Robin Hobb - Fool's Assassin

Find the target.

I left the study, closing the door behind me. I moved swiftly and silently, years and dignity and present social standing swept aside and erased. I made no sound and carried no light with me. I kept the sword at my side. First, to my own bedchamber. I built castles of thoughts as I ran. The messenger had sought me. Regardless of whether she was attacker or attacked, I might be the intended target for the violence. I flowed up the stair like a hunting cat, every sense burning and raw. I was aware of Revel keeping his vigil by the door long before he knew I was coming. I lifted a finger to my lips as I drew near. He startled when he saw me, but kept silent. I drew close. “All is well here?” I breathed the question.

He nodded and as softly replied, “Riddle was here not that long ago, sir, and insisted I admit him to be sure that all was well with the lady.” He stared at the sword.

“And it was?”

His gaze snapped back to me. “Of course, sir! Would I stand here so calmly were it not so?”

“Of course not. Forgive my asking. Revel, please remain here until I come back to relieve you, or I send Riddle or one of Molly’s sons.” I offered him the sword. He took it, holding it like a poker. He looked from it to me.

“But our guests …” he began feebly.

“Are never as important as our lady. Guard this door, Revel.”

“I will, sir.”

I reflected that he deserved more than an order. “We still do not know whose blood was shed. Someone used the doors in the study that go out to the garden. To enter or to leave, I do not know. Tell me a bit more of the messenger’s appearance.”

He bit his upper lip, worrying the information from his memory. “She was a girl, sir. That is, more girl than woman. Slight and slender. Her hair was blond and she wore it loose. Her clothing looked as if it had been of good quality but had seen hard use. It was a foreign style, the cape tapered in at the waist and then belling out, with sleeves belled as well. It was green and looked heavy but did not appear to be wool. There was fur on the edging of the hood, of a kind I do not know. I offered to take her cloak and hood but she did not wish to give them up to me. She wore loose trousers, perhaps of the same fabric, but black with white flowers figured on them. Her boots did not reach her knee and seemed thin and were laced tight to her calf.”

So much detail about her garments! “But what did she herself look like?”

“She was young. She looked white with cold and seemed grateful when I built up the fire for her and offered her hot tea. Her fingers were pale as ice against the mug when she took it from me …” His voice trailed away. He looked up at me suddenly. “She didn’t want to leave the study, sir. Or to give up her cloak. Should I have known she was frightened?”

Had Riddle truly thought he could make more of this man than a house steward? Tears stood in his brown eyes. “Revel, you did all that you should have done. If anyone is at fault, it is I. I should have gone to the study as soon as I heard there was a messenger. Please. Just keep watch here for a short time longer until I send someone to relieve you. Then you should go back to what you do best. Tend to our guests. Let no one suspect that anything is amiss.”

“I can do that, sir.” He spoke softly. Was the reproach in his dog’s eyes for me or himself? No time to wonder.

“Thank you, Revel,” I told him and left him with a clap on his shoulder. I moved swiftly down the corridor, already reaching for Nettle with my Skill-magic. The moment our thoughts touched, my daughter’s outrage blasted into my mind. Riddle told me. How dare anyone do this in our home! Is Mother safe?

She is. I’m on my way down. Revel is on watch on her door, but I’d like you or one of the boys to take his place.

Me. I’ll make my excuses and be right up. A heartbeat’s pause, then, fiercely, Find who did this!

I intend to.

I think she took satisfaction in my cold assurance.

I moved swiftly through the corridors of Withywoods, every sense alert. I was not surprised when I rounded a corner and found Riddle waiting for me. “Anything?” I asked him.

“Nettle’s gone up to her mother’s room.” He glanced past me. “You know that you were probably the target in some way.”

“Perhaps. Or the messenger herself, or the message she bore, or someone seeking to do injury to whoever sent the message by delaying or destroying it.”

We were moving swiftly together, trotting side by side like wolves on a trail.

I loved this.

The thought ambushed me and I almost stumbled. I loved this? Hunting someone who had attacked someone else in the sanctity of my own home? Why would I love that?

We always loved the hunt. An ancient echo of the wolf I had been and the wolf who was still with me. The hunt for meat is best, but any hunt is always the hunt, and one is never more alive than during the hunt.

“And I am alive.”

Riddle shot me a questioning glance, but instead of asking a question he gave me information. “Revel himself took the food and tea to the messenger. The two pages who were on the front door recall admitting her. She came on foot, and one says that she seemed to come from behind the stable rather than up the carriageway. No one else saw her, though of course the kitchen staff recall making up a tray for her. I haven’t had a chance to go out to the stables and see what they know there.”

I glanced down at myself. I was scarcely dressed to appear before our guests. “I’ll do that now,” I said. “Alert the boys.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s their home, Riddle. And they are not really boys anymore. They’ve been talking of leaving for the last three months. In spring I think they’ll fly.”

“And you have no one else to trust. Tom, when this is over, we are going to talk again. You need a few house soldiers, a few men who can be brutes when the situation calls for it, but can open a door and serve wine to a guest as well.”

“We’ll talk later,” I agreed, but grudgingly. It wasn’t the first time he had pointed out to me that I should have some sort of house guard for Withywoods. I resisted the idea. I was no longer an assassin, living to guard my King and carry out his quiet work. I was a respectable landholder, a man of grapes and sheep now, a man of plows and shears, not knives and swords. And there was, I had to admit, my conceit that I could always protect my own household against whatever limited threats might find their way to my door.

But I hadn’t tonight.

I left Riddle and trotted through the halls on my way to the stables. There was, I told myself, truly no indication that whatever bloodshed there had been was deadly. Nor did it have to be related to me or to my own. Perhaps the messenger had enemies of her own who had followed her. I reached a servants’ entrance, pushed open the heavy door, and dashed across the snowy courtyard to the stable door. Even in that brief run, I had snow down the back of my neck and in my mouth. I slid back the bar on the stable doors and pushed one open just enough to slip in.

Inside was the warmth of stabled animals, the pleasant smell of horses and soft light from a shielded lantern on a hook. In response to my entrance, Tallman was already hobbling toward me. His son, Tallerman, supervised most of the work of the stables now, but Tallman still considered himself in charge. On days when there was a great deal of coming and going, as there was tonight, he rigorously controlled which animals were stabled where. He had strong feelings about teams left standing all evening in harness. He peered at me through the gloom of the stable and then gave a start as he recognized me. “Holder Tom!” he cried in his cracking voice. “Shouldn’t you be dancing with the fine folk in the Great Hall?”