Murtagh

I should…. I might need to rework my wards. I think I’ve been too lax with what they allow.

Thorn executed a slow turn over Nal Gorgoth. Seeing the village once more from above, Murtagh noticed that the buildings were laid out in intersecting circles, like rings on a rain-pelted pond.

Thorn said, Do you still wish to stay through the night?

I don’t know. An image flashed through Murtagh’s mind of the black sun over a barren land, and he again felt the bitter touch of a northern wind. He hugged himself, and for the first time, he wondered if Bachel’s answers were the sort he actually wanted to hear. There’s something very wrong here.

Very, very wrong.

As they landed in the courtyard, Alín approached from within the temple, bearing a pitcher of water with a cloth and basin. It was a welcome sight. Murtagh could feel the filth on his skin, blood and dirt and the dried juice of crushed mushrooms all intermixed.

Accompanying Alín was the temple cook—a surly, heavyset woman with a stained apron and forearms as large as a baker’s—and a half-dozen scullions. Together, cook and scullions braved Thorn’s close inspection to fetch Murtagh’s boar and carry it away to be butchered.

Murtagh was glad to see the beast gone. He’d had his fill of boar hunting for the rest of time.

Alín placed the pitcher, cloth, and basin on the flagstones, bowed, and retreated to a safe distance.

“My thanks,” said Murtagh. She averted her eyes as he pulled off his torn, bloodstained jerkin and the woolen shirt beneath. He cursed. Both garments were ruined. He would have to wear his linen shirt until he could acquire replacements.

“How went the hunt, my Lord?” Alín asked in a soft voice.

Murtagh wet the cloth and scrubbed at the blood on his skin. It clung to him with stubborn persistence. “If your only measure of success is the number of animals killed, well enough. Otherwise, I would say badly. Very badly. The beasts took three of your men.”

Alín bowed her head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Murtagh grunted. “Are you, now? Bachel stuck a dagger into one of the men. Rauden was his name. Is that how things are done among your kind?”

Pale blue eyes met his gaze and held it. “Was Rauden wounded?”

Reluctantly, Murtagh said, “He was. But I could have helped him. Or Bachel could have.”

Alín’s resolve and conviction never seemed to falter. “Perhaps that is true, my Lord, but I trust our Speaker’s judgment. She knows what is best for us, and if it was Rauden’s time to leave this life and rejoin the greater dream, then it is good that Bachel was there to ease his journey. None of us could ask for more.”

“Because she is your mehtra.”

A flash of disapproval crossed Alín’s face. “We do not call her that lightly, Kingkiller.”

“I’m not sure why you call her that at all. She doesn’t seem like much of a mother.”

She lifted her chin. “You must understand, my Lord, that Bachel is the Speaker. Her concerns transcend those of normal mortals. You cannot expect to know or understand her. If what she did seems wrong to you, the fault lies not with her. She can do no wrong.”

Murtagh chewed on that. There was a possibility, a very, very slight possibility, that Alín was right. If Bachel could see the future, then every choice she made might be the correct one. And yet surely killing Rauden couldn’t be justified.

His lip curled. “So says everyone who wishes to hold power and not be challenged.”

“You are unfair, my Lord. No king or queen has ever had as much right to rule as does Bachel, nor as much responsibility.”

Abandoning the cloth, Murtagh bent and poured the contents of the pitcher over his head and shoulders. The water was shockingly cold, even more so in the unseasonable warmth that pervaded Nal Gorgoth, and yet it was a relief and a pleasure to feel himself at least partially clean.

“Is that so?”

Alín nodded, earnest. “Her burdens are immense, my Lord. The life of any one man—of any one of us here in Nal Gorgoth—is as a speck of dust when weighed against the importance of the Speaker’s duties.”

Murtagh didn’t feel like forcing the issue. He shook his hair dry and turned to retrieve his linen shirt from the saddlebags.

As he did, he heard Alín let out a small gasp, and he knew she had noticed the scar on his back. Grim curiosity drove him to look at her, expecting to see either pity or disgust distorting her face.

He saw neither. Her face was soft with what he could only interpret as compassion. Understanding, even. The anger that had been building within him drained away, leaving him hollow and off-guard.

“Oh,” she said. “In what battle were you wounded? Was it Eragon who—”

“No.”

“Then was it Galbatorix or—”

“It was my father.”