By the time the Ivy badge came into com­mon us­age among the Buck­keep guard, it was only to ac­know­ledge what was already a fact. These men and wo­men were Lady Pa­tience’s guard, paid by her when they were paid at all, but more im­port­ant to them, val­ued and used by her, doctored by her when they were in­jured, and sharply de­fen­ded by her acid tongue against any who spoke dis­par­agingly of them. These were the found­a­tion of her in­flu­ence, and the basis of the strength she came to wield. ‘A tower sel­dom crumbles from the bot­tom up,’ she told more than one, and claimed to have the say­ing from Prince Chiv­alry.

  We had slept well and our bel­lies were full. Without the need to hunt, we trav­elled the whole night. We stayed off the road, and were far more cau­tious than we had pre­vi­ously been, but no Forged ones did we en­counter. A large white moon silvered us a path through the trees. We moved as one creature, scarcely even think­ing, save to cata­logue the scents we en­countered and the sounds we heard. The icy de­term­in­a­tion that had seized me in­fec­ted Nighteyes as well. I would not care­lessly trum­pet to him my in­ten­tion, but we could think of it without fo­cus­ing on it. It was a dif­fer­ent sort of hunt­ing urge, driven by a dif­fer­ent sort of hun­ger. Each night we walked the miles away be­neath the moon’s peer­ing stare.

  There was a sol­dier’s lo­gic to it, a strategy Ver­ity would have ap­proved. Will knew I lived. I did not know if he would re­veal that to the oth­ers of the co­terie, or even Regal. I sus­pec­ted he hungered to drain off my Skill-strength as Justin and Se­rene had drained King Shrewd’s. I sus­pec­ted there would be an ob­scene ec­stasy to such a theft of power, and that Will would wish to sa­vour it alone. I was also fairly cer­tain that he would search for me, de­term­ined to fer­ret me out no mat­ter where I hid. He knew also that I was ter­ri­fied of him. He would not ex­pect me to come straight for him, de­term­ined to kill not only him and the co­terie, but also Regal. My swift march to­ward Trade­ford might be my best strategy for re­main­ing hid­den from him.

  Far­row’s repu­ta­tion is for be­ing as open as Buck is craggy and wooded. That first dawn found us in an un­fa­mil­iar type of forest, more open and de­cidu­ous. We bed­ded down for the day in a birch copse on a gentle hill over­look­ing open pas­ture. For the first time since the fight I took off my shirt and by day­light ex­amined my shoulder where the club had con­nec­ted. It was black and blue, and pain­ful if I tried to lift my arm above my head. But that was all. Minor. Three years ago, I would have thought it a ser­i­ous in­jury. I would have bathed it in cold wa­ter and poult­iced it with herbs to hasten its heal­ing. Now, al­though it purpled my whole shoulder and twinged whenever I moved it, it was only a bruise, and I left it to heal on its own. I smiled wryly to my­self as I put my shirt back on.

  Nighteyes was not pa­tient as I looked at the slice in his shoulder. It was start­ing to close. As I pushed the hair back from the edges of the cut, he reached back sud­denly and seized my wrist in his teeth. Not roughly, but firmly.

  Let it alone. It will heal.

  There’s dirt in it.

  He gave it a sniff and a thought­ful lick. Not that much.

  Let me look at it.

  You never just look. You poke.

  Then sit still and let me poke at it.

  He con­ceded, but not gra­ciously. There were bits of grass stuck in it and these had to be plucked loose. More than once he grabbed at my wrist. Fi­nally he rumbled at me in a way that let me know he’d had enough. I wasn’t sat­is­fied. He was barely tol­er­ant of me put­ting some of Burrich’s salve on it.

  You worry about these things too much, he in­formed me ir­rit­ably.

  I hate that you are in­jured be­cause of me. It’s not right. This isn’t the sort of life a wolf should lead. You should not be alone, wan­der­ing from place to place. You should be with a pack, hunt­ing your ter­rit­ory, per­haps tak­ing a mate someday.

  Someday is someday, and maybe it will be or maybe it won’t. This is a hu­man thing, to worry about things that may or may not come to be. You can’t eat the meat un­til you’ve killed it. Be­sides, I am not alone. We are to­gether.

  That is true. We are to­gether. I lay down be­side Nighteyes to sleep.

  I thought of Molly. I res­ol­utely put her out of my mind and tried to sleep. It was no good. I shif­ted about rest­lessly un­til Nighteyes growled, got up, stalked away from me and lay down again. I sat up for a bit, star­ing down into a wooded val­ley. I knew I was close to a fool­ish de­cision. I re­fused to con­sider how com­pletely fool­ish and reck­less it was. I drew a breath, closed my eyes and reached for Molly.

