There were clean strewing herbs on the floor, and the wide windows let in a flood of spring air and light, but the room still gave me a sense of confinement and illness. This was not a good place for Burrich to be. All the beds were empty, save one. No soldier kept to bed on Springfest days, save that they had to. Burrich lay, eyes closed, in a splash of sunlight on a narrow cot. I had never seen him so still. He had pushed his blankets aside and his chest was swathed in bandages. I went forward quietly and sat down on the floor beside his bed. He was very still, but I could feel him, and the bandages moved with his slow breathing. I took his hand.
“Fitz,” he said, without opening his eyes. He gripped my hand hard.
“Yes.”
“You’re back. You’re alive.”
“I am. I came straight here, as fast as I could. Oh, Burrich, I feared you were dead.”
“I thought you were dead. The others all came back days ago.” He took a ragged breath. “Of course, the bastard left horses with all the others.”
“No,” I reminded him, not letting go of his hand. “I’m the bastard, remember?”
“Sorry.” He opened his eyes. The white of his left eye was mazed with blood. He tried to smile at me. I could see then that the swelling on the left side of his face was still subsiding. “So. We look a fine pair. You should poultice that cheek. It’s festering. Looks like an animal scratch.”
“Forged ones,” I began, and could not bear to explain more. I only said, softly, “He set me down north of Forge, Burrich.”
Anger spasmed his face. “He wouldn’t tell me. Nor anyone else. I even sent a man to Verity, to ask my prince to make him say what he had done with you. I got no answer back. I should kill him.”
“Let it go,” I said, and meant it. “I’m back and alive. I failed his test, but it didn’t kill me. And as you told me, there are other things in my life.”
Burrich shifted slightly in his bed. I could tell it didn’t ease him. “Well. He’ll be disappointed over that.” He let out a shuddering breath. “I got jumped. Someone with a knife. I don’t know who.”
“How bad?”
“Not good, at my age. A young buck like you would probably just give a shake and go on. Still, he only got the blade into me once. But I fell, and struck my head. I was fair senseless for two days. And, Fitz. Your dog. A stupid, senseless thing, but he killed your dog.”
“I know.”
“He died quickly,” Burrich said, as if to be a comfort.
I stiffened at the-lie. “He died well,” I corrected him. “And if he hadn’t, you’d have had that knife in you more than once.”
Burrich grew very still. “You were there, weren’t you,” he said at last. It was not a question, and there was no mistaking his meaning.
“Yes,” I heard myself saying, simply.
“You were there, with the dog that night, instead of trying for the Skill?” His voice rose in outrage.
“Burrich, it wasn’t like …”
He pulled his hand free of mine and turned as far away from me as he could. “Leave me.”
“Burrich, it wasn’t Smithy. I just don’t have the Skill. So let me have what I do have, let me be what I am. I don’t use this in a bad way. Even without it, I’m good with animals. You’ve forced me to be. If I use it, I can-”
“Stay out of my stables. And stay away from me.” He rolled back to face me, and to my amazement, a single tear tracked his dark cheek. “You failed? No, Fitz. I failed. I was too softhearted to beat it out of you at the first sign of it. `Raise him well,’ Chivalry said to me. His last command to me. And I failed him. And you. If you hadn’t meddled with the Wit, Fitz, you’d have been able to learn the Skill. Galen would have been able to teach you. No wonder he sent you to Forge.” He paused. “Bastard or no, you could have been a fit son to Chivalry. But you threw it all away. For what? A dog. I know what a dog can be to a man, but you don’t throw your life over for a-“