Assassin's Quest

Starling cleared her throat. "Don't blame yourself," she told me. "I learned long ago not to blame myself for evil done to me. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't even your fault. You were just the catalyst that started the chain of events."

"Don't call me that," I begged her. The wagon rumbled on, carrying us deeper into the night.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. Pursuit

THE PEACE BETWEEN the Six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom was relatively new at the time of King Regal's reign. For decades, the Mountain Kingdom had controlled all trade through the passes with as tight a grip as the Six Duchies had on all trade on the Cold and Buck rivers. Trade and passage between the two regions had been capriciously managed by both powers, to the detriment of both. But during the reign of King Shrewd, mutually beneficial trade agreements were worked out between King-in-Waiting Chivalry of the Six Duchies and Prince Rurisk of the Mountains. The peace and prosperity of this arrangement was secured further when, over a decade later, the Mountain princess Kettricken became the bride of King-in-Waiting Verity. Upon the untimely death of her older brother, Rurisk, on the very eve of her wedding, Kettricken became the sole heir to the Mountain crown. Thus it appeared for a time that the Six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom might share a monarch and eventually become one land.

Circumstances put all such hope to ruin, however. The Six Duchies were threatened from without by the Raiders, and torn within by the bickering of princes. King Shrewd was murdered, King-in-Waiting Verity disappeared while on a quest, and when Prince Regal claimed the throne for his own, his hatred for Kettricken was such that she felt obliged to flee to her native Mountains for the sake of her unborn child. Self-proclaimed "King" Regal saw this somehow as a reneging on a promised surrender of territory. His initial endeavors to move troops into the Mountain Kingdom, ostensibly as "guards" for trading caravans, were repulsed by the Mountain folk. His protestations and threats prompted the closing of the Mountain borders to Six Duchies trade. Thwarted, he embarked on a vigorous campaign of discrediting Queen Kettricken and building patriotic hostility toward the Mountain Kingdom. His eventual goal seemed obvious: to take, by force if necessary, the lands of the Mountain Kingdom as a Six Duchies province. It seemed a poor time for such a war and such a strategy. The lands he justly possessed were already under siege by an outside enemy, one he seemed unable or disinclined to defeat. No military force had ever conquered the Mountain Kingdom, and yet this was what he seemed intent upon doing. Why he so desperately desired to possess this territory was a question that initially baffled everyone.

The night was clear and cold. The bright moonlight was enough to show us where the road ran, but not more than that. For a time I simply sat in the wagon, listening to the crunching of the horses' hooves on the road and trying to absorb all that had happened. Starling took the blankets we had brought from my cell and shook them out. She gave me one and draped one across her own shoulders. She sat huddled and apart from me, looking out the back of the wagon. I sensed she wanted to be left alone. I watched the orange glow that had been Moonseye dwindle in the distance. After a time, my mind started working again.

"Kettle?" I called over my shoulder. "Where are we going?"

"Away from Moonseye," she said. I could hear the weariness in her voice.

Starling stirred and glanced at me. "We thought you would know."

"Where did the smugglers go?" I asked.

I felt more than saw Starling shrug. "They wouldn't tell us. They said if we went after you, we had to part company with them. They seemed to believe Burl would send soldiers after you, no matter how badly Moonseye had been hit."

I nodded, more to myself than to her. "He will. He's going to blame the whole raid on me. And it will be said that the raiders were actually from the Mountain Kingdom, soldiers sent to free me." I sat up, easing away from Starling. "And when they catch us, they'll kill you both."

"We didn't intend that they should catch us," Kettle observed.

"And they won't," I promised. "Not if we act sensibly. Pull up the horses."

Kettle scarcely needed to stop them. They had slowed to a weary walk long ago. I tossed my blanket at Starling and went around the team. Nighteyes launched himself from the wagon and followed me curiously. "What are you doing?" Kettle demanded as I unbuckled harness and let it fall to the snowy ground.

"Changing this over so they can be ridden. Can you ride bareback?" I was using the guard's knife to hack through the reins as I spoke. She'd have to ride bareback, whether she could or not. We had no saddles.

"I suppose I'll have to," she observed grumpily as she clambered down from the wagon. "But we aren't going to get very far very fast, doubled on these horses."