Assassin's Quest

I stopped thinking. For the next few days, I did what I was told. I did it well and thoroughly, distracted by no thoughts of my own. Somewhere inside me, a madman raged in his cell, but I chose not to know of that. Instead I herded sheep. I ate in the morning, I ate in the evening. I lay down at night and I rose in the morning. And I herded sheep. I followed them, in the dust of the wagons and the horses and the sheep themselves, dust that clotted thick on my eyelashes and skin, dust that coated my throat with dryness, and I thought of nothing. I did not need to think to know that every step carried me closer to Verity. I spoke so little that even Creece wearied of my company, for he could not provoke me to argument. I herded the sheep as single-mindedly as the best sheepdog that ever lived. When I lay down to sleep at night, I did not even dream.

Life went on for the rest of them. The caravan master guided us well and the trip was blessedly uneventful. Our misfortunes were limited to dust, little water, and sparse grazing, and those misfortunes were ones we accepted as part of the road. In the evenings, after the sheep were settled and the meal cooked and eaten, the puppeteers rehearsed. They had three plays and they seemed bent on perfecting all of them before we reached Blue Lake. Some nights it was merely the motions of the puppets and their dialogue, but several times they set up completely, torches, stage, and backdrops, the puppeteers dressed in the pure white drapings that signified their invisibility, and went through the entire repertoire of plays. The master was a strict one, very ready with his strap, and he did not spare even his journeyman a lash or two if he thought he deserved it. A single line intoned incorrectly, one flip of a marionette's hand that was not as Master Dell dictated it, and he was amongst his cast, flaying about with the strap. Even if I had been in the mood for amusements, that would have spoiled it for me. So more often I went and sat looking out over the sheep, while the others watched the performances.

The minstrel, a handsome woman named Starling, was often my companion. I doubted that it was from any desire for my company. Rather it was that we were far enough from the camp that she could sit and practice her own songs and harpings, away from the endless rehearsals and the weeping of the corrected apprentices. Perhaps it was that I was from Buck, and could understand what she missed when she spoke quietly of the gulls crying and the blue sky over a sea after a storm. She was a typical Buck woman, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and no taller than my shoulder. She dressed simply, blue leggings and tunic. There were holes in her ears for earrings, but she wore none, nor were there any rings on her fingers. She would sit not far from me, and run her fingers over her harp strings and sing. It was good to hear a Buck accent again, and the familiar songs of the Coastal Duchies. Sometimes she talked to me. It was not a conversation. She spoke to herself in the night and I just happened to be within earshot, as some men talk to a favorite dog. So it was that I knew she had been one of the minstrels in a small keep in Buck, one I'd never been to, held by a minor noble whose name I didn't even recognize. Too late to worry about visiting or knowing; the keep and the noble were no more, swept through and burned out by the Red-Ships. Starling had survived, but without a place to rest her head or a master to sing for. So she had struck out on her own, resolved to head so far inland that she'd never again see a ship of any color. I could understand that drive. By walking away she saved Buck for herself, as a memory of how it had been once.

Death had come close enough to her to brush her with its wingtips, and she wasn't going to die as she was, a minor minstrel for a lesser noble. No, somehow she was going to make her name, was going to witness some great event and make a song about it that would be sung down the years. Then she'd be immortal, remembered as long as her song was sung. It seemed to me she would have had a better chance of witnessing such an event if she'd stayed on the coast where the war was, but as if in answer to my unspoken thought, Starling assured me that she was going to witness something that left its witnesses alive. Besides, if you've seen one battle, you've seen them all. She saw nothing especially musical about blood. To that I nodded mutely.

"Ah. I thought you looked more like a man-at-arms than a shepherd. Sheep don't break one's nose, or leave a scar like that down your face."

"They do if you tumble down a cliff looking for some in a mist," I told her dourly, and turned my face aside from her.

For a long time, that was as close as I came to having a conversation with anyone.