Assassin's Quest

"You will be back, you know," he added.

I shook my head slowly. "I doubt that. But I thank you for what you have given me."

"No. I know you will be back. It is not a matter of your wanting what I can teach you. You will find you need it. You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Predator or prey; there is no shame to being either one. As time goes on, you will find you have urgent questions. What must you do when your friend wishes to run with a pack of true wolves? I promise you, that time will come. What must he do if you marry and have a child? When the time comes for one of you to die, as it must, how does the other make room for what is left, and carry on alone? In time you will hunger for others of your kind. You will need to know how to sense them and how to seek them out. There are answers to these questions, Old Blood answers, ones I ca

I looked down at the trodden soil of the forest path. I had lost all certainty that I would not return to Rolf.

Holly spoke softly but clearly from the shadows. "I believe in what you go to do. I wish you success, and would aid you if I could." Her eyes darted to Rolf, as if this were a thing they had discussed, but had not agreed upon. "If you are in need, cry out, as you do to Nighteyes, asking that any of Old Blood who hear you pass word back to Holly and Sleet of Crowsneck. Those who hear may come to help you. Even if they do not, they will send word to me, and I will do what I can."

Rolf let out a sudden huff of breath. "We will do what we can," he amended her words. "But you would be wiser to stay here and learn first how to better protect yourself."

I nodded to his words, but resolved privately that I would not involve any of them in my revenge against Regal. When I glanced up at Rolf, he smiled at me wryly, and shrugged his shoulders. "Go then. But be wary, both of you. Before the moon goes down you'll leave Buck behind and be in Farrow. If you think King Regal has a grip on us here, wait until you get to where folk believe he has a right to it."

I nodded grimly to that, and once more Nighteyes and I were on our way.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Farrow

Lady Patience, the Lady of Buckkeep as she came to be called, rose to power in a unique fashion. She had been born into a noble family and was by birth a lady. She was raised to the loftier status of Queen-in-Waiting by her precipitous marriage to King-in-Waiting Chivalry. She never asserted herself in either position to take the power that birth and marriage had brought her. It was only when she was alone, almost abandoned as eccentric Lady Patience at Buckkeep, that she gathered to herself the reins of influence. She did it, as she had done everything else in her life, in a haphazard, quaint way that would have availed any other woman not at all.

She did not call on noble family co

There is no record of Lord Bright's feelings regarding Lady Patience's forays. She never declared these expeditions in any official way. They were her pleasure rides, the guards that accompanied her had volunteered to do so, and likewise for the duties she put them to in the villages. Some, as she came to trust them, ran "errands" for her. Such errands might involve the distance carrying of messages to keeps in Rippon, Bearns, and even Shoaks, requesting news of how the coastal towns fared, and giving news of Buck; they took her ru

Others aided Patience in disposing of her jewelry and ancestral lands for coin, which she then employed "as she pleased, as was her right," as she once informed Lord Bright. She bought grain and sheep from inland, and again her "volunteers" saw to its transport and distribution. Small supply boats brought hope to embattled defenders. She made token payments to stonemasons and carpenters who helped to rebuild ravaged villages. And she gave coin, not much but accompanied by her sincerest thanks, to those guards who volunteered to assist her.

By the time the Ivy badge came into common usage among the Buckkeep Guard, it was only to acknowledge what was already a fact. These men and women were Lady Patience's guard, paid by her when they were paid at all, but more important to them, valued and used by her, doctored by her when they were injured, and sharply defended by her acid tongue against any who spoke disparagingly of them. These were the foundation of her influence, and the basis of the strength she came to wield. 'A tower seldom crumbles from the bottom up,' she told more than one, and claimed to have the saying from Prince Chivalry.