Assassin’s Quest. Робин Хобб

not base anything on you. You’ll get no assignment from me, nor will you be privy to my plans any longer. Those days are over.’ I could not grasp the finality in his voice. He turned aside from me, his eyes going afar. When he spoke again, it was not as my master, but as Chade. He looked at the wall as he spoke. ‘I love you, boy. I don’t withdraw that from you. But you’re dangerous. And what we must attempt is dangerous enough without you going berserk in the middle of it.’

      ‘What do you attempt?’ I asked, despite myself.

      His eyes met mine as he slowly shook his head. In the keeping of that secret, he sundered our ties. I felt suddenly adrift. I watched in a daze as he took up his pack and cloak.

      ‘It’s dark out,’ I pointed out. ‘And Buckkeep is a far, rough walk, even in daylight. At least stay the night, Chade.’

      ‘I can’t. You’d but pick at this quarrel like a scab until you got it bleeding afresh. Enough hard words have already been said. Best I leave now.’

      And he did.

      I sat and watched the fire burn low alone. I had gone too far with both of them, much farther than I had ever intended. I had wanted to part ways with them; instead I’d poisoned every memory of me they’d ever had. It was done. There’d be no mending this. I got up and began to gather my things. It took a very short time. I knotted them into a bundle made with my winter cloak. I wondered if I acted out of childish pique or sudden decisiveness. I wondered if there was a difference. I sat for a time before the hearth, clutching my bundle. I wanted Burrich to come back, so he would see I was sorry, would know I was sorry as I left. I forced myself to look carefully at that. Then I undid my bundle and put my blanket before the hearth and stretched out on it. Ever since Burrich had dragged me back from death, he had slept between me and the door. Perhaps it had been to keep me in. Some nights it had felt as if he were all that stood between me and the dark. Now he was not there. Despite the walls of the hut, I felt I curled alone on the bare, wild face of the world.

      You always have me.

      I know. And you have me. I tried, but could not put any real feeling in the words. I had poured out every emotion in me, and now I was empty. And so tired. With so much still to do.

       The Grey One has words with Heart of the Pack. Shall I listen?

      No. Their words belong to them. I felt jealous that they were together while I was alone. Yet I also took comfort in it. Perhaps Burrich could talk Chade into coming back until morning. Perhaps Chade could leech some of the poison I’d sprayed at Burrich. I stared into the fire. I did not think highly of myself.

      There is a dead spot in the night, that coldest, blackest time when the world has forgotten evening and dawn is not yet a promise. A time when it is far too early to arise, but so late that going to bed makes small sense. That was when Burrich came in. I was not asleep, but I did not stir. He was not fooled.

      ‘Chade’s gone,’ he said quietly. I heard him right the fallen chair. He sat on it and began taking his boots off. I felt no hostility from him, no animosity. It was as if my angry words had never been spoken. Or as if he’d been pushed past anger and hurt into numbness.

      ‘It’s too dark for him to be walking,’ I said to the flames. I spoke carefully, fearing to break the spell of calm.

      ‘I know. But he had a small lantern with him. He said he feared more to stay, feared he could not keep his resolve with you. To let you go.’

      What I had been snarling for earlier now seemed like an abandonment. The fear surged up in me, undercutting my resolve. I sat up abruptly, panicky. I took a long shuddering breath. ‘Burrich. What I said to you earlier, I was angry, I was …’

      ‘Right on target.’ The sound he made might have been a laugh, if not so freighted with bitterness.

      ‘Only in the way that people who know one another best know how to hurt one another best,’ I pleaded.

      ‘No. It is so. Perhaps this dog does need a master.’ The mockery in his voice as he spoke of himself was more poisonous than any venom I had spewed. I could not speak. He sat up, let his boots drop to the floor. He glanced at me. ‘I did not set out to make you just like me, Fitz. That is not a thing I would wish on any man. I wished you to be like your father. But sometimes it seemed to me that no matter what I did, you persisted in patterning your life after mine.’ He stared into the embers for a time. At last he began to speak again, softly, to the fire. He sounded as if he were telling an old tale to a sleepy child.

      ‘I was born in the Chalced States. A little coast town, a fishing and shipping port. Lees. My mother did washing to support my grandmother and me. My father was dead before I was born, taken by the sea. My grandmother looked after me, but she was very old, and often ill.’ I heard more than saw his bitter smile. ‘A lifetime of being a slave does not leave a woman with sound health. She loved me, and did her best with me. But I was not a boy who would play in the cottage at quiet games. And there was no one at home strong enough to oppose my will.

      ‘So I bonded, very young, to the only strong male in my world who was interested in me. A street cur. Mangy. Scarred. His only value was survival, his only loyalty to me. As my loyalty was to him. His world, his way was all I knew. Taking what you wanted, when you wanted it, and not worrying past getting it. I am sure you know what I mean. The neighbours thought I was a mute. My mother thought I was a half-wit. My grandmother, I am sure, had her suspicions. She tried to drive the dog away, but like you, I had a will of my own in those matters. I suppose I was about eight when he ran between a horse and its cart and was kicked to death. He was stealing a slab of bacon at the time.’ He got up from his chair, and went to his blankets.

      Burrich had taken Nosy away from me when I was less than that age. I had believed him dead. But Burrich had experienced the actual, violent death of his bond companion. It was little different from dying oneself. ‘What did you do?’ I asked quietly.

      I heard him making up his bed and lying down on it. ‘I learned to talk,’ he said after a bit. ‘My grandmother forced me to survive Slash’s death. In a sense, I transferred my bond to her. Not that I forgot Slash’s lessons. I became a thief, a fairly good one. I made my mother and grandmother’s life a bit better with my new trade, though they never suspected what I did. About a hand of years later, the blood plague went through Chalced. It was the first time I’d ever seen it. They both died, and I was alone. So I went for a soldier.’

      I listened in amazement. All the years I had known him as a taciturn man. Drink had never loosened his tongue, but only made him more silent. Now the words were spilling out of him, washing away my years of wondering and suspecting. Why he suddenly spoke so openly, I did not know. His voice was the only sound in the firelit room.

      ‘I first fought for some petty land chief in Chalced. Jecto. Not knowing or caring why we fought, if there was any right or wrong to it.’ He snorted softly. ‘As I told you, a living is not a life. But I did well enough at it. I earned a reputation for viciousness. No one expects a boy to fight with a beast’s ferocity and guile. It was my only key to survival amongst the kind of men I soldiered with then. But one day we lost a campaign. I spent several months, no, almost a year, learning my grandmother’s hatred of slavers. When I escaped, I did what she had always dreamed of doing. I went to the Six Duchies, where there are no slaves, nor slavers. Grizzle was Duke of Shoaks then. I soldiered for him for a bit. Somehow I ended up taking care of my troop’s horses. I liked it well enough. Grizzle’s troops were gentlemen compared with the dregs that soldiered for Jecto, but I still preferred the company of horses to them.

      ‘When the Sandsedge war was done, Duke Grizzle took me home to his own stables. I bonded with a young stallion there. Neko. I had the care of him, but he was not mine. Grizzle rode him to hunt. Sometimes, they used him for stud. But Grizzle was not a gentle man. Sometimes he put Neko to fight other stallions, as some men fight dogs or cocks for amusement. A mare in season, and the better stallion to have her. And I … I was bonded to him. His life was mine as much as my own was. And so I grew to be a man. Or at least, to have the shape of one.’ Burrich was silent a moment. He did not need to explain further to me. After