Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  ‘Have you ever con­sidered sail­ing, FitzChiv­alry?’

  To say I was taken aback would be an un­der­state­ment. ‘I … you have just re­minded me that my abil­ity with the Skill is er­ratic, sir. And re­minded me, yes­ter­day, that in a fight, I am more a brawler than a swords­man, des­pite Hod’s train­ing …’

  ‘And I now re­mind you that it is mid-winter. There are not many months un­til spring. I have told you it is a pos­sib­il­ity, no more than that. I will be able to give you only the barest help with what you need to mas­ter by then. I am afraid it is en­tirely up to you, FitzChiv­alry. Can you, by spring, learn to con­trol both your Skill and your blade?’

  ‘As you said to me, my prince, I can­not prom­ise, but it will be my in­ten­tion.’

  ‘Fine.’ Ver­ity looked at me stead­ily for a long mo­ment. ‘Will you be­gin today?’

  ‘Today? Today I have to hunt. I dare not neg­lect that duty, even for this.’

  ‘They need not ex­clude each other. Take me with you, today.’

  I stared at him blankly for a mo­ment, then nod­ded as­sent. I had thought he would arise, to go and put on winter clothes and fetch a sword. In­stead, he reached out to­ward me and took hold of my fore­arm.

  As his pres­ence flowed into me, it was in­stinct to struggle against him. This was not like other times when he had shuffled through my thoughts as a man sorts scattered pa­pers on a desk. This was a true oc­cu­pa­tion of my mind. I had not been so in­vaded since Ga­len had bru­tal­ized me. I tried to jerk free of his grip, but it was like iron on my wrist. Everything paused. You have to trust me. Do you? I stood sweat­ing and shud­der­ing like a horse with a snake in its stall.

  I don’t know.

  Think about it, he bade me. He with­drew a trifle.

  I could still sense him, wait­ing, but knew he was hold­ing him­self apart from my thoughts. My mind raced frantic­ally. There were too many things to juggle. This was a thing I must do if I wished to win my­self free from a life as an as­sas­sin. It was a chance to make all the secrets old secrets rather than an on­go­ing ex­clu­sion of Molly and her trust. I had to take it. But how could I do this, and keep secret from him Nighteyes and all that we shared. I ques­ted to­ward Nighteyes. Our bond is a secret. I must keep it so. Today, men, I must hunt alone. Do you un­der­stand?

  No. It is stu­pid and dan­ger­ous. I shall be there, but you may trust me to be un­seen and un­know­able.

  ‘What did you do, just then?’ It was Ver­ity, speak­ing aloud. His hand was on my wrist. I looked down into his eyes. There was no harsh­ness to his ques­tion. He asked it as I might ask it of a small child found carving on the wood­work. I stood frozen in­side my­self. I longed to un­bur­den my­self, to have one per­son in the world who knew all about me, everything that I was.

  You already do, Nighteyes ob­jec­ted.

  It was true. And I could not en­danger him. ‘You must trust me, also,’ I found my­self say­ing to my King-in-Wait­ing. And when he re­mained look­ing up at me con­sid­er­ingly, I asked, ‘My prince. Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  With one word, he gave me his trust, and with it his con­fid­ence that whatever I had been do­ing would not bring him harm. It sounds a simple thing, but for a King-in-Wait­ing to per­mit his own as­sas­sin to keep secrets from him was a stag­ger­ing act. Years ago, his father had bought my loy­alty, with a prom­ise of food and shel­ter and edu­ca­tion and a sil­ver pin thrust into my shirt­front. Ver­ity’s simple act of trust was sud­denly more to me than any of these things. The love I had al­ways felt for him sud­denly knew no bounds. How could I not trust him?

  He smiled sheep­ishly. ‘You can Skill, when you’ve heart to.’ With no more than that, he entered my mind again. As long as his hand was on my wrist, the join­ing of thoughts was ef­fort­less. I felt his curi­os­ity and tinge of woe at look­ing down at his own face through my eyes. A look­ing glass is kinder. I have aged.

  With him en­sconced in my mind, it would have been use­less to deny the truth of what he said. So, It was a ne­ces­sary sac­ri­fice, I agreed.

