Robin Hobb - The Complete Tawny Man Trilogy - Fool’s Errand, The Golden Fool, Fool’s Fate

And to Nighteyes, Keep an eye on him, my brother, while I see what this scroll says .

Nighteyes ceased his rumbling growl at my thought, but followed the messenger very closely as a puzzled Hap gestured him towards our cabin. The weary horses stood where he had left them. A few moments later, Hap emerged to lead them off to water. Alone I stood in the dooryard and stared at the coiled scroll in my hand. I broke the seal at last and studied Chade’s slanting letters in the fading daylight.

Dear Cousin,

Family matters at home require your attention. Do not delay your return. You know I would not summon you thus unless the need was urgent.

The signature that followed this brief missive was indecipherable. It was not Chade’s name. The real message had been in the seal itself. He never would have used it unless the need was urgent. I re-rolled the scroll and looked up towards the sinking sun.

When I entered the house, the messenger stood up immediately. Still chewing, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and indicated he was ready to leave at once. I suspected his orders from Chade had been very specific. There was no time to lose in sleep or rest for man or beast. I gestured him back to his food. I was glad my rucksack was already packed.

‘I unsaddled the horses and wiped them down a bit,’ Hap told me as he came in the door. ‘They look as if they’ve come a long way today.’

I took a breath. ‘Put their saddles back on. As soon as our friend has eaten, we’ll be leaving.’

For a moment, the boy was thunderstruck. Then he asked in a small voice, ‘Where are you going?’

I tried to make my smile convincing. ‘Buckkeep, lad. And faster than I expected.’ I considered the matter. There was no way to estimate when I might be back. Or even if I would come back. A missive like this from Chade would definitely mean danger of some kind. I was amazed at how easily I decided. ‘I want you and the wolf to follow at first light. Use the pony and cart, so if he gets weary, he can ride.’

Hap stared at me as if I had gone mad. ‘What about the chickens? And the chores I was to do while you were gone?’

‘The chickens will have to fend for themselves. No. They wouldn’t last a week before a weasel had them. Take them to Baylor. He’ll feed and watch them for the sake of their eggs. Take a day or so, and close the house up tight. We may both be gone awhile.’ I turned away from the incomprehension on Hap’s face.

‘But …’ The fear in his voice made me turn back to him. He stared at me as if I were suddenly a stranger. ‘Where should I go when I get to Buckkeep Town? Will you meet me there?’ I heard an echo of the abandoned boy in his voice.

I reached back in my memory fifteen years and tried to summon up the name of a decent inn. Before I could dredge one out, he hopefully put in, ‘I know where Jinna’s niece lives. Jinna said I could find her there, when next I came to Buckkeep. Her house has a hedge-witch sign on it, a hand with lines on the palm. I could meet you there.’

‘That will be it then.’

Relief showed on his face. He knew where he was going. I was glad he had that security. I myself did not. But despite all my uneasiness, a strange elation filled me. Chade’s old spell fell over me again. Secrets and adventures. I felt the wolf nudge against me.

A time of change . Then, gruffly: I could try to keep pace with the horses. Buckkeep is not so far .

I do not know what this means, my brother. And until I do, I would just as soon that you stayed by Hap’s side.

Is that supposed to salve my pride?

No. It’s supposed to ease my fears.

I will bring him safely to Buckkeep Town, then. But after that, I am at your side.

Of course. Always.

Before the sun kissed the horizon good-night, I was mounted on the nondescript grey horse. Verity’s disguised sword hung at my hip, and my pack was fastened tightly to the back of my saddle. I followed my silent companion as he hastened us down the road to Buckkeep.

Between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands as much blood has been shared as has been shed. Despite the enmity of the Red Ship War, and the years of sporadic raiding that preceded it, almost every family in the Coastal Duchies will acknowledge having ‘a cousin in the Out Islands’. All acknowledge that the folk of the Coastal Duchies are of those mingled bloodlines. It is well documented that the first rulers of the Farseer line were likely raiders from the Out Islands who came to raid and settled instead.

Just as the history of the Six Duchies has been shaped by geography, so too has the chronicle of the Out Islands. Theirs is a harsher land than ours. Ice rules their mountainous islands year round. Deep fjords slash their islands and rough water divides them. We consider their islands immense, yet the domination of glacier grants men only the edges of those islands as dwelling places. What arable land they have along the coasts of their islands is stingy and thin in its yield. Thus no large cities can be supported there, and few towns. Barriers and isolation are the hallmark of that land, and so the folk dwell in fiercely independent villages and town-states. In times past, they were raiders by necessity as well as by inclination, and robbed one another as often as they ventured across the seas to harry the Six Duchies coastline. It is true that during the Red Ship War, Kebal Rawbread was able to force a brief alliance among the island folk, and from that alliance, he hammered together a powerful raiding fleet. Only the devastation of the Six Duchies dragons was sufficient to shatter his merciless hold over his own people.

Having once seen the strength of such an alliance, the individual headmen of the Out Island villages realized that such power could be used for more than War. In the years of recovery that followed the end of the Red Ship War, the Hetgurd was formed. This alliance of Out Island headmen was an uneasy one. At first, they sought only to replace inter-island raiding with trading treaties between individual headmen. Arkon Bloodblade was the first headman to point out to the others that the Hetgurd could use its unified strength to normalize trade relations with the Six Duchies .

Brawnkenner’s The Out Island Chronicles

As always, Chade had planned well. His silent messenger seemed very familiar with his ways. Before noon the next day, we had changed our exhausted horses for two others at a decrepit farmhouse. We travelled across brown hillsides seared by summer, and left those two horses at a fisherman’s hut. A small boat was waiting and the surly crew took us swiftly up the coast. We put in at a landing at a tiny trading port, where two more horses awaited us at a run-down inn. I stayed as silent as my guide, and no one questioned me about anything. If coin was exchanged, I never saw it. It is always best not to see what is meant to be concealed. The horses carried us to yet another waiting boat, this one with a scaly deck that smelled much of fish. It struck me that we were approaching Buckkeep not by the swiftest possible path, but by the least likely one. If anyone watched the roads into Buckkeep for us, they were doomed to disappointment.

Buckkeep Castle is built on an inhospitable strip of coast. It stands, tall and black, on top of the cliffs, but it commands a fine view of the Buck River mouth. Whoever controls that castle controls trade on the Buck River. For that reason was it built there. The vagaries of history have made it the ruling seat of the Farseer family. Buckkeep Town clings to the cliffs below the castle like lichens to rock. Half of it is built out on docks and piers. As a boy, I had thought the town had grown as large as it could, given its geography, but on the afternoon that we sailed into it, I saw that I had been wrong. Human ingenuity had prevailed over nature’s harshness. Suspended pathways now vined across the face of the cliffs, and tiny houses and shops found purchase to cling there. The houses reminded me of mud-swallows’ nests, and I wondered what pounding they took during the winter storms. Pilings had been driven into the black sand and rock of the beaches where I had once run and played with Molly and the other children. Warehouses and inns squatted on these perches, and at high tide, one could tie up right at their doorsteps. This our fishing boat did, and I followed my mute guide ‘ashore’ onto a wooden walkway.