Robin Hobb - Fool's Errand

He sighed. "It was… even more than that. She wants to make the decisions. All the decisions. Every time. Just as she told the cat what to hunt, and when, and took her kills away. When she holds us close, it feels like love. But she can also hold back from us, and yet we are still held…" He could see that I did not understand. After a time he added quietly, "I didn't like it when she used my body against you. Even if she hadn't been trying to kill you, I wouldn't have liked it. She pushed me to one side, just like…" He didn't want to admit it. I admired that he forced himself to it. "Just like I've felt her push the cat aside, when she didn't want to do cat things. When she was tired of grooming, or didn't want to play. The cat doesn't like it, either, but she doesn't know how to push back. I did. I pushed her back and she didn't like it. She didn't like that the cat felt me do it, either. I think that's the biggest reason why I'm being punished. That I pushed her back." He shook his head, baffled himself, and then said, "She's so real. How can you be sure she's dead?"

I found I could not lie to him. "I… feel it. So does Nighteyes. He says the cat is riddled with her, as if she were parasites worming through her flesh. He felt sorry for the cat."

"Oh." The word was very small. I glanced back at him, and thought he looked more gray than pale now. His eyes went distant and his thoughts traveled back. "When I first got her, she loved for me to groom her. I kept her coat like silk. But after we left Buckkeep… sometimes the cat would want to be brushed, but the woman always said there was no time for that. Cat lost weight and her fur was rough. I worried, but she always set my worry aside. She said it was just the season, that it would pass. And I believed her. Even though the cat wanted to be brushed." He looked stricken. "I took no pleasure in telling you that. I suppose it doesn't matter now."

For a long time, I led the horse in silence as I tried to puzzle out what his last words meant. Didn't matter that I was sorry, or didn't matter that she was dead?

"I believed so many things she told me. But I already knew that... They're coming now. The crow has fetched them." A sudden note of remorse came into his voice. His words were halting. "They knew to watch the standing stone. From all the legends of such stones. But she wouldn't let me tell you that. Until now. When it doesn't matter. She finds it humorous, now." He suddenly sat up straight in the saddle. Life came back into his face. "Oh, cat!" he breathed.

Panic raced over me. I tried to set it aside. A quick scan of all horizons showed me no one, nothing. But he had said they were coming, and I was sure he had not lied. As long as he was with me and linked to the cat, I could not hope to hide from them. I could mount Myblack behind him, and run her to death, and we still would not escape. We were too far from Buckkeep, and I had no other safe place, no other allies. And a crow keeping watch for them. I should have guessed.

I dropped all restraint and reached out for my wolf. At least I would know he was alive.

I touched him. But the wave of pain that immersed me was scalding. I had discovered the only thing worse than not knowing his fate. He was alive and he suffered, and he still excluded me from his thoughts. I threw myself against his walls, but he had locked me out. In the fierceness of his defense, I wondered if he was even aware of me. It reminded me of a soldier clutching his sword beyond his ability to use it or of wolves, jaws locked on each other's throats, dying together.

In the space of that moment, in the tortured drawing of a breath, the Piebalds appeared. They crested the hillside above us, and some emerged from the forest to our left. Behind us, they came across the wild meadows, perhaps six of them. The big man on the warhorse rode with them. The crow sailed over us once, and this time his caw was mocking. I looked in vain for a gap in their circle that might permit escape. There were none. By the time I mounted Myblack and charged toward an opening, the others could effortlessly close it. Death rode toward me from every direction. I halted and drew my sword. The foolish thought came to me that I would rather have died with Verity's sword in my hand instead of this guardsman's blade. I waited.

They did not race toward me. Rather, they came at a steady pace like the slow closing of a noose. Perhaps it amused them to think of me standing there, watching them come. It gave me far too much time to think. I sheathed my sword and took out my knife instead. "Get down," I said quietly. Dutiful looked down at me in vague confusion. "Get off the horse," I ordered him, and he obeyed, though I had to steady him before his second foot hit the ground. I wrapped an arm around his chest and carefully set the knife to his throat. "I'm sorry," I told him with great sincerity. Conviction was running through my veins like icy water. "But you are better dead than what the woman plans for you."

He stood quite still in my grip. I didn't know if he didn't want to risk resistance or if he didn't care to resist. "How do you know what she intends for me?" he asked me evenly.

"Because I know what I would do."

That statement wasn't quite true, I told myself. I'd never take over another person's body and mind simply for the sake of extending my life. I was too noble for that. So noble that I'd kill my Prince before I'd let him be used that way. So noble that I'd kill him, knowing my daughter must then die, as well. I didn't want to look too closely at that reasoning. So I held my knife to the throat of Verity's only heir and watched the Piebalds come. I waited until they were within shouting distance, and then I raised my voice. "Come any closer and I kill him."

The big man on the warhorse was their leader. He lifted his hands to stop the advance of the others, but then he himself rode slowly forward as if to test my resolve. I watched him come and my grip on the Prince tightened. "It takes one motion of my hand and the Prince is dead," I warned him.

"Oh, come, you're being ridiculous," the big man replied. He continued to walk his horse toward me. Myblack snorted a query at his beast. "For what will you do if we obediently halt here? Stand in our midst and starve to death?"

"Let us go, or I'll kill him," I amended.

"Equally silly. Where's the benefit to us in that? If we can't have him, he might as well be dead." His voice was deep and resonant and it carried well. He had a dark, handsome face and sat his horse like a warrior. In another time and place, I would have looked at him and judged him a man worthy of my friendship. Now his followers laughed aloud at my pathetic efforts to defy him. He and his horse came closer still. The big horse stepped high as he came and his eyes shone with their Witbond. "And consider what happens if you do kill him as I advance. Once he's dead, we'll all be very annoyed with you. And you still won't have a chance of escape. I doubt that you can even make us kill you swiftly. So. That's my counteroffer. Give us the boy and I'll kill you quickly. You have my word on that."

Such a kind offer. His grave manner and careful speech convinced me he would honor it. Quick death sounded very appealing when I considered the alternatives. But I hated dying without having the last word.

"Very well," I conceded. "But he costs you more than my life. Release the wolf and the tawny man. Then I'll give you your Prince, and you can kill me."

The Prince stood motionless in the circle of my arm and knife. I scarcely felt him breathe, and yet I could feel him listening, as if my words soaked into him like water into dry earth. The fine web of Skill between us warned me that there was something else going on. He reached out with his unholy combination of Wit and Skill to someone. I readied my muscles lest the woman wrest control of his body from him.