  He lif­ted his hand from my wrist. For a mo­ment I had dizzy­ing double vis­ion, look­ing at my­self, look­ing at him, and then it settled. He turned care­fully to set his own eyes once more on the ho­ri­zon, and then sealed that vis­ion from me. Without his touch, this clasp­ing of minds was a dif­fer­ent thing. I left the room slowly, and went down the stairs as if I were bal­an­cing a wine glass full to the brim. Ex­actly. And in both cases, it is easier to do if you do not look at it and think about it so heav­ily. Just carry.

  I went down to the kit­chens, where I ate a solid break­fast and tried to be­have nor­mally. Ver­ity was right. It was easier to main­tain our con­tact if I didn’t fo­cus on it. While every­one there was busied at other tasks, I man­aged to slip a plate­ful of bis­cuits into my carry sack. ‘Go­ing hunt­ing?’ Cook asked me as she turned about. I nod­ded.

  ‘Well, be care­ful. What are you go­ing after?’

  ‘Wild boar,’ I im­pro­vised. ‘Just to loc­ate one, not to at­tempt a kill today. I thought it might be a fine amuse­ment dur­ing Win­ter­fest.’

  ‘For who? Prince Ver­ity? You won’t budge him out of the keep, pet. Stays too much in his rooms these days, he does, and poor old King Shrewd hasn’t taken a real meal with us in weeks. I don’t know why I keep cook­ing his fa­vour­ites, when the tray comes back as full as I sent it. Now Prince Regal, he might go, long as it didn’t spoil his curls.’ There was a gen­eral cluck­ing of laughter among the kit­chen maids at that. My cheeks burned at Cook’s bold­ness. Steady. They don’t know I’m here, boy. And naught of what is said to you shall be held against them by me. Don’t be­tray us now. I sensed Ver­ity’s amuse­ment, and also his con­cern. So I per­mit­ted my­self a grin, thanked Cook for the pasty she in­sisted I take, and left the keep kit­chen.

  Sooty was rest­ive in her stall, more than eager for an out­ing. Burrich passed by as I was sad­dling her. His dark eyes took in my leath­ers and the tooled sheath and fine hilt of the sword. He cleared his throat, but then stood si­lent. I had never been able to de­cide ex­actly how much Burrich knew of my work. At one time, in the moun­tains, I had di­vulged my as­sas­sin’s train­ing to him. But that had been be­fore he took a blow on the head at­tempt­ing to pro­tect me. When he re­covered from it, he pro­fessed to have lost the memor­ies of the day that pre­ceded it. But some­times I wondered. Per­haps it was his sage way of keep­ing a secret a secret; that it could not be dis­cussed even by those who shared it. ‘Be care­ful,’ he said at last, gruffly. ‘Don’t you let that mare come to harm.’

  ‘We’ll be care­ful,’ I prom­ised him, and then led Sooty out past him.

  Des­pite my er­rands, it was still early morn­ing, with just enough winter light to make it safe to canter. I let Sooty out, al­low­ing her to choose her pace and ex­press her spir­its, and let­ting her warm her­self without al­low­ing her to break a sweat. There was broken cloud cover, and the sun was slip­ping through it to touch the trees and banked snow with glisten­ing fin­gers. I pulled Sooty in, pa­cing her. We would be tak­ing a round­about way to get to the creek bed; I did not want to leave the trod­den paths un­til we must.

  Ver­ity was with me every second. It was not that we con­versed, but he was privy to my in­ternal dia­logue. He en­joyed the fresh morn­ing air, Sooty’s re­spons­ive­ness, and the youth of my own body. But the farther I went from the keep, the more aware I be­came of hold­ing onto Ver­ity. From a touch he had ini­tially im­posed on me, the shar­ing had changed to a mu­tual ef­fort more like clasp­ing hands. I wondered if I would be able to main­tain it. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Even breath­ing be­comes a task if you pay at­ten­tion to every breath. I blinked my eyes, sud­denly aware that he was now in his study, car­ry­ing on his nor­mal morn­ing tasks. Like the hum­ming of far-away be
es, I was aware of Charim con­sult­ing with him about some­thing.

  I could de­tect no sign of Nighteyes. I was try­ing not to think about him, nor look for him, a strenu­ous men­tal denial that was fully as de­mand­ing as keep­ing Ver­ity’s con­scious­ness with me. So quickly had I be­come ac­cus­tomed to reach­ing out for my wolf and find­ing him await­ing my touch that I felt isol­ated, and as un­bal­anced as if my fa­vour­ite knife were miss­ing from my belt. The only im­age that could com­pletely dis­place him from my mind was Molly’s, and that too was one I did not wish to dwell on. Ver­ity had not re­buked me for my ac­tions of the night be­fore, but I knew he re­garded them as less than hon­our­able. I had an un­easy feel­ing that if I al­lowed my­self time to truly con­sider all that had happened, I would agree with him. Cow­ardly, I kept my mind reined away from that, too.

