Farseer 1 – Assassin’s Apprentice

The angry voices 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 argument 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, still 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 gotten to. 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 fixing 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 atop 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 corncribs and grain barns.