Royal Assassin (29 page)

I do not know how long we played. We had flung ourselves finally down in the snow to rest and lay panting together in thoughtless simplicity. The sacking of the bag was torn in places, the bones peeking through, and Cub seized one, to shake and drag it from the clinging folds. He set to upon it, scissoring the meat and then pinning the bone down with his paws as his jaws cracked the knuckly cartilage on the end. I reached for the sack and tugged at a bone, a good meaty one, a thick marrow bone, and drew it forth.

And abruptly was a man again. Like awaking from a dream, like the popping of a soap bubble, and Cub’s ears twitched and he turned to me as if I had spoken. But I had not. I had only separated my self from his. Abruptly I was cold, snow had gotten inside the tops of my boots and at my waist and collar. There were standing welts on my forearms and hands where his teeth had dragged over my flesh. My cloak was torn in two places. And I felt as groggy as if I were just coming out of a drugged sleep.

What’s wrong?
Real concern.
Why did you go away?

I can’t do this. I can’t be like this, with you. This is wrong
.

Puzzlement.
Wrong? If you can do it, how can it be wrong?

I am a man, not a wolf
.

Sometimes
, he agreed.
But you don’t have to be all the time
.

Yes, I must. I don’t want to be bonded with you like this
.
We cannot have this closeness. I have to set you free, to live the life you were meant to live. I must live the life I was meant for
.

A derisive snort, a sneer of fangs.
This is it, brother. We are as we are. How can you claim to know what life I was meant to lead, let alone threaten to force me into it? You cannot even accept what you are meant to be. You deny it even as you are it. All your quibbling is nonsense. As well forbid your nose to snuff, or your ears to hear. We are as we do. Brother
.

I did not drop my guard. I did not give him leave. But he swept through my mind like a wind sweeps through an unshuttered window and fills a room.
The night and the snow. Meat in our jaws. Listen, snuff, the world is alive tonight and so are we! We can hunt until dawn, we are alive and the night and the forest are ours! Our eyes are keen, our jaws are strong, and we can run down a buck and feast before morning. Come! Come back to what you were born to be!

A moment later I came to myself. I was on my feet, standing, and I was trembling from head to foot. I lifted my hands and looked at them, and suddenly my own flesh seemed foreign and confining, as unnatural as the clothes I wore. I could go. I could go, now, tonight, and travel far to find our own kind, and no one would ever be able to follow us, let alone find us. He offered me a moonlit world of blacks and whites, of food and rest, so simple, so complete. Our eyes were locked, and his were lambent green and beckoning to me.
Come. Come with me. What have the likes of us to do with men and all their petty plotting? There is not one mouthful of meat to be had in all their wrangling, no clean joys in their scheming, and never a simple pleasure taken unthinkingly. Why do you choose it? Come, come away!

I blinked. Snowflakes clung to my eyelashes, and I was standing in the dark, chilled and shaking. A short distance from me, a wolf stood up and shook himself all over. Tail out flat, ears up, he came to me, and rubbed his head along my leg and with his nose gave my cold hand a flip. I went down on one knee and hugged him, felt the warmth of his ruff against my hands, the solidity of his muscle and bone. He smelled good, clean and wild. “We are what we are, brother. Eat well,” I told
him. I rubbed his ears briefly, and then stood. As he picked up the sack of bones to drag them into the den he’d scuffed out under the cottage, I turned away. The lights of Buckkeep were almost blinding, but I went toward them anyway. I could not have said why just then. But I did it.

I
N TIMES OF
peace, the teaching of the Skill was restricted to those of royal blood, to keep the magic more exclusive and reduce the chance of it being turned against the King. Thus, when Galen became apprentice to Skill Master Solicity, his duties consisted of assisting in completing the training of Chivalry and Verity. No others were receiving instruction at that time. Regal, a delicate child, was judged by his mother to be too sickly to withstand the rigors of the Skill training. Thus, after Solicity’s untimely death, Galen came to the title of Skill Master, but had few duties. Some, at least, felt that the time he had served as apprentice to Solicity was insufficient to be the full training of a Skill Master. Others have averred that he never possessed the Skill strength necessary to be a true Skill Master. In any case, during those years he had no opportunity to prove himself, and disprove his critics. There were no young Princes or Princesses to train during the years that Galen was Skill Master
.

It was only with the Red-Ship raids that it was decided that the circle of those trained in the Skill must be expanded. A proper coterie had not existed for years. Tradition tells us that in previous troubles with the Outislanders, it was not unusual for three, or even four coteries to exist. These usually consisted of six to eight members, mutually chosen, well suited to be
bonded among themselves, and with at least one member possessing a strong affinity with the reigning monarch. This key member reported directly to the monarch all that his coterie members relayed to him, if they were a messaging, or information-gathering coterie. Other coteries existed to pool strength and extend to the monarch their Skilling resources as he might need them. The key members in these coteries were often referred to as a King’s or Queen’s Man or Woman. Very rarely, such a one existed independent of any coterie or training, but simply as one who had such an affinity for the monarch that strength could be tapped, usually by a physical touch. From this key member, the monarch could draw endurance as needed to sustain a Skilling effort. By custom, a coterie was named after its key member. Thus we have legendary examples such as Crossfire’s coterie
.

Galen chose to ignore all tradition in the creation of his first and only coterie. Galen’s coterie came to be named after the Skill Master who fashioned it, and retained that name even after his death. Rather than creating a pool of Skilled ones and letting a coterie emerge from it, Galen himself selected those who would be members of it. The coterie lacked the internal bonding of the legendary groups, and their truest affinity was to the Skill Master rather than to the King. Thus, the key member, initially August, reported to Galen fully as often as he reported to King Shrewd or King-in-Waiting Verity. With the death of Galen and the blasting of August’s Skill sense, Serene rose to be key member of Galen’s coterie. The other surviving members of the group were Justin, Will, Carrod, and Burl
.

