‘I drink too much when I come to town,’ he said hol­lowly.

  I nod­ded to that. ‘Will you be all right now?’

  He nod­ded back. I could see his tongue move in­side his mouth, check­ing for cuts and loose teeth. The memory of old pain rolled over rest­lessly in­side me. I wanted to be away from any re­mind­ers of that.

  ‘Good luck, then,’ I told him. I stooped, up­stream of him, and drank and re­filled my wa­ter­skin. Then I rose, hef­ted my pack again, and turned to leave. A prick­ling of the Wit swiv­elled my head sud­denly to­ward the woods. A stump shif­ted, then sud­denly reared up as a brown bear. She snuffed the air, then dropped to all fours again and shambled to­ward us. ‘Rolf,’ I said quietly as I star­ted to slowly back up. ‘Rolf, there’s a bear.’

  ‘She’s mine,’ he said as quietly. ‘You’ve noth­ing to fear from her.’

  I stood stock-still as she shuffled out of the woods and down the grassy bank. As she drew close to Rolf, she gave a low cry, oddly like a cow’s bawl for her calf. Then she nudged her big head against him. He stood up, lean­ing a hand on her slop­ing front shoulders to do so. I could sense them com­mu­nic­at­ing with one an­other, but had no no­tion of their mes­sages. Then she lif­ted her head to look dir­ec­tly at me. Old Blood, she ac­know­ledged me. Her little eyes were deep set above her muzzle. As she walked, the sun­light sleeked her glossy, rolling hide. They both came to­ward me. I did not move.

  When they were very close, she lif­ted her nose and pressed her snout firmly against me and began to take long snuffs.

  My brother? Nighteyes quer­ied in some alarm.

  I think it is all right. I scarcely dared to breathe. I had never been this close to a live bear.

  Her head was the size of a bushel bas­ket. Her hot breath against my chest reeked of river fish. After a mo­ment she stepped away from me, huff­ing an uh, uh, uh sound in her throat as if con­sid­er­ing all she had scen­ted on me. She sat back on her haunches, tak­ing air in through her open mouth as if tast­ing my scent on it. She wagged her head slowly from side to side, then seemed to reach a de­cision. She dropped to all fours again and trundled off. ‘Come,’ Rolf said briefly, and mo­tioned me to fol­low. They set off to­wards the woods. Over his shoulder, he ad­ded, ‘We have food to share. The wolf is wel­come, too.’

  After a mo­ment, I set out after them.

  Is this wise? I could sense that Nighteyes was not far away and was mov­ing to­ward me as swiftly as he could, eel­ing between trees as he came down a hill­side.

  I need to un­der­stand what they are. Are they like us? I have never spoken to any like us.

  A de­ris­ive snort from Nighteyes. You were raised by Heart of the Pack. He is more like us than these. I am not cer­tain I wish to come close to a bear, or to the man who thinks with the bear.

  I want to know more, I in­sis­ted. How did she sense me, how did she reach out to me? Des­pite my curi­os­ity, I stayed well back from the strange two­some. Man and bear shambled along ahead of me. They wen­ded their way through the wil­low woods be­side the river, avoid­ing the road. At a place where the forest drew densely down to the op­pos­ite side of the road, they crossed hast­ily. I fol­lowed. In the deeper shadow of these lar­ger trees, we soon struck a game trail that cut across the face of a hill. I sensed Nighteyes be­fore he ma­ter­i­al­ized be­side me. He was pant­ing from his haste. My heart smote me at how he moved on three legs. Too of­ten he had taken in­jur­ies on my be­half. What right did I have to ask that of him?

  It is not as bad as all that.

  He did not like to walk be­hind me, but the trail was too nar­row for both of us. I ceded him the path and walked along­side, dodging branches and trunks, closely watch­ing our guides. Neither of us were easy about that bear. A single swipe from one of her paws could cripple or kill, and my small ex­per­i­ence of bears did not in­dic­ate they had even tem­pera­ments. Walk­ing in the flow of her scent kept Nighteyes’ hackles erect and my skin aprickle.

  In time we came to a small cabin set snug against the side of the hill. It was made of stone and log, chinked with moss and earth. The logs that roofed it were over­lain with turf. Grasses and even small bushes sprouted from the roof of the cabin. The door was un­usu­ally wide and gaped open. Both man and bear pre­ceded us in­side. After a mo­ment of hes­it­a­tion, I ven­tured near to peer in­side. Nighteyes hung back, hackles half-raised, ears pricked for­ward.

