LITMIR.BIZ

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for I could not obey him. Which would be worse: if he did not summon me, or if he opened the door for me and I dared not go? I tormented myself from rock to stone, and in the grey creeping of morning I had the answer. He hadn’t even bothered to call for me.

      Even now, I do not like to recall the next few days. I hunched through them, so sick at heart that I could not properly eat or rest. I could not focus my mind on any task, and took the rebukes that my teachers gave me with bleak acceptance. I acquired a headache that never ceased, and my stomach stayed so clenched on itself that food held no interest for me. The very thought of eating made me weary. Burrich put up with it for two days before he cornered me, and forced down me both a worming draught and a blood tonic. The combination made me vomit up what little I’d eaten that day. He made me wash out my mouth with plum wine afterwards, and to this day I cannot drink plum wine without gagging. Then, to my weary amazement, he dragged me up the stairs to his loft and gruffly ordered me to rest there for the day. When evening came, he chivvied me up to the keep, and under his watchful eye I was forced to consume a watery bowl of soup and a hunk of bread. He would have taken me back to his loft again, had I not insisted that I wanted my own bed. In reality, I had to be in my room. I had to know whether Chade at least tried to call me, whether I could go or not. Through another sleepness night, I stared in blackness at a darker corner of my room.

      But he didn’t summon me.

      Morning greyed my window. I rolled over and kept to my bed. The depth of bleakness that settled over me was too solid for me to fight. All of my possible choices led to grey ends. I could not face the futility of getting out of bed. A headachey sort of near-sleep claimed me. Any sound seemed too loud, and I was either too hot or too cold no matter how I fussed with my covers. I closed my eyes, but even my dreams were bright and annoying. Arguing voices, as loud as if they were in the bed with me, and all the more frustrating because it sounded like one man arguing with himself and taking both sides. ‘Break him as you broke the other one!’ he’d mutter angrily. ‘You and your stupid tests!’ and then, ‘Can’t be too careful. Can’t put your trust in just anyone. Blood will tell. Test his mettle, that’s all.’ ‘Metal! You want a brainless blade, go hammer it out yourself. Beat it flat.’ And more quietly, ‘I’ve got no heart for this. I’ll not be used again. If you wanted to test my temper, you’ve done it.’ Then, ‘Don’t talk to me about blood and family. Remember who I am to you! It isn’t his loyalty she’s worrying about, or mine.’

      The angry voice broke up, merged, became another argument, this one shriller. I cracked open my eyelids. My chamber had become the scene of a brief battle. I woke to a spirited disagreement between Burrich and Mistress Hasty as to whose jurisdiction I fell under. She had a wicker basket, from which protruded the necks of several bottles. The scents of mustard in a plaster and chamomile wafted over me so strongly that I wanted to retch. Burrich stood stoically between her and my bed. His arms were crossed on his chest and Vixen sat at his feet. Mistress Hasty’s words rattled in my head like pebbles. ‘In the keep’, ‘Those clean linens’, ‘Know about boys’, ‘That smelly dog’. I don’t recall that Burrich said a word. He just stood there so solidly that I could feel him with my eyes closed.

      Later, he was gone, but Vixen was on the bed, not at my feet, but beside me, panting heavily but refusing to abandon me for the cooler floor. I opened my eyes again, later, to early twilight. Burrich had tugged free my pillow, shook it a bit, and was awkwardly stuffing it back under my head, cool side up. He then sat down heavily on the bed.

      He cleared his throat. ‘Fitz, there’s nothing the matter with you that I’ve ever seen before. At least, whatever’s the matter with you isn’t in your guts or your blood. If you were a bit older, I’d suspect you had woman problems. You act like a soldier on a three-day drunk, but without the wine. Boy, what’s the matter with you?’

