Assassin's Quest (23 page)

I sought the waterfront, purpose growing in me as I strode along. So I was not far from Tradeford, not far from Regal. I felt a sudden desire to prepare myself for him. I would get a room at an inn tonight, one with a bathhouse, and I would bathe and shave. Let him look at me, at the scars he had put upon me, and know who killed him. And afterward? If I lived for there to be an afterward, and if any who saw me knew me, so be it. Let it be known that the Fitz had come back from his grave to work a true King’s Justice on this would-be king.

Thus fortified, I passed by the first two inns I came to. From one came shouts that were either a brawl or an excess of good fellowship; in either case, I was not likely to get much sleep there. The second had a sagging porch and a door hung crooked on its hinges. I decided that did not bode well for the upkeep of the beds. I chose instead one that displayed an inn board of a kettle, and kept a night torch burning outside to guide travelers to its door.

Like most of the larger buildings in Pome, the inn was built of riverstone and mortar and floored with the same. There was a big hearth at the end of the room, but only a summer fire in it, just enough to keep the promised kettle of stew simmering. Despite my recent meal, it smelled good to me. The taproom was quiet, much of the trade drawn off to the Capaman’s wedding celebration. The innkeeper looked as if he were ordinarily a friendly sort, but a frown creased his brow at the sight of me. I set a silver piece on the table before him to reassure him. “I’d like a room for the night, and a bath.”

He looked me up and down doubtfully. “If ye take the bath first,” he specified firmly.

I grinned at him. “I’ve no problems with that, good sir. I’ll be washing out my clothes as well; no fear I’ll bring vermin to the bedding.”

He nodded reluctantly and sent a lad to the kitchens for hot water. “You’ve come a long way, then?” he offered as a pleasantry as he showed me the way to the bathhouse behind the inn.

“A long way and a bit beside. But there’s a job waiting for me in Tradeford, and I’d like to look my best when I go to do it.” I smiled as I said it, pleased with the truth of it.

“Oh, a job waiting. I see, then, I see. Yes, best to show up clean and rested, and there’s the pot of soap in the corner, and don’t be shy about using it.”

Before he left, I begged the use of a razor, for the washroom boasted a looking glass, and he was glad to furnish me one. The boy brought it with the first bucket of hot water. By the time he had finished filling the tub, I had taken off the length of my beard to make it shavable. He offered to wash my clothes out for me for an extra copper, and I was only too happy to let him. He took them from me with a wrinkling of his nose that showed me I smelled far worse than I had suspected. Evidently my trek through the swamps had left more evidence than I had thought.

I took my time, soaking in the hot water, slathering myself with the soft soap from the pot, then scrubbing vigorously before rinsing off. I washed my hair twice before the lather ran white instead of gray. The water that I left in the tub was thicker than the chalky river water. For once I went slowly enough with my shaving that I only cut myself twice. When I sleeked my hair back and bound it in a warrior’s tail I looked up to find a face in the mirror that I scarcely recognized.

It had been months since I’d last seen myself, and then it had been in Burrich’s small looking glass. The face that looked back at me now was thinner than I had expected, showing me cheekbones reminiscent of those in Chivalry’s portrait. The white streak of hair that grew above my brow aged me, and reminded me of a wolverine’s markings. My forehead and the tops of my cheeks were tanned dark from my summer outside, but my face was paler where the beard had been, so that the lower half of the scar down my cheek seemed much more livid than the rest. What I could see of my chest showed a lot more ribs than it ever had before. There was muscle there, true, but not enough fat to grease a pan, as Cook Sara would have said. The constant traveling and mostly meat diet had left their marks on me.

I turned aside from the looking glass smiling wryly. My fears of being instantly recognized by any who had known me were laid to rest completely. I scarcely knew myself.

I changed into my winter clothes to make the trip up to my room. The boy assured me he would hang my other clothes by the hearth and have them to me dry by morning. He saw me to my room and left me with a good-night and a candle.

