Some­where a tide was ebbing, leav­ing me beached and gasp­ing. Ga­len stood over me, dishevelled and sweat­ing. His breath smoked in the cold air as he leaned close over me. ‘Die!’ he said, but I did not hear the words. I felt them. He let go of my throat and I fell.

  And in the wake of the de­vour­ing ela­tion of the Skill came now a bleak­ness of fail­ure and guilt that made my phys­ical pain as noth­ing. My nose was bleed­ing, it was pain­ful to breathe, and the force of the kicks he had dealt me had scraped skin from my body as I had slid across the tower stones. The dif­fer­ent pains con­tra­dicted one an­other, each clam­our­ing for at­ten­tion so that I couldn’t as­sess what dam­age had been done to me. I could not even gather my­self to­gether to stand up. Loom­ing over all was the know­ledge that I had failed. I was de­feated and un­worthy and Ga­len had proven it.

  As if from a dis­tance, I heard him shout­ing at the oth­ers, telling them to be­ware, for this was how he would deal with those so un­dis­cip­lined that they could not turn their minds from pleas­ure of the Skill. And he warned them all of what be­fell such a man, who strove to use the Skill and in­stead fell un­der the spell of the pleas­ure it bore with it. Such a man would be­come mind­less, a great in­fant, speech­less, sight­less, soil­ing him­self, for­get­ting thought, for­get­ting even food and drink, un­til he died. Such a one was bey­ond dis­gust.

  And such a one was I. I sank into my shame. Help­lessly, I began to sob. I mer­ited such treat­ment as he had given me. I de­served worse. Only a mis­placed pity had kept Ga­len from killing me. I had wasted his time, had taken his painstak­ing in­struc­tion and turned it all to selfish in­dul­gence. I fled my­self, go­ing deeper and deeper within, but find­ing only dis­gust and hatred for my­self layered through­out my thoughts. I would be bet­ter off dead. Were I to throw my­self from the tower roof, it would still not be enough to des­troy my shame, but at least I need no longer be aware of it. I lay still and wept.

  The oth­ers left. As each one passed, they had a word, a gob­bet of spittle, a kick or a blow for me. I scarcely no­ticed. I re­jec­ted my­self more com­pletely than they could. Then they were gone, and Ga­len alone stood over me. He nudged me with his foot, but I was in­cap­able of re­sponse. Sud­denly, he was every­where, over, un­der, around and in­side me, and I could not deny him. ‘You see, bas­tard,’ he said archly, calmly. ‘I tried to tell them you were not worthy. I tried to tell them the train­ing would kill you. But you would not listen. You strove to usurp that which had been given to an­other. Again, I am right. Well. This has not been time wasted if it has done away with you.’

  I don’t know when he left me. After a time, I was aware that it was the moon look­ing down on me, and not Ga­len. I rolled onto my belly. I could not stand, but I could crawl. Not quickly, not even lift­ing my stom­ach com­pletely off the ground, but I could scuffle and scrape my­self along. With a single­ness of pur­pose, I began to make my way to­wards the low wall. I thought that I could drag my­self up onto a bench, and from there to the top of the wall. And from there. Down. End it.

  It was a long jour­ney, in the cold and the dark. Some­where I could hear a whim­per­ing, and I des­pised my­self for that, too. But as I scraped my­self along, it grew, as a spark in the dis­tance be­comes a fire as one ap­proaches. It re­fused to be ig­nored. It grew louder in my mind, a whin­ing against my fate, a tiny voice of res­ist­ance that for­bade that I should die, that denied my fail­ure. It was warmth and light, too, and it grew stronger and stronger as I tried to find its source.

  I stopped.

  I lay still.

  It was in­side me. The more I sought it, the stronger it grew. It loved me. Loved me even if I couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t love my­self. Loved me even if I hated it. It set its tiny teeth in my soul and braced and held so that I couldn’t crawl any fur­ther. And when I tried, a howl of des­pair burst from it, sear­ing me, for­bid­ding me to break so sac­red a trust.

  It was Smithy.

  He cried with my pains, phys­ical and men­tal. And when I stopped strug­gling to­ward the wall, he went into a par­oxysm of joy, a cel­eb­ra­tion of tri­umph for us. And all I could do to re­ward him was to lie still and no longer at­tempt to des­troy my­self. And he as­sured me it was enough, it was a plen­it­ude, it was a joy. I closed my eyes.

