How it had de­gen­er­ated from that to Regal’s King Circle I have never ex­actly been able to dis­cover. I only knew that as I rode through the great open circle of the mar­ket, Ar­row snorted at the smell of old blood on the cobbles un­der his hooves. The old gal­lows and the whip­ping posts were still there, el­ev­ated now for the be­ne­fit of the crowd, along with other mech­an­ical devices whose uses I had no wish to un­der­stand. No doubt those in the new King’s Circle would be even more ima­gin­at­ively cruel. I kneed Ar­row and passed them all with a chill shud­der and a prayer to Eda that I be pre­served from them.

  Then a twist of feel­ing writhed through the air, wrapped it­self around my thoughts and bent them. For a heart-thud­ding mo­ment, I thought that Will reached after me with the Skill and sought to drive me mad. But my Skill walls were as stout as I knew how to raise, and I doubted that Will or any­one else would be soon able to Skill after Ver­ity’s blast. No. This was worse. This came from a deeper, more primal source, as in­si­di­ous as clear wa­ter that was poisoned. It flowed into me, hatred and pain and stifling claus­tro­pho­bia and hun­ger all rolled into one dread­ful long­ing for free­dom and re­venge. It reawakened everything I had ever felt in Regal’s dun­geons.

  It came from the cages. A great stench came from the row of them at the edge of the circle, a stench of in­fec­ted wounds and ur­ine and rot­ted meat. Yet even that af­front to my nose was not as great as the press of hell-tinged Wit that em­an­ated from them. They held but in­sane beasts, the creatures kept to sav­age the hu­man crim­in­als and Forged ones that Regal threw to them. There was a bear, heav­ily muzzled des­pite the bars he paced be­hind. There were two great cats of a kind I had never seen, in agony from the broken fangs and torn claws they had wasted on the bars, and yet stub­bornly bat­tling their pris­ons still. There was an im­mense black bull with a great sweep of horns. This last an­imal’s flesh was stud­ded with ribboned darts sunken in wounds that festered and oozed pus down his hide. Their misery dinned at me, clam­our­ing for re­lief, yet I did not need to stop to see the heavy chains and locks that se­cured each cage. Had I had a pick, I might have tried to cheat the locks. Had I had meat or grain, I might have freed them with poison. But I had neither of those things, and even less time. So I rode past them, un­til the wave of their mad­ness and agony cres­ted over and drenched me. I pulled in on the reins. I could not leave them be­hind. But, come to me, the com­mand surged through me, Skill-graven. It was not en­dur­able to dis­obey it. I set my heels to jit­ter­ing Ar­row and left them be­hind, tal­ly­ing up to Regal’s ac­count yet an­other debt that some day I would settle.

  True light found us fi­nally on the out­skirts of town. I had never ima­gined that Trade­ford was so large. We came to a slow stream feed­ing into the river. I pulled Ar­row in, then dis­moun­ted and led him down to the wa­ter­side. I let him drink a bit, then walked him for a while, then let him drink some more. The whole time my mind seethed with a thou­sand thoughts. They were prob­ably search­ing the roads that led south, ex­pect­ing me to head back to Buck. I had a good lead on them now; as long as I kept mov­ing, I had a good chance of es­cape. I re­called my clev­erly-stashed bundle that would never be re­claimed. My winter clothes, my blanket, my cloak, all lost to me. I wondered sud­denly if Regal would blame Hands for my steal­ing the horse. I kept re­call­ing the look in Hands’ eyes be­fore he fled me. I found my­self be­ing glad I had not yiel­ded to the tempta­tion to track Molly down. It was hard enough to see that hor­ror and dis­gust in the face of a friend. I never wanted to see it in her eyes. I re­called again the dumb agony of the beasts that my Wit made me wit­ness. Such thoughts were pushed aside by my frus­tra­tion that my at­tempt on Regal had been thwarted, and the won­der­ing if they would de­tect the pois­ons I had used on his clothes, or if I might yet suc­ceed at killing him. Over all, thun­der­ing through me, was Ver­ity’s com­mand. Come to me, he had said, and I could not quite stop hear­ing those words. A small part of my mind was ob­sessed with them, nagged me even now not to waste my time in think­ing or drink­ing, but merely to get back on the horse and go, go to Ver­ity, that he needed me, com­man­ded me.

  Yet stoop to drink I did, and it was while I was on my knees at the wa­ter’s edge that I no­ticed I wasn’t dead.

