Assassin 3 - Royal Assassin (46 page)

Within my mind, Verity was very still. I glanced
over to where he sat staring out the window across the sea to the
horizon. The morning light was harsh on the lines in his face and
the gray in his hair. His shoulders were slumped forward. His
posture mirrored what I felt. I closed my eyes a moment, too weary
to do anything anymore. And suddenly we meshed. I saw to the
horizons of our fixture. We were a country besieged by a ravenous
enemy who came to us only to kill and maim. That was their sole
goal. They had no fields to plant, no children to defend, no stock
to tend to distract them from their raiding. But we strove to live
our day-to-day lives at the same time we tried to protect ourselves
from their destruction. For the Red-Ship Raiders, their ravages
were their day-to-day lives. That singleness of purpose was all
they needed to destroy us. We were not warriors; had not been
warriors for generations. We did not think like warriors. Even
those of us who were soldiers were soldiers who had trained to
fight against a rational enemy. How could we stand against an
onslaught of madmen? What weapons did we have? I looked around. Me.
Myself as Verity.

One man. One man, making himself old as he
strove to walk the line between defending his people and being
swept away in the addictive ecstasy of the Skill. One man, trying
to rouse us, trying to ignite us to defend ourselves. One man, with
his eyes afar, as we squabbled and plotted and bickered in the
rooms below him. It was useless. We were doomed to fail.

The tide of despair swept over me and threatened
to pull me down. It swirled around me, but suddenly, in the middle
of it, I found a place to stand. A place where the very uselessness
of it was funny. Horribly funny. Four little warships, not quite
finished, with untrained crews. Watchtowers and fire signals to
call the inept defenders forth to the slaughter. Burrich with his
ax, and me standing in the cold. Verity staring out the window,
while below, Regal fed his own father drugs. In the hopes of
stealing his mind, and inheriting the whole mess, I didn't doubt.
It was all so totally useless. And so unthinkable to give it up. A
laughter welled up from inside me, and I could not contain it. I
stood leaning on my ax, and laughed as if the world were the
funniest thing I'd ever seen, while Burrich and Verity both stared
at me. A very faint answering smile crooked the corners of Verity's
mouth; a light in his eyes shared my madness.

Boy? Are you all right? Burrich asked
me.

I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine, I told them both
when my waves of laughter had subsided.

I pulled myself up to stand straight. I shook my
head, and I swear I almost felt my brain settle. Verity, I said,
and embraced his consciousness to mine. It was easy; it had always
been easy, but before, I had believed there was something to lose
by doing it. We did not meld into one person, but instead fit
together like bowls stacked in a cupboard. He rode me comfortably,
like a well-loaded pack. I took a breath and lifted my ax. Again, I
said to Burrich.

As he came at me I no longer allowed him to be
Burrich. He was a man with an ax, come to kill Verity, and before I
could stop my momentum, I had laid him out on the floor. He rose,
shaking his head, and I saw a touch of anger in his face. Again we
came together, and again I made a telling touch. Third time, he
told me, and his battle smile lit up his weathered face. We came
together again with a jolt in the joy of struggle, and I
overmatched him cleanly.

Twice more we clashed before Burrich suddenly
stepped back from one of my blows. He lowered his ax to the floor
and stood, hunkered slightly forward until his breath came easy
again. Then he straightened and looked at Verity. He's got it, he
said huskily. He's caught the knack of it now. Not that he's fully
honed yet. Drill will make him sharper, but you've made a wise
choice for him. The ax is his weapon.

Verity nodded slowly. And he is mine.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Verity's
Ships

IN THE THIRD summer of the Red-Ship War, the Six
Duchies warships were blooded. Although they numbered only four,
they represented an important change in tactics to defending our
realm. Our encounters that spring with the Red-Ships swiftly taught
us that we had forgotten much of being warriors. The Raiders were
right; we had become a race of farmers. But we were farmers who had
determined to take a stand and fight. We quickly found the Raiders
to be resourceful and savage fighters. This was true to the extent
that none of them ever surrendered or were taken alive. That,
perhaps, should have been our first clue as to the nature of
Forging and what we actually battled, but at the time it was too
subtle a hint, and we were too busy surviving to wonder at
it.

