Assassin’s Quest. Робин Хобб
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Why would they want to kill me?
We are strangers, coming into their hunting grounds. Why shouldn’t they try to kill us?
Humans are not like that, I explained patiently.
No. You are right. They will probably just put you in a cage and beat you.
No they won’t, I insisted firmly to cover my own fears that perhaps someone might recognize me.
They did before, he insisted. Both of us. And that was your own pack.
I could not deny that. So I promised, I will be very, very careful. I shall not be long. I just want to go listen to them talk for a bit, to find out what is happening.
Why should we care what is happening to them? What is happening to us is that we are neither hunting, nor sleeping, nor travelling. They are not pack with us.
It may tell us what to expect, further on our journey. I may find out if the roads are heavily travelled, if there is work I can take for a day or so to get a few coins. That sort of thing.
We could simply travel on and find out for ourselves, Nighteyes pointed out stubbornly.
I dragged on my shirt and leggings over my damp skin. I combed my hair back with my fingers, squeezed the moisture from it. Habit made me tie it back in a warrior’s tail. Then I bit my lip, considering. I had planned to represent myself as a wandering scribe. I took it out of its tail and shook it loose. It came almost to my shoulders. A bit long for a scribe’s hair. Most of them kept their hair short, and shaved it back from the brow line to keep it from their eyes when they worked. Well, with my untrimmed beard and shaggy hair, perhaps I could be taken for a scribe who had been long without work. Not a good recommendation for my skills, but given the poor supplies I had, perhaps that was best.
I tugged my shirt straight to make myself presentable. I fastened my belt, checked to be sure my knife sat securely in its sheath, and then hefted the paltry weight of my purse. The flint in it weighed more than the coins. I did have the four silver bits from Burrich. A few months ago it would not have seemed like much money. Now it was all I had, and I resolved not to spend it unless I must. The only other wealth I had was the earring Burrich had given me and the pin from Shrewd. Reflexively my hand went to the earring. As annoying as it could be when we were hunting through dense brush, the touch of it always reassured me. Likewise the pin in the collar of my shirt.
The pin that wasn’t there.
I took the shirt off and checked the entire collar, and then the complete garment. I methodically kindled a small fire for light. Then I undid my bundle completely and went through everything in it, not once, but twice. This despite my almost certain knowledge of where the pin was. The small red ruby in its nest of silver was in the collar of a shirt worn by a dead man outside the shepherd’s hut. I was all but certain, and yet I could not admit it to myself. All the while I searched, Nighteyes prowled in an uncertain circle around my fire, whining in soft agitation about an anxiety he sensed but could not comprehend. ‘Shush!’ I told him irritably and forced my mind to go back over the events as if I were going to report to Shrewd.
The last time I could remember having the pin was the night I had driven Burrich and Shrewd away. I had taken it out of the shirt’s collar and showed it to them both, and then sat looking at it. Then I had put it back. I could not recall handling it since then. I could not recall taking it out of the shirt when I washed it. It seemed I should have jabbed myself with it when I washed it if it was still there. But I usually pushed the pin into a seam where it would hold tighter. It had seemed safer so. I had no way of knowing if I had lost it hunting with the wolf, or if it were still in the shirt the dead man wore. Perhaps it had been left on the table, and one of the Forged ones had picked up the bright thing when they pawed through my possessions.
It was just a pin, I reminded myself. With a sick longing I wished I would suddenly see it, caught in the lining of my cloak or tumbled inside my boot. In a sudden flash of hope, I checked inside both boots again. It still wasn’t there. Just a pin, just a bit of worked metal and a gleaming stone. Just the token King Shrewd had given me when he claimed me, when he created a bond between us to replace the blood one that could never be legitimately recognized. Just a pin, and all I had left of my king and my grandfather. Nighteyes whined again, and I felt an irrational urge to snarl back at him. He must have known that, but still he came, flipping my elbow up with his nose and then burrowing his head under my arm until his great grey head was up against my chest and my arm around his shoulders. He tossed his nose up suddenly, clacking his muzzle painfully against my chin. I hugged him hard, and he turned to rub his throat against my face. The ultimate gesture of trust, wolf to wolf, that baring of the throat to another’s possible snarl. After a moment I sighed, and the pain of loss I felt over the thing was less.
It was just a thing from a yesterday, Nighteyes wondered hesitantly. A thing no longer here? It is not a thorn in your paw, or a pain in your belly?
‘Just a thing from yesterday,’ I had to agree. A pin that had been given to a boy who no longer existed by a man who had died. Perhaps it was as well, I thought to myself. One less thing that might connect me to FitzChivalry the Witted. I ruffled the fur on the back of his neck, then scratched behind his ears. He sat up beside me, then nudged me to get me to rub his ears again. I did, thinking as I did so. Perhaps I should take off Burrich’s earring and keep it concealed in my pouch. But I knew I would not. Let it be the one link I carried forward from that life to this one. ‘Let me up,’ I told the wolf, and he reluctantly stopped leaning on me. Methodically I repacked my possessions into a bundle and fastened it, then trampled out the tiny fire.
‘Shall I come back here or meet you on the other side of town?’
Other side?
If you circle about the town and then come back toward the river, you will find more of the road there, I explained. Shall we find one another there?
That would be good. The less time we spend near this den of humans, the better.
Fine, then. I shall find you there before morning, I told him.
More likely, I shall find you, numb nose. And I shall have a full belly when I do.
I had to concede that was likelier.
Watch out for dogs, I warned him as he faded into the brush.
You watch out for men, he rejoined, and then was lost to my senses save for our Wit-bond.
I slung my pack over my shoulder and made my way down to the road. It was full dark now. I had intended to reach town before dark and stop at a tavern for the talk and perhaps a mug, and then be on my way. I had wanted to walk through the market square and listen in on the talk of the merchants. Instead I walked into a town that was mostly abed. The market was deserted save for a few dogs nosing in the empty stalls for scraps. I left the square and turned my steps toward the river. Down there I would find inns and taverns aplenty to accommodate the river trade. A few torches burned here and there throughout the town, but most of the light in the streets was what spilled from poorly-shuttered windows. The roughly-cobbled streets were not well kept up. Several times I mistook a hole for a shadow and nearly stumbled. I stopped a town watchman before he could stop me, to ask him to recommend a waterfront inn to me. The Scales, he told me, was as fair and honest to travellers as its name implied, and was easily found as well. He warned me sternly that begging was not tolerated there, and that cutpurses would be lucky if a beating was all they got. I thanked him for his warnings and went on my way.
I found the Scales as easily as the watchman had said I would. Light spilled out from its open door, and with it the voices of two women singing a merry round. My heart cheered at the friendly sound of it, and I entered without hesitation. Within the stout walls of mud brick and heavy timbers was a great open room, low-ceilinged and rich with the smells of meat and smoke and riverfolk. A cooking hearth at one end of the room had a fine spit of meat in its maw, but most folk were gathered at the cooler end of the room on this fine summer evening. There the two minstrels had dragged chairs up