Robin Hobb - City of Dragons

Hest was curled around his belly. Fiery knives were trapped inside it and trying to slash their way out. He had soiled himself and ruined the rug; he stank and he was dying and it hurt. He could think of nothing he could do, though he would have been willing to do anything to stop the pain he was enduring.

The Chalcedean nudged him with his boot. “I know you, Trader. Such a fine fellow, such a fancy fellow. I know the people you visit, and I know how you amuse yourself. I do not understand why you find it amusing, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? You like to think yourself the master, don’t you?” He’d stooped down then, seized the hair on top of Hest’s head, and twisted it to force Hest to look up at him. “It arouses you, doesn’t it?” the Chalcedean had asked him knowingly. “To think you are in charge. To make others grovel before you take your pleasure from them. But now I am showing you an important thing, aren’t I?”

The Chalcedean had crouched down even lower to put his face close to Hest’s. He was smiling as he whispered, “You aren’t the master. You pretend. The people who you play with, they are pretending, too, my little friend. They, like me, know that you are not really the master. I am the master. You are just a dog, like them. A shit-sniffing, boot-licking dog.”

He had released his grip on Hest’s hair, let his head thump back onto the soiled rug, then had walked three paces away and suggested softly, “Why don’t you show me that you know what you are, Trader Hest?

Hest hated recalling what came after that. Despite the stabbing pain in his belly, despite his shrieking pride, he had wanted to live. He had dragged himself through his own vomit to where the assassin stood, smiling slightly. He had licked the man’s boot. Not once or twice, but like a dog, lapping at it over and over until the Chalcedean had stepped away. He had pulled an embroidered cloth from Hest’s lamp stand and used it to wipe Hest’s spittle from his boot before tossing it disdainfully aside.

“You may live,” he pronounced at last and threw the little vial to Hest. But as it fell, the stopper came free. The precious liquid spattered out as the vial struck the rug and rolled away. With feeble twitching hands, Hest had grasped at it, spilling still more, so that when he finally held it to his parched lips, only drops remained. He sucked at them, and when the Chalcedean laughed aloud, he knew he had been cheated. But he would not be cheated, he would not die! He scrabbled onto his belly and sucked at the drops that had fallen to the rug while the Chalcedean laughed even louder. He tasted dirt and the fiber of the carpet and only the barest trace of moisture. He had rolled away from it, feeling grit and filth on his lips. Tears had begun in his eyes.

As they slid down his cheeks, the Chalcedean had spoken. “Water. Water with a touch of dye in it. That’s all my ‘antidote’ was. You aren’t dying. You never were dying. You will suffer for a few more hours. You will feel ill for a day after that, but you will go out anyway, to book your passage to Trehaug on a ship called New Glory . It’s not a liveship; it’s a new sort of ship, out of Jamaillia. That is the one you will choose. You will hear from me one more time before you depart. There will be messages for you to deliver. And when I return, you will remember that you are not only stupid but my dog, and that I am your master.”

He’d walked over to Hest and set his boot on his belly. The pressure was an agony, and Hest had nodded numbly. Helpless fury had seethed inside him, but he had nodded.

And he had obeyed.

The nasty trophies in the pretty boxes were well wrapped in Redding’s luggage. Hest didn’t want to take the chance of any smell permeating his clothes. Redding had no idea of the contents.

The Chalcedean had kept his word. In the dark of night, he had materialized in Hest’s bedchamber and forced him to kneel while memorizing a list of contact names in Trehaug and Cassarick. When Hest had attempted to write the information down, the Chalcedean had threatened to carve the names into his thighs so he could consult them there without risk of dropping an incriminating list. Hest had chosen to memorize the names.

When he had tried to ask questions, to discover more of his task, the Chalcedean had slapped him. Hard. “A dog does not need to know his master’s mind. He sits. He fetches. He brings to his master’s feet the bloody, dead game. And that is as much as he needs to know. He will be told what he is to do when he is to do it.”

The lack of knowledge ate at Hest like a canker. Who were the men he must contact and what would they demand of him in return? Only one name was familiar. Begasti Cored. Sedric’s Chalcedean trader. He clung to that bit of knowledge with every speck of anger in his heart. The Chalcedean trader would lead him to Sedric.

He looked forward to that. He looked forward to humiliating Sedric as he had been humbled, to threatening him as he had been threatened. Whenever he thought of it, his heart beat faster and the muscles in his belly tightened. There was, he decided, only one way to purge himself of the terror and humiliation that the Chalcedean had forced on him.

He would pass them on to Sedric.

Hest had no doubt that once he found Sedric, he would discover Alise as well. With or without dragon parts, he intended to herd them both back to Bingtown, reinstall Alise as his lawful and dutiful wife, and then formalize his family claim to a substantial percentage of the newly found Elderling city. It was the only part of his mission that he actually anticipated with pleasure.

Bringing Alise home was the only mission that Redding knew about; Hest had not confided to him that once Sedric had been made tractable, he would probably displace Redding. Several times on the journey up the river, Hest had toyed with the idea of abandoning Redding to his own devices in Trehaug or Cassarick. It would give him a great deal of satisfaction to leave the greedy little man penniless in a strange city, and make for a wonderful tale for his inner circle when he returned to Bingtown. Unlike Sedric, Redding had not found much favor with Hest’s intimates. They’d be glad to see him gone. As would Hest. Except for a few small things. As Hest watched him patting his pursed lips with his napkin, he felt a minor stirring of interest. Sedric was classically handsome, but Redding was far more imaginative in some ways.

The little man became aware of Hest’s gaze. A smile bowed his lips and he licked them thoughtfully. “Before that, ” he said coyly, “I’ve something else that may interest you. Something I learned on the deck.”

Hest leaned forward on the table, intrigued. “On the deck? Redding, have you found a new playmate for us?”

Redding chortled. “My dear fellow, restrain yourself. I’m speaking of gossip, not a new bed game! I went out on the deck to get a bit of air, and there were two fellows out there already, chatting and smoking. I hadn’t seen either one of them before, so I held back a bit, and yes, I eavesdropped a bit. One of them was speaking of his cousin in Chalced. He was saying that his cousin had seen two dragons in the sky. A large blue one and an even larger black one. And I thought to myself, this is most likely Tintaglia and her mate.” He paused and wriggled his eyebrows at Hest, waiting to hear how clever he was.

Hest had no time for such niceties. “Over Chalced?”

“So I would assume,” Redding replied merrily. “So I thought to myself, if Tintaglia returns to Trehaug and asks what has become of the hatched dragons, well! That could lead to some very interesting times for the Rain Wilders, couldn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

What would it mean? The fury of a dragon unleashed on a treetop city? Perhaps. While he was in the city? Hest’s focus changed suddenly. He had seen the aftermath of a dragon’s fury, had seen stone furrowed from the acid spray of venom, seen men’s bodies reduced to liquefied flesh inside pitted armor. At that time, Tintaglia had been incensed with the Chalcedean fleet and invaders. But if she turned on Trehaug, there was nowhere to flee, no structure sturdy enough to provide shelter.