  I wet the sleeve of the yel­low shirt in the stream, then gently peeled the blood-caked fab­ric loose. The cut I had in­flic­ted on my­self was shal­low, not much more than a long slice up my arm. It was sore, and angry to look at, but it did not ap­pear poisoned. I re­called be­latedly that I had used my knife to kill twice that night, and wiped it off at least once. There had prob­ably been no more than a trace of poison left on it when I cut my­self.

  Like a morn­ing dawn­ing, hope sud­denly gleamed for me. They’d be look­ing for a body by the road, or search­ing for a poisoned man hid­ing some­where in the city, too ill by now to be­stride a horse. The whole co­terie had watched me poison my­self, and must have sensed my com­plete be­lief in my im­min­ent death. Could they con­vince Regal I was dy­ing? I wouldn’t trust to that, but I could hope for it. I re­moun­ted and pushed swiftly on. We passed farm­steads, grain­fields, and orch­ards. We passed farm­ers on carts, too, tak­ing their crops to town. I rode clutch­ing my arm to my chest, star­ing straight ahead. It would only be a mat­ter of time be­fore someone thought to ques­tion folk com­ing into town. Best to play my part.

  Even­tu­ally we began to see stretches of un­worked land, with sheep or har­agar scattered across them in open pas­tur­age. Shortly after noon, I did what I knew I had to do. I dis­moun­ted by a brushy creek­side, let Ar­row wa­ter again, and then turned his head back to Trade­ford. ‘Back to the stables, boy,’ I told him, and when he did not move, I clapped him soundly on the flank. ‘Go on, go back to Hands. Tell them all I’m dead some­where.’ I pic­tured his manger for him, brim­ming with the oats I knew he loved. ‘Go on, Ar­row. Go.’

  He snorted at me curi­ously, but then paced off. He paused once to look back at me, ex­pect­ing me to come after him and catch him. ‘Go on!’ I shouted at him, and stamped my foot. He startled at that, and then took off at his high-kneed trot, toss­ing his head. Scarcely even tired, that one. When he came back rider­less to the stable, per­haps they’d be­lieve I was dead. Per­haps they’d waste more time search­ing for a body in­stead of pur­su­ing me. It was the best I could do to mis­lead them, and cer­tainly bet­ter than rid­ing the king’s own horse for all to see. Ar­row’s hoof­beats were fad­ing. I wondered if I’d ever again ride an an­imal that fine, let alone own one. It didn’t seem likely.

  Come to me. The com­mand still echoed through my mind.

  ‘I am, I am,’ I muttered to my­self. ‘After I hunt for some­thing to eat and get some sleep. But I’m com­ing.’ I left the road and fol­lowed the creek up into deeper brush. I had a long and weary way to go, with little more than the clothes on my back.

  TEN

  Hir­ing Fair

  Slavery is a tra­di­tion in the Chalced States, and is at the heart of much of its eco­nomy. They claim pris­on­ers taken in war are the ma­jor source of its slaves. How­ever, a great por­tion of the slaves who es­cape to the Six Duch­ies tell tales of be­ing taken in pir­ate raids against their nat­ive lands. Chalced’s of­fi­cial stance is that such raids do not oc­cur, but Chalced also of­fi­cially denies that they turn a blind eye to pir­ates op­er­at­ing from the Trade Is­lands. The two go hand in hand.

  Slavery has never been com­monly ac­cep­ted in the Six Duch­ies. Many of the early bor­der con­flicts between Shoaks and the Chalced States had more to do with the slavery is­sue than ac­tual bound­ary lines. Shoaks fam­il­ies re­fused to ac­cept that sol­diers wounded or cap­tured in war would be kept the rest of their lives as slaves. Any battle that Shoaks lost was al­most im­me­di­ately fol­lowed by a second sav­age at­tack against the Chalced States to re­gain those lost in the first battle. In this way, Shoaks came to hold much land ori­gin­ally claimed by the Chalced States. The peace between the two re­gions is al­ways un­easy. Chalced con­stantly brings com­plaint that the folk of Shoaks not only shel­ter run­away slaves, but en­cour­age oth­ers to es­cape. No Six Duch­ies mon­arch has ever denied the truth of this.

  My whole drive now was to reach Ver­ity, some­where bey­ond the Moun­tain King­dom. To do it, I would have to cross all of Far­row first. It would not be an easy task. While the re­gion along the Vin River is pleas­ant enough, the farther one travels from the Vin, the more arid the coun­tryside be­comes. The ar­able stretches are given over to great fields of flax and hemp, but bey­ond these are vast stretches of open, un­in­hab­ited land. The in­terior of Far­row Duchy, while not a desert, is flat, dry coun­try, used only by the no­madic tribes who move their herds across it, fol­low­ing the for­age. Even they for­sake it after the ‘green times’ of the year are past, to con­greg­ate in tem­por­ary vil­lages along rivers or near wa­ter places. In the days that fol­lowed my es­cape from Trade­ford Hall, I came to won­der why King Wielder had ever bothered to sub­jug­ate Far­row, let alone make it one of the Six Duch­ies. I knew that I had to strike away from the Vin, to head south­w­est to­ward Blue Lake, to cross vast Blue Lake, and then fol­low the Cold River to the hems of the Moun­tains. Yet it was not a jour­ney for a lone man. And without Nighteyes, that was what I was.

