I made my plans. A basket from the launderers, an old shirt over straw for his bed. His messes now would be small, and as he got older my bond with him would make him easy to train. For now, he’d have to stay by himself for part of each day. But as he got older he could go about with me. Eventually, Burrich would find out about him. I resolutely pushed that thought aside. I’d deal with that later. For now, he needed a name. I looked him over. He was not the curly-haired yappy type of terrier. He would have a short smooth coat, a thick neck, and a mouth like a coal scuttle. But grown, he’d be less than knee high, so it couldn’t be too weighty of a name. I didn’t want him to be a fighter. So no Ripper or Charger. He would be tenacious, and alert. Grip, maybe. Or Sentry.
“Or Anvil. Or Forge.”
I looked up. The Fool stepped out of an alcove and followed me down the hall.
“Why?” I asked. I no longer questioned the way the Fool could guess what I was thinking.
“Because your heart will be hammered against him, and your strength will be tempered in his fire.”
“Sounds a bit dramatic to me,” I objected. “And Forge is a bad word now. I don’t want to mark my pup with it. Just the other day, down in town, I heard a drunk yell at a cutpurse, `May your woman be Forged.’ Everyone in the street stopped and stared.”
The Fool shrugged. “Well they might.” He followed me into my room. “Smith, then. Or Smithy. Let me see him?”
Reluctantly I gave over my puppy. He stirred, awakened, and then wiggled in the Fool’s hands. No smell, no smell. I was astonished to agree with the pup. Even with his little black nose working for me, the Fool had no detectable scent. “Careful. Don’t drop him.”
“I’m a fool, not a dolt,” said the Fool, but he sat on my bed and put the pup beside him. Smithy instantly began snuffling and rucking my bed. I sat on the other side of him lest he venture too near the edge.
“So,” the Fool asked casually, “are you going to let her buy you with gifts?”
“Why not?” I tried to be disdainful.
“It would be a mistake, for both of you.” The Fool tweaked Smithy’s tiny tail, and he spun ’round with a puppy growl. “She’s going to want to give you things. You’ll have to take them, for there’s no polite way to refuse. But you’ll have to decide whether they’ll make a bridge between you, or a wall.”
“Do you know Chade?” I asked abruptly, for the Fool sounded so like him I suddenly had to know. I had never mentioned Chade to anyone else, save Shrewd, nor heard talk of him from anyone around the keep.
“Shade or sunlight, I know when to keep a grip on my tongue. It would be a good thing for you to learn as well.” The Fool rose suddenly and went to the door. He lingered there a moment. “She only hated you for the first few months. And it wasn’t truly hate of you; it was blind jealousy of your mother, that she could bear a babe to Chivalry, but Patience could not. After that, her heart softened. She wanted to send for you, to raise you as her own. Some might say she merely wanted to possess anything that touched Chivalry. But I don’t think so.”
I was staring at the Fool.
“You look like a fish, with your mouth open like that,” he observed. “But of course, your father refused. He said it might appear he was formally acknowledging his bastard. But I don’t think that was it at all. I think it would have been dangerous for you.” The Fool made an odd pass with his hand, and a stick of dried meat appeared in his. fingers. I knew it had been up his sleeve, but I was unable to see how he accomplished his tricks. He flipped the meat onto my bed and the puppy sprang on it greedily.