Assassin's Apprentice

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 with 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 honor 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 afoot 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.

20

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 be no strangers in Jhaampe, but only neighbors and friends, coming and going as they will.” And the will of the Sacrifice was observed in this, as in all things.

So I read years later, in a fragment from a Chyurda holy tablet, and so finally came to understand Jhaampe. But that first time, as we rode up the hills toward Jhaampe, I was both disappointed and awed at what I saw.

The temples, palaces, and public buildings reminded me of the immense closed blossoms of tulips, both in color and shape. The shape they owe to the once traditional stretched-hide shelters of the nomads who founded the city; the colors purely to the mountain folk’s love of color in everything. Every building had been recently restained in preparation for our coming and the Princess’s nuptials, and thus they were almost garishly bright. Shades of purple seemed to dominate, set off by yellows, but every color was represented. It is best compared, perhaps, to chancing upon a patch of crocus, pushing up through snow and black earth, for the bare black rocks of the mountains and the dark evergreens made the bright colors of the buildings even more impressive. Additionally, the city itself is built on an area fully as steep as Buckkeep Town, so that when one beholds it from below, the color and lines of it are presented in layers, like an artful arrangement of flowers in a basket.

But as we drew closer we were able to see that between and among the great buildings were tents and temporary huts and tiny shelters of every kind. For at Jhaampe, only the public buildings and the royal houses are permanent. All else is the ebb and flow of folk coming to visit their capital city, to ask judgment of the Sacrifice, as they call the King or Queen who rules there, or to visit the repositories of their treasures and knowledge, or simply to trade and visit with other nomads. Tribes come and go, tents are pitched and inhabited for a month or two, and then one morning, all is bare-swept earth where they were, until another group moves in to claim the spot. Yet it is not a disorderly place, for the streets are well defined, with stone stairs set into the steeper places. Wells and bath houses and steams are located at intervals throughout the city, and the strictest rules are observed about garbage and offal. It is also a green city, for the outskirts of it are pastures, for those who bring their herds and horses with them, with tenting areas defined by the shade trees and wells there. Within the city are stretches of garden, flowers, and sculpted trees, more artfully tended than anything I had ever seen in Buckkeep. The visiting folk leave their creations among these gardens, and they may take the form of stone sculptures or carvings of wood, or brightly painted pottery creatures. In a way, it put me in mind of the Fool’s room, for in both places were color and shape set out simply for the pleasure of the eye.