  There are no size­able cit­ies in the in­terior, though there are rudi­ment­ary towns that sub­sist year round near some of the springs that ran­domly dot the in­terior. Most of these sur­vive by vir­tue of the trade cara­vans that pass near them. Trade does flow, al­beit slowly, between the folk of Blue Lake and the Vin River, and by this same path do the goods of the Moun­tain folk come into Six Duch­ies hands. The ob­vi­ous course was to some­how at­tach my­self to one of those cara­vans. Yet what is ob­vi­ous is not al­ways easy.

  When I had entered Trade­ford town, I had looked to be the poorest type of beg­gar ima­gin­able. I left it finely dressed, on one of the best an­im­als ever bred at Buck­keep. But the mo­ment after I had par­ted with Ar­row, the grav­ity of my situ­ation began to dawn on me. I had the cloth­ing I had stolen and my leather boots, my belt and pouch, a knife and a sword, plus a ring and a medal­lion on a chain. In my pouch there were no coins left at all, though it did con­tain im­ple­ments for fire mak­ing, a sharpen­ing stone for my knife and a good se­lec­tion of pois­ons.

  Wolves are not meant to hunt alone. So Nighteyes had once told me, and be­fore the day was out, I came to ap­pre­ci­ate the wis­dom of that state­ment. My meal that day con­sis­ted of rice-lily roots and some nuts a squir­rel had hoarded in too ob­vi­ous a hid­ing place. I would gladly have eaten the squir­rel, who sat over­head scold­ing at me as I raided his cache, but I had not the means to make that wish a real­ity. In­stead, as I poun­ded the nuts with a stone to open them, I re­flec­ted that one by one, my il­lu­sions about my­self had been stripped away.

  I had be­lieved my­self a self-suf­fi­cient and clever fel­low. I had taken pride in my skills as an as­sas­sin, had even, deep down, be­lieved that al­though I could not com­pet­ently mas­ter my Skill abil­ity, my strength at it was eas­ily the equal of any in Ga­len’s Co­terie. But take away both King Shrewd’s lar­gesse and my wolf com­pan­ion’s hunt­ing abil­ity, sub­tract from me Chade’s secret in­form­a­tion and plot­ting skill and Ver­ity’s Skill-guid­ance, and what I saw left was a starving man in stolen clothes, halfway between Buck­keep and the Moun­tains, with small pro­spect of get­ting any closer to either one.

  Sat­is­fy­ingly bleak as such thoughts were, they did noth­ing to as­suage the nag­ging of Ver­ity’s Skill-sug­ges­tion. Come to me. Had he in­ten­ded for those words to burn into my mind with such com­mand? I doubted it. I think he had sought only to keep me from killing both Regal and my­self. And yet now the com­pul­sion was there, fes­ter­ing like an ar­row­head. It even in­fec­ted my sleep with anxi­ety, so that I dreamed of­ten of go­ing to Ver­ity. It was not that I had given up my am­bi­tion of killing Regal; a dozen times a day, I con­struc­ted plots in my mind, ways in which I might re­turn to Trade­ford and come at him from an un­ex­pec­ted angle. But all such plots began with the re­ser­va­tion, ‘after I have gone to Ver­ity’. It had simply be­come un­think­able to me that there was any­thing else that had a higher pri­or­ity.

  Sev­eral hungry days up­river of Trade­ford is a town called Land­ing. While not nearly as large as Trade­ford, it is a healthy set­tle­ment. Much good leather is made here, not just from cow­hide, but from the tough pig­skin of the har­agar herds as well. The other main in­dustry of the town seemed to be a fine pot­tery made from the banks of white clay that front the river. Much that one would ex­pect to be made from wood or glass or metal else­where is made from leather or pot­tery in Land­ing. Not just shoes and gloves, but hats and other gar­ments are of leather there, as are chair seats and even the roofs and walls of the stalls in the mar­kets. In the shop win­dows I saw trench­ers and can­dle­sticks and even buck­ets made of finely-glazed pot­tery, all in­scribed or painted in a hun­dred styles and col­ours.

