Four: The River Road

Nighteyes wakes Fitz from drunken sleep. Returning to his hut, Fitz finds three young Forged men looting. When they attack, panic from dungeon memories overwhelms him; he stabs one in the doorway, then hides for hours until Nighteyes confirms the others have gone. At moonrise, Fitz recovers what remains, refusing touched food, and departs to travel by night.

On the ridge, Fitz packs his scant gear and sets out west with Nighteyes, adopting nocturnal travel as fear and sleeplessness hound him. He nurses hatred for Regal and clings to a simple plan: reach the Buck River, follow the river road to Tradeford, and kill Regal. Along the way he observes abandoned pastures, smaller fields, and wary, impoverished folk.

Near the river road, Fitz notes fewer merchants and more displaced families and guarded “beggar-towns.” At a riverside town, he intends to listen for news. While preparing, he discovers Shrewd’s ruby pin missing—likely left in the bloodied shirt of the Forged man he stabbed. Nighteyes soothes him; Fitz keeps Burrich’s earring as his only token.

In the inn called the Scales, Fitz (calling himself Cob) hears minstrels Harper Josh, Honey, and Piper. Over costly ale and food, he learns of rising taxes, predatory Farrow patrols, Red Ship depredations, and Lady Patience selling jewels and lands to fund defenses. Most chilling, Josh reports Regal’s bounty on a pox-scarred “Pocked Man” who sometimes dresses as a woman—clearly Chade—blamed for Kettricken’s disappearance and for rallying the duchies.

When Josh asks Fitz to travel with them by day for protection—Josh nearly blind, the women vulnerable—Fitz resists, haunted by his panic before Forged men. But after Honey’s stark reminder that they will not flee and leave their father again, Fitz relents. He agrees to guard them upriver, delaying his night travel while Nighteyes shadows them unseen.