  The moon was high when Burrich rolled me gently over. The Fool held the torch and Smithy capered and danced about his feet. Burrich gathered me up and stood, as if I were still a child just given into his care. I had a glimpse of his dark face, but read noth­ing there. He car­ried me down the long stone stair­case, the Fool bear­ing the torch to light the way. And he took me out of the keep, back to the stables and up to his room. There the Fool left Burrich and Smithy and me, and I do not re­call that there had been one word spoken. Burrich set me down on his own bed, and then dragged it, bed­stead and all, closer to the fire. With re­turn­ing warmth came great pain, and I gave my body over to Burrich, my soul to Smithy, and let go of my mind for a long while.

  I opened my eyes to night. I knew not which one. Burrich sat next to me still, un­doz­ing, not even slumped in his chair. I felt the stric­tures of bandaging on my ribs. I lif­ted a hand to touch it, but was baffled by two splin­ted fin­gers. Burrich’s eyes fol­lowed my mo­tion. ‘They were swollen with more than cold. Too swollen for me to tell if it were breaks, or just sprains. I splin­ted them in case. I sus­pect it’s just a sprain. I think if they were broken, the pain of my work­ing on them would have wakened even you.’

  He spoke calmly, as if telling me that he had purged a new dog for worms as a pre­vent­at­ive against con­ta­gion. And just as his steady voice and calm touch had worked on a frantic an­imal, so it worked on me. I re­laxed, think­ing that if he were calm, not much could be wrong. He slipped a fin­ger un­der the band­ages sup­port­ing my ribs, check­ing the tight­ness. ‘What happened?’ he asked, and turned aside from me to pick up a cup of tea as he spoke, as if the ques­tion and my an­swer were of no great im­port.

  I pushed my mind back over the last few weeks, tried to find a way to ex­plain. Events danced in my mind, slipped away from me. I re­membered only de­feat. ‘Ga­len tested me,’ I said slowly. ‘I failed. And he pun­ished me for it.’ And with my words, a wave of de­jec­tion, shame and guilt swept over me, wash­ing away the brief com­fort I had taken in the fa­mil­iar sur­round­ings. On the hearth, a sleep­ing Smithy ab­ruptly waked and sat up. Re­flex­ively, I quieted him be­fore he could whine. Lie down. Rest. It’s all right. To my re­lief, he did so. And to my greater re­lief, Burrich seemed un­aware of what had passed between us. He offered me the cup.

  ‘Drink this. You need wa­ter in you, and the herbs will deaden the pain and let you sleep. Drink it all, now.’

  ‘It stinks,’ I told him, and he nod­ded, and held the cup my hands were too bruised to curl around. I drank it all and then lay back.

  ‘That was all?’ he asked care­fully, and I knew what he re­ferred to. ‘He tested you on a thing he had taught you, and you did not know it. So he did this to you?’

  ‘I could not do it. I didn’t have the … self-dis­cip­line. So he pun­ished me.’ De­tails eluded me. Shame washed over me, drown­ing me in misery.

  ‘No one is taught self-dis­cip­line by beat­ing him half to death.’ Burrich spoke care­fully, stat­ing the truth for an idiot. His move­ments were very pre­cise as he set the cup back on the table.

  ‘It was not to teach me … I don’t think he be­lieves I can be taught. It was to show the oth­ers what would hap­pen if they failed.’

  ‘Very little worth know­ing is taught by fear,’ Burrich said stub­bornly. And, more warmly, ‘It’s a poor teacher who tries to in­struct by blows and threats. Ima­gine tam­ing a horse that way. Or a dog. Even the most knot-headed dog learns bet­ter from an open hand than a stick.’

  ‘You’ve struck me be­fore, when try­ing to teach me some­thing.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have. But to jolt, or warn, or awaken. Not to dam­age. Never to break a bone or blind an eye or cripple a hand. Never. Never say to any­one that I’ve struck you, or any creature in my care that way, for it’s not true.’ He was in­dig­nant that I could even have sug­ges­ted it.

  ‘No. You’re right about that.’ I tried to think how I could make Burrich un­der­stand why I had been pun­ished. ‘But this was dif­fer­ent, Burrich. A dif­fer­ent kind of learn­ing, a dif­fer­ent kind of teach­ing.’ I felt com­pelled to de­fend Ga­len’s justice. I tried to ex­plain. ‘I de­served this, Burrich. The fault was not with his teach­ing. I failed to learn. I tried. I did try. But like Ga­len, I be­lieve there is a reason the Skill is not taught to bas­tards. There is a taint in me, a fatal weak­ness.’

