Assassin's Quest

"And a child. A little girl." Despite the cold and the darkness, I grinned at those words. "My daughter," I said quietly, simply to hear how the words sounded. "I have a wife and a daughter at home."

She flung herself down in the darkness beside me. "No you don't!" she denied it with an emphatic whisper. "I'm a minstrel, Fitz. If the Bastard had married, the word would have gone round. In fact, there were rumors you were for Celerity, Duke Brawndy's daughter."

"It was done quietly," I told her.

"Ah. I see. You're not married at all. You've a woman, is what you're trying to say."

The words stung me. "Molly is my wife," I said firmly. "In every way that matters to me, she is my wife."

"And in the ways that might matter to her? And a child?" Starling asked me quietly.

I took a deep breath. "When I go back, that will be the first thing we remedy. It is promised to me, by Verity himself, that when he is king, I should marry whomever I wished." Some part of me was aghast at how freely I was speaking to her. Another part asked, what harm could it do for her to know? And there was relief in being able to speak of it.

"So you do go to find Verity?"

"I go to serve my king. To lend whatever aid I may to Kettricken and Verity's heir-child. And then to go on, to beyond the Mountains, to find and restore my king. So he may drive the Red-Ships from the Six Duchies coast and we may know peace again."

For a moment all was silence save for the slicing wind outside the barn. Then she snorted softly. "Do even half of that, and I shall have my hero song."

"I have no desire to be a hero. Only to do what I must to be free to live my own life."

"Poor Fitz. None of us is ever free to do that."

"You seem very free to me."

"Do I? To me it seems as if every step I take carries me deeper into a mire, and the more I struggle, the more firmly I embed myself."

"How is that?"

She gave a choked laugh. "Look about you. Here I am, sleeping in straw and singing for my supper, gambling that there will eventually be a way to cross this river and go on to the Mountains. And if I get through all that, have I achieved my goal? No. I still must dangle after you until you do something song worthy."

"You really needn't," I said in some dismay at the prospect. "You could go on your way, making your way as a minstrel. You seem to do well enough at it."

"Well enough. Well enough for a traveling minstrel. You've heard me sing, Fitz. I've a good enough voice, and nimble enough fingers. But I am not extraordinary, and that is what it takes to win a position as keep minstrel. That's assuming there will be any more keeps in five years or so. I've no mind to sing to a Red-Ship audience."

For a moment we were both quiet; considering.

"You see," she went on after a time, "I've no one anymore. Parents and brother gone. My old master gone, Lord Bronze gone, who was partial to me mostly for my master's sake. All gone when the keep burned. The Raiders left me for dead, you know, or I'd truly be dead." For the first time, I heard hints of an old fear in her voice. She was quiet for a time, thinking of all that she would not mention. I rolled to face her. "I've only myself to rely on. For now, for always. Only myself. And there's a limit to how long a minstrel can wander about singing for coins in inns. If you wish to be comfortable when you're old, you have to earn a place in a keep. Only a truly great song will do that for me, Fitz. And I've a limited amount of time in which to find one." Her voice grew softer, her breath warm as she said, "And so I shall follow you. For great events seem to happen in your wake."

"Great events?" I scoffed.

She hitched herself closer to me. "Great events. The abdication of the throne by Prince Chivalry. The triumph against the Red-Ships at Antler Island. Were not you the one who saved Queen Kettricken from Forged ones the night she was attacked, right before the Vixen Queen's Hunt? Now, there's a song I wish I had written. To say nothing of precipitating the riots the night of Prince Regal's coronation. Let's see. Rising from the dead, making an attempt on Regal's life right inside Tradeford Hall, and then escaping unscathed. Killing half a dozen of his Guard single-handedly while manacled … I had a feeling I should have followed you that day. But I'd say I've a good chance of witnessing something noteworthy if I but held on to your shirttail from now on."

I'd never thought of those events as a list of things I'd caused. I wanted to protest that I had not caused any of them, that I had merely been caught up in the grinding wheels of history. Instead I just sighed. "All I want to do is go home to Molly and our little daughter."

"She probably longs for the same thing. It can't be easy for her, wondering when you'll come back, or if."

"She doesn't wonder. She already believes me dead."

After a time, Starling said hesitantly, "Fitz. She thinks you dead. How can you believe she will be there waiting when you return, that she won't find someone else?"