The rest of that winter passed as swiftly as the
first half had dragged. The separate parts of my life became like
beads and I the string that ran through them all. I believe if I
had ever paused to consider the intricacy of all I did to keep
those parts separate, I would have found it impossible. But I was
young then, much younger than I suspected, and somehow I found the
energy and time to do and be it all.

My day began before dawn, with a session with
Verity. At least twice a week Burrich and his axes were included.
But most often it was Verity and I alone. He worked on my Skill
sense, but not as Galen had. He had specific tasks in mind for me,
and these were what he trained me in. I learned to see through his
eyes, and to give him the use of mine. I practiced being aware of
the subtle way he would steer my attention, and in keeping up a
constant mental commentary that kept him informed of all that was
going on around us. This involved me leaving the tower, and
carrying his presence about with me like a hawk on my wrist as I
went about my other daily tasks. At first a few hours were as long
as I could sustain the Skill bond, but as time went on I managed to
share my mind with him for days at a time. The bond did weaken with
the passing of time, however. It was not a true Skilling from me to
Verity, but a touch-imposed bond that had to be renewed. It still
gave me a sense of accomplishment to be able to do at least this
much.

I put in a fair share of time in the Queen's
Garden, moving and then shifting again benches and statuary and
pots, until Kettricken was finally satisfied with the arrangements
there. For those hours I always made sure Verity was with me. I
hoped it would do him good to see his queen as others saw her,
especially when she was caught up in the enthusiasm of her snowy
garden spot. Glowing pink-cheeked and gold-haired, wind kissed and
lively: this was how I showed her to him. He heard her speak freely
of the pleasure she hoped this garden would bring him. Was this a
betrayal of Kettricken's confidences to me? I pushed such
uneasiness firmly away. I took him with me when I paid my duties to
Patience and Lacey.

I also tried to carry Verity out and among the
folk more. Since he had begun his heavy Skill duties, he was seldom
among the common folk he had once so enjoyed. I took him to the
kitchen, and the watch room, to the stables, and down to the
taverns in Buckkeep Town. For his part, he steered me to the boat
sheds, where I watched the final work being done on his ships.
Later I frequently visited the dock where the ships were tied, to
talk to the crews as they got to know their vessels. I made him
aware of the grumbling of the men who thought it treasonous that
some Outislander refugees had been allowed to become crew members
of our defense vessels. It was plain to any eye that these men were
experienced in the handling of sleek raiding vessels and were
making our ships more effective with their expertise. Plain, too,
that many of the Six Duchies men resented and distrusted the
handful of immigrants among them. I was not sure if Verity's
decision to use them had been wise. However, I said nothing of my
own doubts, but only showed him the mutterings of other
men.

He was with me, too, the times when I called
upon Shrewd. I learned to make my visits in late morning or early
afternoon. Wallace seldom admitted me easily, and it always seemed
there were others in the room, serving maids I did not know, a
workman ostensibly repairing a door, when I went to visit. I hoped
impatiently for a chance to talk with him privately about my
marriage ambitions. The Fool was there always, and kept his word
not to show friendship to me before other eyes. His mockery was
sharp and stinging, and even though I knew its purpose, he still
could manage to fluster or irritate me. The only satisfaction I
could take was in the changes I saw in the room. Someone had
tattled to Mistress Hasty about the state of the King's
chamber.

