Assassin's Quest (78 page)

“That’s better,” Kettle told me in quiet approval.

“What are you doing back here?” I asked suddenly. “I thought you and Starling were leading the jeppas.”

“We’ve come to a fork in the road. And another pillar. Before we proceed, we want the Queen to see it.”

The Fool and I hastened ahead, leaving Kettle to go back and tell Kettricken of the juncture. We found Starling sitting on some ornamental stonework at the side of the road while the jeppas browsed greedily. The juncture of the road was marked by a great paved circle, surrounded by open grassy meadow, with another monolith at its center. I would have expected it to be crowned with moss and scarred by lichen. Instead the black stone was smooth and clean save for dust deposited by wind and rain. I stood staring up at the stone, studying the glyphs while the Fool wandered about. I was wondering if any of the markings on this one matched the markings I had copied to the map when the Fool exclaimed, “There was a village here, once!” He gestured wide with his hands.

I glanced up, and saw what he meant. There were indentations in the meadows where stunted grass cloaked old, paved walkways. A wide, straight way that might have been a street once ran through the meadow and off beneath the trees. Moss- and vine-shrouded upthrusts were all that remained of cottage and shop walls that had lined it. Trees grew where once hearths had burned and folk had dined. The Fool found a large block of stone and climbed upon it to spy in all directions. “It might have been a sizable town, at one time.”

It made sense. If this road had been the highway for commerce that I had seen in my Skill-seeing, then it was only natural that a town or market would spring up at every crossroads. I could imagine it on a bright spring day, when farmers brought fresh eggs and new spring greens to town and weavers hung out their new goods to tempt the buyers and . . .

For half an instant, the circle about the pillar thronged with folk. The vision began and ended at the pavement stones. Only within the virtue of the black stone did the people laugh and gesture and barter with one another. A girl crowned with a twist of green vine came through the crowd, glancing back over her shoulder at someone. I swear she caught my eye and winked at me. I thought I heard my name called and turned my head. Upon a dais stood a figure dressed in a flowing garment that shimmered with the glint of gold thread. She wore a gilded wooden crown decorated with cunningly carved and painted rooster heads and tail feathers. Her scepter was no more than a feather duster but she gestured with it royally as she issued some decree. In the circle about me, folk roared with laughter. I could only stare at her ice white skin and colorless eyes. She looked right at me.

Starling slapped me, hard. My head snapped on my neck with the force of her blow. I looked at her in astonishment, blood pooling in my mouth where my teeth had cut my cheek. She lifted her clenched fist again, and I realized she had not slapped me. I stepped back hastily, catching her wrist as her fist went by. “Stop it!” I cried angrily.

“You . . . stop it!” she panted. “And make her stop it, too!” She gestured angrily to where the Fool perched still upon his stone, frozen in artful mime of a statue. He did not breathe nor blink. But as I watched he slowly toppled over, falling like a stone.

I expected him to change it to a handspring in midfall, to come flashing to his feet as he so often had when he amused King Shrewd’s court. Instead he measured his length in the meadow grass and lay still.

For a moment I stood stunned. Then I raced to his side. I seized the Fool under the arms and dragged him away from both the black circle and the black stone he had climbed upon. Some instinct made me take him into shade and lean him back against the trunk of a live oak. “Get water!” I snapped at Starling, and her scolding and fluttering ceased. She ran back to the loaded jeppas and got a waterskin.

I put my fingers alongside his throat and found his life pulsing steadily there. His eyes were only half-closed and he lay like a man stunned. I called his name and patted at his cheek until Starling returned with the water. I unstoppered the skin and let a cold stream of it spatter down over his face. For a time there was no response. Then he gasped, snorted out water, and sat up abruptly. His eyes were blank. Then his gaze met mine and he grinned wildly. “Such a folk and such a day! It was the announcing of Realder’s dragon, and he had promised he would fly me . . .” He frowned suddenly and looked about in confusion. “It fades, like a dream it fades, leaving less than its shadow behind . . .”

