by Robin Hobb
He groaned, his chest rising and falling with it. His eyes fluttered a bit and then opened. “Big cat got me,” he said, as if I’d asked him. “I’d just downed a fat grouse. I was plucking it. Cat decided that me and the bird would make a nice meal for him.”
“Let’s get you down the hill and into the house.”
“I got to get to Gettys. I was due there today. Supposed to report in.”
I took his shoulders and raised him to a sitting position. He silently snarled his pain as I did so. “You’re a scout?”
He caught a ragged breath. “Lieutenant Buel Hitch.” He grunted with pain, and then found breath to speak again. “And by the king’s authority, I can order you to help me. I got to get to Gettys.”
“You don’t have to order me. I’d help you anyway.”
“I’m sure you would,” he replied with tight sarcasm. “You just love the king and his soldiers, don’t you?”
“I am loyal to my king. And as a second son, it is my fate to be a soldier. Not that I’ve had much success at it. But if you have finished insulting me, I’ll take you down to where your injuries can be cleaned and properly tended.”
He looked at me for a few moments. His hoarse breath sawed in and out of him. Then he said, “You’re no convict. What are you doing in Dead Town?”
“I was passing through on my way to Gettys. I ran out of supplies. So I stopped for a few days, to barter work for food.”
“This town, I’m surprised you got anything at all for your trouble, other than a rock behind the ear. Stoop down and let me get my arm across your shoulders. You’re a big one, aren’t you?”
There seemed little need to reply to that observation. I did as he asked, and once he had his grip, I grasped his belt and raised him to his feet. He swayed against me. I carried most of his weight, but he tried to walk. He gasped and groaned as we tottered along. It was slow progress down the hill. I glanced back to see his horse following us.
Halfway across the stump field, I shouted for Amzil to put water on to boil. I called twice before she came to the door of the cottage. Her eyes widened, and she darted back inside. When we approached the door, I was shocked to see her standing in it, her huge gun once more leveled at my midsection. “What?” I asked her.
“You’re not bringing him in here.” She spoke the words flatly.
“But he’s hurt.”
“This is my home. I’ve my children to protect. You’re not bringing that stranger in here.”
I just shook my head at her. Then I turned and started limping him toward the other hut I’d inspected that morning. “Put my panniers outside your door, then,” I said, and did not bother to hide the disgust in my voice. Behind me, I heard the door of her cottage slam shut.
I took Lieutenant Hitch into the cottage that had the sound fireplace. I eased him down, and then went to the shed for Clove’s saddle blanket. I made it into a flat pallet and then fetched kindling and firewood from the pile I’d made for Amzil. My panniers were outside her closed door, along with a tumble of my other possessions I’d left inside her home. The message was plain. I carried them all back to the hut where the soldier waited.
“Looks like you pissed her off right good,” he observed. I couldn’t tell if he was grinning or gritting his teeth with pain.
“It’s a talent I have with women,” I told him.
He hissed through his teeth and then fell silent.
I made a fire, and then fetched water and set my small pan over the flames. When the fire had warmed the room a little and the water was hot, I helped him undress.
I tended the minor wounds first, washing the ragged scratches as best I could. Every one of them was warm to the touch and suppurating. He hissed and swore as I washed them clean. The deeper ones bled a bit.
When I reached to undo the bandage on his chest, he stopped my hand with his. “Got anything to eat or drink?” he asked me shakily. “I could do with a bit of fortifying before we take this on.”
“I think I have a little bit of tea left. That’s about it out of what I can call mine.”
“That would be good, then. There’s some dried meat in my saddlebags. Could you bring them in?”
I took the saddlebags from his horse’s back, and then slipped his bit so he could graze easily on the weeds between the huts, carefully moving him away from the half-choked vegetable garden. As I passed the garden again, I found two overgrown carrots and tugged them from the ground. When I carried them into the cabin, the lieutenant looked at me curiously. “Soup,” I explained. “They’re too tough to eat any other way. With the dried meat tossed in, they ought to stew up fine.”