      He looked down on me with sincere worry. It was the same look he wore when he was afraid a mare was going to miscarry, or when hunters brought back dogs that boars had gored. It reached me, and without meaning to, I quested out toward him. As always, the wall was there, but Vixen whined lightly and put her muzzle against my cheek. I tried to express what was inside me without betraying Chade. ‘I’m just so alone now,’ I heard myself say, and even to me it sounded like a feeble complaint.

      ‘Alone?’ Burrich’s brows knit. ‘Fitz, I’m right here. How can you say you’re alone?’

      And there the conversation ended, with both of us looking at one another and neither understanding at all. Later he brought me food, but didn’t insist I eat it. And he left Vixen with me for the night. A part of me wondered how she would react if the door opened, but a larger part of me knew I didn’t have to worry. That door would never open again.

      Morning came again, and Vixen nosed at me and whined to go out. Too broken to care if Burrich caught me, I quested toward her. Hungry and thirsty and her bladder was about to burst. And her discomfort was suddenly my own. I dragged on a tunic and took her down the stairs and outside, and then back to the kitchen to eat. Cook was more pleased to see me than I had imagined anyone could be. Vixen was given a generous bowl of last night’s stew, while Cook insisted on giving me six rashers of thick-cut bacon on the warm crust of the day’s first baking of bread. Vixen’s keen nose and sharp appetite sparked my own senses, and I found myself eating, not with my normal appetite, but with a young creature’s sensory appreciation for food.

      From there she led me to the stables, and though I pulled my mind back from her before we went inside, I felt somewhat rejuvenated from the contact. Burrich straightened up from some task as I came in, looked me over, glanced at Vixen, grunted wryly to himself, and then handed me a suckle bottle and wick. ‘There isn’t much in a man’s head,’ he told me, ‘that can’t be cured by working and taking care of something else. The rat-dog whelped a few days ago, and there’s one pup too weak to compete with the others. See if you can keep him alive today.’

      It was an ugly little pup, pink skin showing through his brindle fur. His eyes were shut tight still, and the extra skin he’d use up as he grew was piled on top of his muzzle. His skinny little tail looked just like a rat’s, so that I wondered his mother didn’t worry her own pups to death just for the resemblance’s sake. He was weak and passive, but I bothered him with the warm milk and wicking until he sucked a little, and got enough all over him that his mother was inspired to lick and nuzzle him. I took one of his stronger sisters off her teat and plugged him into her place. Her little belly was round and full anyway; she had only been sucking for the sake of obstinacy. She was going to be white with a black spot over one eye. She caught my little finger and suckled at it, and already I could feel the immense strength those jaws would someday hold. Burrich had told me stories about rat-dogs that would latch onto a bull’s nose and hang there no matter what the bull did. He had no use for men that would teach a dog to do so, but could not contain his respect for the courage of a dog that would take on a bull. Our rat-dogs were kept for ratting, and taken on regular patrols of the corn cribs and grain barns.

      I spent the whole morning there, and left at noon with the gratification of seeing the pup’s small belly round and tight with milk. The afternoon was spent mucking out stalls. Burrich kept me at it, adding another chore as soon as I completed one, with no time for me to do anything but work. He didn’t talk with me or ask me questions, but he always seemed to be working only a dozen paces away. It was as if he had taken my complaint about being alone quite literally, and was resolved to be where I could see him. I wound up my day back with my puppy who was substantially stronger than he had been that morning. I cradled him against my chest and he crept up under my chin, his blunt little muzzle questing there for milk. It tickled. I pulled him down and looked at him. He was going to have a pink nose. Men said the rat-dogs with the pink noses were the most savage ones when they fought. But his little mind now was only a muzzy warmth of security and milk-want and affection for my smell. I wrapped him in my protection of him, praised him for his new strength. He wiggled in my fingers. And Burrich leaned over the side of the stall and rapped me on the head with his knuckles, bringing twin yelps from the pup and me.

      ‘Enough of that,’ he warned sternly. ‘That’s not a thing for a man to do. And it won’t solve whatever is chewing on your soul. Give the pup back to his mother, now.’

      So

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