Kettle and Kettricken were suddenly with us as well. Starling tattled out all that had happened while I helped the Fool to drink some water. When she was finished, Kettricken looked grave, but it was Kettle who lashed out at us. “The White Prophet and the Catalyst!” she cried in disgust. “Rather name them as they are, the Fool and the Idiot. Of all the careless, foolish things to do! He has no training at all, how is he to protect himself from the coterie?”

“Do you know what happened?” I demanded, cutting into her tirade.

“I . . . well, of course not. But I can surmise. The stone he clambered on must be a Skill-stone, the same stuff as the road and the pillars. And somehow this time the road seized you both with its power instead of just you.”

“Did you know it could happen?” I didn’t wait for her reply. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

“I didn’t know!” she retorted, and then added guiltily, “I only suspected, and I never thought either of you would be so foolish as to . . .”

“Never mind!” the Fool cut in. Abruptly he laughed and stood up, pushing away my arm. “Oh, this! This is such as I have not felt in years, not since I was a child. The certainty, the power of it. Kettle! Would you hear a White Prophet speak? Then hearken to this, and be glad as I am glad. We are not only where we must be, we are when we must be. All junctures coincide, we draw closer and closer to the center of the web. You and I.” He clasped my head suddenly between his two hands and placed his brow against mine. “We are even who we must be!” He freed me suddenly and spun away. He launched the handspring I had expected earlier, came to his feet, curtsied deeply and laughed aloud again, exultantly. We all gawked at him.

“You are in great danger!” Kettle told him severely.

“I know,” he replied, almost sincerely, and then added, “As I said. Exactly where we need to be.” He paused, then asked me suddenly, “Did you see my crown? Wasn’t it magnificent? I wonder if I shall be able to carve it from memory?”

“I saw the rooster crown,” I said slowly. “But what to make of any of this, I do not know.”

“You don’t?” He cocked his head at me, then smiled pityingly. “Oh, Fitzy-fitz, I would explain it if I could. It is not that I wish to keep secrets, but these secrets defy telling in mere words. They are more than half a feeling, a grasping of rightness. Can you trust me in this?”

“You are alive again,” I said wonderingly. I had not seen such light in his eyes since the days when he had made King Shrewd bellow with laughter.

“Yes,” he said gently. “And when we have finished, I promise that you will be, also.”

The three women stood glaring and excluded. When I looked at the outrage on Starling’s face, the rebuke in Kettle’s and the exasperation in Kettricken’s, I suddenly had to grin. Behind me the Fool chuckled. And try as we might, we could not explain to their satisfaction exactly what had happened. Nevertheless, we wasted quite some time in attempting it.

Kettricken took out both maps and consulted them. Kettle insisted on accompanying me when I took my map back to the central pillar to compare the glyphs on it to the ones on the map. They shared a number of marks in common, but the only one that Kettricken recognized was the one she had named before. Stone. When I reluctantly offered to see if this pillar might not transport me as the other one had, Kettricken adamantly refused. I am ashamed to admit I was greatly relieved. “We began together, and I intend that we shall finish together,” she said darkly. I knew she suspected that the Fool and I were keeping something from her.

“What do you propose then?” I asked her humbly.

“What I first suggested. We will follow that old road that goes off through the trees. It appears to match what is marked here. It cannot take us more than two marches to reach the end of it. Especially if we start now.”

And with no more announcement than that, she got up and clicked to the jeppas. The leader came immediately and the rest obediently fell into line behind her. I watched her long even strides as she led them off down the shady road.

“Well, get along, both of you!” Kettle snapped at the Fool and me. She shook her walking stick and I almost suspected she wished she could prod us along like errant sheep. But the Fool and I both fell obediently into line behind the jeppas, leaving Starling and Kettle to follow us.

That night the Fool and I left the tent’s shelter and went with Nighteyes. Both Kettle and Kettricken had been dubious as to the wisdom of this, but I had assured them I would act with all caution. The Fool had promised not to let me out of his sight. Kettle rolled her eyes at this, but said nothing. Plainly we were both still suspected of being idiots, but they let us leave anyway. Starling was sulkily silent, but as we had not had words, I assumed her pique had some other source. As we left the fireside, Kettricken said quietly, “Watch over them, wolf,” and Nighteyes replied with a wave of his tail.

