days to cover the distance we had traversed in that one wild night. Food was sparse, and talk was even scarcer. Just thinking seemed to weary Chade, and whatever he thought about, he found too bleak for words.

  He pointed out where I should kindle the signal fire that brought the boat back to us. They sent a dory ashore for him, and he got into it without a word. That showed how spent he was. He simply assumed I would be able to get our weary horses aboard the ship. So my pride forced me to manage that task, and once aboard, I slept as I had not for days. Then again we off-loaded and made a weary trek back to Neatbay. We came in during the small hours of the morning and Lady Thyme once more took up residence in the inn.

  By afternoon of the next day I was able to tell the innkeeper that she was doing much better and would enjoy a tray from her kitchens if she would send one ’round to the rooms. Chade did seem better, though he sweated profusely at times, and at such times smelled rancidly sweet of carris seed. He ate ravenously and drank great quantities of water. But in two days he had me tell the innkeeper that Lady Thyme would be leaving on the morrow.

  I recovered more readily and had several afternoons of wandering Neatbay, gawking at the shops and vendors and keeping my ears wide for the gossip that Chade so treasured. In this way we learned much of what we had expected to. Verity’s diplomacy had gone well, and Lady Grace was now the darling of the town. Already I could see an increase in the work on the roads and fortifications. Watch Island’s tower was manned with Kelvar’s best men, and folk referred to it as Grace Tower now. But they gossiped, too, of how the Red-Ships had crept past Verity’s own towers, and of the strange events at Forge. I heard more than once about sightings of the Pocked Man. And the tales they told about the inn fire of those who lived in Forge now gave me nightmares.

  Those who had fled Forge told soul-cleaving tales of kinfolk gone cold and heartless. They lived there now, just as if they were still human, but those who had known them best were the least capable of being deceived. Those folk did by day what had never been known to happen anytime in Buckkeep. The ev
ils folk whispered were past my imaginings. Ships no longer stopped at Forge. Iron ore would have to be found elsewhere. It was said that no one even wanted to take in the folk that had fled, for who knew what taint they carried; after all, the Pocked Man had shown himself to them. Yet somehow it was harder still to hear ordinary folk say that soon it would be over, that the creatures of Forge would kill one another and thank all that was divine for that. The good folk of Neatbay wished death on those who had once been the good folk of Forge, and wished it as if it were the only good thing left that might befall them. As well it was.

  On the night before Lady Thyme and I were to rejoin Verity’s retinue to return to Buckkeep, I awoke to find a single candle burning and Chade sitting up, staring at the wall. Without my saying a word, he turned to me. “You must be taught the Skill, boy,” he said as if it were a decision painfully come by. “Evil times have come to us, and they will be with us for a long time. It is a time when good men must create whatever weapons they can. I will go to Shrewd yet again, and this time I will demand it. Hard times are here, boy. And I wonder if they will ever pass.”

  In the years to come, I was to wonder that often.

  Chapter

  11

  Forgings

  The pocked man is a well-known figure in the folklore and drama of the Six Duchies. It is a poor troop of puppeteers who does not possess a marionette of the Pocked Man, not only for his traditional roles, but also for his usefulness as an omen of disaster to come in original productions. Sometimes the Pocked Man puppet is merely displayed against the backdrop, to cast an ominous note to a scene. Among the Six Duchies, he is a universal symbol.

  It is said the root of his legend reaches back to the first peopling of the Duchies, not the conquering by the Farseer Outislanders, but the most ancient settling of the place by earlier immigrants. Even the Outislanders have a version of the most basic legend. It is a warning story, of the wrath of El the Sea God at being forsaken.

  When the sea was young, El, the first Elder, believed in the people of the islands. To that folk he gave his sea, and with it all that swam within it, and all lands it touched for their own. For many years the folk were grateful. They fished the sea, lived on its shores wherever they would, and raided any others who dared to take up abode where El had given them reign. Others who dared to sail their sea were the rightful prey of the folk as well. The folk prospered and grew tough and strong, for El’s sea winnowed them. Their lives were harsh and dangerous, but it made their boys grow to strong men and their maids fearless women at hearth or on deck. The folk respected El and to that Elder they offered their praises and only by him did they curse. And El took pride in his folk.

  But in El’s generosity, he blessed his folk too well. Not enough of them died in the harsh winters, and the storms he sent were too mild to conquer their seamanship. So the folk grew in number. So grew also their herds and flocks. In fat years, weak children did not die, but grew, and stayed at home, and put land to the plow to feed the swollen flocks and herds and other weaklings like themselves. The soil grubbers did not praise El for his strong winds and raiding currents. Instead, they praised and cursed only by Eda, who is the Elder of those who plow and plant and tend the beasts. So Eda blessed her weaklings with the increase of their plants and beasts. This did not please El, but he ignored them, for he still had the hardy folk of the ships and the waves. They blessed by him and they cursed by him, and to encourage their strength he sent them storms and cold winters.

  But as time went on those loyal to El dwindled. The soft folk of the soil seduced the sailors and bore them children fit only for tending to the dirt. And the folk left the winter shores and ice-strewn pastures and moved south, to the soft lands of grapes and grain. Fewer and fewer folk came each year to plow the waves and reap the fish that El had decreed to them. Less and less often did El hear his name in a blessing or a curse. Until at last there was a day when there was only one left who only blessed or cursed in El’s name. And he was a skinny old man, too old for the sea, swollen and aching in his joints with few teeth left in his head. His blessings and curses were weak things and insulted more than pleased El, who had little use for rickety old men.

