Assassin’s Fate

‘Her,’ I corrected. ‘You spoke to Beloved?’ The grass under my bare feet was relatively free of sheep dung. I sat down like an old tapestry falling from its hooks. Prilkop was more graceful, but not much. I wondered how old he was. The White he had brought with him didn’t sit but stood at a distance as if he would flee at any moment.

‘Leave the food and wine, and you can go,’ Prilkop told him. The White unslung a canvas bag from one shoulder, dropped it, then turned and ran. Prilkop made a sound between a sigh and a moan. He worked his way to his feet, retrieved the bag and seated himself beside me again. As he opened it between us, I asked him, ‘Am I that frightening?’

‘You look more statue than man, something wrought of silver attached to a skeleton coated with flesh. Did Capra do this to you? Or a dragon?’

‘My own doing and no one else’s. A magic gone wrong,’ I told him, for I was too weary to bother with more words than that. ‘What happened? To Bee and to Beloved? To everyone else?’

‘They believe you dead. All of them. They mourn you savagely.’

Vanity is such a strange thing. They mourned me, and I was warmed that they loved me.

He spoke words carefully as he dug a cork out of a web-coated bottle of wine. He set it down between us and began to arrange a strange picnic. ‘It’s good wine, from the best tavern in town. I had to choose from what folk had left behind. The eggs are raw, from a half-fallen chicken house. The apricots are not quite ripe but the tree was down, so I picked them. The same for the fish; I took it from a fallen smoking rack, and it’s still wet inside.’

‘And you brought it for me?’

‘I was gathering food when I saw the crow. I think you are hungrier than I am.’

‘Thank you.’ I cared nothing for the condition of the food or its source. I was barely able to restrain myself until he had set out the food on the coarse sack it had been carried in. ‘Eat while I talk,’ he suggested, and I was happy to comply. The food was as flawed as he said it would be and I devoured it. Raw eggs are fine as long as the belly expects them.

There were gaps in the tale he told me, but I learned much that calmed my heart. He had seen Bee with the Fool and Spark and Per. Lant was possibly lost. Someone had been badly burned. Harder to grasp was that when the ship Paragon had sunk, two dragons had emerged from the waters of the harbour. I had my own thoughts on how that had happened. And other dragons and a scarlet man had come to destroy all of Clerres. I was astounded when he spoke of a black dragon. It had to be IceFyre. The scarlet man that Prilkop had glimpsed was probably Rapskal.

There were things he did not know and could not explain. I could not imagine how Paragon had found the strength to become dragons. Then I recalled the Fool’s words about my missing tube of Silver. Tintaglia and Heeby had said they would come as soon as they could, but I was surprised that IceFyre had made the journey. Prilkop knew little of the Vivacia other than that a ship with a living figurehead had come into the bay, the dragons had flown in circles above, shouting down to it, and then all the folk that remained from those who had arrived on the Paragon had departed on board.

Logic told me that I should be glad they were safely on their way. But being left for dead, even when one has insisted on it, creates a gulch of hurt in the heart. No matter how foolish, it stung that they had gone without me. It echoed painfully how Molly and Burrich had continued their lives when they believed me dead. Stupid, stupid emotion. Would not I have done exactly the same? I pushed my thoughts into a new channel, forced myself to confront the tragedy in Prilkop’s eyes.

‘They have treated you badly ever since you returned to Clerres but I know this is not what you would have wished on them. How have the folk of Clerres fared? What of your Whites?’

He made a small sound. ‘I have lived a long life, FitzChivalry Farseer. I’ve seen the fall of the Pale Woman’s holdings on Aslevjal, and rejoiced in it. Remember, I had my part in preserving IceFyre’s life while he was encased in the ice. But Clerres, here … yes, they treated me badly.’ He looked down at the white tracery of scars on his black hands and arms. ‘Worse than badly,’ he admitted. He lifted his eyes. ‘As your own family treated you, as I recall from Beloved’s telling. But never did you confuse one of your uncles with the others, did you? When I was a child at Clerres, so long ago, it was a place of learning. I loved the libraries! They told me who I was! There were all the deeds of the White Prophets who had gone before me. There were the adventures of them finding their Catalysts, but also there were collections of lore, and accounts of ancient queens, as well as maps and histories of far away places … you cannot imagine what Bee destroyed with her fire. I do not blame her; she could not argue with the forces that shaped her and set her on that path. But I mourn what was lost.