Nighteyes led us swiftly away from the grassy road and up into the wooded hills. The road had been leading us steadily downward into more sheltered country. The woods that we moved through were open groves of oaks with wide meadows between. I saw sign of wild boars but was relieved when we did not encounter any. Instead, the wolf ran down and killed two rabbits that he graciously allowed me to carry for him. As we were returning to the camp by a roundabout path we came on a stream. The water was icy and sweet and cress grew thick along one bank. The Fool and I tickled for fish until our hands and arms were numb with the cold water. As I hauled out a final fish, its lashing tail splashed the enthusiastic wolf. He leaped back from it then snapped at me in rebuke. The Fool playfully scooped up another handful and flung it at him. Nighteyes leaped, jaws wide to meet it. Moments later, all three of us were involved in a water battle, but I was the only one who landed bodily in the stream when the wolf sprang on me. Both Fool and wolf were laughing heartily as I staggered out, soaked and chilled. I found myself laughing also. I could not recall the last time I had simply laughed aloud about so simple a thing. We returned to camp late, but with fresh meat, fish, and watercress to share.

There was a small, welcoming fire burning outside the tent. Kettle and Starling had already made porridge for our meal, but Kettle volunteered to cook again for the sake of the fresh food. While she was preparing it, Starling stared at me until I demanded, “What?”

“How did you all get so wet?” she asked.

“Oh. By the stream where we got the fish. Nighteyes pushed me in.” I gave him a passing nudge with my knee as I headed toward the tent. He made a mock snap at my leg.

“And the Fool fell in as well?”

“We were throwing water at one another,” I admitted wryly. I grinned at her, but she did not smile. Instead she gave a small snort as if disdainful. I shrugged and went into the tent. Kettricken glanced up at me from her map, but said nothing. I rucked through my pack and found clothes that were dry if not clean. Her back was turned so I changed hastily. We had grown accustomed to granting one another the privacy of ignoring such things.

“FitzChivalry,” she said suddenly in a voice that commanded my attention.

I dragged my shirt down over my head and buttoned it. “Yes, my queen?” I came to kneel beside her, thinking she wanted to consult on the map. Instead, she set it aside and turned to me. Her blue eyes met mine squarely.

“We are a small company, all dependent on one another,” she abruptly told me. “Any kind of strife within our group serves the purpose of our enemy.”

I waited, but she said no more. “I do not understand why you tell me this,” I said humbly at last.

She sighed and shook her head. “I feared as much. And perhaps I do more harm than good to speak of it at all. Starling is tormented by your attentions to the Fool.”

I was speechless. Kettricken speared me with a blue glance, then looked aside from me again. “She believes the Fool is a woman and that you kept a tryst with her tonight. It chagrins her that you disdain her so completely.”

I found my tongue. “My lady queen, I do not disdain Mistress Starling.” My outrage had rendered me formal. “In truth, she is the one who has avoided my company and put a distance between us since finding that I am Witted and sustain a bond with the wolf. Respecting her wishes, I have not pressed my friendship upon her. As to what she says of the Fool, surely you must find it as ludicrous as I do.”

“Should I?” Kettricken asked me softly. “All I can truthfully say I know of it is that he is not a man like other men.”

“I cannot disagree with that,” I said quietly. “He is unique among all the people I have ever known.”

“Cannot you show some kindness to her, FitzChivalry?” Kettricken burst out suddenly. “I do not ask that you court her, only that you do not let her be rent with jealousy.”

I folded my lips, forced my feelings to find courteous answer. “My queen, I will offer her, as I ever have, my friendship. She has given me small sign of late of even wanting that, let alone more. But as to that topic, I do not disdain her nor any other woman. My heart is given already. It is no more right to say that I disdain Starling than it is to say that you disdain me because your heart is filled with my Lord Verity.”

Kettricken shot me an oddly startled look. For a moment she seemed flustered. Then she looked down at the map she still gripped. “It is as I feared. I have only made it worse by speaking to you. I am so tired, Fitz. Despair drags at my heart always. To have Starling moody is like sand against raw flesh to me. I but sought to put things right between you. I beg your pardon if I have intruded. But you are a comely youth still, and it will not be the last time you have such cares.”