To their credit, most of the passing people continued to come and go, with no more than a curious stare at the six-year-old sitting by the wall. But the cask man’s question was evidently of great interest, for more than a few heads turned, and several tradesmen who had just exited from the kitchen drew nearer to hear the answer.
But I did not have an answer. Mother had been Mother, and whatever I had known of her was already fading. So I made no reply, but only stared up at him.
“Hey. What’s your name then, boy?” And turning to his audience, he confided, “I heard he ain’t got no name. No high-flown royal name to shape him, nor even a cottage name to scold him by. That right, boy? You got a name?”
The group of onlookers was growing. A few showed pity in their eyes, but none interfered. Some of what I was feeling passed to Nosy, who dropped over onto his side and showed his belly in supplication while thumping his tail in that ancient canine signal that always means, “I’m only a puppy. I cannot defend myself. Have mercy.” Had they been dogs, they would have sniffed me over and then drawn back. But humans have no such inbred courtesies. So when I didn’t answer, the man drew a step nearer and repeated, “You got a name, boy?”
I stood slowly, and the wall that had been warm against my back a moment ago was now a chill barrier to retreat. At my feet, Nosy squirmed in the dust on his back and let out a pleading whine. “No,” I said softly, and when the man made as if to lean closer to hear my words, “NO!” I shouted, and repelled at him, while crabbing sideways along the wall. I saw him stagger a step backward, losing his grip on his cask, so that it fell to the cobbled path and cracked open. No one in the crowd could have understood what had happened. I certainly didn’t. For the most part, folk laughed to see a grown man cower back from a child. In that moment my reputation for both temper and spirit was made, for before nightfall the tale of the bastard standing up to his tormentor was all over the town. Nosy scrabbled to his feet and fled with me. I had one glimpse of Cob’s face, taut with confusion as he emerged from the kitchen, pies in hands, and saw Nosy and I flee. Had he been Burrich, I probably would have halted and trusted my safety to him. But he was not, and so I ran, letting Nosy take the lead.
We fled through the trooping servants, just one more small boy and his dog racing about in the courtyard, and Nosy took me to what he obviously regarded as the safest place in the world. Far from the kitchen and the inner keep was a hollow Vixen had scraped out under a corner of a rickety outbuilding where sacks of peas and beans were stored. Here Nosy had been whelped, in total defiance of Burrich, and here she had managed to keep her pups hidden for almost three days. Burrich himself had found her there. His smell was the first human smell Nosy could recall. It was a tight squeeze to get under the building, but once within, the den was warm and dry and semidark. Nosy huddled close to me and I put my arm around him. Hidden there, our hearts soon eased down from their wild thumpings, and from calmness we passed into the deep dreamless sleep reserved for warm spring afternoons and puppies.
I came awake shivering, hours later. It was full dark and the tenuous warmth of the early-spring day had fled. Nosy was awake as soon as I was, and together we scraped and slithered out of the den.
There was a high night sky over Buckkeep, with stars shining bright and cold. The smell of the bay was stronger as if the day smells of men and horses and cooking were temporary things that had to surrender each night to the ocean’s power. We walked down deserted pathways, through exercise yards and past granaries and the winepress. All was still and silent. As we drew closer to the inner keep I saw torches still burning and heard voices still raised in talk. But it all seemed tired somehow, the last vestiges of revelry winding down before dawn came to lighten the skies. Still, we skirted the inner keep by a wide margin, having had enough of people.
I found myself following Nosy back to the stables. As we drew near the heavy doors I wondered how we would get in. But Nosy’s tail began to wag wildly as we got closer, and then even my poor nose picked up Burrich’s scent in the dark. He rose from the wooden crate he’d been seated on by the door. “There you are,” he said soothingly. “Come along then. Come on.” And he stood and opened the heavy doors for us and led us in.
We followed him through darkness, between rows of stalls, past grooms and handlers put up for the night in the stables, and then past our own horses and dogs and the stable boys who slept amongst them, and then to a staircase that climbed the wall that separated the stables from the mews. We followed Burrich up its creaking wooden treads, and then he opened another door. Dim yellow light from a guttering candle on a table blinded me temporarily. We followed Burrich into a slant-roofed chamber that smelled of Burrich and leather and the oils and salves and herbs that were part of Burrich’s trade. He shut the door firmly behind us, and as he came past us to kindle a fresh candle from the nearly spent one on the table, I smelled the sweetness of wine on him.