  Black Rolf stepped back to the door to look out at us. ‘Come in and be wel­come,’ he offered. When he saw that I hes­it­ated, he ad­ded, ‘Old Blood does not turn on Old Blood.’

  Slowly I entered. There was a low slab table in the centre of the room with a bench to either side of it, and a river rock hearth in a corner between two large com­fort­able chairs. An­other door led to a smal­ler sleep­ing room. The cabin smelt like a bear’s den, rank and earthy. In one corner was a scat­ter­ing of bones and the walls there bore the marks of claws.

  A wo­man was just set­ting aside a broom after sweep­ing the dirt floor. She was dressed in brown, and her short hair was sleeked to her head like an acorn’s cap. She turned her head quickly to­ward me and fixed me with an un­blink­ing stare from brown eyes. Rolf ges­tured to­ward me. ‘Here are the guests I was telling you about, Holly,’ he an­nounced.

  ‘Thank you for your hos­pit­al­ity,’ I ven­tured.

  She looked al­most startled. ‘Old Blood al­ways wel­comes Old Blood.’

  I brought my eyes back to con­front the glit­ter­ing black­ness of Rolf’s gaze. ‘I have never heard of this “Old Blood” be­fore.’

  ‘But you know what it is.’ He smiled at me, and it seemed a bear’s smile. He had the bear’s pos­ture: his lum­ber­ing walk, a way of slowly wag­ging his head from side to side, of tuck­ing his chin and look­ing down as if a muzzle di­vided his eyes. Be­hind him, his wo­man slowly nod­ded. She lif­ted her eyes and ex­changed a glance with someone. I fol­lowed her gaze to a small hawk perched on a cross rafter. His eyes bored into me. The beams were streaked white with his drop­pings.

  ‘You mean the Wit?’ I asked.

  ‘No. So it is named by those who have no know­ing of it. That is the name it is des­pised by. Those of us who are of the Old Blood do not name it so.’ He turned away to a cup­board set against the stout wall and began to take food from it. Long thick slabs of smoked sal­mon. A loaf of bread heavy with nuts and fruit baked into it. The bear rose on her hind legs, then dropped again to all fours, snuff­ing ap­pre­ci­at­ively. She turned her head side­ways to take a side of fish from the table; it looked small in her jaws. She lumbered off to her corner with it and turned her back as she began on it. The wo­man had si­lently po­si­tioned her­self on a chair from which she could watch the whole room. When I glanced at her she smiled and mo­tioned her own in­vit­a­tion to the table. Then she re­sumed her still­ness and her watch­ing.

  I found my own mouth wa­ter­ing at the sight of the food. It had been days since I had eaten to re­ple­tion and I’d had al­most noth­ing in the last two days. A light whine from out­side the cot­tage re­minded me that Nighteyes was in the same con­di­tion. ‘No cheese, no but­ter,’ Black Rolf warned me sol­emnly. ‘The City Guard took all the coin I’d traded for be­fore I got around to buy­ing but­ter and cheese. But we’ve fish and bread in plenty, and hon­ey­comb for the bread. Take what you wish.’

  Al­most in­ad­vert­ently, my eyes flickered to­ward the door.

  ‘Both of you,’ he cla­ri­fied for me. ‘Among the Old Blood, two are treated as one. Al­ways.’

  Nighteyes? Will you come in?

  I will come to the door.

  A mo­ment later a grey shadow slunk past the door open­ing. I sensed him prowl­ing about out­side the cabin, tak­ing up the scents of the place, re­gis­ter­ing bear, over and over. He passed the door again, peered in briefly, then made an­other cir­cuit of the cabin. He dis­covered a par­tially-de­voured car­cass of a deer, with leaves and dirt scuffed over it not too far from the cabin. It was a typ­ical bear’s cache. I did not need to warn him to leave it alone. Fi­nally he came back to the door and settled be­fore it, sit­ting alertly, ears pricked.

  ‘Take food to him if he does not wish to come in­side,’ Rolf urged me. He ad­ded, ‘None of us be­lieve in for­cing a fel­low against his nat­ural in­stincts.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, a bit stiffly, but I did not know what man­ners were called for here. I took a slab of the sal­mon from the table. I tossed it to Nighteyes and he caught it deftly. For a mo­ment he sat with it in his jaws. He could not both eat and re­main totally wary. Long strings of saliva began to trail from his mouth as he sat there grip­ping the fish. Eat, I urged him. I do not think they wish us any harm.