  I real­ized I was put­ting most of my men­tal ef­fort into not think­ing. I gave my head a shake and opened my­self up to the day. The road I was fol­low­ing was not well trav­elled. It wound through the rolling hills be­hind Buck­keep, and far more sheep and goats trod it than men. Sev­eral dec­ades ago, a light­ning fire had cleared it of trees. The first growth of trees on it was mostly birch and cot­ton­wood, now stand­ing bare but for snow-bur­den. This hilly coun­try was ill-suited to farm­ing, and served mostly as sum­mer pas­tur­age for graz­ing an­im­als, but from time to time I would catch a whiff of wood smoke and see a trod­den path lead­ing from the road to a wood­cut­ter’s cot­tage, or a trap­per’s hut. It was an area of small, isol­ated homesteads oc­cu­pied by folk of hum­bler per­sua­sions.

  The road be­came nar­rower, and the trees changed as I entered an older part of the forest. Here the dark ever­greens still stood thick and crowded close to the road’s edge. Their trunks were im­mense, and be­neath their spread­ing branches snow lay in un­even hum­mocks on the forest floor. There was little un­der­brush. Most of the year’s snow­fall was still up above rest­ing on those thickly-needled limbs. It was easy to turn Sooty aside from the trail here. We trav­elled un­der the snow-laden can­opy through a grey­ish day­light. The day seemed hushed in the dim­ness of the great trees.

  You are seek­ing a spe­cific place. You have def­in­ite in­form­a­tion as to where the Forged ones are?

  They were seen on a cer­tain creek bank, eat­ing from a winter-killed deer. Just yes­ter­day. I thought we could trail them from there.

  Who saw them?

  I hes­it­ated. A friend of mine. He is shy of most folk. But I have gained his con­fid­ence, and some­times, when he sees odd things, he comes to me and tells me.

  Um. I could sense Ver­ity’s re­ser­va­tions as he con­sidered my reti­cence. Well, I shall ask no more. Some secrets are ne­ces­sary, I sup­pose. I re­mem­ber a little half-wit girl who used to come and sit at my mother’s feet. My mother kept her clothed and fed and gave her trinkets and sweets. No one ever paid much at­ten­tion to her. But once I came upon them un­awares, and heard her telling my mother about a man in a tav­ern who had been selling pretty neck­laces and arm­bands. Later that week, the King’s guard ar­res­ted Rife the High­way­man in the very same tav­ern. Quiet folk of­ten know much.

  In­deed.

  We rode on in a com­pan­ion­able si­lence. Oc­ca­sion­ally I had to re­mind my­self that Ver­ity was not here in the flesh. But I be­gin to wish I were. It has been too long, boy, since I rode through these hills simply for the sake of rid­ing. My life has be­come too heavy with pur­pose. I can­not re­mem­ber the last time I did some­thing simply be­cause I wanted to do it.

  I was nod­ding to his thought when the scream shattered the forest quiet. It was the word­less cry of a young creature, cut off in mid shriek, and be­fore I could con­trol my­self, I ques­ted to­ward it. My Wit found word­less panic, death fear, and sud­den hor­ror from Nighteyes. I sealed off my mind to it, but turned Sooty’s head that way and urged her to­ward it. Cling­ing low to her neck, I nudged her along through the maze of banked snow and fallen limbs and clear ground that was the forest floor. I worked my way up a hill, never get­ting up to the speed I sud­denly so des­per­ately wanted. I cres­ted the hill, and looked down on a scene I shall never be able to for­get.

  There were three of them, raggedy and bearded and smelly. They snarled and muttered at each other as they fought. They gave off no life sense to my Wit, but I re­cog­nized them as the Forged ones that Nighteyes had shown me the night be­fore. She was small, three per­haps, and the woolly tu­nic she wore was bright yel­low, the lov­ing work of some mother’s hands. They fought over her as if she were a snared rab­bit, drag­ging on the limbs of her little body in an angry tug of war with no heed to the small life that still resided in her. I roared my fury at the sight and drew my sword just as a Forged one’s de­term­ined jerk on her neck snapped her free of her body. At my cry, one of the men lif­ted his head and turned to me, his beard bright with blood. He had not waited for her death to be­gin feed­ing.

