Robin Hobb - The Complete Farseer Trilogy - Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest

Time and tide wait for no man. There’s an ageless adage. Sailors and fishermen mean it simply to say that a boat’s schedule is determined by the ocean, not man’s convenience. But sometimes I lie here, after the tea has calmed the worst of the pain, and wonder about it. Tides wait for no man, and that I know is true. But time? Did the times I was born into await my birth to be? Did the events rumble into place like the great wooden gears of the clock of Sayntanns, meshing with my conception and pushing my life along? I make no claim to greatness. And yet, had I not been born, had not my parents fallen before a surge of lust, so much would be different. So much. Better? I think not. And then I blink and try to focus my eyes, and wonder if these thoughts come from me or from the drug in my blood. It would be nice to hold council with Chade, one last time.

The sun had moved round to late afternoon when someone nudged me awake. ‘Your master wants you,’ was all he said, and I roused with a start. Gulls wheeling overhead, fresh sea air and the dignified waddle of the boat recalled me to where I was. I scrambled to my feet, ashamed to have fallen asleep without even wondering if Chade were comfortable. I hurried aft to the ship’s house.

There I found Chade had taken over the tiny galley table. He was poring over a map spread out on it, but a large tureen of fish chowder was what got my attention. He motioned me to it without taking his attention from the map, and I was glad to fall to. There were ship’s biscuits to go with it, and a sour red wine. I had not realized how hungry I was until the food was before me. I was scraping my dish with a bit of biscuit when Chade asked me, ‘Better?’

‘Much,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

‘Better,’ he said, and looked at me with his familiar hawk’s glance. To my relief, he seemed totally recovered. He pushed my dishes to one side and slid the map before me. ‘By evening,’ he said, ‘we’ll be here. It’ll be a nastier landing than the loading was. If we’re lucky, we’ll get wind when we need it. If not, we’ll miss the best of the tide, and the current will be stronger. We may end up swimming the horses to shore while we ride in the dory. I hope not, but be prepared for it, just in case. Once we land …’

‘You smell of carris seed.’ I said it, not believing my own words. But I had caught the unmistakable sweet taint of the seed and oil on his breath. I’d had carris seed cakes, at Springfest, when everyone does, and I knew the giddy energy that even a sprinkling of the seed on a cake’s top could bring. Everyone celebrated Spring’s Edge that way. Once a year, what could it hurt? But I knew, too, that Burrich had warned me never to buy a horse that smelled of carris seed at all. And warned me further that if anyone were ever caught putting carris seed oil on any of our horse’s grain, he’d kill him. With his bare hands.

‘Do I? Fancy that. Now, I suggest that if you have to swim the horses, you put your shirt and cloak into an oilskin bag and give it to me in the dory. That way you’ll have at least that much dry to put on when we reach the beach. From the beach, our road will …’

‘Burrich says that once you’ve given it to an animal, it’s never the same. It does things to horses. He says you can use it to win one race, or run down one stag, but after that, the beast will never be what it was. He says dishonest horse-traders use it to make an animal show well at a sale; it gives them spirit and brightens their eyes, but that soon passes. Burrich says that it takes away all their sense of when they’re tired, so they go on, past the time when they should have dropped from exhaustion. Burrich told me that sometimes when the carris oil wears out, the horse just drops in its tracks.’ The words spilled out of me, cold water over stones.

Chade lifted his gaze from the map. He stared at me mildly. ‘Fancy Burrich knowing all that about carris seed. I’m glad you listened to him so closely. Now perhaps you’ll be so kind as to give me equal attention as we plan the next stage of our journey.’

‘But Chade …’

He transfixed me with his eyes. ‘Burrich is a fine horse-master. Even as a boy he showed great promise. He is seldom wrong … when speaking about horses. Now attend to what I am saying. We’ll need a lantern to get from the beach to the cliffs above. The path is very bad; we may need to bring one horse up at a time. But I am told it can be done. From there, we go overland to Forge. There isn’t a road that will take us there quickly enough to be of any use. It’s hilly country, but not forested. And we’ll be going by night, so the stars will have to be our map. I am hoping to reach Forge by mid-afternoon. We’ll go in as travellers, you and I. That’s all I’ve decided so far; the rest will have to be planned from hour to hour …’

And the moment in which I could have asked him how he could use the seed and not die of it was gone, shouldered aside by his careful plans and precise details. For half an hour more he lectured me on details, and then he sent me from the cabin, saying he had other preparations to make and that I should check on the horses and get what rest I could.

The horses were forward, in a makeshift rope enclosure on deck. Straw cushioned the deck from their hooves and droppings. A sour-faced mate was mending a bit of railing that Sooty had kicked loose in the boarding. He didn’t seem disposed to talk, and the horses were as calm and comfortable as could be expected. I roved the deck briefly. We were on a tidy little craft, an inter-island trader wider than she was deep. Her shallow draught let her go up rivers or right onto beaches without damage, but her passage over deeper water left a lot to be desired. She sidled along, with here a dip and there a curtsey, like a bundle-laden farm-wife making her way through a crowded market. We seemed to be the sole cargo. A deckhand gave me a couple of apples to share with the horses, but little talk. So after I had parcelled out the fruit, I settled myself near them on their straw and took Chade’s advice about resting.

The winds were kind to us, and the captain took us in closer to the looming cliffs than I’d have thought possible, but unloading the horses from the vessel was still an unpleasant task. All of Chade’s lecturing and warnings had not prepared me for the blackness of night on the water. The lanterns on the deck seemed pathetic efforts, confusing me more with the shadows they threw than aiding me with their feeble light. In the end, a deckhand rowed Chade to shore in the ship’s dory. I went overboard with the reluctant horses, for I knew Sooty would fight a lead rope and probably swamp the dory. I clung to Sooty and encouraged her, trusting her common sense to take us toward the dim lantern on shore. I had a long line on Chade’s horse, for I didn’t want his thrashing too close to us in the water. The sea was cold, the night was black, and if I’d had any sense, I’d have wished myself elsewhere; but there is something in a boy that takes the mundanely difficult and unpleasant and turns it into a personal challenge and an adventure.

I came out of the water dripping, chilled and completely exhilarated. I kept Sooty’s reins and coaxed Chade’s horse in. By the time I had them both under control, Chade was beside me, lantern in hand, laughing exultantly. The dory man was already away and pulling for the ship. Chade gave me my dry things, but they did little good pulled on over my dripping clothes. ‘Where’s the path?’ I asked, my voice shaking with my shivering.

Chade gave a derisive snort. ‘Path? I had a quick look while you were pulling in my horse. It’s no path, it’s no more than the course the water takes when it runs off down the cliffs. But it will have to do.’