I found the room to be sparsely furnished but clean. There were four beds in it, but I was the only customer for the night, for which I was grateful. There was a single window, unshuttered and uncurtained for summer. Cool night air off the river blew into the room. I stood for a time, looking out through the darkness. Upriver, I could see the lights of Tradeford. It was a substantial settlement. Lights dotted the road between Pome and Tradeford. I was plainly into well-settled country now. Just as well I was traveling alone, I told myself firmly, and pushed aside the pang of loss I felt whenever I thought of Nighteyes. I tossed my bundle under my bed. The bed’s blankets were rough but smelled clean, as did the straw-stuffed mattress. After months of sleeping on the ground, it seemed almost as soft as my old feather bed in Buckkeep. I blew out my candle and lay down expecting to fall asleep at once.

Instead I found myself staring up at the darkened ceiling. In the distance, I could hear the faint sounds of the merrymaking. Closer to hand were the now-unfamiliar creakings and settling of a building, the sounds of folk moving in other rooms of the inn. They made me nervous, as the wind through the branches of a forest, or the gurgling of the river close by my sleeping spot, had not. I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.

My mind wandered to Nighteyes, to wondering what he was doing and if he was safe this evening. I started to quest out toward him, then stopped myself. Tomorrow I would be in Tradeford, to do a thing he could not help me with. More than that, I was in an area now where he could not safely come to me. If I succeeded tomorrow, and lived to go on to the Mountains to seek Verity, then I could hope that he would remember me and join me. But if I died tomorrow, then he was better off where he was, attempting to join his own kind and have his own life.

Arriving at the conclusion and recognizing my decision as correct were easy. Remaining firm in it was the difficult part. I should not have paid for that bed, but have spent the night in walking, for I would have got more rest. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life. Even in Regal’s dungeon, facing death, I had been able to reach out to my wolf. Now on this night I was alone, contemplating a murder I was unable to plan, fearing Regal would be guarded by a coterie of Skill-adepts whose talents I could only guess at. Despite the warmth of the late-summer night, I felt chilled and sickened whenever I considered it. My resolution to kill Regal never wavered; only my confidence that I would succeed. I had not done so well on my own but tomorrow I resolved to perform in a way that would make Chade proud.

When I considered the coterie, I felt a queasy certainty that I had deceived myself regarding my strategy. Had I come here of my own will, or was this some subtle tweaking that Will had wrought on my thoughts, to convince me that to run toward him was the safest thing to do? Will was subtle with the Skill. So insidiously gentle a touch he had that one could scarcely feel when he was using it. I longed suddenly to attempt to Skill out, to see if I could feel him watching me. Then I became sure that my impulse to Skill out was actually Will’s influence on me, tempting me to open my mind to him. And so my thoughts went, chasing themselves in tighter and tighter circles until I almost felt his amusement as he watched me.

Past midnight I finally felt myself drawn down into sleep. I surrendered my tormenting thoughts without a qualm, flinging myself down into sleep as if I were a diver intent on plumbing the depths. Too late I recognized the imperatives of that sinking. I would have struggled if I could have recalled how. Instead I recognized about me the hangings and trophies that decorated the great hall of Ripplekeep, the main castle of Bearns Duchy.

The great wooden doors sagged open on their hinges, victims of the ram that lay halfway inside them, its terrible work done. Smoke hung in the air of the hall, twining about the banners of past victories. There were bodies piled thickly there, where fighters had tried to hold back the torrent of Raiders that the heavy oaken planks had yielded to. A few strides past that wall of carnage a line of Bearns’ warriors still held, but raggedly. In the midst of a small knot of battle was Duke Brawndy, flanked by his younger daughters, Celerity and Faith. They wielded swords, trying vainly to shield their father from the press of the foe. Both fought with a skill and ferocity I would not have suspected in them. Like matched hawks they seemed, their faces framed by short, sleek black hair, their dark blue eyes narrowed with hatred. But Brawndy was refusing to be shielded, refusing to yield to the murderous surge of Raiders. He stood splay-legged, spattered with blood, and wielded a battle-axe in a two-handed grip.

Before and below him, in the shelter of his axe’s swing, lay the body of his eldest daughter and heir. A sword blow had cloven deep between her shoulder and neck, splintering her collarbone before the weapon wedged in the ruin of her chest. She was dead, hopelessly dead, but Brawndy would not step back from her body. Tears runneled with blood on his cheeks. His chest heaved like a bellows with every breath he took, and the ropy old muscles of his torso were revealed beneath his rent shirt. He held off two swordsmen, one an earnest young man whose whole heart was intent on defeating this duke, and the other an adder of a man who held back from the press of the fighting, his longsword ready to take advantage of any opening the young man might create.

