Royal Assassin (UK) Read online

  I wit­nessed in si­lence. No verse would tell of a par­ent push­ing a poison pel­let into a child’s mouth to keep him from the Raid­ers. No one could sing of chil­dren cry­ing out with the cramps of the swift, harsh poison, or the wo­men who were raped as they lay dy­ing. No rhyme nor melody could bear the weight of telling of arch­ers whose truest ar­rows slew cap­tured kin­folk be­fore they could be dragged away. I peered into the in­terior of a burn­ing house. Through the flames, I watched a ten-year-old boy bare his throat for the slash of his mother’s knife. He held the body of his baby sis­ter, strangled already, for the Red Ships had come, and no lov­ing brother would give her to either the Raid­ers or the vo­ra­cious flames. I saw the mother’s eyes as she lif­ted her chil­dren’s bod­ies and car­ried them into the flames with her. Such things are bet­ter not re­membered. But I was not spared the know­ledge. It was my duty to know these things, and to re­call them.

  Not all died. Some fled into the sur­round­ing fields and forests. I saw one young man take four chil­dren un­der the docks with him, to cling in the chill wa­ter to the barnacled pil­ings un­til the raid­ers left. Oth­ers tried to flee and were slain as they ran. I saw a wo­man in a night­gown slip from a house. Flames were already run­ning up the side of the build­ing. She car­ried one child in her arms and an­other clung to her skirts and fol­lowed her. Even in the dark­ness, the light from the fired huts awoke burn­ished high­lights in her hair. She glanced about fear­fully, but the long knife she car­ried in her free hand was up and at the ready. I caught a glimpse of a small mouth set grimly, eyes nar­rowed fiercely. Then, for an in­stant, I saw that proud pro­file limned against fire­light. ‘Molly!’ I gasped. I reached a clawed hand to her. She lif­ted a door and shooed the chil­dren down into a root cel­lar be­hind the blaz­ing home. She lowered the door si­lently over them all. Safe?

  No. They came around the corner, two of them. One car­ried an axe. They were walk­ing slowly, swag­ger­ing and laugh­ing aloud. The soot that smeared their faces made their teeth and the whites of their eyes stand out. One was a wo­man. She was very beau­ti­ful, laugh­ing as she strode. Fear­less. Her hair was braided back with sil­ver wire. The flames winked red in it. The Raid­ers ad­vanced to the door of the root cel­lar, and the one swung his axe in a great arcing blow. The axe bit deep into the wood. I heard the ter­ri­fied cry of a child. ‘Molly!’ I shrieked. I scrabbled from my bed, but had no strength to stand. I crawled to­ward her.

  The door gave way, and the Raid­ers laughed. One died laugh­ing as Molly came leap­ing through the shattered rem­nants of the door to put her long knife into his throat. But the beau­ti­ful wo­man with the shin­ing sil­ver in her hair had a sword. And as Molly struggled to pull her knife clear of the dy­ing man, that sword was fall­ing, fall­ing, fall­ing.

  At that in­stant, some­thing gave way in the burn­ing house with a sharp crack. The struc­ture swayed and then fell in a shower of sparks and an up­burst of roar­ing flames. A cur­tain of fire soared up between me and the root cel­lar. I could see noth­ing through that in­ferno. Had it fallen across the door of the root cel­lar and the Raid­ers at­tack­ing it? I could not see. I lunged forth, reach­ing out for Molly.

  But in an in­stant, all was gone. There was no burn­ing house, no pil­laged town, no vi­ol­ated har­bour, no Red Ships. Only my­self, crouch­ing by the hearth. I had thrust my hand into the fire and my fin­gers clutched a coal. The Fool cried out and seized my wrist to pull my hand from the fire. I shook him off, then looked at my blistered fin­gers dully.

  ‘My king,’ the Fool said woe­fully. He knelt be­side me, care­fully moved the tur­een of soup by my knee. He moistened a nap­kin in the wine he had poured for my meal, and fol­ded it over my fin­gers. I let him. I could not feel the burned skin for the great wound in­side me. His wor­ried eyes stared into mine. I could scarcely see him. He seemed an in­sub­stan­tial thing, with the fal­ter­ing flames of the fire­place show­ing in his col­our­less eyes. A shadow like all the other shad­ows that came to tor­ment me.

  My burned fin­gers throbbed sud­denly. I clutched them in my other hand. What had I been do­ing, what had I been think­ing? The Skill had come on me like a fit, and then de­par­ted, leav­ing me as drained as an empty glass. Wear­i­ness flowed in to fill me, and pain rode it like a horse. I struggled to re­tain what I had seen. ‘What wo­man was that? Is she im­port­ant?’