  I had dreaded I might find her in an­other man’s arms. I had feared I would hear her speak of me with loath­ing. In­stead, I could not find her at all. Time and again, I centred my thoughts, summoned all my en­er­gies and reached out for her. I was fi­nally re­war­ded with a Skill-im­age of Burrich thatch­ing the roof of a cot­tage. He was shirt­less and the sum­mer sun had darkened him to the col­our of pol­ished wood. Sweat ran down the back of his neck. He glanced down at someone be­low him and an­noy­ance crossed his fea­tures. ‘I know, my lady. You could do it your­self, thank you very much. I also know I have enough wor­ries without fear­ing that both of you will tumble off here.’

  Some­where I panted with ef­fort, and be­came aware of my own body again. I pushed my­self away and reached for Burrich. I would at least let him know that I lived. I man­aged to find him, but I saw him through a fog. ‘Burrich!’ I called to him. ‘Burrich, it’s Fitz!’ But his mind was closed and locked to me; I could not catch even a glim­mer of his thoughts. I damned my er­ratic Skill abil­ity, and reached again into the swirl­ing clouds.

  Ver­ity stood be­fore me, his arms crossed on his chest, shak­ing his head. His voice was no louder than a whis­per of wind, and he stood so still I could scarcely see him. Yet I sensed he used great force to reach me. ‘Don’t do this, boy,’ he warned me softly. ‘It will only hurt you.’ I was sud­denly in a dif­fer­ent place. He leaned with his back against a great slab of black stone and his face was lined with wear­i­ness. Ver­ity rubbed at his temples as if pained. ‘I should not be do­ing this, either. But some­times I so long for … Ah, well. Pay no mind. Know this, though. Some things are bet­ter not known, and the risks of Skilling right now are too great. If I can feel you and find you, so can an­other. He’ll at­tack you any way he can. Don’t bring them to his at­ten­tion. He would not scruple to use them against you. Give them up, to pro­tect them.’ He sud­denly seemed a bit stronger. He smiled bit­terly. ‘I know what it means to do that; to give them up to keep them safe. So did your father. You’ve the strength for it. Give it all up, boy. Just come to me. If you’ve still a mind to. Come to me, and I’ll show you what can be done.’

  I awoke at mid­day. The full sun­light fall­ing on my face had given me a head­ache, and I felt slightly shaky with it. I made a tiny fire, in­tend­ing to brew some some elf­bark tea to steady my­self. I forced my­self to be spar­ing of my sup­ply, us­ing only one small piece of bark and the rest nettles. I had not ex­pec­ted to need it so of­ten. I sus­pec­ted I should con­serve it; I might need it after I faced Regal’s co­terie. Now there was an op­tim­istic thought. Nighteyes opened his eyes to watch me for a bit, then dozed off again. I sat sip­ping my bit­ter tea and star­ing out over the coun­tryside. The bizarre dream had made me home­sick for a place and time when people had cared for me. I had left all that be­hind me. Well, not en­tirely. I sat be­side Nighteyes and res­ted a hand on the wolf’s shoulder. He shuddered his coat at the touch. Go to sleep, he told me grump­ily.

  You are all I have, I told him, full of mel­an­choly.

  He yawned lazily. And I am all you need. Now go to sleep. Sleep­ing is ser­i­ous, he told me gravely. I smiled and stretched out again be­side my wolf, one hand rest­ing on his coat. He ra­di­ated the simple con­tent­ment of a full belly and sleep­ing in the warm sun. He was right. It was worth tak­ing ser­i­ously. I closed my eyes and slept dream­lessly the rest of the day.

  In the days and nights that fol­lowed, the nature of the coun­tryside changed to open forests in­ter­spersed with wide grass­land. Orch­ards and grain­fields sur­roun­ded the towns. Once, long ago, I had trav­elled through Far­row. Then I had been with a cara­van, and we had gone cross coun­try rather than fol­low­ing the river. I had been a con­fid­ent young as­sas­sin on my way to an im­port­ant murder. That trip had ended in my first real ex­per­i­ence of Regal’s treach­ery. I had barely sur­vived it. Now once more I trav­elled across Far­row, look­ing for­ward to a murder at my jour­ney’s end. But this time I went alone and up­river, the man I would kill was my own uncle and the killing was at my own be­hest. Some­times I found that deeply sat­is­fy­ing. At other times, I found it fright­en­ing.