  At last there came a storm that should have ended the old man and his small boat. But when the cold waves closed over him, he clung to the wreckage of his craft and dared to cry El for mercy, though all know mercy is not in him. So enraged was El by this blasphemy that he would not receive the old man into his sea, but instead cast him up upon the shore and cursed him that he could never more sail, but neither could he die. And when he crawled from the salt waves, his face and body were pocked as if barnacles had clung to him, and he staggered to his feet and went forth into the soft lands. And everywhere he went, he saw only soft soil grubbers. And he warned them of their folly, and that El would raise up a new and hardier folk and give their heritage to them. But the folk would not listen, so soft and set had they become. Yet everywhere the old man went, disease followed in his wake. And it was all the pox diseases he spread, the ones that care not if a man is strong or weak, hard or soft, but take any and all that they touch. And this was fitting, for all know that the poxes come up from bad dust and are spread by the turning of the soil.

  Thus is the tale told. And so the Pocked Man has become the harbinger of death and disease, and a rebuke for those who live soft and easily because their lands bear well.

  * * *

  Verity’s return to Buckkeep was gravely marred by the events at Forge. Verity, pragmatic to a fault, had himself left Bayguard as soon as Dukes Kelvar and Shemshy had shown themselves in accord regarding Watch Island. Verity and his picked troops had actually left Bayguard before Chade and I returned to the inn. So the trek back had a hollow feel to it. During the days, and around the fires at night, folk spoke of Forge, and even within our caravan, the stories multiplied and embroidered themselves.

  My journey home was spoiled by Chade’s resumption of his noisome charade as the vile old lady. I had to fetch and wait upon her, right up to the time that her Buckkeep servants appeared to escort her back up to her chambers. “She” lived in the women’s wing, and though I devoted myself in the days to come to hear any and all gossip about her, I heard nothing except that she was reclusive and difficult. How Chade had created her and maintained her fictitious existence, I never completely discovered.

  Buckkeep, in our absence, seemed to have undergone a tempest of new events, so that I felt as if we had been gone ten years rather than a matter of weeks. Not even Forge could completely eclipse Lady Grace’s performance. The story was told and retold, with minstrels vying to see whose recounting would become the standard. I heard that Duke Kelvar actually went down on one knee and kissed the tips of her fingers after she had spoken, very eloquently, about making the towers the grand jewels of their land. One source even told me that Lord Shemshy had personally thanked the lady and sought to dance often with her that evening, and thus nearly precipitated an entirely different disagreement between the neighboring dukedoms.

  I was glad of her success. I even heard it whispered, more than once, that Prince Verity should find himself a lady of like sentiments. As often as he was away, settling internal matters and chasing raiders, the people were beginning to feel the need of a strong ruler at home. The old King, Shrewd, was still nominally our sovereign. But, as Burrich observed, the people tended to look ahead. “And,” he added, “folk like to know the King-in-Waiting has a warm bed to come home to. It gives them something to make their fancies about. Few enough of them can afford any romance in their lives, so they imagine all they can for their king. Or prince.”

  But Verity himself, I knew, had no time to think about well-warmed beds, or any sort of bed at all. Forge had been both an example and a threat. Word of others followed, three in swift succession. Croft, up in the Near Islands, had apparently been “Raider-Forged” as it came to be known, some weeks earlier. Word was slow
to come from icy shores, but when it came, it was grim. Croft folk, too, had been taken hostage. The council of the town had, like Shrewd, been mystified by the Red-Ships’ ultimatum that they pay tribute or their hostages would be returned. They had not paid. And like Forge, their hostages had been returned, mostly sound of body, but bereft of any of the kinder emotions of humanity. The whispered word was that Croft had been more direct in their solution. The harsh climates of the Near Islands bred a harsh people. Yet even they had deemed it kindness when they took the sword to their now heartless kin.

  Two other villages were raided after Forge. At Rockgate the folk had paid the ransom. Parts of bodies had washed up the next day, and the village had gathered to bury them. The news came to Buckkeep with no apologies; only with the unvoiced assumption that had the King been more vigilant, they would have had warning of the raid at least.

  Sheepmire met the challenge squarely. They refused to pay the tribute, but with the rumors of Forge running hot through the land, they prepared themselves. They had met their returned hostages with halters and shackles. They took their own folk back, clubbing them senseless in some cases, before tying them and taking them back into their rightful homes. The village was united in attempting to bring them back to their former selves. The tales from Sheepmire were the most told ones; of a mother who snapped at a child brought to her for nursing, declaring as she cursed at it that she had no use for the whimpering, wet creature. Of the little child who cried and screamed at his bonds, only to fly at his own father with a toasting fork as soon as the heartbroken sire released him. Some cursed and fought and spat at their kin. Others settled into a life of bondage and idleness, eating the food and drinking the ale set before them, but offering no words of thanks or affection. Freed of restraints, those ones did not attack their own families, but neither did they work, nor even join with them in their evening pastimes. They stole without remorse, even from their own children, and squandered coin and gobbled food like gluttons. No joy they gave to anyone, not even a kind word. But the word from Sheepmire was that the folk there intended to persevere until the “Red-Ship sickness” passed. That gave the nobles at Buckkeep a bit of hope to cling to. They spoke of the courage of the villagers with admiration and vowed that they, too, would do the same, if kin of theirs were Raider-Forged.