Assassin's Quest

I sat down slowly at my place again. There was still food on my platter but my appetite for it had faded. Common sense told me that I should eat while I had the chance. For a moment I just looked at the food. I made myself eat.

When I lifted my eyes, I caught two young men staring at me. For an instant I met their looks; then I recalled who I was supposed to be and cast my glance down. They evidently were amused by me, for they came swaggering over to sit down, one across the table from me and one uncomfortably close beside me. That one made a great show of wrinkling his nose and covering his nose and mouth for his comrade's amusement. I gave them both good evening.

"Good evening for you, perhaps. Haven't had a feed like this in a while, eh, beggar?" This from the one across from me, a towheaded lout with a mask of freckles across his face.

"That's true, and my thanks to your Capaman for his generosity," I said mildly. I was already looking for a way to extricate myself.

"So. What brings you to Pome?" the other asked. He was taller than his indolent friend, and more muscled.

"Looking for work." I met his pale eyes squarely. "I've been told there's a hiring fair in Tradeford."

"And what kind of work would you be good at, beggar? Scarecrow? Or do you perhaps draw the rats out of a man's house with your smell?" He set an elbow on the table, too close to me, and then leaned forward on it, as if to show me the bunching of muscle in his arm.

I took a breath, then two. I felt something I had not felt in a while. There was the edge of fear, and that invisible quivering that ran over me when I was challenged. I knew, too, that at times it became the trembling that presaged a fit. But something else built inside me as well, and I had almost forgotten the feel of it. Anger. No. Fury. The mindless, violent fury that gave me the strength to lift an axe and sever a man's shoulder and arm from his body, or fling myself at him and choke the life out of his body regardless of how he pummeled at me as I did so.

In a sort of awe I welcomed it back and wondered what had summoned it. Had it been recalling friends taken from me forever, or the battle scenes I had Skill-dreamed so often recently? It didn't matter. I had the weight of a sword at my hip and I doubted that the dolts were aware of it, or aware of how I could use it. Probably they'd never swung any blade but a scythe, probably never seen any blood other than that of a chicken or cow. They'd never awakened at night to a dog's barking and wondered if it was Raiders coming, never come in from a day's fishing praying that when the cape was rounded, the town would still be standing. Blissfully ignorant farm boys, living fat in soft river country far from the embattled coast, with no better way to prove themselves than to bait a stranger or taunt caged men.

Would that all Six Duchies boys were so ignorant.

I started as if Verity had laid his hand on my shoulder. Almost I looked behind me. Instead, I sat motionless, groping inside me to find him, but found nothing. Nothing.

I could not say for certain the thought had come from him. Perhaps it was my own wish. And yet it was so like him, I could not doubt its source. My anger was gone as suddenly as they had roused it, and I looked at them in a sort of surprise, startled to find they were still there. Boys, yes, no more than big boys, restless and aching to prove themselves. Ignorant and callous as young men often were. Well, I would neither be a proving ground for their manhood, nor would I spill their blood in the dust on their Capaman's wedding feast.

"I think perhaps I have overstayed my welcome," I said gravely, and rose from the table. I had eaten enough, and I knew I did not need the half-mug of ale that sat beside it. I saw them measure me as I stood and saw one startle plainly when he saw the sword that hung at my side. The other stood, as if to challenge my leaving, but I saw his friend give his head a minuscule shake. With the odds evened, the brawny farm boy stepped away from me with a sneer, drawing back as if to keep my presence from soiling him. It was strangely easy to ignore the insult. I did not back away from them, but turned and walked off into the darkness, away from the merrymaking and dancing and music. No one followed me.

I sought the waterfront, purpose growing in me as I strode along. So I was not far from Tradeford, not far from Regal. I felt a sudden desire to prepare myself for him. I would get a room at an inn tonight, one with a bathhouse, and I would bathe and shave. Let him look at me, at the scars he had put upon me, and know who killed him. And afterward? If I lived for there to be an afterward, and if any who saw me knew me, so be it. Let it be known that the Fitz had come back from his grave to work a true King's Justice on this would-be king.