  I kept my prom­ise to my­self, and avoided hu­man com­pany as­sidu­ously. We shad­owed the road and the river, but when we came to towns, we skir­ted wide around them. This was more dif­fi­cult than might be ima­gined in such open coun­try. It had been one thing to circle about some Buck ham­let tucked into a bend in the river and sur­roun­ded by deep woods. It is an­other to cross grain­fields, or slip through orch­ards and not rouse any­one’s dogs or in­terest. To some ex­tent, I could re­as­sure dogs that we meant no harm. If the dogs were gull­ible. Most farm dogs have a sus­pi­cion of wolves that no amount of re­as­sur­ances could calm. And older dogs were apt to look askance at any hu­man trav­el­ling in a wolf’s com­pany. We were chased more than once. The Wit might give me the abil­ity to com­mu­nic­ate with some an­im­als, but it did not guar­an­tee that I would be listened to, nor be­lieved. Dogs are not stu­pid.

  Hunt­ing in these open areas was dif­fer­ent, too. Most of the small game was of the bur­row­ing sort that lived in groups, and the lar­ger an­im­als simply out­ran us over the long flat stretches of land. Time spent in hunt­ing was time not spent trav­el­ling. Oc­ca­sion­ally I found un­guarded hen-houses and slipped in quietly to steal eggs from the sleep­ing birds. I did not scruple to raid plums and cher­ries from the orch­ards we passed through. Our most for­tu­it­ous kill was an ig­nor­ant young har­agar, one of the rangy swine that some of the no­madic folk her­ded as a food beast. Where this one had strayed from, we did not ques­tion. Fang and sword, we brought it down. I let Nighteyes gorge to his con­tent that night, and then an­noyed him by cut­ting the rest of the meat into strips and sheets which I dried in the sun over a low fire. It took the bet­ter part of a day be­fore I was sat­is­fied the fatty meat was dried enough to keep well, but in the days to fol­low, we trav­elled more swiftly for it. When game presen­ted it­self, we hunted and killed, but when it did not, we had the smoked har­agar to fall back on.

  In this man­ner we fol­lowed the Buck River north­east. When we drew close to the sub­stan­tial trad­ing town of Tur­lake, we veered wide of it, and for a time steered only by the stars. This was far more to Nighteyes’ lik­ing, tak­ing us over plains car­peted with dry sedgy grasses at this time of year. We fre­quently saw herds in the dis­tance, of cattle and sheep or goats, and in­fre­quently, har­agar. My con­tact with the no­madic folk who fol­lowed those herds was lim­ited to glimpses of them on horse­back, or the sight of their fires out­lin­ing the con­ical tents they fa­voured when they settled for a night or so.

  We were wolves again for these long trot­ting days. I had re­ver­ted once more, but I was aware of it and told my­self that as long as I was it would do me little harm. In truth, I be­lieve it did me good. Had I been trav­el­ling with an­other hu­man, life would have been com­plic­ated. We would have dis­cussed route and sup­plies and tac­tics once we ar­rived in Trade­ford. But the wolf and I simply trot­ted along, night after night, and our ex­ist­ence was as simple as life could be. The com­rade­ship between us grew deeper and deeper.

  The words of Black Rolf had sunk deep into me and given me much to think about. In some ways, I had taken Nighteyes and the bond between us for gran­ted. Once he had been a cub, but now he was my equal. And my friend. Some say ‘a dog’ or ‘a horse’ as if every one of them is like every other. I’ve heard a man call a mare he had owned for seven years ‘it’ as if he were speak­ing of a chair. I’ve never un­der­stood that. One does not have to be Wit­ted to know the com­pan­ion­ship of a beast, and to know that the friend­ship of an an­imal is every bit as rich and com­plic­ated as that of a man or wo­man. Nosy had been a friendly, in­quis­it­ive, boy­ish dog when he was mine. Smithy had been tough and ag­gress­ive, in­clined to bully any­one who would give way to him, and his sense of hu­mour had had a rough edge to it. Nighteyes was as un­like them as he was un­like Burrich or Chade. It is no dis­re­spect to any of them to say I was closest to him.

  He could not count. But, I could not read deer scent on the air and tell if it were a buck or doe. If he could not plan ahead to the day after to­mor­row, neither was I cap­able of the fierce con­cen­tra­tion he could bring to a stalk. There were dif­fer­en­ces between us, neither of us claimed su­peri­or­ity. No one is­sued a com­mand to the other, or ex­pec­ted un­ques­tion­ing obed­i­ence of the other. My hands were use­ful things for re­mov­ing por­cu­pine quills and ticks and thorns and for scratch­ing es­pe­cially itchy and un­reach­able spots on his back. My height gave me a cer­tain ad­vant­age in spot­ting game and spy­ing out ter­rain. So even when he pit­ied me for my ‘cow’s teeth’ and poor vis­ion at night, and a nose he re­ferred to as a numb lump between my eyes, he did not look down on me. We both knew his hunt­ing prowess ac­coun­ted for most of the meat that we ate. Yet he never be­grudged me an equal share. Find that in a man, if you can.

