The Farseer Series Books 2 and 3: Royal Assassin, Assassin’s Quest. Robin Hobb

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СКАЧАТЬ and Softstep’s shoulders. She had not ordered her soldiers to do that which she would not do herself. With a quiet command, Kettricken dismissed the guard to wash themselves, to comb hair and beards, and to return freshly clothed to the hall. As Burrich led Softstep away, Kettricken stood briefly alone. A sadness greyer than anything I had ever felt emanated from her. She was weary. So very weary.

      I approached her quietly. ‘If you have need, my lady queen,’ I said softly.

      She did not turn. ‘I must do this myself. But be close, in case I need you.’ She spoke so quietly I am sure none heard her but myself. Then she moved forward, and the waiting keep folk parted before her. Heads bobbed as she acknowledged them gravely. She walked silently through the kitchens, nodding at the food she saw prepared, and then paced through the Great Hall, once more nodding approval of all she saw there. In the Lesser Hall, she paused, then removed her gaily knit cap and her jacket, to reveal underneath a simple soft shirt of purple linen. The cap and jacket she gave over to a page, who looked stunned by the honour. She stepped to the head of one of the tables, and began to fold her sleeves back. All movement in the hall ceased as heads turned to watch her. She looked up to our amazed regard. ‘Bring in our dead,’ she said simply.

      The pitiful bodies were carried in, a heart-breaking stream of them. I did not count how many. More than I had expected, more than Verity’s reports had led us to believe. I followed behind Kettricken, and carried the basin of warm, scented water as she moved from body to body, and gently bathed each ravaged face and closed tormented eyes forever. Behind us came others, a snaking procession as each body was undressed gently, completely bathed, hair combed, and wound in clean cloth. At some point I became aware that Verity was there, a young scribe beside him, going from body to body, taking down the names of those few who were recognized, writing briefly of every other.

      One name I supplied him myself: Kerry. The last Molly and I had known of this street boy, he had gone off as a puppeteer’s apprentice. He’d ended his days as little more than a puppet. His laughing mouth was stilled forever. As boys, we’d run errands together, to earn a penny or two. He’d been beside me the first time I got puking drunk, and laughed until his own stomach betrayed him. He’d wedged the rotten fish in the trestles of the tavern-keeper’s table, the one who had accused us of stealing. The days we had shared I alone would remember now. I suddenly felt less real. Part of my past, Forged away from me.

      When we were finished, and stood silently looking at the tables of bodies, Verity stepped forward, to read his tally aloud in the silence. The names were few, but he did not neglect those unknown. ‘A young man, newly bearded, dark hair, the scars of fishing on his hands …’ he said of one, and of another, ‘A woman, curly haired and comely, tattooed with the puppeteers’ guild sign.’ We listened to the litany of those we had lost, and if any did not weep, they had hearts of stone. As a people, we lifted our dead and carried them to the funeral pyre, to set them carefully upon this last bed. Verity himself brought the torch for the kindling, but he handed it to the Queen who waited beside the pyre. As she set flame to the pitch-laden boughs, she cried out to the dark skies, ‘You shall not be forgotten!’ All echoed her with a shout. Blade, the old sergeant, stood beside the pyre with shears, to take from every soldier a finger’s length lock of hair, a symbol of the mourning for a fallen comrade. Verity joined the queue, and Kettricken stood behind him, to offer up a pale lock of her own hair.

      There followed a night such as I had never known. Most of Buckkeep Town came to the keep that night, and were admitted without question. All followed the Queen’s example and kept a watching fast until the pyre had burned itself to ash and bone. Then the Great Hall and the Lesser were filled, and planks laid as tables outside in the courtyard for those who could not crowd within. Kegs of drink were rolled out, and such a setting out of bread and roasted meat and other viands as I had not even imagined that Buckkeep possessed. Later I was to learn that much of it had simply come up from the town, unsought but offered freely.

      The King descended, as he had not for some weeks, to sit in his throne at the high table and preside over the gathering. The Fool came too, to stand beside and behind his chair and accept from his plate whatever the King offered. But this night he made not merry for the King; his fool’s prattle was stilled, and even the bells on his cap and sleeves had been tied in strips of fabric to mute them. Only once did our eyes meet that night, but for me, the glance carried no discernible message. To the King’s right was Verity, to his left Kettricken. Regal was there, too, of course, in so sumptuous a costume of black that only the colour denoted any sort of mourning. He scowled and sulked and drank, and I suppose for some his surly silence passed for grieving. For me, I could sense the anger seething within him, and knew that someone, somewhere would pay for what he saw as insult to himself. Even Patience was there, her appearance as rare as the King’s, and I sensed the unity of purpose we displayed.

      The King ate but little. He waited until those at the high table were filled before he arose to speak. As he spoke, his words were repeated at the lower tables, and in the Lesser Hall, and even outside in the courtyard by minstrels. He spoke briefly of those we had lost to the Red Ships. He said nothing of Forging, or of the day’s task of hunting down and killing the Forged ones. He spoke instead as if they had but recently died in a battle against the Red Ships, and said only that we must remember them. Then, pleading fatigue and grief, he left the table to return to his own chambers.

      Then it was that Verity arose. He did little more than to repeat Kettricken’s words of earlier, that we grieved now, but when the grieving was over, we must make ready our vengeance. He lacked the fire and passion of Kettricken’s earlier speech, but I could see all at table responding to it. Folk nodded and began to talk amongst themselves, while Regal sat and glowered silently. Verity and Kettricken left the table late that night, she on his arm, and they made sure that all marked how they left together. Regal remained, drinking and muttering to himself. I myself slipped away shortly after Verity and Kettricken left, to seek my own bed.

      I made no attempt to fall asleep, but only flung myself on my bed to stare into the fire. When the concealed door opened, I rose immediately to ascend to Chade’s chambers. I found him ajitter with an infectious excitement. There was even a pinkness to his pale cheeks about his pock scars. His grey hair was wild, his green eyes glittered like gems. He was pacing about his chambers, and as I entered, he actually seized me in a rough embrace. He stepped back and laughed aloud at my shocked expression.

      ‘She was born to rule! Born to it, and somehow now she has awakened to it! It could not have come at a better time! She may yet save us all!’

      His exultation was unholy in its glee.

      ‘I know not how many folk died today,’ I rebuked him.

      ‘Ah! But not in vain! At least not in vain! Those were not wasted deaths, FitzChivalry. By El and Eda, Kettricken has the instinct and the grace! I had not suspected it in her. Now had we still your father alive, boy, and him paired with her on the throne, we could have a pair as could cup the whole world in their hands.’ He took another sip of his wine and paced again about his chambers. I had never seen him so elated. He all but capered. A covered basket rested on a table close to hand, and its contents had been set out on a cloth. Wine, cheese, sausages, pickles and bread. So even here in his tower, Chade shared the funeral feast. Slink the weasel popped up from the other side of the table, to regard me past the food with avaricious eyes. Chade’s voice broke me from my thoughts.

      ‘She has an ample share of what Chivalry had. The instinct for seizing the moment and turning it to advantage. She took an unavoidable, unmentionable situation and made high tragedy of what might have been simple slaughter in lesser hands. Boy, we have a queen, a queen again at Buckkeep!’

      I felt slightly repulsed by his joy. And, for an instant, cheated. Hesitantly, I asked, ‘Do you think, really, that the Queen did as she did for show? That it was all a calculated political move?’

      He СКАЧАТЬ