‘We’ve been some time in the Mountain Kingdom, Fitz,’ Burrich cautioned me in a low voice. ‘Up there, no one cares what side of the sheets you were born on. But we’re home now. Here, Chivalry’s son is not a prince, but a bastard.’
‘I know that.’ I was stung by his directness. ‘I’ve known it all my life. Lived it all my life.’
‘You have,’ he conceded. A strange look stole over his face, a smile half incredulous and half proud. ‘So why are you demanding reports of the sergeant, and giving out commendations as briskly as if you were Chivalry himself? I scarce believed it, how you spoke, and how those men came to heel. You didn’t even take notice of how they responded to you, you didn’t even realize you’d stepped up and taken command away from me.’
I felt a slow flush creep up my face. All in the Mountain Kingdom had treated me as if I were a prince in fact, instead of a prince’s bastard. Had I so quickly accustomed myself to that higher station?
Burrich chuckled at my expression, then quickly grew sober. ‘Fitz, you need to find your caution again. Keep your eyes down and don’t carry your head like a young stallion. Regal will take it as a challenge, and that’s something we aren’t ready to face. Not yet. Maybe not ever.’
I nodded grimly, my eyes on the churned snow of the stable yard. I had become careless. When I reported to Chade, the old assassin would not be pleased with his apprentice. I would have to answer for it. I had no doubt that he would know all about the incident at the gate before he next summoned me.
‘Don’t be a sluggard. Get down, boy.’ Burrich interrupted my musings abruptly. I jumped to his tone and realized that he, too, was having to readjust to our comparative positions at Buckkeep. How many years had I been his stable-boy and ward? Best that we resume those roles as closely as possible. It would save kitchen gossip. I dismounted and, leading Sooty, followed Burrich into his stables.
Inside it was warm and close. The blackness and cold of the winter night were shut outside the thick stone wall. Here was home, the lanterns shone yellow and the stalled horses breathed slow and deep. But as Burrich passed, the stables came to life. Not a horse or a dog in the whole place didn’t catch his scent and rouse to give greeting. The Stablemaster was home, and he was greeted warmly by those who knew him best. Two stable-boys soon trailed after us, rattling off simultaneously every bit of news concerning hawk or hound or horse. Burrich was in full command here, nodding sagely and asking a terse question or two as he absorbed every detail. His reserve only broke when his old bitch hound Vixen came walking stiff to greet him. He went down on one knee to hug and thump her and she wiggled puppyishly and tried to lick his face. ‘Now, here’s a real dog,’ he greeted her. Then he stood again, to continue his round. She followed him, hindquarters wobbling with every wag of her tail.
I lagged behind, the warmth robbing the strength from my limbs. One boy came hurrying back to leave a lamp with me, and then hastened away to pay court to Burrich. I came to Sooty’s stall and unlatched the door. She entered eagerly, snorting her appreciation. I set my light on its shelf and looked about me. Home. This was home, more than my chamber up in the castle, more than anywhere else in the world. A stall in Burrich’s stable, safe in his domain, one of his creatures. If only I could turn back the days, and burrow into the deep straw and drag a horse blanket over my head.
Sooty snorted again, this time rebukingly. She’d carried me all those days and ways, and deserved every comfort I could give her. But every buckle resisted my numbed and weary fingers. I dragged the saddle down from her back and very nearly dropped it. I fumbled at her bridle endlessly, the bright metal of the buckles dancing before my eyes. Finally I closed them and let my fingers work alone to take her bridle off. When I opened my eyes, Hands was at my elbow. I nodded at him, and the bridle dropped from my lifeless fingers. He glanced at it, but said nothing. Instead he poured for Sooty the bucket of fresh water he had brought, and shook out oats for her and fetched an armful of sweet hay with much green still to it. I had taken down Sooty’s brushes when he reached past me and took them from my feeble grip. ‘I’ll do this,’ he said quietly.
