and pup, we sat, watching Burrich's stillness. When he finally raised his face, I was astounded to see that he looked as if he had been crying. Like my mother, I remember thinking, but oddly I cannot now recall an image of her weeping. Only of Burrich's grieved face.
'Fitz. Boy. Come here,' he said softly, and this time there was something in his voice that could not be disobeyed. I rose and went to him, Nosy at my heels. 'No,' he said to the pup, and pointed to a place by his boot, but me he lifted onto the bench beside him.
'Fitz,' he began, and then paused. He took a deep breath and started again. 'Fitz, this is wrong. It's bad, very bad, what you've been doing with this pup. It's unnatural. It's worse than stealing or lying. It makes a man less than a man. Do you understand me?'
I looked at him blankly. He sighed and tried again.
'Boy, you're of the royal blood. Bastard or not, you're Chivalry's own son, of the old line. And this thing you're doing, it's wrong. It's not worthy of you. Do you understand?'
I shook my head mutely.
'There, you see. You're not talking anymore. Now talk to me. Who taught you to do this?'
I tried. 'Do what?' My voice felt creaky and rough.
Burrich's eyes grew rounder. I sensed his effort at control. 'You know what I mean. Who taught you to be with the dog, in his mind, seeing things with him, letting him see with you, telling each other things?'
I mulled this over for a moment. Yes, that was what had been happening. 'No one,' I answered at last. 'It just happened. We were together a lot,' I added, thinking that might explain it.
Burrich regarded me gravely. 'You don't speak like a child,' he observed suddenly. 'But I've heard that was the way of it, with those who had the old Wit. That from the beginning, they were never truly children. They always knew too much, and as they got older they knew even more. That was why it was never accounted a crime, in the old days, to hunt them down and burn them. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Fitz?'
I shook my head, and when he frowned at my silence, I forced myself to add, 'But I'm trying. What is the old Wit?'
Burrich looked incredulous, then suspicious. 'Boy!' he threatened me, but I only looked at him. After a moment he conceded my ignorance.
'The old Wit,' he began slowly. His face darkened, and he looked down at his hands as if remembering an old sin. 'It's the power of the beast blood, just as the Skill comes from the line of kings. It starts out like a blessing, giving you the tongues of the animals. But then it seizes you and draws you down, makes you a beast like the rest of them. Until finally there's not a shred of humanity in you, and you run and give tongue and taste blood, as if the pack were all you had ever known. Until no man could look on you and think you had ever been a man.' His voice had gotten lower and lower as he spoke, and he had not looked at me, but had turned to the fire and stared into the failing flames there. 'There's some as say a man takes on the shape of a beast then, but he kills with a man's passion rather than a beast's simple hunger. Kills for the killing ...
'Is that what you want, Fitz? To take the blood of kings that's in you, and drown it in the blood of the wild hunt?
To be as a beast among beasts, simply for the sake of the knowledge it brings you? Worse yet, think on what comes before. Will the scent of fresh blood touch off your temper, will the sight of prey shut down your thoughts?' His voice grew softer still, and I heard the sickness he felt as he asked me, 'Will you wake fevered and asweat because somewhere a bitch is in season and your companion scents it? Will that be the knowledge you take to your lady's bed?'
I sat small beside him. 'I do not know,' I said in a little voice.
He turned to face me, outraged. 'You don't know?' he growled. 'I tell you where it will lead, and you say you don't know?'
My tongue was dry in my mouth and Nosy cowered at my feet. 'But I don't know,' I protested. 'How can I know what I'll do, until I've done it? How can I say?'
'Well, if you can't say, I can!' he roared, and I sensed then in full how he had banked the fires of his temper, and also how much he'd drunk that night. 'The pup goes and you stay. You stay here, in my care, where I can keep an eye on you. If Chivalry will not have me with him, it's the least I can do for him. I'll see that his son grows up a man, and not a wolf. I'll do it if it kills the both of us!'
He lurched from the bench, to seize Nosy by the scruff of the neck. At least, such was his intention. But the pup and I sprang clear of him. Together we rushed for the door, but the latch was fastened, and before I could work it, Burrich was upon us. Nosy he shoved aside with his boot; me he seized by a shoulder and propelled me away from the door. 'Come here, pup,' he commanded, but Nosy fled to my side. Burrich stood panting and glaring by the door, and I caught the growling undercurrent of his thoughts, the fury that taunted him to smash us both and be done with it. Control overlaid it, but that brief glimpse was enough to terrify me. And when he suddenly sprang at us, I repelled at him with all the force of my fear.
He dropped as suddenly as a bird stoned in flight and sat for a moment on the floor. I stooped and clutched Nosy to me. Burrich slowly shook his head as if shaking raindrops from his hair. He stood, towering over us. 'It's in his blood,' I heard him mutter to himself. 'From his damned mother's blood, and I shouldn't be surprised. But the boy has to be taught.' And then, as he looked me full in the eye, he warned me, 'Fitz. Never do that to me again. Never. Now give me that pup.'
He advanced on us again, and as I felt the lap of his hidden wrath, I could not contain myself. I repelled at him again. But this time my defense was met by a wall that hurled it back at me, so that I stumbled and sank down, almost fainting, my mind pressed down by blackness. Burrich stooped over me. 'I warned you,' he said softly, and his voice was like the growling of a wolf. Then, for the last time, I felt his fingers grip Nosy's scruff. He lifted the pup bodily and carried him, not roughly, to the door. The latch that had eluded me he worked swiftly, and in moments I heard the heavy tromp of his boots down the stair.
In a moment I had recovered and was up, flinging myself against the door. But Burrich had locked it somehow, for I scrabbled vainly at the catch. My sense of Nosy receded as he was carried farther and farther from me, leaving in its place a desperate loneliness. I whimpered, then howled, clawing at the door and seeking after my contact with him. There was a sudden flash of red pain, and Nosy was gone. As his canine senses deserted me completely. I screamed and cried as any six-year-old might, and hammered vainly at the thick wood planks.
It seemed hours before Burrich returned. I heard his step and lifted my head from where I lay panting and exhausted on the doorstep. He opened the door and then caught me deftly by the back of my shirt as I tried to dart past him. He jerked me back into the room and then slammed the door and fastened it again. I flung myself wordlessly against it, and a whimpering rose in my throat. Burrich sat down wearily.
'Don't even think it, boy,' he cautioned me, as if he could hear my wild plans for the next time he let me out.
'He's gone. The pup's gone, and a damn shame, for he was good blood. His line was nearly as long as yours. But I'd rather waste a hound than a man.' When I did not move, he added, almost kindly, 'Let go of longing after him. It hurts less, that way.'
But I did not, and I could hear in his voice that he hadn't really expected me to. He sighed, and moved slowly as he readied himself for bed. He didn't speak to me again, just extinguished the lamp and settled himself on his bed. But he did not sleep, and it was still hours short of morning when he rose and lifted me from the floor and placed me in the warm place his body had left in the blankets. He went out again and did not return for some hours.
As for me, I was heartsick and feverish for days. Burrich, I believe, let it be known that I had some childish ailment, and so I was left in peace. It was days before I was allowed out again, and then it was not on my own.
Afterward, Burrich took pains to see that I was given no chance to bond with any beast. I am sure he thought he'd succeeded, and to some extent he did, in that I did not form an exclusive bond with any hound or horse. I know he meant well. But I did not feel protected by him, but confined. He was the warden that ensured my isolation with fanatical fervor. Utter loneliness was planted in me then, and sent its deep roots down into me.
CHAPTER THREE. Covenant
THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF the Skill will probably remain forever shrouded in mystery. Certainly a penchant for
