I gave him a quick nod.

  ‘An­swer, fitz. You’ll have to use your tongue if you’ll be deal­ing with tu­tors and mas­ters.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  It was so like Burrich. En­trust­ing a horse to me had been up­per­most in his mind. With his own con­cern at­ten­ded to, he an­nounced the rest quite cas­u­ally.

  ‘You’ll be up with the sun from now on, boy. You’ll learn from me in the morn­ing. Caring for a horse, and mas­ter­ing it. And how to hunt your hounds prop­erly, and have them mind you. A man’s way of con­trolling beasts is what I’ll teach you.’ The last he em­phas­ized heav­ily, and paused to be sure I un­der­stood. My heart sank, but I began a nod, then amended it to, ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Af­ter­noons, they’ve got you. For weapons and such. Prob­ably the Skill, even­tu­ally. In winter months, there will be in­door learn­ing. Lan­guages and signs. Writ­ing and read­ing and num­bers, I don’t doubt. His­tor­ies, too. What you’ll do with it all I’ve no idea, but mind you learn it well to please the King. He’s not a man to dis­please, let alone cross. Wisest course of all is not to have him no­tice you. But I didn’t warn you about that, and now it’s too late.’

  He cleared his throat sud­denly and took a breath. ‘Oh, and there’s an­other thing that’s to change.’ He took up the bit of leather he’d been work­ing on and bent over it again. He seemed to speak to his fin­gers. ‘You’ll have a proper room of your own, now. Up in the keep where all those of noble blood sleep. You’d be sleep­ing there right now, if you’d bothered to come in on time.’

  ‘What? I don’t un­der­stand. A room?’

  ‘Oh, so you can be swift spoken, when you’ve a mind? You heard me, boy. You’ll have a room of your own, up at the keep.’ He paused, then went on heart­ily. ‘I’ll fi­nally get my pri­vacy back. Oh, and you’re to be meas­ured for clothes to­mor­row as well. And boots. Though what’s the sense of put­ting a boot on a foot that’s still grow­ing, I don’t …’

  ‘I don’t want a room up there.’ As op­press­ive as liv­ing with Burrich had be­come, I sud­denly found it prefer­able to the un­known. I ima­gined a large, cold, stone room, with shad­ows lurk­ing in the corners.

  ‘Well, you’re to have one,’ Burrich an­nounced re­lent­lessly. ‘And it’s time and past time for it. You’re Chiv­alry’s get, even if you’re not a proper-born son, and to put you down here in the stable, like a stray pup, well, it’s just not fit­ting.’

  ‘I don’t mind it,’ I ven­tured des­per­ately.

  Burrich lif­ted his eyes and re­garded me sternly. ‘My, my. Pos­it­ively chatty to­night, aren’t we?’

  I lowered my eyes from his. ‘You live down here,’ I poin­ted out sul­lenly. ‘You aren’t a stray pup.’

  ‘I’m not a prince’s bas­tard, either,’ he said tersely. ‘You’ll live in the keep now, fitz, and that’s all.’

  I dared to look at him. He was speak­ing to his fin­gers again.

  ‘I’d rather I was a stray pup,’ I made bold to say. And then all my fears broke my voice as I ad­ded, ‘You wouldn’t let them do this to a stray pup, chan­ging everything all at once. When they gave the blood­hound puppy to Lord Grimsby, you sent your old shirt with it, so it would have some­thing that smelled of home un­til it settled in.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I didn’t … come here, fitz. Come here, boy.’

  And puppy-like, I went to him, the only mas­ter I had, and he thumped me lightly on the back and rumpled up my hair, very much as if I had been a hound.

  ‘Don’t be scared, now. There’s noth­ing to be afraid of. And, any­way,’ he said, and I heard him re­lent­ing, ‘they’ve only told us that you’re to have a room up at the keep. No one’s said that you’ve got to sleep in it every night. Some nights, if things are a bit too quiet for you, you can find your way down here. Eh, fitz? Does that sound right to you?’

  ‘I sup­pose so,’ I muttered.

  Change rained fast and furi­ous on me for the next fort­night. Burrich had me up at dawn, and I was tubbed and scrubbed, the hair cut back from my eyes and the rest bound down my back in a tail such as I had seen on the older men of the keep. He told me to dress in the best cloth­ing I had, then clicked his tongue over how small it had be­come on me. With a shrug he said it would have to do.

