The fair weather held, and if we sweated by day, it was pleasant enough by night. I slept on top of my blanket, and seldom bothered with any other shelter. Each night I checked the contents of my trunk, and did my best to keep the roots from becoming completely desiccated, and to keep the shifting from putting wear on the scrolls and tablets. One night I awoke to a loud whinnying from Sooty, and thought that the cedar chest had been moved slightly from where I placed it. But a brief check of its contents proved that all was in order, and when I mentioned it to Hands, he merely asked if I were catching Rowd’s disease.
The hamlets and herds we passed frequently provided us with fresh foods, and were most generous in their allocation of it, so we had little hardship on the journey. Open water was not as plentiful as we could have wished as we crossed Farrow, but each day we found some spring or dusty well to water at, so even that was not as bad as it might have been.
I saw very little of Burrich. He arose earlier than the rest of us, and preceded the main caravan, that his charges might have the best grazing and the cleanest water. I knew he would want his horses in prime condition when they arrived at Jhaampe. August, too, was almost invisible. While he was technically in charge of our expedition, he left the running of it to the captain of his honour-guard. I could not decide if he did this out of wisdom, or laziness. In any event, he kept mostly to himself, although he did allow Sevrens to tend him and share his tent and meals.
For me, it was almost a return to a sort of childhood. My responsibilities were very limited. Hands was a genial companion, and it took very little encouragement to have him telling from his vast store of tales and gossip. I often went for almost the whole day before I would recall that, at the end of this journey, I would kill a prince.
Such thoughts usually came on me when I awoke in the dark part of the night. Farrow’s sky seemed to be much thicker with stars than the night over Buckkeep, and I would stare up at them, and mentally rehearse ways to put an end to Rurisk. There was another chest, a tiny one, packed carefully within the bag that held my clothing and personal items. I had compiled it with much thought and anxiety for this assignment must be carried out perfectly. It must be done cleanly, with not even the tiniest suspicion raised. And timing was critical. The prince must not die while we were at Jhaampe. Nothing must cast the slightest shadow upon the nuptials. Nor must he die before the ceremonies were observed at Buckkeep and the wedding safely consummated, for that might be seen as an ill omen for the couple. It would not be an easy death to arrange.
Sometimes I wondered why it had been entrusted to me instead of to Chade. Was it a test of some sort, one that if I failed I would be put to death? Was Chade too old for this challenge, or too valuable to be risked for this? Could he simply not be spared from tending Verity’s health? And when I reined my mind away from these questions, I was left wondering whether to use a powder that would irritate Rurisk’s damaged lungs so he might cough himself to death. Perhaps I might treat his pillows and bedding with it. Should I offer him a pain remedy, one that would slowly addict him and lure him into a sleeping death? I had a blood-thinning tonic. If his lungs were chronically bleeding already, it might be enough to send him on his way. I had one poison, swift and deadly and tasteless as water, if I could devise a way to be sure he would encounter it at a safely distant time. None of these were thoughts conducive to sleep, and yet the fresh air and the exercise of riding all day were usually sufficient to counter them, and I often awoke eager for the next day of travel.
When we finally sighted Blue Lake, it was like a miracle in the distance. It had been years since I had been so far from the sea for so long, and I was surprised how welcome the sight of water was to me. Every animal in our baggage-train filled my thoughts with the clean scent of water. The country became greener and more forgiving as we approached the great lake, and we were hard put to keep the horses from overgrazing themselves at night.
Hordes of sailing-boats plied their merchant trade on Blue Lake, and their sails were coloured so as to tell not only what they sold but which family they sailed for. The settlements along Blue Lake were built out on pilings into the water. We were well greeted there, and feasted with freshwater fish, which tasted odd to my sea-trained tongue. I felt myself quite the traveller, and Hands and I were nearly overwhelmed with our opinions of ourselves when some green-eyed girls from a grain-trading family came giggling to our fireside one night. They had brought with them small, brightly-coloured drums, each toned differently, and they played and sang for us until their mothers came scolding to find them and lead them home. It was a heady experience, and I did not think of Prince Rurisk at all that night.
West and north we travelled now, ferried across Blue Lake on some flat-bottomed barges I trusted not at all. On the far side, we found ourselves suddenly in forest lands, and the hot days of Farrow became a fond memory. Our path led us through immense stands of cedar, pricked here and there with groves of white paper-birch and seasoned in burned areas with alder and willow. Our horses’ hooves thudded on the black earth of the forest trail, and the sweet smells of the autumn were all around us. We saw unfamiliar birds, and once I glimpsed a great stag of a colour and kind I had never seen before or since. Night grazing for the horses was not good, and we were glad of the grain we had bought from the lake people. We lit fires at night, and Hands and I shared a tent.
Our way led steadily uphill now. We wound our way between the steepest slopes, but we were unmistakably making our way up into the mountains. One afternoon we met a deputation from Jhaampe, sent to greet us and guide us on our way. After that, we seemed to travel faster, and every evening we were entertained with musicians, poets and jugglers, and feasted with their delicacies. Every effort was made to welcome us and to honour us. But I found them passing strange and almost frightening in their differences. Often I was forced to remind myself of what both Burrich and Chade had taught me about the courtesies, while poor Hands withdrew almost totally from these new companions.
Physically, most of them were Chyurda, and were as I had expected them to be; a tall, pale people, light of hair and eye, and some with hair as red as a fox. They were a brawny people, the women as well as the men. All seemed to carry a bow or a sling, and they were obviously more comfortable on foot than on horseback. They dressed in wool and leather, and even the humblest wore fine furs as if they were no more than homespun. They strode alongside us, mounted as we were, and seemed to have no difficulty keeping up with the horses all day. They sang as they walked, long songs in an ancient tongue that sounded almost mournful, but were interspersed with shouts of victory or delight. I was later to learn they were singing us their history, that we might know better what kind of a people our prince was joining us to. I gathered that they were, for the most part, minstrels and poets, the ‘hospitable’ ones, as their language translated it, traditionally sent to greet guests and to make them glad they had come even before they arrived.
As the next two days passed, our trail widened, for other paths and roads fed into it the closer we came to Jhaampe. It became a broad tradeway, sometimes paved with a crushed white stone. And the closer we came to Jhaampe, the greater our procession became, for we were joined by contingents from villages and tribes, pouring in from the outer reaches of the Mountain Kingdom to see their princess pledge herself to the powerful prince from the lowlands. Soon, with dogs and horses and some sort of goat they used as pack-beasts, with wains of gifts and folk of every walk and degree trailing in families and knots behind us, we came to Jhaampe.
‘– and so let them come, the people of who I am, and when they reach the city, let them always be able to say, “this is our city and our home, for however long we wish to stay”—Let there always be spaces left, let – (words obscured) – of the herds and flocks. Then there will