Royal Assassin. Robin Hobb

oil on them and set them aflame. I cannot say which I found most distasteful, the poisoning, or the concealing of my deed. Cub had initially begged to go with me when he understood that I was riding out each day after feeding him, but at one point, as I stood over the frozen stick-men I had slain, I heard, This is not hunting, this. This is no pack’s doing. This is man’s doing. His presence was gone before I could rebuke him for intruding into my mind again.

      In the evenings I returned to the keep, to hot, fresh food and warm fires, dry clothes and a soft bed, but the spectres of those Forged ones stood between me and these comforts. I felt myself a heartless beast that I could enjoy such things after spreading death by day. My only easement was a prickly one, that at night when I slept, I dreamed of Molly, and walked and talked with her, unhaunted by Forged ones or their frost-rimed bodies.

      Came a day I rode out later than I had intended, for Verity had been in his map-room and had kept me overlong in talk. A storm was coming up, but it did not seem too severe. I had not intended to go far that day, but I found fresh sign instead of my prey, a larger group of them than I had expected. The gathering clouds stole the light from the sky more swiftly than I had expected and the sign led me down game trails where Sooty and I found it slow going. When I finally glanced up from my tracking, admitting that they had eluded me this day, I found myself much farther from Buckkeep than I had intended and well off any travelled road.

      The wind began to blow, a nasty cold one that foretold snow to follow. I wrapped my cloak more tightly about myself and turned Sooty’s head toward home, relying on her to pick her path and pace. Darkness fell before we’d gone far, and snow with it. Had I not traversed this area so frequently of late, I would surely have been lost. But we pressed on, going always, it seemed, into the teeth of the wind. The cold soaked right through me, and I began to shiver. I feared the shivering might actually be the beginnings of trembling and a fit such as I had not suffered for a long time.

      I was grateful when the winds finally tore a rent in the cloud cover, and moonlight and starlight leaked through to grey our way. We made a better pace then, despite the fresh snow that Sooty waded through. We broke out of a thin birch forest onto a hillside that lightning had burned off a few years ago. The wind was stronger here with nothing to oppose it, and I gathered my cloak and turned up the collar again. I knew that once I crested the hill, I would see the lights of Buckkeep, and that another hill away and a vale would find a well-used road to take me home. So I was of better cheer as we cut our way across the hill’s smooth flank.

      Sudden as thunder, I heard the hoofbeats of a horse struggling to make speed, but somehow encumbered. Sooty slowed, then threw back her head and whinnied. At the same moment I saw a horse and rider break out of the cover, downhill of me and to the south. The horse carried a rider, and two other people clung to it, one to its breast strap and one to the rider’s leg. Light glinted on a blade that rose and fell, and with a cry the man clutching at the rider’s leg fell away to wallow and shriek in the snow. But the other figure had caught the horse’s headstall, and as he tried to drag the beast to a halt, two other pursuers burst from the trees to converge on the struggling horse and rider.

      The moment of recognizing Kettricken is inseparable from the moment I set heels to Sooty. What I saw made no sense to me, but that did not prevent my responding. I did not ask myself what my Queen-in-Waiting was doing out here, at night, unaccompanied and set upon by robbers. Rather, I found myself admiring how she kept her seat and set her horse to wheeling as she kicked and slashed at the men who tried to drag her down. I drew my sword as we closed on the struggle, but I do not recall that I made any sound. My recollection of the whole struggle is a strange one, a battle of silhouettes, done in black and white like a Mountain shadow play, soundless save for the grunts and cries of the Forged as one after another they fell.

      Kettricken had slashed one across the face, blinding him with blood, but still he clung to her and tried to drag her from the saddle. The other ignored the plight of his fellows, tugging instead at saddlebags that probably carried no more than a bit of food and brandy packed for a day’s ride.

      Sooty took me in close to the one gripping Softstep’s headstall. I saw it was a woman and then my sword was into her and out again, as soulless an exercise as chopping wood. Such a peculiar struggle. I could sense Kettricken, the fright of her horse and Sooty’s battle-trained enthusiasm, but from her attackers, nothing. Nothing at all. No anger throbbed, no pain of their wounds shrieked for attention. To my Wit, they were not there at all, any more than the snow or the wind that likewise opposed me.

      I watched as in a dream as Kettricken seized her attacker by the hair and leaned his head back that she might cut his throat. Blood spilled black in the moonlight, drenching her coat and leaving a sheen on the chestnut’s neck and shoulder before he fell back to spasm in the snow. I swung my short sword at the last one, but missed. Kettricken did not. Her short knife danced in, and punched through jerkin and ribcage and into his lung, and out again as swift. She kicked him away. ‘To me!’ she said simply into the night, and put heels to her chestnut, driving Softstep straight up the hill. Sooty ran with her nose at Kettricken’s stirrup, and so we crested the hill together, glimpsing the lights of Buckkeep briefly before we plunged down the other side.

      There was brush at the bottom of the slope, and a creek hidden by the snow, so I kicked Sooty into the lead and turned Softstep before she could blunder into it and fall. Kettricken said nothing as I turned her horse, but let me take the lead as we entered the forest on the other side of the stream. I moved us as swiftly as I dared, expecting always figures to shout and leap out at us. But we made the road at last, just as the clouds closed up again, stealing the moonlight from us. I slowed the horses and let them breathe. For some time we travelled in silence, both intently listening for any sounds of pursuit.

      After a time, we felt safer, and I heard Kettricken let out her pent breath in a long, shaky sigh. ‘Thank you, Fitz,’ she said simply, but could not keep her voice quite steady. I made no comment, half-expecting that at any moment she would burst into weeping. I would not have blamed her. Instead she gradually gathered herself, tugging her clothes straight, wiping her blade on her trousers and then re-sheathing it at her waist. She leaned forward to pat Softstep’s neck and murmur words of praise and comfort to the horse. I felt Softstep’s tension ease and admired Kettricken’s skill to have so swiftly gained the confidence of the tall horse.

      ‘How came you here? Seeking me?’ she asked at last.

      I shook my head. Snow was beginning to fall again. ‘I was out hunting, and went farther than I had intended. It was but good fortune that brought me to you.’ I paused, then ventured, ‘Did you get lost? Will there be riders searching for you?’

      She sniffed, and took a breath. ‘Not exactly,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘I went out riding with Regal. A few others rode with us, but when the storm began to threaten, we all turned back to Buckkeep. The others rode on before us, but Regal and I came more slowly. He was telling me a folk tale from his home duchy, and we let the others ride ahead, that I should not have to hear it through their chatter.’ She took a breath and I heard her swallow back the last of the night’s terror. Her voice was calmer when she went on.

      ‘The others were far ahead of us, when a fox started up suddenly from the brush by the path. “Follow me, if you’d like to see real sport!” Regal challenged me, and he turned his horse from the path and set off after the animal. Whether I would or no, Softstep sprang after them. Regal rode like a mad thing, all stretched out on his horse, urging it on with a quirt.’ There was consternation, and wonder, but also a stain of admiration in her voice as she described him.

      Softstep had not answered the rein. At first she had been fearful of their pace, for she did not know the terrain, and feared that Softstep would stumble. So she had tried to rein in her mount. But when she had realized that she could no longer see the road or the others, and that Regal was far ahead of her, she had given Softstep her head in the hopes of catching up, with the predictable result that as the storm closed in, she had lost her way completely. She had turned back to retrace her trail to the road, but the falling snow and blowing wind had quickly erased it. At last she had given Softstep the bit, trusting her horse to find her way home. Probably she would have, if those wild men had not set upon her. Her voice dwindled away into silence.