  Then it was into the stables, where he showed me the mare that now was mine. She was grey, with a hint of dapple in her coat. Her mane and tail, nose and stock­ings were blackened as if she’d got into soot. And that, too, was her name. She was a pla­cid beast, well shaped and well cared for. A less chal­len­ging mount would be hard to ima­gine. Boy­ish, I had hoped for at least a spir­ited geld­ing. But Sooty was my mount in­stead. I tried to con­ceal my dis­ap­point­ment, but Burrich must have sensed it. ‘You don’t think she’s much, do you? Well, how much of a horse did you have yes­ter­day, fitz, that you’d turn up your nose at a will­ing, healthy beast like Sooty? She’s with foal by that nasty bay stal­lion of Lord Tem­per­ance, so see you treat her gently. Cob’s had her train­ing un­til now; he’d hoped to make a chase horse out of her. But I de­cided she’d suit you bet­ter. He’s a bit put out over it, but I’ve prom­ised him he can start again with the foal.’

  Burrich had ad­ap­ted an old saddle for me, vow­ing that re­gard­less of what the King might say, I’d have to show my­self a horse­man be­fore he’d let a new one be made for me. Sooty stepped out smoothly and answered the reins and my knees promptly. Cob had done won­der­fully with her. Her tem­pera­ment and mind re­minded me of a quiet pond. If she had thoughts, they were not about what we were do­ing, and Burrich was watch­ing me too closely for me to risk try­ing to know her mind. So I rode her blind, talk­ing to her only through my knees and the reins and the shift­ing of my weight. The phys­ical ef­fort of it ex­hausted me long be­fore my first les­son was over, and Burrich knew it. But that did not mean he ex­cused me from clean­ing and feed­ing her, and then clean­ing my saddle and tack. Every tangle was out of her mane, and the old leather shone with oil be­fore I was al­lowed to go to the kit­chens and eat.

  But as I dar­ted away to the kit­chen’s back door, Burrich’s hand fell on my shoulder.

  ‘No more of that for you,’ he told me firmly. ‘That’s fine for men-at-arms and garden­ers and such. But there’s a hall where the high folk and their spe­cial ser­vants eat. And that is where you eat now.’

  And so say­ing, he pro­pelled me into a dim room dom­in­ated by a long table, with an­other, higher table at the head of it. There were all man­ner of foods set out upon it, and folk busy at vari­ous stages of their meals. For when the King and Queen and Princes were ab­sent from the high table, as was the case today, no one stood upon form­al­it­ies.

  Burrich nudged me to a place on the left side of the table, above the mid-point but not by much. He him­self ate on the same side, but lower. I was hungry, and no one was star­ing hard enough to un­nerve me, so I made short work of a lar­gish meal. Food pilfered dir­ectly from the kit­chen had been hot­ter and fresher. But such mat­ters do not count to a grow­ing boy, and I ate well after my empty morn­ing.

  My stom­ach full, I was think­ing of a cer­tain sandy em­bank­ment, warmed by the af­ter­noon sun and re­plete with rab­bit holes, where the hound pups and I of­ten spent sleepy af­ter­noons. I star­ted to rise from the table, but im­me­di­ately there was a boy be­hind me, say­ing, ‘Mas­ter?’

  I looked around to see who he was speak­ing to, but every­one else was busy at trench­ers. He was taller than I was, and older by sev­eral sum­mers, so I stared up at him in amazement when he looked me in the eye and re­peated, ‘Mas­ter? Have you fin­ished eat­ing?’

  I bobbed my head in a nod, too sur­prised to speak.

  ‘Then you’re to come with me. Hod’s sent me. You’re ex­pec­ted for weapons prac­tice on the court this af­ter­noon. If Burrich is fin­ished with you, that is.’

  Burrich sud­denly ap­peared by my side and as­ton­ished me by go­ing down on one knee be­side me. He tugged my jer­kin straight and smoothed my hair back as he spoke.

  ‘As fin­ished as I’m likely to be for a while. Well, don’t look so startled, fitz. Did you think the King was not a man of his word? Wipe your mouth and be on your way. Hod is a sterner mas­ter than I am; tardi­ness will not be tol­er­ated on the weapons court. Hurry along with Brant, now.’

  I obeyed him with a sink­ing heart. As I fol­lowed the boy from the hall, I tried to ima­gine a mas­ter stricter than Burrich. It was a fright­en­ing idea.

  Once out­side the hall, the boy quickly dropped his fine man­ners. ‘What’s your name?’ he de­man­ded as he led me down the grav­elled path­way to the ar­moury and the prac­tice courts that fron­ted it.

  I shrugged and glanced aside, pre­tend­ing a sud­den in­terest in the shrub­bery that bordered the path.

  Brant snorted know­ingly. ‘Well, they got to call you some­thing. What’s old game-leg Burrich call you?’

  The boy’s ob­vi­ous dis­dain for Burrich so sur­prised me that I blur­ted out, ‘Fitz. He calls me fitz.’