  ‘Sit, hound!’ I told him once, jok­ingly. I was gingerly skin­ning out a por­cu­pine that I had killed with a club after Nighteyes had in­sis­ted on pur­su­ing it. In his eager­ness to get at the meat, he was about to get us both full of quills. He settled back with an im­pa­tient quiv­er­ing of haunches.

  Why do men speak so? he asked me as I tugged care­fully at the skin’s edge of the prick­ling hide.

  ‘How?’

  Com­mand­ing. What gives a man a right to com­mand a dog, if they are not pack?

  ‘Some are pack, or al­most,’ I said aloud, con­sid­er­ingly. I pulled the hide tight, hold­ing it by a flap of belly fur where there were no quills, and sli­cing along the ex­posed in­teg­u­ment. The skin made a rip­ping sound as it peeled back from the fat meat. ‘Some men think they have the right,’ I went on after a mo­ment.

  Why? Nighteyes pressed.

  It sur­prised me that I had never pondered this be­fore. ‘Some men think they are bet­ter than beasts,’ I said slowly. ‘That they have the right to use them or com­mand them in any way they please.’

  Do you think this way?

  I didn’t an­swer right away. I worked my blade along the line between the skin and the fat, keep­ing a con­stant pull on the hide as I worked up around the shoulder of the an­imal. I rode a horse, didn’t I, when I had one? Was it be­cause I was bet­ter than the horse that I bent it to my will? I’d used dogs to hunt for me, and hawks on oc­ca­sion. What right had I to com­mand them? There I sat, strip­ping the hide off a por­cu­pine to eat it. I spoke slowly. ‘Are we bet­ter than this por­cu­pine that we are about to eat? Or is it only that we have bested it today?’

  Nighteyes cocked his head, watch­ing my knife and hands bare meat for him. I think I am al­ways smarter than a por­cu­pine. But not bet­ter. Per­haps we kill it and eat it be­cause we can. Just as, and here he stretched his front paws out be­fore him lan­guor­ously, just as I have a well-trained hu­man to skin these prickly things for me, that I may en­joy eat­ing them the bet­ter. He lolled his tongue at me, and we both knew it was only part of the an­swer to the puzzle. I ran my knife down the por­cu­pine’s spine, and the whole hide was fi­nally free of it.

  ‘I should build a fire and cook off some of this fat be­fore I eat it,’ I said con­sid­er­ingly. ‘Oth­er­wise I shall be ill.’

  Just give me mine, and do as you wish with your share, Nighteyes in­struc­ted me grandly. I cut around the hind legs and then popped the joints free and cut them loose. It was more than enough meat for me. I left them on the skin side of the hide as Nighteyes dragged his share away. I kindled a small fire as he was crunch­ing through bones and skewered the legs to cook them. ‘I don’t think I am bet­ter than you,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t think, truly, that I am bet­ter than any beast. Though, as you say, I am smarter than some.’

  Por­cu­pines, per­haps, he ob­served be­nignly. But a wolf? I think not.

  We grew to know every nu­ance of the other’s be­ha­viour. Some­times we were fiercely com­pet­ent at our hunt­ing, find­ing our keen­est joy in a stalk and kill, mov­ing pur­pose­fully and dan­ger­ously through the world. At other times, we tussled like pup­pies, nudging one an­other off the beaten trail into bushes, pinch­ing and nip­ping at each other as we strode along, scar­ing off the game be­fore we even saw it. Some days we lay drows­ing in the late af­ter­noon hours be­fore we roused to hunt and then travel, the sun warm on our bel­lies or backs, the in­sects buzz­ing a sound like sleep it­self. Then the big wolf might roll over on his back like a puppy, beg­ging me to scratch his belly and check his ears for ticks and fleas, or simply scratch thor­oughly all around his throat and neck. On chill foggy morn­ings we curled up close be­side one an­other to find warmth be­fore sleep. Some­times I would be awakened by a rough poke of a cold nose against mine; when I tried to sit up, I would dis­cover he was de­lib­er­ately stand­ing on my hair, pin­ning my head to the earth. At other times I might awaken alone, to see Nighteyes sit­ting at some dis­tance, look­ing out over the sur­round­ing coun­tryside. I re­call see­ing him so, sil­hou­et­ted against a sun­set. The light even­ing breeze ruffled his coat. His ears were pricked for­ward and his gaze went far into the dis­tance. I sensed a loneli­ness in him then that noth­ing from me could ever rem­edy. It humbled me, and I let him be, not even quest­ing to­ward him. In some ways, for him, I was not bet­ter than a wolf.