  ‘Horse­shit.’

  ‘No. Think on it, Burrich. If you breed a scrub-mare to a fine stud, the colt you get is as likely to get the weak­ness of the mother as the fine­ness of the father.’

  The si­lence was long. Then, ‘I doubt much that your father would have lain down be­side a wo­man that was a “scrub”. Without some fine­ness, some sign of spirit or in­tel­li­gence, he would not. He could not.’

  ‘I’ve heard it said he was tranced by a moun­tain witch-wo­man.’ For the first time I re­peated a tale I’d heard whispered of­ten.

  ‘Chiv­alry was not a man to fall for such ma­gickry. And his son is not some sniv­el­ling, weak-spir­ited fool that lies about and whines that he de­served a beat­ing.’ He leaned closer, gently prod­ded just be­low my temple. A blast of pain rocked my con­scious­ness. ‘That’s how near you were to los­ing an eye to this “teach­ing”.’ His tem­per was rising, and I kept my mouth closed. He took a quick turn around the room, then spun to face me.

  ‘That puppy. He’s from Pa­tience’s bitch, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you haven’t … oh, Fitz, please tell me that it wasn’t your us­ing the Wit that brought this on you. If he did this to you for that, there’s not a word I can say to any­one, or an eye I can meet any­where in the keep or the whole king­dom.’

  ‘No, Burrich. I prom­ise you, this had noth­ing to do with the pup. It was my fail­ure to learn what I had been taught. My weak­ness.’

  ‘Quiet,’ he ordered me im­pa­tiently. ‘Your word is enough. I know you well enough to know your prom­ise will al­ways be true. But for the rest, you’re mak­ing no sense at all. Go back to sleep. I’m go­ing out, but I’ll be back soon enough. Get some rest. It’s the real healer.’

  A pur­pose had settled on Burrich. My words seemed to have sat­is­fied him fi­nally, settled some­thing for him. He dressed quickly, pulling on boots, chan­ging his shirt for a loose one, and put­ting only a leather jer­kin over it. Smithy stood and whined anxiously as Burrich went out, but could not con­vey his worry to me. In­stead, he came to the bed­side and scrabbled up, to bur­row into the cov­ers be­side me and com­fort me with his trust. In the bleak des­pair that settled over me, he was my only light. I closed my eyes and Burrich’s herbs sank me into a dream­less sleep.

  I awoke later that af­ter­noon. A gust of cold air pre­ceded Burrich’s entry into the room. He checked me over, cas­u­ally pris­ing open my eyes and then run­ning com­pet­ent hands down my ribs and over my other bruises. He grunted his sat­is­fac­tion, then changed his torn and mud­died shirt for a fresh one. He hummed as he did so, seem­ing in a fine mood much at odds with my bruises and de­pres­sion. It was al­most a re­lief when he left again. Be­low, I heard him whist­ling and call­ing or­ders to the stable-boys. It all soun­ded so nor­mal and work­aday and I longed for it with an in­tens­ity that sur­prised me. I wanted that back, the warm smell of the horses and dogs and straw, the simple tasks, done well and com­pletely, and the good sleep of ex­haus­tion at the end of a day. I longed for it, but the worth­less­ness that filled me now pre­dicted that, even at that, I would fail. Ga­len had of­ten sneered at those who worked such simple jobs about the keep. He had only con­tempt for the kit­chen-maids and cooks, de­ri­sion for the stable-boys, and the men-at-arms who guarded us with sword and bow, were, in his words, ‘ruf­fi­ans and dolts, doomed to flail away at the world, and con­trol with a sword what they can’t mas­ter with their minds’. So now I was strangely torn. I longed to re­turn to be­ing what Ga­len had con­vinced me was con­tempt­ible, yet doubt and des­pair filled me that I could even do so much as that.

  I was abed for two days. A jovial Burrich ten­ded me with banter and good nature that I could not fathom. There was a briskness to his step and a sure­ness to him that made him seem a much younger man. It ad­ded to my dis­pir­ited­ness that my in­jur­ies put him in such fine fettle. But after two days of bed rest, Burrich in­formed me that only so much still­ness was good for a man, and it was time I was up and mov­ing if I wished to heal well. He pro­ceeded to find me many minor chores to per­form, none heavy enough to tax my strength, but more than enough to keep me busy, for I had to rest of­ten. I be­lieve that the bu­sy­n­ess was what he was after rather than any ex­er­cise for me, for all I had done was to lie in bed and look at the wall and des­pise my­self. Faced with my un­re­lent­ing de­pres­sion, even Smithy had be­gun to turn aside from his food. Des­pite this, he re­mained my only real source of com­fort. Fol­low­ing me about the stable was the purest en­joy­ment he’d ever had. Every scent and sight he re­layed to me with an in­tens­ity that, des­pite my bleak­ness, re­newed in me the won­der I had first felt when I’d plunged into Burrich’s world. Smithy was sav­agely pos­sess­ive of me as well, chal­len­ging even Sooty’s right to sniff me, and earn­ing him­self a snap from Vixen that sent him yip­ping and cower­ing to my heels.

