Assassin's Quest

"Downriver is much the same as up these days, only more so," he told me. "Hard times, and harder to come for those who farm. The food grain went to pay the taxes, so the seed grain went to feed the children. So only what was left went into the fields, and no man grows more by planting less. Same is true for the flocks and herds. And no signs that the taxes will be less this harvest. And even a goose-girl that can't cipher her own age knows that less take away more leaves naught but hunger on the table. It's worst along the salt water. If a person goes out fishing, who knows what will happen to home before he returns? A farmer plants a field, knowing it won't yield enough both for taxes and family, and that there will be less than half of it left standing if the Red-Ships come to pay a call. There's been a clever song made about a farmer who tells the tax collector that the Red-Ships have already done his job for him."

"Save that clever minstrels don't sing it," Honey reminded him tartly.

"Red-Ships raid Buck's coast as well, then," I said quietly.

Josh gave a snort of bitter laughter. "Buck, Bearns, Rippon, or Shoaks … I doubt the Red-Ships care where one duchy ends and another begins. If the sea brushes up against it, they'll raid there."

"And our ships?" I asked softly.

"The ones that have been taken away from us by the Raiders are doing very well. Those left defending us, well, they are as successful as gnats at bothering cattle."

"Does no one stand firm for Buck these days?" I asked, and heard the despair in my own voice.

"The Lady of Buckkeep does. Not only firm, but loud. There's some as say all she does is cry out and scold, but others know that she doesn't call on them to do what she hasn't already done herself." Harper Josh spoke as if he knew this at first hand.

I was mystified, but did not wish to appear too ignorant. "Such as?"

"Everything she can. She wears no jewelry at all anymore. It's all been sold and put toward paying patrol ships. She sold off her own ancestral lands, and put the money to paying mercenaries to man the towers. It's said she sold the necklace given her by Prince Chivalry, his grandmother's rubies, to King Regal himself, to buy grain and timber for Buck villages that wanted to rebuild."

"Patience," I whispered. I had seen those rubies once, long ago, when we had first been getting to know one another. She had deemed them too precious even to wear, but she had shown them to me and told me someday my bride might wear them. Long ago. I turned my head aside and struggled to control my face.

"Where have you been sleeping this past year … Cob, that you know none of this?" Honey demanded sarcastically.

"I have been away," I said quietly. I turned back to the table and managed to meet her eyes. I hoped my face showed nothing.

She cocked her head and smiled at me. "Where?" she countered brightly.

I did not like her much at all. "I've been living by myself, in the forest," I said at last.

"Why?" She smiled at me as she pressed me. I was certain she knew how uncomfortable she was making me.

"Obviously, because I wished to," I said. I sounded so much like Burrich when I said it, I almost looked over my shoulder for him.

She made a small mouth at me, totally unrepentant, but Harper Josh set his mug down on the table a bit firmly. He said nothing, and the look he gave her from his blind eyes was no more than a flicker, but she subsided abruptly. She folded her hands at the edge of the table like a rebuked child, and for a moment I thought her quashed, until she looked up at me from under her lashes. Her eyes met mine directly, and the little smile she shot me was defiant. I looked away from her, totally mystified as to why she wished to peck at me like this. I glanced at Piper, only to find her face bright red with suppressed laughter. I looked down at my hands on the table, hating the blush that suddenly flooded my face.

In an effort to start the conversation again, I asked, "Are there any other new tidings from Buckkeep?"

Harper Josh gave a short bark of laughter. "Not much new misery to tell. The tales are all the same, with only the names of the villages and towns different. Oh, but there is one small bit, a rich one. Word is now that King Regal will hang the Pocked Man himself."

I had been swallowing a sip of ale. I choked abruptly and demanded, "What?"

"It's a stupid joke," Honey declared. "King Regal has had it cried about that he will give gold coin reward to any who can turn over to him a certain man, much scarred with the pox, or silver coin to any man who can give information as to where he may be found."

"A pox-scarred man? Is that all the description?" I asked carefully.