The Complete Farseer Trilogy. Robin Hobb

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СКАЧАТЬ find no words to say. Burrich looked at me, scowled and turned away. ‘Now stop that,’ he commanded me angrily.

      ‘What?’ I asked.

      ‘You look at me sometimes with my lord’s eyes,’ he said quietly, and then as sharply as before, ‘Well, what did you think to do? Hide in the stables the rest of your life? No. You have to go back. You have to go back and hold up your head and eat your meals among the keep folk, and sleep in your own room, and live your own life. Yes, and go and finish those damn lessons in the Skill.’

      His first commands had sounded difficult, but the last, I knew, was impossible.

      ‘I can’t,’ I said, not believing how stupid he was. ‘Galen wouldn’t let me come back to the group. And even if he did, I’d never catch up on all I’d missed. I’ve already failed at it, Burrich. I failed and that’s done, and I need to find something else to do with myself. I’d like to learn the hawks, please.’ The last I heard myself say with some amazement, for in truth it had never crossed my mind before. Burrich’s reply was at least as strange.

      ‘You can’t, for the hawks don’t like you. You’re too warm and you don’t mind your own business enough. Now listen to me. You didn’t fail, you fool. Galen tried to drive you away. If you don’t go back, you’ll have let him win. You have to go back and you have to learn it. But,’ and here he turned on me, and the anger in his eyes was for me, ‘You don’t have to stand there like a carter’s mule while he beats you. You’ve a birthright to his time and his knowledge. Make him give you what is yours. Don’t run away. No one ever gained anything by running away.’ He paused, started to say more, and then stopped.

      ‘I’ve missed too many lessons. I’ll never …’

      ‘You haven’t missed anything,’ Burrich said stubbornly. He turned away from me, and I couldn’t read his tone as he added, ‘There have been no lessons since you left. You should be able to pick up just where you left off.’

      ‘I don’t want to go back.’

      ‘Don’t waste my time by arguing with me,’ he said tightly. ‘Don’t dare to try my patience that way. I’ve told you what you are to do. Do it.’

      Suddenly I was five years old again, and a man in a kitchen backed up a crowd with a look. I shivered, cowed. Abruptly, it was easier to face Galen than to defy Burrich. Even when he added, ‘And you’ll leave that pup with me until your lessons are done. Being shut up inside your room all day is no life for a dog. His coat will go bad and his muscles won’t grow properly. But you’d better be down here each evening to see to both him and Sooty or you’ll answer to me. And I don’t give a damn what Galen says about that, either.’

      And so I was dismissed. I conveyed to Smithy that he was to stay with Burrich, and he accepted it with an equanimity that surprised me as much as it hurt my feelings. Dispirited, I took my pot of unguent and plodded back up to the keep. I took food from the kitchen, for I had no heart to face anyone at table and went up to my room. It was cold and dark; no fire in the hearth, no candles in the sticks and the fouled reeds underfoot stank. I fetched candles and wood, set a fire, and while I was waiting for it to take some of the chill off the stone walls and floors, I busied myself with taking up the floor rushes. Then, as Lacey had advised me, I scrubbed the room well with hot water and vinegar. Somehow I got the vinegar that had been flavoured with tarragon, and so when I was finished, the room smelt fragrant. Exhausted, I flung myself down on my bed, and fell asleep wondering why I’d never discovered how to open whatever hidden door it was that led to Chade’s quarters. But I had no doubt that he would have simply dismissed me, for he was a man of his word and would not interfere until Galen had finished with me. Or until he discovered that I was finished with Galen.

      The Fool’s candles awoke me. I was completely disoriented, until he said, ‘You’ve just time to wash and eat and still be first on the tower top.’

      He’d brought warm water in an ewer, and warm rolls from the kitchen ovens.

      ‘I’m not going.’

      It was the first time I’d ever seen the Fool look surprised. ‘Why not?’

      ‘It’s pointless. I can’t succeed. I simply haven’t the aptitude and I’m tired of beating my head against the wall.’

      The Fool’s eyes widened further. ‘I thought you had been doing well, before …’

      It was my turn to be surprised. ‘Well? Why do you think he mocked me and struck me? As a reward for my success? No. I haven’t even been able to understand what it’s about. All the others had already surpassed me. Why should I go back? So Galen can prove even more thoroughly how right he was?’

      ‘Something,’ the Fool said carefully, ‘is not right here.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Before, I asked you to give up the lessons. You would not. Do you recall that?’

      I cast my mind back. ‘I’m stubborn, sometimes,’ I admitted.

      ‘And if I asked you now, to continue? To go up to the tower top, and continue to try?’

      ‘Why have you changed your mind?’

      ‘Because that which I sought to prevent came to pass. But you survived it. So I seek now to …’ His words trailed off. ‘It is as you said. Why should I speak at all, when I cannot speak plainly?’

      ‘If I said that, I regret it. It is not a thing one should say to a friend. I do not remember it.’

      He smiled faintly. ‘If you do not remember it, then neither shall I.’ He reached and took both of my hands in his. His grip was oddly cool. A shiver passed over me at his touch. ‘Would you continue, if I asked it of you? As a friend?’

      The word sounded so odd from his lips. He spoke it without mockery, carefully, as if the saying of it aloud could shatter the meaning. His colourless eyes held mine. I found I could not say no. So I nodded.

      Even so, I rose reluctantly. He watched me with an impassive interest as I straightened the clothes I’d slept in, splashed my face, and then tore into the bread he’d brought. ‘I don’t want to go,’ I told him as I finished the first roll and took up the second. ‘I don’t see what it can accomplish.’

      ‘I don’t know why he bothers with you,’ the Fool agreed. The familiar cynicism was back.

      ‘Galen? He has to, the King …’

      ‘Burrich.’

      ‘He just likes bossing me about,’ I complained, and it sounded childish, even to me.

      The Fool shook his head. ‘You haven’t even a clue, have you?’

      ‘About what?’

      ‘About how the stablemaster dragged Galen from his bed, and from thence to the Witness Stones. I wasn’t there, of course, or I would be able to tell you how Galen cursed and struck at him at first, but the stablemaster paid no attention. He just hunched his shoulders to the man’s blows, and kept silent. He gripped the Skillmaster by the collar, so the man was fair choked, and dragged him along. And the soldiers and guards and stable-boys followed in a stream that became a torrent of men. If I had been there, I could tell you how no man dared to interfere, for it was as if the stablemaster had become as Burrich once was, an iron-muscled man with a black temper that was like a madness when it came on him. No one, then, dared to brook СКАЧАТЬ