Sometimes I bit my tongue. I did not like those times. They frightened Nighteyes.
And sometimes there was another with Nighteyes and me, another who thought with us. He was very small, but he was there. I did not want him there. I did not want anyone there, ever again, except Nighteyes and me. He knew that, and made himself so small that most of the time he was not there.
Later, a man came.
'A man is coming,' I told Heart of the Pack. It was dark and the fire was burning low. The good hunting time was past. Full dark was here. Soon he would make us sleep.
He did not answer me. He got up quickly and quietly and took up the big knife that was always on the table. He pointed at me to go to the corner, out of his way. He went softly to the door and waited. Outside, I heard the man stepping through the snow. Then I smelled him. 'It is the gray one,' I told him. 'Chade.'
He opened the door very quickly then, and the gray one came in. I sneezed with the scents he brought on him. Powders of dry leaves are what he always smelled like, and smokes of different kinds. He was thin and old, but Heart of the Pack always behaved as if he were pack higher. Heart of the Pack put more wood on the fire. The room got brighter, and hotter. The gray one pushed back his hood. He looked at me for a time with his light- colored eyes, as if he were waiting. Then he spoke to Heart of the Pack.
'How is he? Any better?'
Heart of the Pack moved his shoulders. 'When he smelled you, he said your name. Hasn't had a seizure in a week. Three days ago, he mended a bit of harness for me. And did a good job, too.'
'He doesn't try to chew on the leather anymore?'
'No. At least, not while I'm watching him. Besides, it's work he knows very well. It may touch something in him.' Heart of the Pack gave a short laugh. 'If nothing else, mended harness is a thing that can be sold.'
The gray one went and stood by the fire and held his hands out to it. There were spots on his hands. Heart of the Pack got out his brandy bottle. They had brandy in cups. He made me hold a cup with a little brandy in the bottom of it, but he did not make me taste it. They talked long, long, long, of things that had nothing to do with eating or sleeping or hunting. The gray one had heard something about a woman. It might be crucial, a rallying point for the duchies. Heart of the Pack said, 'I won't talk about it in front of Fitz. I promised.' The gray one asked him if he thought I understood, and Heart of the Pack said that that didn't matter, he had given his word. I wanted to go to sleep, but they made me sit still in a chair. When the old one had to leave, Heart of the Pack said, 'It is very dangerous for you to come here. So far a walk for you. Will you be able to get back in?'
The gray one just smiled. 'I have my ways, Burrich,' he said. I smiled too, remembering that he had always been proud of his secrets.
One day, Heart of the Pack went out and left me alone. He did not tie me. He just said, 'There are some oats here. If you want to eat while I'm gone, you'll have to remember how to cook them. If you go out of the door or the window, if you even open the door or the window, I will know it. And I will beat you to death. Do you understand that?'
'I do,' I said. He seemed very angry at me, but I could not remember doing anything he had told me not to do. He opened a box and took things from it. Most were round metal. Coins. One thing I remembered. It was shiny and curved like a moon, and had smelled of blood when I first got it. I had fought another for it. I could not remember that I had wanted it, but I had fought and won it. I did not want it now. He held it up on its chain to look at it, then put it in a pouch. I did not care that he took it away.
I was very, very hungry before he came back. When he did there was a smell on him. A female's smell. Not strong, and mixed with the smells of a meadow. But it was a good smell that made me want something, something that was not food or water or hunting. I came close to him to smell it, but he did not notice that. He cooked the porridge and we ate. Then he just sat before the fire, looking very, very sad. I got up and got the brandy bottle. I brought it to him with a cup. He took them from me but he did not smile. 'Maybe tomorrow I shall teach you to fetch,' he told me. 'Maybe that's something you could master.' Then he drank all the brandy that was in the bottle, and opened another bottle after that. I sat and watched him. After he fell asleep, I took his coat that had the smell on it. I put it on the floor and lay on it, smelling it until I fell asleep.