  He needed no more ur­ging than that. He dropped the fish, pinned it to the ground with his fore­paw and then tore off a large hunk of it. He wolfed it down, scarcely chew­ing. His eat­ing awoke my hun­ger with an in­tens­ity I had been sup­press­ing. I looked away from him to find that Black Rolf had cut me a thick slab of the bread and slathered it with honey. He was pour­ing a large mug of mead for him­self. Mine was already be­side my plate.

  ‘Eat, don’t wait on me,’ he in­vited me, and when I looked askance at the wo­man, she smiled.

  ‘Be wel­come,’ she said quietly. She came to the table and took a plat­ter for her­self, but put only a small por­tion of fish and a frag­ment of bread on it. I sensed she did so to put me at ease rather than for her own hun­ger. ‘Eat well,’ she bade me, and ad­ded, ‘we can sense your hun­ger, you know.’ She did not join us at table, but car­ried her food off to her chair by the hearth.

  I was only too glad to obey her. I ate with much the same man­ners as Nighteyes. He was on his third slab of sal­mon, and I had fin­ished as many pieces of bread and was eat­ing a second piece of sal­mon be­fore I re­called my­self to my host. Rolf re­filled my mug with mead and ob­served, ‘I once tried to keep a goat. For milk and cheese and such. But she never could be­come ac­cus­tomed to Hilda. Poor thing was al­ways too nervous to let down her milk. So. We have mead. With Hilda’s nose for honey, that’s a drink we can sup­ply ourselves with.’

  ‘It’s won­der­ful,’ I sighed. I set down my mug, a quarter drained already, and breathed out. I hadn’t fin­ished eat­ing, but the ur­gent edge of my hun­ger was gone now. Black Rolf picked up an­other slab of fish from the table and tossed it cas­u­ally to Hilda. She caught it, paws and jaws, then turned aside from us to re­sume eat­ing. He sent an­other slab winging to Nighteyes, who had lost all war­i­ness. He leaped for it, then lay down, the sal­mon between his front paws, and turned his head to scis­sor off chunks and gulp them down. Holly picked at her food, tear­ing off small strips of dried fish and duck­ing her head as she ate them. Every time I glanced her way, I found her look­ing at me with her sharp black eyes. I looked back at Hilda.

  ‘How did you ever come to bond with a she-bear?’ I asked, and then ad­ded, ‘if it isn’t a rude ques­tion. I’ve never spoken to any­one else who was bon­ded to an an­imal, at least, no one who ad­mit­ted it openly.’

  He leaned back in his chair and res­ted his hands upon his belly. ‘I don’t “ad­mit it openly” to just any­one. I sup­posed that you knew of me, right away, as Hilda and I are al­ways aware when there are oth­ers of the Old Blood near by. But, as to your ques­tion … my mother was Old Blood, and two of her chil­dren in­her­ited it. She sensed it in us, of course, and raised us in the ways. And when I was of an age, as a man, I made my quest.’

  I looked at him blankly. He shook his head, a pity­ing smile touch­ing his lips.

  ‘I went alone, out into the world, seek­ing my com­pan­ion beast. Some look in the towns, some look in the forest, a few, I have heard tell, even go out to sea. But I was drawn to the woods. So I went out alone, senses wide, fast­ing save for cold wa­ter and the herbs that quicken the Old Blood. I found a place, here, and I sat down among the roots of an old tree and I waited. And in time, Hilda came to me, seek­ing just as I had been seek­ing. We tested one an­other and found the trust and, well, here we are, seven years later.’ He glanced at Hilda as fondly as if he spoke of a wife and chil­dren.

  ‘A de­lib­er­ate search for one to bond with,’ I mused.

  I be­lieve that you sought me that day, and that I called out for you. Though neither of us knew at the time what we were seek­ing, Nighteyes mused, put­ting my res­cuing him from the an­imal trader in a new light.

  I do not think so, I told him re­gret­fully. I had bon­ded twice be­fore, with dogs, and had learned too well the pain of los­ing such a com­pan­ion. I had re­solved never to bond again.

  Rolf was look­ing at me with dis­be­lief. Al­most hor­ror. ‘You had bon­ded twice be­fore the wolf? And lost both com­pan­ions?’ He shook his head, deny­ing it could be so. ‘You are very young even for a first bond­ing.’