  ‘Fitz?’ He snickered. ‘Yeah, he would. Dir­ect spoken is the old gim­per.’

  ‘A boar sav­aged his leg,’ I ex­plained. This boy spoke as if Burrich’s limp were some­thing fool­ish he did for show. For some reason, I felt stung by his mock­ery.

  ‘I know that!’ He snorted dis­dain­fully. ‘Ripped him right down to the bone. Big old tusker, was go­ing to take Chiv down, un­til Burrich got in the way. Got Burrich in­stead, and half a dozen of the hounds, is what I hear.’ We went through an open­ing in an ivy-covered wall, and the ex­er­cise courts sud­denly spread out be­fore us. ‘Chiv had gone in think­ing he just had to fin­ish the pig, when up it jumped and came after him. Snapped the Prince’s lance turn­ing on him, too, is what I hear.’

  I’d been fol­low­ing at the boy’s heels, hanging on his words when he sud­denly roun­ded on me. I was so startled I all but fell, scram­bling back­wards. The older boy laughed at me. ‘Guess it must have been Burrich’s year for tak­ing on Chiv­alry’s for­tunes, hey? That’s what I hear the men say­ing. That Burrich took Chiv­alry’s death and changed it into a lame leg for him­self, and that he took on Chiv’s bas­tard, and made a pet of him. What I’d like to know is, how come you’re to have arms train­ing all of a sud­den? Yes, and a horse too, from what I hear?’

  There was some­thing more than jeal­ousy in his tone. I have since come to know that many men al­ways see an­other’s good for­tune as a slight to them­selves. I felt his rising hos­til­ity as if I’d entered a dog’s ter­rit­ory un­an­nounced. But a dog I could have touched minds with and re­as­sured of my in­ten­tions. With Brant there was only the hos­til­ity, like a storm rising. I wondered if he were go­ing to hit me, and if he ex­pec­ted me to fight back or re­treat. I had nearly de­cided to run when a portly fig­ure dressed all in grey ap­peared be­hind Brant and took a firm grip on the back of his neck.

  ‘I hear the King said he was to have train­ing, yes, and a horse to learn horse­man­ship on. And that is enough for me, and it should be more than enough for you, Brant. And, from what I hear, you were told to fetch him here, and then to re­port to Mas­ter Tul­lume, who has er­rands for you. Isn’t that what you heard?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Brant’s pug­nacious­ness was sud­denly trans­formed into bob­bing agree­ment.

  ‘And while you’re “hear­ing” all this vi­tal gos­sip, I might point out to you that no wise man tells all he knows. And that he who car­ries tales has little else in his head. Do you un­der­stand me, Brant?’

  ‘I think so, ma’am.’

  ‘You think so? Then I shall be plainer. Stop be­ing a nosy little gos­sip and at­tend to your chores. Be di­li­gent and will­ing, and per­haps folk will start gos­sip­ing that you are my “pet”. I could see that you are kept too busy for gos­sip.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You, boy.’ Brant was already hur­ry­ing up the path as she roun­ded on me. ‘Fol­low me.’

  The old wo­man didn’t wait to see if I obeyed or not. She simply set out at a busi­ness­like walk across the open prac­tice fields that had me trot­ting to keep up. The packed earth of the field was baked hard and the sun beat down on my shoulders. Al­most in­stantly, I was sweat­ing. But the wo­man ap­peared to find no dis­com­fort in her rapid pace.

  She was dressed all in grey: a long, dark grey over-tu­nic, lighter grey leg­gings, and over all a grey ap­ron of leather that came nearly to her knees. A gardener of some sort, I sur­mised, though I wondered at the soft grey boots she wore.

  ‘I’ve been sent for les­sons … with Hod,’ I man­aged to pant out.

  She nod­ded curtly. We reached the shade of the ar­moury and my eyes widened grate­fully after the glare of the open courts.

  ‘I’m to be taught arms and weaponry,’ I told her, just in case she had mis­taken my ori­ginal words.

  She nod­ded again and pushed open a door in the barn-like struc­ture that was the outer ar­moury. Here, I knew, the prac­tice weapons were kept. The good iron and steel were up in the keep it­self. Within the ar­moury was a gentle half­light, and a slight cool­ness, along with a smell of wood and sweat and fresh strewn reeds. She did not hes­it­ate, and I fol­lowed her to a rack that sup­por­ted a sup­ply of peeled poles.

  ‘Choose one,’ she told me, the first words she’d spoken since dir­ect­ing me to fol­low her.

  ‘Hadn’t I bet­ter wait for Hod?’ I asked tim­idly.