  I also found, even­tu­ally, a small bazaar where one might sell whatever one had to sell and not be asked too many ques­tions. I traded away my fine clothes for the loose trousers and tu­nic of a work­ing man, plus one pair of stock­ings. I should have got a bet­ter trade, but the man poin­ted out sev­eral brown­ish stains on the cuffs of the shirt that he be­lieved would not come out. And the leg­gings were stretched from fit­ting me so poorly. He could laun­der them, but he was not sure he could get them back into their proper shape … I gave it up and was con­tent with the bar­gain I’d made. At least these clothes had not been worn by a mur­derer es­cap­ing from King Regal’s man­sion.

  In a shop fur­ther down the street I par­ted with the ring, the medal­lion and the chain for seven sil­ver bits and seven cop­pers. It was not near the pas­sage fare to join a cara­van to the Moun­tains, but it was the best of­fer of the six I’d had. The chubby little wo­man who bought them from me reached out tim­idly to touch my sleeve as I turned away.

  ‘I’d not ask this, sir, save I can see you’re in a des­per­ate way,’ she began hes­it­antly. ‘So I pray you, take no of­fence at my of­fer.’

  ‘Which is?’ I asked. I sus­pec­ted she would of­fer to buy the sword. I had already de­cided I would not part with it. I would not get enough money for it to make it worth my while to go un­armed.

  She ges­tured shyly to­ward my ear. ‘Your free­man’s ear­ring. I’ve a pat­ron who col­lects such rar­it­ies. I be­lieve that one is from the But­ran Clan. Am I cor­rect?’ She asked it so hes­it­antly, as if ex­pect­ing that at any mo­ment I might fly into a rage.

  ‘I do not know,’ I told her hon­es­tly. ‘It was a gift from a friend. It’s not a thing I’d part with for sil­ver.’

  She smiled know­ingly, sud­denly more con­fid­ent. ‘Oh, I know we are speak­ing of golds for such a thing. I would not in­sult you with an of­fer of sil­vers.’

  ‘Golds?’ I asked in­cred­u­lously. I reached to touch the small bauble at my ear. ‘For this?’

  ‘Of course,’ she as­sen­ted eas­ily, think­ing I was feel­ing for a bid. ‘I can see the work­man­ship is su­per­ior. Such is the repu­ta­tion of the But­ran Clan. There is also the rar­ity of it. The But­ran Clan grants free­dom to a slave but rarely. Even this far from Chalced, that is known. Once a man or wo­man wears the But­ran tat­toos, well …’

  It took very little to draw her into a learned con­ver­sa­tion about Chalced’s slave trade and slave tat­toos and free­dom rings. It soon be­came ap­par­ent that she de­sired Burrich’s ear­ring, not for any pat­ron, but for her­self. She’d had an an­cestor who had won his way out of slavery. She still pos­sessed the free­dom ring he’d been gran­ted by his own­ers as the vis­ible sign that he was no longer a slave. The pos­ses­sion of such an ear­ring, cor­rectly match­ing the last clan sym­bol tat­tooed on a slave’s cheek, was the only way a former slave might move freely in Chalced, let alone leave that coun­try. If a slave was trouble­some, it was eas­ily seen from the num­ber of tat­toos across the face, track­ing the his­tory of own­er­ship. So that a ‘map­face’ was a by­word for a slave that had been sold all over Chalced, a trouble­maker fit for noth­ing but gal­ley or mine work. She bade me take the ear­ring off and truly look at it, at the fine­ness of the linked sil­ver that made up the mesh that en­trapped what was def­in­itely a sap­phire. ‘You see,’ she ex­plained, ‘a slave had not only to win him­self free, but to then earn from his mas­ter the cost of such an ear­ring. For without it, his free­dom was little more than an ex­ten­ded leash. He could go nowhere without be­ing stopped at the check­points, could ac­cept no free­man’s work without the writ­ten con­sent of his former owner. The former mas­ter was no longer li­able for his food or shel­ter, but the former slave had no such free­dom from his old owner.’

  She offered me three golds without hes­it­a­tion. That was more than cara­van fare; I could have bought a horse, a good horse, and not only joined a cara­van but trav­elled in com­fort on that. In­stead I left her shop be­fore she could try to dis­suade me with a higher of­fer. With a cop­per I bought a loaf of coarse bread and sat down to eat it near the docks. I wondered a great many things. The ear­ring had prob­ably been Burrich’s grand­mother’s. He had men­tioned she had been a slave but had won free of that life. I wondered what the ear­ring had come to mean to him, that he had given it to my father, and what it had meant to my father that he had kept it. Had Pa­tience known any of this when she had passed it on to me?