Assassin's Quest

So Starling willingly swept into a love ballad, an old one with a lilting refrain that Madge and Melody joined in singing. I lay in the darkness, pondering all I'd heard. I was uncomfortably aware that Starling had stirred it up intending for me to hear it. I wondered if she thought she was doing me a favor, or if she simply wished to see if any of the others had suspicions of me. One hundred gold coins for my head. That was enough to make a duke greedy, let alone a strolling minstrel. Despite my weariness, it was a long time before I dozed off that night.

The next day's drive was almost comforting in its monotony.

I paced along behind my sheep, and tried not to think. It was not as easy to do as previously. It seemed that whenever I blanked my mind to my worries, I heard Verity's Come to me echoing inside my head. When we made camp that night, it was on the banks of a giant sinkhole with water at its center. The talk about the fire was desultory. I think we were all more than a little weary of our trudging pace and longed to see the shores of Blue Lake. I wished simply to go to sleep, but I had first watch over the flock.

I climbed slightly up the hillside to where I could sit looking down on my woolly charges. The great bowl of the sinkhole cupped our whole caravan, with the small cook fire near the water showing like a star at the bottom of a well. Whatever wind blew passed us by, leaving us sheltered in a great stillness. It was almost peaceful.

Tassin probably thought she was being stealthy. I watched her come silently, her cloak pulled well up over her hair and about her face. She circled widely as if to pass by me. I did not follow her with my eyes, but listened to her as she went above me on the hillside and then came back down behind me. I caught her scent even in the still air and felt an involuntary anticipation. I wondered if I'd have the strength of will to refuse her a second time. Mistake it might be, but my body was all in favor of making it. When I judged her about a dozen steps away, I turned to look at her. She startled back from my gaze.

"Tassin," I greeted her quietly, and then turned to look back at my sheep. After a moment, she came down the slope to stand a few steps away from me. I turned slightly and looked up at her without speaking. She pushed her hood back from her face and confronted me, challenge in her eyes and stance.

"You're him, aren't you?" she demanded breathlessly. There was a very slight edge of fear in her voice.

It was not what I'd expected her to say. I didn't have to pretend surprise. "I'm him? I'm Tom the shepherd if that's the him you mean."

"No, you're him, that Wit-Bastard the King's Guard is seeking. Drew the teamster told me what they were saying in town, after Starling told that tale last night."

"Drew told you I was a Wit-Bastard?" I spoke carefully, as if baffled by her tumbling words. A terrible cold fear was welling up inside me.

"No." A trace of anger mixed with her fear. "Drew told me what the King's Guard said of him. A broken nose and a scar on the cheek and a white streak in his hair. And I saw your hair that night. You've a white streak in it."

"Any man who's been hit on the head can have a white streak in his hair. It's an old scar." I tilted my head and looked at her critically. "I'd say your face is healing well."

"You're him, aren't you?" She sounded even angrier that I'd tried to change the subject.

"Of course not. Look. He's got a sword-slash on his arm, hasn't he? Look at this." I bared my right arm for her inspection. The knife-slash I'd given. myself was down the back of my left forearm. I was gambling that she'd know a slash taken defending myself should have been on my sword arm.

She scarcely glanced at my arm. "Do you have any coin?" she asked me suddenly.

"If I'd had any coin, why would I have stayed in camp when the others went to town? Besides, why would you care?"

"I wouldn't. But you would. You could use it to buy my silence. Otherwise, I might go to Madge with what I suspect. Or the teamsters." She lifted her chin defiantly at me.

"Then they could look at my arm, as easily as you've done," I said wearily. I turned away from her to look back over my sheep. "You're being a silly little girl, Tassin, letting Starling's ghost tales get you all stirred up. Go back to bed." I tried to sound disgusted with her.

"You've a scratch on your other arm. I saw it. Some might take it for a sword-slash."

"Probably the same ones that would take you for intelligent," I said derisively.

"Don't make mock of me," she warned me in a voice gone flat with ugliness. "I won't be made fun of."

"Then don't say stupid things. What's the matter with you, anyway? Is this some sort of revenge? Are you angry because I wouldn't bed you? I told you, it's nothing to do with you. You're pretty to look at, and I don't doubt there'd be pleasure in touching you. But not for me."