  I kicked Sooty and rode down on them like ven­geance on horse­back. From the woods to my left, Nighteyes burst onto the scene. He was upon them be­fore I was, leap­ing to the shoulders of one and open­ing his jaws wide to set his teeth into the back of the man’s neck. One turned to me as I came down, and threw up a use­less hand to shield him­self from my sword. My blow was such that my fine new blade half severed his neck from his body be­fore wedging in his spine. I pulled my belt knife and launched my­self from Sooty’s back to grapple with the man who was try­ing to plunge his knife into Nighteyes. The third Forged one snatched up the girl’s body and raced off into the woods with it.

  The man fought like a maddened bear, snap­ping and stabbing at us even after I had opened up his belly. His en­trails hung over his belt and still he came stum­bling after us. I could not even take time for the hor­ror I felt. Know­ing he would die, I left him and we plunged off after the one who had fled. Nighteyes was a be­furred grey streak that un­du­lated up the hill­side and I cursed my slow two legs as I sped after him. The trail was plain, trampled snow and blood and the foul stench of the creature. My mind was not work­ing well. I swear that as I raced up that hill­side, I some­how thought I could be in time to undo her death and bring her back. To make it have never happened. It was an il­lo­gical drive that sped me on.

  He had doubled back. From be­hind a great stump he leapt at us, fling­ing the girl’s body at Nighteyes and then leap­ing bod­ily onto me. He was big and muscled like a smith. Un­like other Forged ones I had en­countered, this one’s size and strength had kept him fed and well-clothed. The bound­less an­ger of a hunted an­imal was his. He seized me, lift­ing me clear of my feet, and then fell upon me with one knotty fore­arm crush­ing my throat. He landed upon me, bar­rel chest on my back, pin­ning my chest and one arm to the earth be­low him. I reached back, to sink my knife twice into a meaty thigh. He roared with an­ger and in­creased the pres­sure. He pressed my face into the frozen earth. Black dots spot­ted my vis­ion, and Nighteyes was a sud­den ad­di­tion to the weight on my back. I thought my spine would snap. Nighteyes slashed at the man’s back with his fangs, but the Forged one only drew his chin into his chest and hunched his shoulders against the at­tack. He knew he was killing me with his strangle. Time enough to deal with the wolf when I was dead.

  The struggle opened up the wound on my neck and warm blood spilled out. The ad­ded pain was a tiny spur to my struggle. I shook my head wildly in his grip, and the slip­per­i­ness of my own blood was enough to let me turn my throat a tiny bit. I got in one des­per­ate wheeze of air be­fore the gi­ant shif­ted his grip on me. He began to bend my head back. If he could not throttle me, he would simply break my neck. He had the muscle for it.

  Nighteyes changed tac­tics. He could not open his jaws wide enough to get the man’s head into them, but his scrap­ing teeth found enough pur­chase to tear part of the man’s scalp from his skull. He set his tee
th in the flap of flesh and pulled. Blood rained down on me as the Forged one roared word­lessly and kneed me in the small of the back. He let go with one arm to flail at Nighteyes. I eeled around in his arms, to bring one knee up into his groin, and then to get a good knife thrust into his side. The pain must have been in­cred­ible, but he did not re­lease me. In­stead he cracked his head against mine in a flash of black­ness, and then wrapped his huge arms around me, pin­ning me to him as he began to crush my chest.

  That is as much of the struggle as I can re­mem­ber co­her­ently. I don’t know what came over me next; per­haps it was the death fury some le­gends speak of. Teeth, nails and knife I fought him, tak­ing flesh from his body wherever I could reach it. Still, I know it would not have been enough had not Nighteyes also been at­tack­ing with the same bound­less frenzy. Some time later, I crawled from un­der the man’s body. There was a foul cop­pery taste in my mouth and I spat out dirty hair and blood. I wiped my hands down my pants and then rubbed them in clean snow, but noth­ing could ever cleanse them.

  Are you all right? Nighteyes lay pant­ing in the snow a yard or two away. His jaws were like­wise blood­ied. As I watched, he snapped up a great mouth­ful of snow, then re­sumed his pant­ing. I rose and stumbled a step or two to­ward him. Then I saw the girl’s body and sank down be­side it in the snow. I think that was when I real­ized I was too late, and had been too late from the in­stant I had spot­ted them.