In a fraction of a second, I knew all this, and knew that Brawndy would not last much longer. Already the slickness of blood was battling with his failing grip on his axe, while every gasp of air he drew down his dry throat was a torment in itself. He was an old man, and his heart was broken, and he knew that even if he survived this battle, Bearns had been lost to the Red Ships. My soul cried out at his misery, but still he took that one impossible step forward, and brought his axe down to end the life of the earnest young man who had fought him. In the moment that his axe sank into the Raider’s chest, the other man stepped forward, into the half-second gap, and danced his blade in and out of Brawndy’s chest. The old man followed his dying opponent down to the bloodied stones of his keep.

Celerity, occupied with her own opponent, turned fractionally to her sister’s scream of anguish. The Raider she had been fighting seized his opportunity. His heavier weapon wrapped her lighter blade and tore it from her grip. She stepped back from his fiercely delighted grin, turned her head away from her death, in time to see her father’s killer grip Brawndy’s hair preparatory to taking his head as a trophy.

I could not stand it.

I lunged for the axe Brawndy had dropped, seized its blood-slick handle as if I were gripping the hand of an old friend. It felt oddly heavy, but I swung it up, blocked the sword of my assailant, and then, in a combination that would have made Burrich proud, doubled it back to take the path of the blade across his face. I gave a small shudder as I felt his facial bones cave away from that stroke. I had no time to consider it. I sprang forward and brought my axe down hard, severing the hand of the man who had sought to take my father’s head. The axe rang on the stone flags of the floor, sending a shock up my arms. Sudden blood splashed me as Faith’s sword plowed up her opponent’s forearm. He was towering above me, and so I tucked my shoulder and rolled, coming to my feet as I brought the blade of my axe up across his belly. He dropped his blade and clutched at his spilling guts as he fell.

There was an insane moment of total stillness in the tiny bubble of battle we occupied. Faith stared down at me with an amazed expression that briefly changed to a look of triumph before being supplanted with one of purest anguish. “We can’t let them have their bodies!” she declared abruptly. She lifted her head suddenly, her short hair flying like the mane of a battle stallion. “Bearns! To me!” she cried, and there was no mistaking the note of command in her voice.

For one instant I looked up at Faith. My vision faded, doubled for an instant. A dizzy Celerity wished her sister, “Long life to the Duchess of Bearns.” I witnessed a look between them, a look that said neither of them expected to live out the day. Then a knot of Bearns warriors broke free of battle to join them. “My father and my sister. Bear their bodies away,” Faith commanded two of the men. “You others, to me!” Celerity rolled to her feet, looked at the heavy axe with puzzlement, and stooped to regain the familiarity of her sword.

“There, we are needed there,” Faith declared, pointing, and Celerity followed her, to reinforce the battle line long enough to allow their folk to retreat.

I watched Celerity go, a woman I had not loved but would always admire. With all my heart I wished to go after her, but my grip on the scene was failing, all was becoming smoke and shadows. Someone seized me.

That was stupid.

The voice in my mind sounded so pleased. Will! I thought desperately as my heart surged in my chest.

No. But it could as easily have been so. You are getting sloppy about your walls, Fitz. You cannot afford to. No matter how they call to us, you must be cautious.
Verity gave me a push that propelled me away, and I felt the flesh of my own body receive me again.

“But you do it,” I protested, but heard only the wan sound of my own voice in the inn room. I opened my eyes. All was darkness outside the single window in the room. I could not tell if moments had passed or hours. I only knew I was grateful that there was still some darkness left for sleeping, for the terrible weariness that pulled at me now would let me think of nothing else.

When I awoke the next morning, I was disoriented. It had been too long since I had awakened in a real bed, let alone awakened feeling clean. I forced my eyes to focus, then looked at the knots in the ceiling beam above me. After a time, I recalled the inn, and that I was not too far from Tradeford and Regal. At almost the same instant, I remembered that Duke Brawndy was dead. My heart plummeted inside me. I squeezed my eyes shut against the Skill-memory of that battle and felt the hammer and anvil of my headache begin. For one irrational instant I blamed it all on Regal. He had orchestrated this tragedy that took the heart out of me and left my body trembling with weakness. On the very morning when I had hoped to arise strong and refreshed and ready to kill, I could barely find the strength to roll over.