The mantel door scraping open saved me. Thick entered, sneezing. He wore the whistle outside his shirt. The contrast between the shiny paint on the whistle and the ragged, grimy garment suddenly made me see him anew. I was appalled. His lank hair was flat to his head, and the flesh that showed through his rent garments was grimy. I suddenly perceived him as Dutiful did, and realized that the Prince’s abhorrence went past the man’s physical deformity and mental limits. Dutiful literally drew back as Thick came closer, his nose wrinkling. My years with the wolf had led me to accept that certain things smelled certain ways. But the reek of Thick’s unwashed body was not simply a part of him as intrinsic as the ferret’s musk. It could be changed, and it would have to be changed if I expected the Prince to work with him.
For now, “Thick, would you sit here?” I invited him, and drew out the chair farthest from the Prince. Thick looked at me suspiciously. Then he dragged it out, looked at the seat as if there might be some trick to it, and then plopped down into it. He began to scratch at something behind his left ear. When I glanced at the Prince, he seemed transfixed with a horrified fascination. “Well. Here we all are,” I announced, and then wondered what I was going to do with them.
Thick’s eyes wandered to me. “That girl’s crying again,” he informed me, as if it were my fault.
“Well. I’ll attend to that later,” I told him firmly as my heart gave a lurch.
“What girl?” the Prince instantly demanded.
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Thick, let’s not talk about the girl just now. We’re here to do lessons.
Thick slowly stopped scratching. He dropped his hand to the tabletop and stared at me earnestly. “Why you do that? Talk in my head like that?”
“To see if I could make you hear me.”
He sniffed thoughtfully. “I heard you.” Dogstink.
Don’t do that to me.
“Are you Skilling to each other?” the Prince asked with earnest curiosity.
“Yes.”
“Then why can’t I hear it?”
“Because we are selecting only one another to Skill to.”
The Prince’s brow furrowed. “How did he learn to do that when I cannot?”
“I don’t know,” I had to admit. “Thick seems to have developed his Skill abilities on his own. I don’t really know all he can and can’t do with them.”
“Can he stop making that music all the time?”
I unfolded my own Skill awareness. I hadn’t realized that I had been straining Thick’s thoughts free of the music that surrounded them. I turned to him now. “Thick, can you stop making the music? Can you think only the thoughts to me, without the music?”
He looked at me blankly. “Music?”
“Your mothersong. Can you make it be quiet?”
He considered this for a time, chewing on his fat little tongue. “No,” he decided abruptly.
“Why can’t you stop the music?” the Prince demanded. He had been sitting quietly. I suspected he had been trying to sort through the music and see if he could pick Thick and me out Skilling to one another. He sounded frustrated. Frustrated, and jealous.
Thick looked at him, a look both dull and uncaring. “I don’t want to.” He looked away from the Prince and went back to scratching behind his ear.
Dutiful looked shocked. He took a breath. “And if, as your prince, I command it?” There was suppressed fury in his voice.
Thick looked at him. Then he swung his gaze to me. His tongue thrust out a bit farther as he pondered something. Then he asked me, “Both students here?”
I had not expected that from Thick. I hadn’t expected him to hold tenaciously to that idea, let alone apply it. It gave me both new hopes and new fears. “Both students here,” I confirmed for him. He sagged back in his chair and crossed his stubby arms on his chest.
“And I am the teacher,” I continued. “And students obey the teacher. Thick. Can you stop your music?”
He looked at me for a time. “Don’t want to,” he said, but in a different tone.
“Perhaps not. But I am the teacher and you are the student. The student obeys the teacher.”
“Students obey, like servants?” He stood up to go.
It was hopeless but I tried anyway. “Students obey like students. So they can learn. So everyone can learn. If Thick obeys, then Thick is still a student. If Thick won’t obey, then Thick is not a student. Then we send Thick away, to be a servant instead.”