LITMIR.BIZ

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or spunky little dories that rode the waves like gulls. Neatbay didn’t have the deep anchorage that Buckkeep did, so it was not the shipping and trading port that we were, but all the same it seemed to me it would have been a fine place to live.

      Kelvar sent an honour guard to meet us, so there was a delay as they exchanged formalities with Verity’s troops. ‘Like two dogs sniffing each other’s bung-holes,’ Hands observed sourly. By standing in my stirrups, I was able to see far enough down the line to observe the official posturings, and grudgingly nodded my agreement. Eventually we got under way again, and were soon riding through the streets of Neatbay town itself.

      Everyone else proceeded straight up to Kelvar’s keep, but Hands and I were obliged to escort Lady Thyme’s litter through several backstreets to reach the particular inn that she insisted on using. From the look on the chambermaid’s face, she had guested there before. Hands took the litter horses and litter to the stables, but I had to endure her leaning heavily on my arm as I escorted her to her chamber. I wondered what she had eaten that had been so foully spiced as to make her every breath a trial to me. She dismissed me at the door, warning myriad punishments if I didn’t return promptly in seven days. As I left, I felt sympathy for the chambermaid, for Lady Thyme’s voice was lifted in a loud tirade about thieving maids she had encountered in the past, and exactly how she wanted the bed linens arranged on the bed.

      With a light heart I mounted Sooty and called to Hands to make haste. We cantered through the streets of Neatbay, and managed to rejoin the tail of Verity’s procession as they entered Kelvar’s keep. Bayguard was built on flat land that offered little natural defence, but was fortified by a series of walls and ditches that an enemy would have had to surmount before facing the stout stone walls of the keep. Hands told me that raiders had never got past the second ditch and I believed him. Workmen were doing maintenance on the walls and ditches as we passed, but they halted and watched in wonder as the King-in-Waiting came to Bayguard.

      Once keep gates closed behind us, there was another interminable welcoming ceremony. Men and horses and all, we were kept standing in the midday sun while Kelvar and Bayguard welcomed Verity. Horns sounded and then the mutter of official voicings muted by shifting horses and men. But at last it was over. This was signalled by a sudden general movement of men and beasts as the formations ahead of us broke up.

      Men dismounted and Kelvar’s stable-folk were suddenly among us, directing us where to water our mounts, where we might rest for the night, and most important to any soldier, where we might ourselves wash and eat. I fell in beside Hands as we led Sooty and his pony toward the stables. I heard my name called and turned to see Sig from Buckkeep pointing me out to someone in Kelvar’s colours.

      ‘There he be: that’s the fitz. Ho, Fitz! Sitswell here says you’re summoned. Verity wants you in his chamber; Leon’s sick. Hands, you take Sooty for the fitz.’

      I could almost feel the food being snatched from my jaws. But I took a breath and presented a cheerful countenance to Sitswell, as Burrich had counselled me. I doubt that dour man even noticed. To him I was just one more boy underfoot on a hectic day. He took me to Verity’s chamber and left me, obviously relieved to return to his stables. I tapped softly and Verity’s man opened the door at once.

      ‘Ah! Thank Eda it’s you. Come in, then, for the beast won’t eat and Verity’s sure it’s serious. Hurry up, Fitz.’

      The man wore Verity’s badge, but was no one I remembered having met. Sometimes it was disconcerting how many folk knew who I was when I had no inkling who they were. In an adjoining chamber Verity was splashing and instructing someone loudly about what garments he wished for the evening. But he was not my concern. Leon was.

      Leon was Verity’s wolfhound. I groped toward him, for I had no qualms about it when Burrich wasn’t about, Leon lifted his bony head and regarded me with martyred eyes. He was lying on Verity’s sweaty shirt in a corner by a cold hearth. He was too hot, he was bored, and if we weren’t going to hunt anything he wanted to go home.

      I made a show of running my hands over him and lifting his lips to examine his gums and then pressing my hand down firmly on his belly. I finished all this by scratching behind his ears and then told Verity’s man, ‘There’s nothing wrong with him, he just isn’t hungry. Let’s give him a bowl of cold water and wait. When he wants to eat, he’ll let us know. And let’s take away all this, before it spoils in this heat and he eats it anyway and becomes really sick.’ I referred to a dish already overfilled with scraps of pastries from a tray that had been set for Verity. None of it was fit for the dog, but I was so hungry I wouldn’t have minded dining off the scraps myself; in fact my stomach growled at the sight of it. ‘I wonder if I found the kitchens, perhaps they would have a fresh, beef bone for him? Something that’s more toy than food is what he would welcome most now …’

      ‘Fitz? Is that you? In here, boy! What’s troubling my Leon?’

      ‘I’ll fetch the bone,’ the man assured me, and I rose and stepped to the entrance of the adjoining room.

      Verity rose dripping from his bath and took the proffered towel from his serving-man. He towelled his hair briskly and then again demanded as he dried himself, ‘What’s the matter with Leon?’

      That was Verity’s way. Months had passed since we had last spoken but he took no times for greetings. Chade said it was a lack in him, that he didn’t make his men feel their importance to him. I think he believed that if anything significant had happened to me, someone would have told him. He had a bluff heartiness to him that I enjoyed, an attitude that things must be going well unless someone had told him otherwise.

      ‘Not much is wrong with him, sir. He’s a bit out of sorts from the heat and from travelling. A night’s rest in a cool place will perk him up; but I’d not fill him full of pastry bits and suety things; not in this hot weather.’

      ‘Well.’ Verity bent down to dry his legs. ‘Like as not, you’re right, boy. Burrich says you’ve a way with the hounds, and I won’t ignore what you say. It’s just that he seemed so moony, and usually he has a good appetite for anything, but especially for anything from my plate.’ He seemed abashed, as if caught cooing at an infant. I didn’t know what to say.

      ‘If that’s all, sir, should I be returning to the stables?’

      He glanced at me over his shoulder, puzzled. ‘Seems a bit of a waste of time to me. Hands will see to your mount, won’t he? You need to bathe and dress if you’re to be on time for dinner. Charim? Have you water for him?’

      The serving-man straightened from arranging Verity’s garments on the bed. ‘Right away, sir. And I’ll lay out his clothes as well.’

      In the space of the next hour, my place in the world seemed to shift topsy-turvy. I had known this was coming. Both Burrich and Chade had tried to prepare me for it. But to go suddenly from an insignificant hanger-on at Buckkeep to part of Verity’s formal entourage was unnerving. Everyone else assumed I knew what was going on.

      Verity was dressed and out of the room before I was into the tub. Charim informed me that he had gone to confer with his captain of guards. I was grateful that Charim was such a gossip. He did not consider my rank so lofty as to forbear from chatting and complaining in front of me.

      ‘I’ll make you up a pallet in here for the night. I doubt you’ll be chill. Verity said he wanted you housed close by him, and not just to tend the hound. He has other chores for you as well?’

      Charim paused hopefully. I covered my silence by ducking my head into the lukewarm water and soaping the sweat and dust from my hair. I came up for air.

      He sighed. ‘I’ll lay out your clothes for you. Leave me those dirty ones. I’ll wash them out for you.’

      It seemed very strange to have someone waiting on me while I washed, and stranger still to have someone supervise my dressing. Charim insisted on straightening the seams on my jerkin and seeing the oversized sleeves on my new best shirt hung to their fullest and most annoying length. My hair had regrown long enough to have snarls in it and these he tugged out quickly and painfully. To a boy accustomed to dressing himself

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