Assassin’s Fate

Last night I had watched a grim-faced Nettle bathe the parts of his face that were flesh. He had tried to object, but she had insisted and he’d been too weak to fight her off. She’d been careful, dipping the cloth and folding the soiled part away from her, never directly touching his skin. Little writhing creatures had come away from his sores. She had thrown the cloths into the fire.

‘They don’t care for him. They simply want to be here if the wolf comes to life.’

‘I know that. They know that. Da knows that.’ She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It would matter to me. I would want to die privately. Not like that.’

‘He’s a Farseer. Royalty. Nothing is private. Learn that now, Bee. Kettricken has it right. Servants to all, and they take from us what they need. Or want.’

‘You should go home to your baby.’

‘If that decision were solely mine, I would. I miss her and Riddle terribly. But I cannot be seen to leave my father and sister now, in these circumstances. Do you understand?’ She looked at me with my mother’s eyes. ‘I’m not doing this to you, Bee. I will try to protect you from it. But to protect you, I must ask that you be as unremarkable as possible. If you disobey me, if you are defiant or wild, all eyes will be drawn to you. Appear to be mild and uninteresting, and you may have a little bit of a life that is all yours.’ She gave me a tired smile. ‘Even if your sister will always know you are anything but mild and uninteresting.’

‘Oh.’ I didn’t say that I wished someone had told me all this before I’d made it so difficult for her. I did take her hand.

‘Nice walls,’ she said. ‘Thick taught you well.’

I nodded.

The day grew brighter. The drapery of my father’s shelter had been tied open to let in the early warmth of the day, and to let out the smell of death. I sat by his wolf, clutching the book I’d been keeping of his memories. It had been two days since he’d spoken coherently enough for me to understand him. But still I’d stayed beside him, adding illustrations to the memories he had spoken aloud.

Nettle had explained to me what little she knew of the process. Once, it seemed, ageing coteries from the Six Duchies had made their way here, to carve dragons and go into them. They had learned the custom from the Elderlings. It offered one a limited immortality. ‘The vitality of the stone does not seem to last long. Verity fought as a dragon until the Red Ships were defeated. Da was able to rouse the sleeping dragons and win them to Verity’s cause, but how he did that has never been fully discovered. Some of the coteries I have founded have said that, when they are aged, perhaps they will attempt this feat. Da once told me that the old children’s song “Six Wisemen came to Jhaampe-town” is actually about a coterie going up into the Mountains to carve their dragon.’

‘Did they all die in such an ugly and painful way?’

‘I do not think so. But any records of how it was done were lost when Regal sold off the Skill-scroll library. I hope we may find information in the memory-cubes from Aslevjal. But as yet, we have not.’

I took no comfort from anything she had told me. My father’s worm-ridden body was on display like that of a caged criminal in a Chalcedean town. If die he must, I wanted him to do it in a comfortable bed in a well-appointed chamber. Or to be like my mother, and simply fall down in the midst of doing something he loved to do. I wanted to be able to take his hand and offer him comfort. I sighed and shifted my feet.

‘You do not have to watch this. I can ask one of my Skill-users to take you back to Buckkeep Castle.’

‘You have already explained to me why I cannot.’

‘True.’

Night fell and we built up the fire, and he still had not died. I felt I might die of this before he did. There was a terrible tension in the air. We wanted him to die now, and hated that we wanted that.

His real family, as I thought of us, sat in a tight circle by the fire, our backs to the quarry. ‘Can we help him?’ Per asked suddenly. ‘Could each of us put something into his wolf?’ He told the first lie I’d ever heard from him. ‘I’m not afraid to try it.’

He stood up. ‘Per!’ Nettle warned him but he slapped his hand onto the wolf. ‘I don’t know how to do this. But I’ll give you my mother forgetting me and turning me from her door. I don’t need that memory. I don’t need to feel that.’

My father’s human hand twitched slightly. Per stood, waiting. Then he lifted his hand. ‘I don’t think anything happened,’ he admitted.

‘Don’t feel bad,’ Nettle told him. ‘I think you must have a bit of the Skill to be able to do it. But I think it’s a good idea. And he’s in no position to prevent us from doing it.’ She stood, graceful as she always was. She put her hand on the wolf’s muzzle. ‘Dream Wolf, take something sweet from my memories of you.’ She did not say what it was, but I could tell by how she stood that she gave him something.