I dreamed, but it made no sense. There had been a female who smelled like Burrich's coat, and I had not wanted her to go. She was my female, but when she left, I did not follow. That was all I could remember. Remembering it was not good, in the same way that being hungry or thirsty was not good.
He was making me stay in. He had made me stay in for a long, long time, when all I wanted to do was go out. But that time it was raining, very hard, so hard the snow was almost all melted. Suddenly it seemed good not to go out. 'Burrich,' I said, and he looked up very suddenly at me. I thought he was going to attack, he moved so quickly. I tried not to cower. Cowering made him angry sometimes.
'What is it, Fitz?' he asked, and his voice was kind.
'I am hungry,' I said. 'Now.'
He gave me a big piece of meat. It was cooked, but it was a big piece. I ate it too fast and he watched me, but he did not tell me not to, or cuff me. That time.
I kept scratching at my face. At my beard. Finally, I went and stood in front of Burrich. I scratched at it in front of him. 'I don't like this,' I told him. He looked surprised. But he gave me very hot water and soap, and a very sharp knife. He gave me a round glass with a man in it. I looked at it for a long time. It made me shiver. His eyes were like Burrich's, with white around them, but even darker. Not wolf eyes. His coat was dark like Burrich's, but the hair on his jaws was uneven and rough. I touched my beard, and saw fingers on the man's face. It was strange.
'Shave, but be careful,' Burrich told me.
I could almost remember how. The smell of the soap, the hot water on my face. But the sharp, sharp blade kept cutting me. Little cuts that stung. I looked at the man in the round glass afterward. Fitz, I thought. Almost like Fitz. I was bleeding. 'I'm bleeding everywhere,' I told Burrich.
He laughed at me. 'You always bleed after you shave. You always try to hurry too much.' He took the sharp, sharp blade. 'Sit still,' he told me. 'You've missed some spots.'
I sat very still and he did not cut me. It was hard to be still when he came so near to me and looked at me so closely. When he was done, he took my chin in his hand. He tipped my face up and looked at me. He looked at me hard. 'Fitz?' he said. He turned his head and smiled at me, but then the smile faded when I just looked at him. He gave me a brush.
'There is no horse to brush,' I told him.
He looked almost pleased. 'Brush this,' he told me, and roughed up my hair. He made me brush it until it would lie flat. There were sore places on my head. Burrich frowned when he saw me wince. He took the brush away and made me stand still while he looked and touched beneath my hair. 'Bastard!' he said harshly, and when I cowered, he said, 'Not you.' He shook his head slowly. He patted me on the shoulder. 'The pain will go away with time,' he told me. He showed me how to pull my hair back and tie it with leather. It was just long enough. 'That's better,' he said. 'You look like a man again.'
I woke up from a dream, twitching and yelping. I sat up and started to cry. He came to me from his bed. 'What's wrong, Fitz? Are you all right?'
'He took me from my mother!' I said. 'He took me away from her. I was much too young to be gone from her.'
'I know,' he said, 'I know. But it was a long time ago. You're here now, and safe.' He looked almost frightened.
'He smoked the den,' I told him. 'He made my mother and brothers into hides.'
His face changed and his voice was no longer kind. 'No, Fitz. That was not your mother. That was a wolf's dream. Nighteyes. It might have happened to Nighteyes. But not you.'
'Oh, yes, it did,' I told him, and I was suddenly angry. 'Oh, yes it did, and it felt just the same. Just the same.' I got up from my bed and walked around the room. I walked for a very long time, until I could stop feeling that feeling again. He sat and watched me. He drank a lot of brandy while I walked.
One day in spring I stood looking out of the window. The world smelled good, alive and new. I stretched and rolled my shoulders. I heard my bones crackle together. 'It would be a good morning to go out riding,' I said. I turned to look at Burrich. He was stirring porridge in a kettle over the fire. He came and stood beside me.
'It's still winter up in the Mountains,' he said softly. 'I wonder if Kettricken got home safely.'
'If she didn't, it wasn't Sooty's fault,' I said. Then something turned over and hurt inside me, so that for a