‘Take care of your own horse first,’ I chided him.
‘I already did, Fitz. Look. You can’t do a good job on her. Let me do it. You can barely stand up. Go get some rest.’ He added, almost kindly, ‘Another time, when we ride, you can do Stoutheart for me.’
‘Burrich will have my hide off if I leave my animal’s care for someone else.’
‘No, he won’t. He wouldn’t leave an animal in the care of someone who can barely stand,’ Burrich observed from outside the stall. ‘Leave Sooty to Hands, boy. He knows his job. Hands, take charge of things here for a bit. When you’ve done with Sooty, check on that spotted mare at the south end of the stables. I don’t know who owns her or where she came from, but she looks sick. If you find it so, have the boys move her away from the other horses and scrub out the stall with vinegar. I’ll be back in a bit after I see FitzChivalry to his quarters. I’ll bring you food, and we’ll eat in my room. Oh. Tell a boy to start us a fire. Probably cold as a cave up there.’
Hands nodded, already busy with my horse. Sooty’s nose was in her oats. Burrich took my arm. ‘Come along,’ he said, just as he spoke to a horse. I found myself unwillingly leaning on him as he walked the long row of stalls. At the door he picked up a lantern. The night seemed colder and darker after the warmth of the stables. As we walked up the frozen path to the kitchens, the snow began to fall again. My mind went swirling and drifting with the flakes. I wasn’t sure where my feet were. ‘It’s all changed, forever, now,’ I observed to the night. My words whirled away with the snowflakes.
‘What has?’ Burrich asked cautiously. His tone bespoke his worry that I might be getting feverish again.
‘Everything. How you treat me. When you aren’t thinking about it. How Hands treats me. Two years ago, he and I were friends. Just two boys working in the stables. He’d never have offered to brush down my horse for me. But tonight, he treated me like some sickly weakling … not even someone he can insult about it. As if I should just expect him to do things like that for me. The men at the gate didn’t even know me. Even you, Burrich. Six months or a year ago, if I took sick, you’d have dragged me up to your loft and dosed me like a hound. And if I’d complained, you’d have had no tolerance for it. Now you walk me up to the kitchen doors and …’
‘Stop whining,’ Burrich said gruffly. ‘Stop complaining and stop pitying yourself. If Hands looked like you do, you’d do the same for him.’ Almost unwillingly he added, ‘Things change, because time passes. Hands hasn’t stopped being your friend. But you are not the same boy who left Buckkeep at harvest time. That Fitz was an errand boy for Verity, and had been my stable-boy, but wasn’t much more than that. A royal bastard, yes, but that seemed of small importance to any save me. But up at Jhaampe in the Mountain Kingdom, you showed yourself more than that. It doesn’t matter if your face is pale, or if you can barely walk after a day in the saddle. You move as Chivalry’s son should. That is what shows in your bearing, and what those guards responded to. And Hands.’ He took a breath and paused to shoulder the heavy kitchen door open. ‘And I, Eda help us all,’ he added in a mutter.
But then, as if to belie his own words, he steered me into the watch-room off the kitchen and unceremoniously dumped me at one of the long benches beside the scarred wooden table. The watch-room smelled incredibly good. Here was where any soldier, no matter how muddy or snowy or drunk, could come and find comfort. Cook always kept a kettle of stew simmering over the fire, and bread and cheese waited on the table, as well as a slab of yellow summer butter from the deep larder. Burrich served us up bowls of hot stew thick with barley and mugs of cold ale to go with the bread and butter and cheese.
For a moment I just looked at it, too weary to lift a spoon. But the smell tempted me to one mouthful and that was all it took. Midway through, I paused to shoulder out of my quilted smock and break off another slab of bread. I looked up from my second bowl of stew to find Burrich watching me with amusement. ‘Better?’ he asked.
I stopped to think about it. ‘Yes.’ I was warm, fed, and though