  I shrugged at him. ‘I was just a child when Nosy and I joined. He was taken away from me, by one who knew some­thing of bond­ing and did not think it was good for either of us. Later, I did en­counter him again, but it was at the end of his days. And the other pup I bon­ded to …’

  Rolf was re­gard­ing me with a dis­taste as fer­vent as Burrich’s was for the Wit while Holly si­lently shook her head. ‘You bon­ded as a child? For­give me, but that is per­ver­sion. As well al­low a little girl to be wed off to a grown man. A child is not ready to share the full life of a beast; all Old Blood par­ents I know most care­fully shel­ter their chil­dren from such con­tacts.’ Sym­pathy touched his face. ‘Still, it must have been ex­cru­ci­at­ing for your bond-friend to be taken from you. But who­ever did it, did the right thing, whatever his reason.’ He looked at me more closely. ‘I am sur­prised you sur­vived, know­ing noth­ing of the Old Blood ways.’

  ‘Where I come from, it is sel­dom spoken of. And when it is, it is called the Wit, and is deemed a shame­ful thing to do.’

  ‘Even your par­ents told you this? For while I well know how the Old Blood is re­garded and all the lies that are told about it, one usu­ally does not hear them from one’s own par­ents. Our par­ents cher­ish our lines, and help us to find proper mates when the time comes, so that our blood may not be thinned.’

  I glanced from his frank gaze to Holly’s open stare. ‘I did not know my par­ents.’ Even an­onym­ously, the words did not come eas­ily to me. ‘My mother gave me over to my father’s fam­ily when I was six years old. And my father chose not to … be near me. Still, I sus­pect the Old Blood came from my mother’s side. I re­call noth­ing of her or her fam­ily.’

  ‘Six years old? And you re­call noth­ing? Surely she taught you some­thing be­fore she let you go, gave you some know­ledge to pro­tect your­self … ?’

  I sighed. ‘I re­call noth­ing of her.’ I had long ago grown weary of folk telling me that I must re­mem­ber some­thing of her, that most people have memor­ies that go back to when they were three or even younger.

  Black Rolf made a low noise in his throat, between a growl and a sigh. ‘Well, someone taught you some­thing.’

  ‘No.’ I said it flatly, tired of the ar­gu­ment. I wished an end to it, and so re­sor­ted to the old­est tac­tic I knew for di­vert­ing people when they asked too many ques­tions about me. ‘Tell me about your­self,’ I urged him. ‘What did your mother teach you, and how?’

  He smiled, his cheeks wrink­ling fatly about his black eyes and mak­ing them smal­ler. ‘It took her twenty years to teach it to me. Have you that long to hear about it?’ At my look he ad­ded, ‘No, I know you asked but to make con­ver­sa­tion. But I of­fer what I see you need­ing. Stay with us a bit. We’ll teach you what you both need to know. But you won’t learn it in an hour or a day. It’s go­ing to take months. Per­haps years.’

  Holly spoke sud­denly from the corner in a quiet voice. ‘We could find him a mate as well. He might do for Ol­lie’s girl. She’s older, but she might steady him down.’

  Rolf grinned widely. ‘Isn’t that like a wo­man! Knows you for five minutes, and already match­ing you up for mar­riage.’

  Holly spoke dir­ec­tly to me. Her smile was small but warm. ‘Vita is bon­ded to a crow. All of you would hunt well to­gether. Stay with us. You will meet her, and like her. Old Blood should join to Old Blood.’

  Re­fuse po­litely, Nighteyes sug­ges­ted im­me­di­ately. Bad enough to den among men. If you start sleep­ing near bears, you shall stink so that we can never hunt well again. Nor do I de­sire to share our kills with a teas­ing crow. He paused. Un­less they know of a wo­man who is bon­ded with a bitch-wolf?

  A smile twitched at the corner of Black Rolf’s mouth. I sus­pec­ted he was more aware of what we said than he let on, and I told Nighteyes as much.

  ‘It is one of the things that I could teach you, should you choose to stay,’ Rolf offered. ‘When you two speak, to one of the Old Blood it is as if you were shout­ing to one an­other over the rattle of a tinker’s cart. There is no need to be so … wide open with it. It is only one wolf you ad­dress, not all of the wolf kindred. No. It is even more than that. I doubt if any­thing that eats meat is un­aware of you two. Tell me. When was the last time you en­countered a large car­ni­vore?’

  Dogs chased me some nights ago, Nighteyes said.

  ‘Dogs will stand and bark from their ter­rit­ory,’ Rolf ob­served. ‘I meant a wild car­ni­vore.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve seen any since we bon­ded,’ I ad­mit­ted un­will­ingly.

  ‘They will avoid you as surely as Forged ones will fol­low you,’ Black Rolf said calmly.