  ‘Ah.’ The Fool seemed even wear­ier, but struggled to gather him­self. ‘A wo­man at Silt­bay?’ He paused as if rack­ing his brains. ‘No. I have noth­ing. It is all a muddle, my king. So hard to know.’

  ‘Molly has no chil­dren,’ I told him. ‘It could not have been her.’

  ‘Molly?’

  ‘Her name is Molly?’ I de­man­ded. My head throbbed. An­ger sud­denly pos­sessed me. ‘Why do you tor­ment me like this?’

  ‘My lord, I know of no Molly. Come. Come back to your bed, and I will bring you some food.’

  He helped me to my feet and I tol­er­ated his touch. I found my voice. I floated, the fo­cus of my eyes com­ing and go­ing. One mo­ment I could feel his hand on my arm, the next it seemed as if I dreamed the room and the men who spoke there. I man­aged to speak. ‘I have to know if that was Molly. I have to know if she is dy­ing. Fool, I have to know.’

  The Fool sighed heav­ily. ‘It is not a thing I can com­mand my king. You know that. Like your vis­ions, mine rule me, not the re­verse. I can­not pluck a thread from the tapestry, but must look where my eyes are poin­ted. The fu­ture, my king, is like a cur­rent in a chan­nel. I can­not tell you where one drop of wa­ter goes, but I can tell you where the flow is strongest.’

  ‘A wo­man at Silt­bay,’ I in­sisted. Part of me pit­ied my poor Fool, but an­other part in­sisted. ‘I would not have seen her so clearly if she were not im­port­ant. Try. Who was she?’

  ‘She is sig­ni­fic­ant?’

  ‘Yes. I am sure of it. Oh, yes.’

  The Fool sat cross-legged on the floor. He put his long fin­gers to his temples and pressed as if try­ing to open a door. ‘I know not. I don’t un­der­stand … All is a muddle, all is a cross­roads. The tracks are trampled, the scents gone awry …’ He looked up at me. Some­how I had stood, but he sat on the floor at my feet, look­ing up at me. His pale eyes goggled in his egg­shell face. He swayed from the strain, smiled fool­ishly. He con­sidered his rat sceptre, went nose to nose with it. ‘Did you know any such Molly, Ratsy? No? I didn’t think you would. Per­haps he should ask someone more in a po­s­i­tion to know. The worms, per­haps.’ A silly gig­gling seized him. Use­less creature. Silly rid­dling sooth­sayer. Well, he could not help what he was. I left him and walked slowly back to my bed. I sat on the edge of it.

  I found I was shak­ing as if with an ague. A seizure, I told my­self. I must calm my­self or risk a seizure. Did I want the Fool to see me twitch­ing and gasp­ing? I didn’t care. Noth­ing mattered, ex­cept find­ing out if that was my Molly, and if so, had she per­ished? I had to know. I had to know if she had died, and if she had died, how she had died. Never had the know­ing of some­thing been so es­sen­tial to me.

  The Fool crouched on the rug like a pale toad. He wet his lips and smiled at me. Pain some­times can wring such a smile from a man. ‘It’s a very glad song, the one they sing about Silt­bay,’ he ob­served. ‘A tri­umphant song. The vil­la­gers won, you see. Didn’t win life for them­selves, no, but clean death. Well, death any­way. Death, not For­ging. At least that’s some­thing. Some­thing to make a song about and hold onto these days. That’s how it is in Six Duch­ies now. We kill our own so the raid­ers can’t, and then we make vic­tory songs about it. Amaz­ing what folk will take com­fort in when there’s noth­ing else to hold onto.’

  My vis­ion softened. I knew sud­denly that I dreamed. ‘I’m not even here,’ I said faintly. ‘This is a dream. I dream that I am King Shrewd.’

  He held his pale
hand up to the fire­light, con­sidered the bones limned so plainly in the thin flesh. ‘If you say so, my liege, it must be so. I too, then, dream you are King Shrewd. If I pinch you, per­haps, shall I awaken my­self?’

