Assassin's Quest

"We found him by the pool where you bathed," she said quietly. "Twitching in his sleep like a dreaming dog. I woke him, but even awake, he seemed vague. We brought him back here, but he only sought his blankets. Since then, he has been sleeping like a dead thing."

We had reached the cook fire and I dropped the kid beside it and hurried into the tent, Nighteyes pushing his way in front of me.

"He revived, but only for a bit," Kettle continued. "Then he dropped off to sleep again. He behaves like a man recovering from exhaustion, or a very long illness. I fear for him."

I scarcely heard her. Once in the tent, I dropped to my knees beside him. He lay on his side, curled in a ball. Kettricken knelt by him, her face clouded with worry. He looked to me simply like a man sleeping. Relief warred with irritation in me.

"I've given him almost all the elfbark," Kettle was going on. "If I give him what's left now, we have no reserves if the coterie tries to attack him."

"Is there no other herb …" Kettricken began, but I interrupted her.

"Why don't we simply let him sleep? Perhaps this is just the end of his other illness. Or maybe an effect of the elfbark itself. Even with potent drugs, one can only trick the body so long, and then it makes its demands known."

"That is true," Kettle agreed reluctantly. "But this is so unlike him…."

"He has been unlike himself since the third day he was using the elfbark," I pointed out. "His tongue too sharp, his gibes too cutting. If you asked me, I would say I prefer him asleep to awake these days."

"Well. Perhaps there is something to what you say. We will let him sleep then," Kettle conceded. She took a breath, as if to say more, but did not. I went back outside to prepare the kid for cooking. Starling followed me.

For a time, she just sat silently watching me skin it out. It was not that large an animal. "Help me build up the fire and we'll roast the whole thing. Cooked meat will keep better in this weather."

The whole thing?

Except a generous portion for you. I worked my knife around a knee joint, snapped the shank free and cut the remaining gristle.

I'll want more than bones, Nighteyes reminded me.

Trust me, I told him. By the time I was finished, he had the head, hide, all four shanks, and one hind quarter to himself. It made it awkward to fasten the meat to a spit, but I managed. It was a young animal, and though it did not have much fat, I expected the meat would be tender. The hardest part would be waiting for it to be cooked. The flames licked their tips against it, searing it, and the savory smell of roasting meat taunted me.

"Are you so angry with the Fool?" Starling asked me quietly.

"What?" I glanced over my shoulder at her.

"In the time we have traveled together, I have come to see how you are with one another. Closer than brothers. I would have expected you to sit beside him and fret, as you did when he was ill. Yet you behave as if nothing is wrong with him at all."

Minstrels, perhaps, see too clearly. I pushed my hair back from my face and thought. "Earlier today, he came to me and we talked. About what he would do, for Molly, if I did not live to return to her." I looked at Starling and shook my head. When my throat went tight, it surprised me. "He does not expect me to survive. And when a prophet says such a thing, it is hard to believe otherwise."

The look of dismay on her face was not comforting. It gave the lie to her words when she insisted, "Prophets are not always right. Did he say, for certain, that he had seen your death?"

"When I asked him, he would not answer," I replied.

"He should not have even brought up such a topic," Starling suddenly exclaimed angrily. "How can he expect you to have heart for whatever you must do, when you believe it will be your death?"

I shrugged my shoulders at her silently. I had refused to think of it the whole time we had been hunting. Instead of going away, the feelings had only built up. The misery I suddenly felt was overwhelming. Yes, and the anger, too. I was furious at the Fool for telling me. I forced myself to consider it. "The tidings are scarcely his doing. And I cannot fault his intent. Yet it is hard to face one's death, not as a thing that will happen someday, somewhere, but as something that will likely occur before this summer loses its green." I lifted my head and looked around the verdant wild meadow that surrounded us.