In the midst of the Winterfest activities, such
a troop of housemaids and serving boys flocked to the room that it
brought the festivities to the King. Mistress Hasty, fists on hips,
stood at the center of the room and oversaw it all, all the while
berating Wallace for ever letting things reach such a state.
Evidently he had been assuring her that he had been personally
seeing to the tidying and laundering in an effort to keep the King
from being disturbed. I spent one very merry afternoon there, for
the activity awoke Shrewd, and soon he seemed almost his old self.
He hushed Mistress Hasty when she berated her own folk for laxness,
and instead exchanged banter with them as floors were scrubbed,
fresh reeds strewn, and the furniture rubbed well with fragrant
cleansing oil. Mistress Hasty bundled a veritable mountain of
quilts atop the King while she ordered the windows opened and the
room aired. She, too, sniffed at all the ashes and burn pots. I
quietly suggested that Wallace might best see to their cleansing,
as he was most familiar with the qualities of the herbs that had
burned there. He was a much more docile and tractable man when he
returned with the pots. I wondered if he himself knew just what
effect his smokes had upon Shrewd. But if these smokes were not his
doing, then whose? The Fool and I exchanged more than one secret
significant glance.

Not only was the chamber scrubbed out, but made
bright as well, with festive candles and wreaths, evergreens and
bare branches of trees gilded and hung with painted nuts. It
brought the color back into the King's cheeks. I sensed Verity's
quiet approval. When that night the King descended from his
chambers to join us in the Great Hall, and actually called out for
his favorite musicians and songs, I took it as a personal
victory.

Some moments were solely mine, of course, and
not just my nights with Molly. As often as I could manage, I would
creep off from the Keep to run and hunt with my wolf. Bonded as our
minds were, I was never completely isolated from him, but a simple
mind link did not have the deep satisfaction of sharing a hunt. It
is hard to express the completeness of two beings moving as one,
for a single purpose. Those times were really the fulfilling of our
bond. But even when I went days without physically seeing him, he
was with me. His presence was like a perfume, which one is aware of
greatly when one first encounters it, but then becomes simply a
part of the air one breathes. I knew he was there in small ways. My
sense of smell seemed more acute, and I attributed this to his
expertise in reading what the air brought me. I became more aware
of others around me, as if his consciousness were guarding my back,
and alerting me to small sensory clues I might otherwise have
ignored. Food was more savory, perfumes more tangible. I tried not
to extend this logic to my appetite for Molly's company. I knew he
was there, but as he had promised, he did nothing overt to make me
aware of him at such times.

A month after Winterfest, I found myself thrown
into a new labor. Verity had told me he wished me aboard a ship. I
found myself summoned one day to the deck of the Rurisk and
assigned a spot at an oar. The master of the vessel openly wondered
why he had been sent a twig when he asked for a log. I could not
dispute the question. Most of the men around me were brawny fellows
and seasoned ship hands. My only possible chance to prove myself
was to throw myself into my tasks with every bit of energy I could
muster. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing I was not alone
in my inexperience. While the other men aboard had all served in
some fashion on other vessels, all save the Outislanders among the
crew were new to this style of ship.

Verity had had to seek out our oldest
shipwrights to come up with men who knew how to build a fighting
ship. The Rurisk was the largest of the four vessels launched at
Winterfest. The lines of the boat were sleek and sinuous, and her
shallow draft meant that she could skim across a calm sea like an
insect on a pond, or ride out rough swell as handily as any gull.
In two of the other boats, the planking was pegged edge to edge
into the ribs, but the Rurisk and her smaller sister ship Constance
were clinker-built, with the planking overlapped. The Rurisk had
been built by Mastfish, and the planking was well fitted, but still
had the give to withstand any battering the seas might offer. Only
a minimum of caulking with tarred rope had been needed, so lovingly
had this ship been crafted. Her mast of pine supported a sail of
spun flax reinforced with rope. Verity's buck graced the sail of
the Rurisk.

The new ships still smelled of wood shavings and
tarred rope. Her decks were scarcely scarred, and the oars were
clean their entire length. Soon the Rurisk would take on a
character of its own; a bit of marlinspike work to make it easier
to grip an oar, a splice in a line, all the nicks and dings of a
well-used ship. But for now, the Rurisk was as green as we were.
When we took the ship out, it reminded me of an inexperienced rider
on a green-broke horse. She sidled about, shied and curtsied among
the waves, and then, as we all found a rhythm, stepped out and cut
through the water like a greased knife.