  I looked down at my hands. They were old and scarred. I closed them, watched veins and ten­dons bulge be­neath the pa­pery sur­face, felt the sandy res­ist­ance of my own swollen knuckles. I’m an old man now, I thought to my­self. This is what it really feels like to be old. Not sick, where one might get bet­ter. Old. When each day can only be more dif­fi­cult, each month is an­other bur­den to the body. Everything was slip­ping side­ways. I had thought, briefly, that I was fif­teen. From some­where came the scent of scorch­ing flesh and burn­ing hair. No, rich beef stew. No, Jon­qui’s heal­ing in­cense. The ming­ling scents made me naus­eous. I had lost track of who I was, of what was im­port­ant. I scrabbled at the slip­pery lo­gic, try­ing to sur­mount it. It was hope­less. ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t un­der­stand any of this.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Fool. ‘As I told you. You can only un­der­stand a thing when you be­come it.’

  ‘Is this what it means to be King Shrewd then?’ I de­man­ded. It shook me to my core. I had never seen him like this, racked by the pains of age but still re­lent­lessly con­fron­ted by the pains of his sub­jects. ‘Is this what he must en­dure, day after day?’

  ‘I fear it is, my liege,’ the Fool replied gently. ‘Come. Let me help you back to your bed. Surely, to­mor­row you will feel bet­ter.’

  ‘No. We both know I will not.’ I did not speak those ter­rible words. They came from King Shrewd’s lips, and I heard them, and knew that this was the de­bil­it­at­ing truth King Shrewd bore every day. I was so ter­ribly tired. Every part of me ached. I had not known that flesh could be so heavy, that the mere bend­ing of a fin­ger could de­mand a pain­ful ef­fort. I wanted to rest. To sleep again. Was it I, or Shrewd? I should let the Fool put me to bed, let my king have his rest. But the Fool kept hold­ing that one key morsel of in­form­a­tion just above my snap­ping jaws. He juggled away the one mote of know­ledge I must pos­sess to be whole.

  ‘Did she die there?’ I de­man­ded.

  He looked at me sadly. He stooped ab­ruptly, picked up his rat sceptre again. A tiny pearl of a tear trickled down Ratsy’s cheek. He fo­cused on it and his eyes went afar again, wan­der­ing across a tun­dra of pain. He spoke in a whis­per. ‘A wo­man in Silt­bay. A drop of wa­ter in the cur­rent of all the wo­men of Silt­bay. What might have be­fallen her? Did she die? Yes. No. Badly burned, but alive. Her arm severed at the shoulder. Cornered and raped while they killed her chil­dren, but left alive. Sort of.’ The Fool’s eyes be­came even emp­tier. It was as if he read aloud from a roster. His voice had no in­flec­tion. ‘Roas­ted alive with the chil­dren when the burn­ing struc­ture fell on them. Took poison as soon as her hus­band awoke her. Choked to death on smoke. And died of an in­fec­tion in a sword wound only a few days later. Died of a sword thrust. Strangled on her own blood as she was raped. Cut her own throat after she had killed the chil­dren while Raid­ers were hack­ing her door down. Sur­vived, and gave birth to a Raider’s child the next sum­mer. Was found wan­der­ing days later, badly burned, but re­call­ing noth­ing. Had her face burned and her hands hacked off, but lived a short …’

  ‘Stop!’ I com­manded him. ‘Stop it! I beg you, stop.’

  He paused and drew a breath. His eyes came back to me, fo­cused on me. ‘Stop it?’ he sighed. He put his face into his hands, spoke through muffling fin­gers. ‘Stop it? So shrieked the wo­men of Silt­bay. But it is done already, my liege. We can­not stop what’s already hap­pen­ing. Once it’s come to pass, it’s too late.’ He lif­ted his face from his hands. He looked very weary.

  ‘Please,’ I begged him. ‘Can­not you tell me of the one wo­man I saw?’ I sud­denly could not re­call her name, only that she was very im­port­ant to me.

  He shook his head, and the small sil­ver bells on his cap jingled wear­ily. ‘The only way to find out would be to go there.’ He looked up at me. ‘If you com­mand it, I shall do so.’

  ‘Sum­mon Ver­ity,’ I told him in­stead. ‘I have in­struc­tions for him.’

  ‘Our sol­diers can­not ar­rive in time to stop this raid,’ he re­minded me. ‘Only to help to douse the fires and as­sist the folk there in pick­ing from the ru­ins what is left to them.’

  ‘Then so they shall do,’ I said heav­ily.

  ‘First, let me help you re­turn to your bed, my king. Be­fore you take a chill. And let me bring you food.’

  ‘No, Fool,’ I told him sadly. ‘Shall I eat and be warm, while the bod­ies of chil­dren are cool­ing in the mud? Fetch me in­stead my robe and buskins. And then be off to find Ver­ity.’

