Assassin's Quest

"Well, I'd wager you could say that about anywhere in the Six Duchies, at least the coastal ones. The saying now is that we get new taxes more often than we get a new moon." He glanced about us as if he could see, and I guessed he had not been blind long. "And the other new saying is that half the taxes go to feed the Farrowmen who collect them."

"Josh!" one of his partners rebuked him, and he turned to her with a smile.

"You can't tell me there are any about just now, Honey. I've a nose that could smell a Farrowman at a hundred paces."

"And can you smell who you are talking to, then?" she asked him wryly. Honey was the older of the two women, perhaps my age.

"A lad a bit down on his luck, I'd say. And therefore, not some fat Farrowman come to collect taxes. Besides, I knew he couldn't be one of Bright's collectors the moment he started sniveling over the price of dinner. When have you known one of them to pay for anything at an inn or tavern?"

I frowned to myself at that. When Shrewd had been on the throne, nothing was taken by his soldiers or tax collectors without some recompense offered. Evidently it was a nicety Lord Bright did not observe, at least in Buck. But it did recall me to my own manners.

"May I offer to refill your mug, Harper Josh? And those of your companions as well?"

"What's this?" asked the old man, between a smile and a raised eyebrow. "You growl about spending coin to fill your belly, but you'd put it down willingly to fill mugs for us?"

"Shame to the lord that takes a minstrel's songs, and leaves their throat dry from the singing of it," I replied with a smile.

The women exchanged glances behind Josh's back, and Honey asked me with gentle mockery, "And when were you last a lord, young fellow?"

" 'Tis but a saying," I said after a moment, awkwardly. "But I wouldn't grudge the coin for the songs I've heard, especially if you've a bit of news to go with it. I'm headed up the river road; have you perchance just come down?"

"No, we're headed up that way ourselves," put in the younger woman brightly. She was perhaps fourteen, with startlingly blue eyes. I saw the other woman make a hushing motion at her. She introduced them. "As you've heard, good sir, this is Harper Josh, and I am Honey. My cousin is Piper. And you are … ?"

Two blunders in one short conversation. One, to speak as if I still resided at Buckkeep and these were visiting minstrels, and the other, to have no name planned out. I searched my mind for a name, and then after a bit too much of a pause, blurted out; "Cob." And then wondered with a shiver why I had taken to myself the name of a man I'd known and killed.

"Well … Cob," and Honey paused before saying the name just as I had, "we might have a bit of news for you, and we'd welcome a mug of anything, whether you're lately a lord or not. Just who are you hoping we won't have seen on the road looking for you?"

"Beg pardon?" I asked quietly, and then lifted my own empty mug to signal the kitchen boy.

"He's a runaway prentice, Father," Honey told her father with great certainty. "He carries a scribe's case strapped to his bundle, but his hair's grown out, and there's not even a dot of ink on his fingers." She laughed at the chagrin on my face, little guessing the cause. "Oh, come … Cob, I'm a minstrel. When we aren't singing, we're witnessing anything we can to find a deed to base a song on. You can't expect us not to notice things."

"I'm not a runaway apprentice," I said quietly, but had no ready lie to follow the statement. How Chade would have rapped my knuckles over this blundering!

"We don't care if you are, lad," Josh comforted me. "In any case, we haven't heard any cry of angry scribers looking for lost apprentices. These days, most would be happy if their bound lads ran away … one less mouth to feed in hard times."

"And a scriber's boy scarcely gets a broken nose or a scarred face like that from a patient master," Piper observed sympathetically. "So small blame to you if you did run away."

The kitchen boy came at last, and they were merciful to my flat purse, ordering no more than mugs of beer for themselves. First Josh, and then the women came to share my table. The kitchen boy must have thought better of me for treating the minstrels well, for when he brought their mugs, he refilled mine as well, and did not charge me for it. Still, it broke another silver bit to coppers to pay for their drinks. I tried to be philosophical about it, and reminded myself to leave a copper bit for the boy when I left.

"So, then," I began when the boy had left, "what news from downriver, then?"

"And have not you just come from there yourself?" Honey asked tartly.

"No, my lady, in truth I had come cross-country, from visiting some shepherd friends," I extemporized. Honey's manner was beginning to wear on me.

" `My lady,' " she said softly to Piper and rolled her eyes. Piper giggled. Josh ignored them.