That was easier said then done. They were so woody I had to chop them up with my hatchet. I cut them fine and tossed them in a pot of hot water. I then went into Hitch’s saddlebag. He watched me, and as I took out a large packet tightly wrapped in several layers of oilcloth, he said, “No. Not that one. Put that one back.” The second packet, wrapped in greasy brown paper, proved to be the smoked meat. I took a slab of it the size of my hand, chopped it fine, and added it to my carrots. By then my kettle was boiling. I made the lieutenant a cup of hot tea and waited while he drank it. When he set down the empty mug, he nodded to me. “Let’s get at it,” he said grimly.
I took out my untouched medical kit. Hitch’s eyes widened at the sight of it. He clenched his teeth as he watched me dissolve the healing salts in the hot water; he knew how they would burn and sting, but also knew they were necessary. The bandaged claw slash across his chest was a nasty one. The cat’s claws had gone deep and the wound, unbandaged, gaped open. It, too, was festering. I washed it out with the warm salted water, an operation that left Hitch hammering his fist against the dirt floor. He swore, but did not cry out with the pain. “It should have been stitched,” I said. “I think it’s too late to do it now.”
“I know that. Do you think I’m an idiot? Or that I could have stitched myself up one-handed out there in the dark?”
I bit my tongue and made no reply. Instead I smeared the edges with salve and rebandaged it more firmly, strapping the flesh back in place and hoping it would find a way to heal together. The gash on his arm was similar, deep and gaping and oozing pus. The smell was foul; my gorge rose. Breathing through my mouth didn’t help. I gritted my teeth against my nausea and treated the arm wound as I had his chest. It used up the last of my bandaging and salve from home.
“You’re a well-prepared traveler,” Hitch said tightly. Sweat beaded on his face from the pain he’d endured.
“I was,” I said with scant humor.
“Don’t worry. When we get to Gettys, I’ll see that everything you used for me is replaced.”
“When we get to Gettys?”
“You said you’d help me. Even if I didn’t demand it of you. Well, I’ve got to get to Gettys. And I know damn well that I won’t get there on my own. You’ll have to go with me.”
The soup was beginning to bubble. I could smell the dried smoked meat and the carrots simmering. I stirred it a bit. I looked around the room. I could still see the possibilities there. I knew they didn’t belong to me. “I’ll take you.”
He gave a short nod. “I want to rest for the rest of the day and the night. And then we’ll start at dawn. You’ve done a good job on me, but I know these things will pus up again in no time. There’s a doctor at the fort. He’s my best chance. Is that soup done yet?”
“How good are your teeth?”
“Good enough. I’m famished.”
I gave him my bowl. I ate from the pot. The carrots were hard and stringy, but they still tasted good to me. I ate as my habit prompted me, carefully, savoring every bit. I drank the hot broth slowly, closing my eyes as it passed over my tongue and down my throat. I felt the warmth of it reach my belly. I opened my eyes and saw the bottom of the pot. I lowered it to find Hitch staring at me. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
“Where did you come from?” he asked me, and it seemed like more than a re
quest for my hometown.
“Back west,” I told him, and found I didn’t want to tell him even that much. I used my favorite trick to shift his thoughts away from me. “What happened to the cat that attacked you?”
He grinned humorlessly. “It won. I broke free of it and ran. Luckily, it let me go. I suppose it decided the dead bird was enough. When I got back to my camp and my horse, I fixed myself up as best as I could, and then headed back toward the road. That was four days ago. No, five. Four? Four, I think.”
He pursed his lips for a moment and continued to regard me steadily. I stood up. He asked, “Can you get my sleeping roll for me? I’m going to rest now.”
“Good plan. I’ll build up the fire for you.”
“Thanks.”
I got him settled, built up the fire, and then left, shutting the door behind me. Outside the cabin, I wiped my hands down the front of my trousers and heaved a huge sigh. My feet had carried me to Amzil’s door. I didn’t knock on it or try to open it. I stood outside and announced, “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I have to get that man to Gettys so his wounds can be treated by a doctor.”