  The Fool stood his ground boldly. ‘Do you think the dis­com­fort you in­flict on your­self will give even one child an­other breath, my liege? What happened at Silt­bay is done. Why must you suf­fer?’

  ‘Why must I suf­fer?’ I found a smile for the Fool. ‘Surely that is the same ques­tion that every in­hab­it­ant of Silt­bay asked to­night of the fog. I suf­fer, my Fool, be­cause they did. Be­cause I am king. But more, be­cause I am a man, and I saw what happened there. Con­sider it, Fool. What if every man in the Six Duch­ies said to him­self, “Well, the worst that can be­fall them has already happened. Why should I give up my meal and warm bed to con­cern my­self with it?” Fool, by the blood that is in me, these are my folk. Do I suf­fer more to­night than any one of them did? What is the pain and trem­bling of one man com­pared to what happened at Silt­bay? Why should I shel­ter my­self, while my folk are slaughtered like cattle?’

  ‘But two words are all I need to say to Prince Ver­ity.’ The Fool vexed me with more words. ‘“Raid­ers” and “Silt­bay”, and he knows as much as any man needs to. Let me rest you in your bed, my lord, and then I shall race to him with those words.’

  ‘No.’ A fresh cloud of pain blos­somed in the back of my skull. It tried to push the sense from my thoughts, but I held firm. I forced my body to walk to the chair be­side the hearth. I man­aged to lower my­self into it. ‘I spent my youth de­fin­ing the bor­ders of the Six Duch­ies to any who chal­lenged them. Should my life be too valu­able to risk now, when there is so little left of it, and all of that riddled with pain? No, Fool. Fetch my son to me at once. He shall Skill for me, since my own strength for it is at an end this night. To­gether, we shall con­sider what we see, and make our de­cisions as to what must be done. Now go. GO!’

  The Fool’s feet pattered on the stone floor as he fled.

  I was left alone with my­self. Myselves. I put my hands to my temples. I felt a pain­ful smile crease my face as I found my­self. So, boy. There you are. My king slowly turned his at­ten­tion to me. He was weary, but he reached his Skill to­wards me to touch my mind as softly as blow­ing spider web. I reached clum­sily, at­tempt­ing to com­plete the Skill bond and it all went awry. Our con­tact tattered, frayed apart like rot­ten cloth. And then he was gone.

  I hunkered alone on the floor of my bed­cham­ber in the Moun­tain King­dom, un­com­fort­ably close to the hearth fire. I was fif­teen, and my nightclothes were soft and clean. The fire in the hearth had burned low. My blistered fin­gers throbbed an­grily. The be­gin­nings of a Skill head­ache pulsed in my temples.

  I moved slowly, cau­tiously, as I rose. Like an old man? No. Like a young man whose health was still mend­ing. I knew the dif­fer­ence now.

  My soft, clean bed beckoned, like a soft clean to­mor­row.

  I re­fused them both. I took the chair by the hearth and stared into the flames, pon­der­ing.

  When Burrich came at first light to bid me farewell, I was ready to ride with him.

  TWO

  The Home­com­ing

  Buck­keep Hold over­looks the finest deep wa­ter har­bour in the Six Duch­ies. To the north, the Buck River spi
lls into the sea, and with its wa­ters car­ries most of the goods ex­por­ted from the in­terior Duch­ies of Tilth and Far­row. Steep black cliffs provide the seat for the castle which over­looks the river mouth, the har­bour and the wa­ters bey­ond. The town of Buck­keep clings pre­cari­ously to those cliffs, well away from the great river’s flood plain, with a good por­tion of it built on docks and quays. The ori­ginal strong­hold was a log struc­ture built by the in­hab­it­ants of the area as a de­fence against Outis­lander raids. It was seized in an­cient time, by a Raider named Taker, who with the seiz­ing of the fort be­came a res­id­ent. He re­placed the tim­ber struc­ture with walls and towers of black stone quar­ried from the cliffs them­selves, and in the pro­cess sank the found­a­tions of Buck­keep deep into the stone. With each suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tion of the Farseer line, the walls are for­ti­fied and the towers built toller and stouter. Since Taker, the founder of the Farseer line, Buck­keep has never fallen to en­emy hands.

  Snow kissed my face, wind pushed the hair back from my fore­head. I stirred from a dark dream to a darker one, to a win­ter­scape in forest land. I was cold, save where the rising heat of my toil­ing horse warmed me. Be­neath me, Sooty was plod­ding stolidly along through wind-banked snow. I thought I had been rid­ing long. Hands, the stable-boy, was rid­ing be­fore me. He turned in his saddle and shouted some­thing back to me.