  ‘I am Hod,’ she replied im­pa­tiently. ‘Now pick your­self a stave, boy. I want a bit of time alone with you, be­fore the oth­ers come. To see what you’re made of and what you know.’

  It did not take her long to es­tab­lish that I knew next to noth­ing, and was eas­ily daun­ted. After but a few knocks and par­ries with her own brown rod, she eas­ily caught mine a clip that sent it spin­ning from my stung hands.

  ‘Hm,’ she said, not harshly nor kindly. The same sort of noise a gardener might make over a seed potato that had a bit of blight on it. I ques­ted out to­ward her, and found the same sort of quiet­ness I’d en­countered in the mare. She had none of Burrich’s guarded­ness to­ward me. I think it was the first time I real­ized that some people, like some an­im­als, were totally un­aware of my reach­ing out to­ward them. I might have ques­ted fur­ther into her mind, ex­cept that I was so re­lieved at not find­ing any hos­til­ity that I feared to stir any. So I stood small and still be­fore her in­spec­tion.

  ‘Boy, what are you called?’ she de­man­ded sud­denly.

  Again. ‘Fitz.’

  She frowned at my soft words. I drew my­self up straighter and spoke louder. ‘Fitz is what Burrich calls me.’

  She flinched slightly. ‘He would. Calls a bitch a bitch, and a bas­tard a bas­tard, does Burrich. Well … I sup­pose I see his reas­ons. Fitz you are, and Fitz you’ll be called by me as well. Now. I shall show you why the pole you se­lec­ted was too long for you, and too thick. And then you shall se­lect an­other.’

  And she did, and I did, and she took me slowly through an ex­er­cise that seemed in­fin­itely com­plex then, but by the end of the week was no more dif­fi­cult than braid­ing my horse’s mane. We fin­ished just as the rest of her stu­dents came troop­ing in. There were four of them, all within a year or two of my age, but all more ex­per­i­enced than I. It made for an awk­ward­ness, as there were now an odd num­ber of stu­dents, and no one par­tic­u­larly wanted the new one as a spar­ring part­ner.

  Some­how I sur­vived the day, though the memory of how fades into a blessedly vague haze. I re­mem­ber how sore I was when she fi­nally dis­missed us; how the oth­ers raced up the path and back to the keep while I trailed dis­mally be­hind them, be­rat­ing my­self for ever com­ing to the King’s at­ten­tion. It was a long climb to the keep, and the hall was crowded and noisy. I was too weary to eat much. Stew and bread, I think, were all I had, and I had left the table and was limp­ing to­ward the door, think­ing only of the warmth and quiet of the stables, when Brant again ac­cos­ted me.

  ‘Your cham­ber is ready,’ was all he said.

  I shot a des­per­ate look at Burrich, but he was en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion with the man next to him. He didn’t no­tice my plea at all. So once more I found my­self fol­low­ing Brant, this time up a wide flight of stone steps, into a part of the keep I had never ex­plored.

  We paused on a land­ing, and he took up a can­de­lab­rum from a table there and kindled its tapers. ‘Royal fam­ily lives down this wing,’ he cas­u­ally in­formed me. ‘The King has a bed­room big as the stable down at the end of this hall­way.’

  I nod­ded, blindly be­liev­ing all he told me, though I later dis­covered that an er­rand boy such as Brant would never have pen­et­rated the royal wing. That would be for more im­port­ant lack­eys. Up an­other flight he took me, and again paused. ‘Vis­it­ors get rooms here,’ he said, ges­tur­ing with the light so that the wind of his mo­tion set the flames to stream­ing. ‘Im­port­ant ones, that is.’

  And up an­other flight we went, the steps per­cept­ibly nar­row­ing from the first two. At the next land­ing we paused again, and I looked with dread up an even nar­rower and steeper flight of steps. But Brant did not take me that way. In­stead we went down this new wing, three doors down, and then he slid a latch on a plank door and shouldered it open. It swung heav­ily and not smoothly. ‘Room hasn’t been used in a while,’ he ob­served cheer­ily. ‘But now it’s yours and you’re wel­come to it.’ And with that he set the can­de­lab­rum down on a chest, plucked one candle from it and left. He pulled the heavy door closed be­hind him as he went, leav­ing me in the semi-dark­ness of a large and un­fa­mil­iar room.

  Some­how I re­frained from run­ning after him or open­ing the door. In­stead, I took up the can­de­lab­rum and lit the wall sconces. Two other sets of candles set the shad­ows writh­ing back into the corners. There was a fire­place with a pi­ti­ful ef­fort at a fire in it. I poked it up a bit, more for light than for heat, and set to ex­plor­ing my new quar­ters.