She didn’t reply. I could hear the children inside, their higher voices raised querulously. I turned to walk away. Behind me, I heard the door open a crack. “You think I’m a terrible person,” she accused me.
I thought and then replied, “I think you’re very afraid. And that makes you hard.”
“Hard is better than dead, or raped and left for dead.”
“That man was injured. He was no threat to you.”
“He was a soldier, a scout. I’ve seen him before. And I know that where one soldier is, others follow. If I’d let him in and he died, I’d have been blamed. Better to have nothing to do with him.”
“He’s a human being in need, Amzil. How can you just turn your back on that?”
“Just like they done it to me. That’s how. How many times have soldiers ridden through here? At first, when my husband was dying, I asked for help. They told me I’d brought my own troubles on myself, marrying a convict and having his babies. Well, that’s what I say to that soldier now. Whatever happened to him, he brought it on himself, by riding about being a soldier.”
It was true, so I couldn’t argue with her. I no longer saw the point of arguing with her at all. “I’ll be taking him on to Gettys tomorrow morning,” I said.
Her mouth went sullen. Almost angrily, she asked, “And what about all your fine talk of building an inn here, and taking trade from the road and all that? What about that?”
I was startled. “You told me it wouldn’t work. You gave me a dozen reasons why it was a stupid idea.”
“If I was trying to do it alone, then, yes. But if a man were running it, even a man like you, travelers might respect it. It might work then.”
Even a man like me. A fat man like me, that was what she meant. Scarcely a man at all in her eyes, but big enough to be scary. I looked away from her. “I have to take him to Gettys. If I don’t, he’ll die from infection. He might still die.”
“Then why bother?”
“Because he’s a soldier. And I’m a second son. I’m meant to be a soldier.”
“You never told me that.” She spoke as if I had lied to her.
I felt her eyes run over me, and knew how unlikely she thought it that I’d ever be anything of the kind. I admitted it. “Well, I’m not exactly what any commander wants when he thinks of a recruit. Nonetheless, the good god made me a second son. My plan was always to go to Gettys, to see if they’d accept me as a recruit. If I can serve as a soldier, I will.”
“So you’ll just ride off and leave tomorrow.”
I wanted her to ask me to stay. Or at least, invite me to come back. I stood straight before her, meeting her eyes as I looked down at her, and wondered if she even guessed at what I hoped. “I have to take him to Gettys.”
She looked away from me, as if there were something important on the hillside behind me. I knew there wasn’t. “You’ve helped me a lot in the time you’ve been here.” She paused, wet her lips, and then said, “The children will miss you.”
“I’ll miss them,” I said sadly, and found it was not just a nicety. I would miss them. But Amzil would not say she would miss me, nor ask me to stay or if I might come back. “Thank you,” she called to my back when I had gone a dozen steps. “For the meat, you know. And the firewood.”
“You’re welcome.” I shifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Thanks for the roof and the fireplace. And for sewing my clothes.”
“They look much better on you now.” She called the words after me.
“Thanks,” I said, not calling the word out, but loud enough that she would know I had said it. I walked back to the cottage that might have made a good common room for an inn. Hitch was still sleeping. His face was slack, his mouth ajar. I put water within easy reach of him, took my sling, and went out and up the hill.
I hunted until dusk. “I owe her,” I said aloud to the magic. “If she hadn’t let me rest here, do you think my horse would have lasted? If I hadn’t taken the time here to rest myself, and eat decently, do you think I’d be on my way to Gettys now? No. I’d be dead by the road somewhere. I owe her and I want to pay her.”
I waited to feel something, that tingling stir of my blood that came when the magic moved through me. Nothing happened. I hunted anyway. I missed the first rabbit I saw, and a tree trunk deflected my missile from the second. It was not the right time of day for hunting. And I’d been a fool to think I could wield the magic. An hour later, I decided I’d been a fool to believe in it at all. There had been coincidences and I’d had nightmares. My faith and my rationality chased one another in circles until I was certain that I was a fool to attempt to know the truth of anything.