By night I ran as a wolf.

The first time I thought it a singularly vivid dream. The wide stretch of white snow with the inky tree shadows spilled on it, the elusive scents on the cold wind, the ridiculous fun of bounding and digging after shrews that ventured out of their winter burrows. I awoke clear-minded and good-tempered.

But the next night I dreamed again so vividly. I awoke knowing that when I blocked from Verity and hence myself my dreams of Molly, I left myself wide to the wolf’s night
thoughts. Here was a whole realm where not Verity nor any Skilled one could follow me. It was a world bereft of court intrigues or plotting, of worries and plans. My wolf lived in the present. I found his mind clean of the cluttering detail of memories. From day to day, he carried only that necessary to his survival. He did not remember how many shrews he had killed two nights ago, but only larger things, such as which game trails yielded the most rabbits to chase or where the spring ran swift enough that it never iced over.

This, then, was when and how I first showed him how to hunt. We did not do so well at first. I still arose very early each morning to take him food as needed. I told myself that it was but a small corner of my life that I kept for myself. It was as the wolf had said, not a thing I did, but something I was. Besides, I promised myself. I would not let this joining become a full bond. Soon, very soon, he would be able to hunt for himself, and I would send him away to be free. Sometimes I told myself that I only permitted him into my dreams that I might teach him to hunt, the sooner to set him free. I refused to consider what Burrich would think of such a thing.

I returned from one of my early-morning expeditions to find two soldiers sparring with one another in the kitchen yard. They had staves and were good-naturedly insulting one another as they huffed and shifted and traded whacks in the cold clear air. The man I did not know at all, and for a moment I thought both were strangers. Then the woman of the pair caught sight of me. “Ho! FitzChivalry. A word with you!” she called, but without retiring her stave.

I stared at her, trying to place her. Her opponent missed a parry and she clipped him sharply with her stave. As he hopped she danced back and laughed aloud, an unmistakable high-pitched whinny. “Whistle?” I asked incredulously.

The woman I had just addressed flashed her famous gap-toothed smile, caught her partner’s stave a ringing blow, and danced back again. “Yes?” she asked breathlessly. Her sparring partner, seeing her occupied, courteously lowered his stave. Whistle immediately darted hers at him. With so much skill he almost looked lazy, his stave leaped up to counter hers. Again she laughed and held up her hand to ask a truce.

“Yes,” she repeated, this time turning to me. “I’ve come … that is, I’ve been chosen to come and ask a favor of you.”

I gestured at the clothes she wore. “I don’t understand. You’ve left Verity’s guard?”

She gave a tiny shrug, but I could see the question delighted her. “But not to go far. Queen’s guard. Vixen badge. See?” She tugged the front of the short white jacket she wore to hold the fabric taut. Good sensible woolen homespun, I saw, and saw, too, the embroidered snarling white fox on a purple background. The purple matched the purple of her heavy woolen trousers. The loose pants cuff had been tucked into knee boots. Her partner’s garb matched hers. Queen’s guard. In light of Kettricken’s adventure, the uniform made sense.

“Verity decided she needed a guard of her own?” I asked delightedly.

The smile faded a bit from Whistle’s face. “Not exactly,” she hedged, and then straightened as if reporting to me. “We decided she needed a Queen’s guard. Me and some of the others that rode with her the other day. We got to talking about … everything, later. About how she handled herself out there. And back here. And how she came here, all alone. We talked about it then, that someone should get permission to form up a guard for her. But none of us really knew how to approach it. We knew it was needed, but no one else seemed to be paying much attention … but then last week, at the gate, I heard you got pretty hot about how she’d gone out, on foot and alone, and no one at her back. Well, you did! I was in the other room, and I heard!”

I bit back my protest, nodded curtly, and Whistle went on: “So. Well, we just did. Those of us who felt we wanted to wear the purple and white just said so. It was a pretty even split. It was time to take in some new blood anyway; most of Verity’s guard was getting a bit long in the tooth. And soft, from too much time in the Keep. So we re-formed, giving rank to some who should have made it long ago, if there’d been any openings to fill, and taking in some recruits to fill in where needed. It all worked out perfectly. These newcomers will give us something to hone our skills on while we teach them. The
Queen will have her own guard, when she wants one. Or needs one.”

“I see.” I was beginning to get an uneasy feeling. “And what was the favor you wanted of me?”

“Explain it to Verity. Tell the Queen she has a guard.” She said the words simply and quietly.

“This walks close to disloyalty,” I said just as simply. “Soldiers of Verity’s own guard, setting aside his colors to take on his queen’s …”

“Some might see it that way. Some might speak it that way.” Her eyes met mine squarely, and the smile was gone from her face. “But you know it is not. It’s a needed thing. Your … Chivalry would have seen it, would have had a guard for her before she even arrived here. But King-in-Waiting Verity … well, this is no disloyalty to him. We’ve served him well, because we love him. Still do. This is those who’ve always watched his back, falling back and re-forming to watch his back even better. That’s all. He’s got a good Queen, is what we think. We don’t want to see him lose her. That was all. We don’t think any the less of our king-in-waiting. You know that.”

I did. But still. I looked away from her plea, shook my head, and tried to think. Why me? a part of me demanded angrily. Then I knew, that in the moment I’d lost my temper and berated the guard for not protecting their queen, I’d volunteered for this. Burrich had warned me about not remembering my place. “I will speak to King-in-Waiting Verity. And to the Queen, if he approves this.”