  I begged the next day free for my­self, and went into Buck­keep Town. The walk took me longer than it had ever taken me be­fore, but Smithy re­joiced in my slow pace, for it gave him time to snuff his way around every clump of grass and tree on the way. I had thought that see­ing Molly would lift my spir­its, and give me some sense of my own life again. But when I got to the chand­lery she was busy, filling three large or­ders for out­bound ships. I sat by the hearth in the shop. Her father sat op­pos­ite me, drink­ing and glar­ing at me. Al­though his ill­ness had weakened him, it had not changed his tem­pera­ment, and on days when he was well enough to sit up, he was well enough to drink. After a while, I gave up all pre­tence at con­ver­sa­tion, and simply watched him drink and dis­par­age his daugh­ter as Molly bustled frantic­ally about, try­ing to be both ef­fi­cient and hos­pit­able to her cus­tom­ers. The dreary pet­ti­ness of it all de­pressed me.

  At noon she told her father she was clos­ing the shop while she went to de­liver an or­der. She gave me a rack of candles to carry, loaded her own arms, and we left, latch­ing the door be­hind us. Her father’s drunken im­prec­a­tions fol­lowed us, but she ig­nored them. Once out­side in the brisk winter wind, I fol­lowed Molly as she walked quickly to the back of the shop. Mo­tion­ing for my si­lence, she opened the back door and set all that she car­ried in­side. My rack of candles, too, were un­loaded there, and then we left.

  For a bit, we just wandered through the town, talk­ing little. She com­men­ted on my bruised face; I said only that I had fallen. The wind was cold and re­lent­less, so the mar­ket stalls were near-empty of both cus­tom­ers and vendors. She paid much at­ten­tion to Smithy, and he rev­elled in it. On our walk back, we stopped at a tea shop, and she treated me to mulled wine and made so much of Smithy that he fell over on his back and all his thoughts turned into wal­low­ing in her af­fec­tion. I was struck sud­denly by how clearly Smithy was aware of her feel­ings, and yet she did not sense his at all, ex­cept on the shal­low­est level. I ques­ted gently to­ward her, but found her elu­sive and drift­ing, like a per­fume that comes strong and then faint on the same breath of wind. I knew that I could have pushed more in­sist­ently against her, but some­how it seemed point­less. An alone­ness settled on me, a deadly mel­an­choly that she never had been and never would be any more aware of me than she was of Smithy. So I took her brief words to me as a bird pecks at dry bread­crumbs, and let alone the si­lences she cur­tained between us. Soon she said that she could not tarry long, or it would be the worse for her, for if her father no longer had the strength to strike her, he was still cap­able of smash­ing his beer mug on the floor or knock­ing over racks of things to show his dis­pleas­ure at be­ing neg­lected. She smiled an odd little smile as she told me this, as if it would be less ap­palling if some­how we thought of his be­ha­viour as amus­ing. I couldn’t smile and she looked away from my face.

  I helped her with her cloak and we left, walk­ing up­hill and into the wind. And that sud­denly seemed a meta­phor for my whole life. At her door, she shocked me with a hug and a kiss on the corner of my jaw, the em­brace so brief that it was al­most like be­ing bumped in the mar­ket. ‘New­boy …’ she said, and then, ‘Thank you. For un­der­stand­ing.’

  And then she whisked into her shop and shut the door be­hind her, leav­ing me chilled and be­wildered. She thanked me for un­der­stand­ing her at a time when I had never felt more isol­ated from her, and every­one else. All the way up to the keep Smithy kept prat­tling to him­self about all the per­fumes he’d smelt on her and how she had scratched him just where he could never reach in front of his ears and of the sweet bis­cuit she’d fed him in the tea shop.

  It was mid-af­ter­noon when we got back to the stables. I did a few chores, and then went back up to Burrich’s room, where Smithy and I fell asleep. I awoke to Burrich stand­ing over me, a slight frown on his face.