When I saw the deer, I cursed the fate that had made my father withhold my weapons from me. He was not a large animal; probably he was a yearling. I looked away from him, recalling that Dewara had told me that any prey could feel the stare of a hunter’s eyes. I mouthed my new words silently. “I need food for my journey to the territory of the Specks.”
There was a rock in my sling, smooth and hefty. It would easily have stunned a rabbit or a bird. It would not kill a deer. When I moved my arm to wind up momentum for the sling, the deer would startle and be gone. I knew there was no magic in me, no magic anywhere. I was merely a fat man, my body the freakishly rare result of my exposure to Speck plague. My heart thundered in my chest as I let the stone fly.
It hit the young buck just above his left eye. I heard the crack of stone against bone. The animal started, and a tremor ran through him. He took two steps. His front legs folded under him as if he were going to bed down for the night. He sank down. With a heavier crash, his hind legs teetered under him and he fell. His entire body gave a jerk.
I did not wait. I rushed forward, running down the hill at him, drawing my sheath knife as I ran. I turned one ankle slightly, hit a sapling with my shoulder, and plunged on. When I finally reached him, he was trying to get up. I fell on him. Using every bit of my strength, I punched my knife into his throat just behind the curve of his jawbone. He gave a wild leap and an inhuman cry of pain. I threw my weight on him then, and held him down as I sawed with my knife, groping for some vital artery. He tossed his head wildly, crashing his skull into mine. I shouted wordlessly and worked the knife in him. A leap of bright red blood rewarded me. Still, his hind legs kicked and it was some moments before he subsided into death.
Panting, I rolled off him, feeling shaken and bruised. For a time, I lay on my back next to the dead yearling, staring up at a blue sky through yellow leaves. I tried to decide if I’d been lucky, or if magic had prevailed. I decided that as long as it came down to having meat, I didn’t care.
Dragging the dead deer through the forest was a trial that I shall never forget. It would have been a task even if I’d been my old fit self. It had no antlers to drag it by, only nubby spikes. I tried hauling it by the hind feet, but the grai
n of its hair created more drag than I would have thought possible. I ended up gripping the front feet and dragging it that way, with the head flopping about and snagging on every imaginable obstacle. As soon as I had it to the edge of the stump field, I left it and went back to the door of Amzil’s house.
“I’ve killed a deer,” I said to the closed door. “If you help me butcher it, I’ll leave you a goodly share. But some I’ve got to take with me, to travel on.”
“A deer?” The door all but flew open. “How did you kill a deer?”
“With a rock,” I replied.
“That’s impossible,” she said.
“I used my magic to help me,” I answered, and she took that for a joke.
I gutted the deer and cut its head off. I gave the liver, heart, kidneys, and tongue over to Amzil, since they were best used fresh. With the hide still on to keep flies off it, I hung the animal, head down, in the shed to bleed. Even with a small deer, it was a lot of work. I left it with the dark blood dripping onto the earth floor. I got my extra set of clothing from my panniers. Hitch slept on. I went down to the river to wash.
I was sweating and sticky with blood. I gritted my teeth against the chill, stripped, and waded out into the river to wash myself. It was an unpleasant experience. I realized that it had been some time since I’d washed myself, not because I enjoyed being dirty but because I’d been avoiding my own body. I used sand from the riverbank to scrub myself. In some places, I had to lift my flesh to wash in the deep fold beneath it. There were sweat scalds under my arms and starting between my thighs, the result of the afternoon’s endeavors. My navel had retreated into a deep dent in my belly. A second pouch of fat beneath my belly had formed over my genitals. My buttocks sagged, and my chest was fleshy with breast fat. The experience of washing my own body shamed away any triumph I might have felt in taking the deer. If this sagging fleshy body was the price of having magic, I didn’t want it. It was small good to me. It only answered at its own fickle will, and then only if what I was attempting benefited its command for me. This magic offered me no power, only a tether to people and forces that I did not understand.
