Assassin’s Quest. Робин Хобб

      ‘No. It’s bad brandy. Blackberry brandy, very cheap. I used to hate it, you used to like it.’

      I snorted out the smell. ‘We have never liked it.’

      He set the bottle and the cup down on the table. He got up and went to the window. He opened it again. ‘Go hunting, I said!’ I felt Nighteyes jump and then run away. Nighteyes is as afraid of Heart of the Pack as I am. Once I attacked Heart of the Pack. I had been sick for a long time, but then I was better. I wished to go out to hunt and he would not let me. He stood before the door and I sprang on him. He hit me with his fist, and then held me down. He is not bigger than I. But he is meaner, and more clever. He knows many ways to hold and most of them hurt. He held me on the floor, on my back, with my throat bared and waiting for his teeth, for a long, long time. Every time I moved, he cuffed me. Nighteyes had snarled outside the house, but not very close to the door, and he had not tried to come in. When I whined for mercy, he struck me again. ‘Be quiet!’ he said. When I was quiet, he told me, ‘You are younger. I am older and I know more. I fight better than you do, I hunt better than you do. I am always above you. You will do everything I want you to do. You will do everything I tell you to do. Do you understand that?’

      Yes, I had told him. Yes, yes, that is pack, I understand, I understand. But he had only struck me again and held me there, throat wide, until I told him with my mouth, ‘Yes, I understand.’

      When Heart of the Pack came back to the table, he put brandy in my cup. He set it in front of me, where I would have to smell it. I snorted.

      ‘Try it,’ he urged me. ‘Just a little. You used to like it. You used to drink it in town, when you were younger and not supposed to go into taverns without me. And then you would chew mint, and think I would not know what you had done.’

      I shook my head at him. ‘I would not do what you told me not to do. I understood.’

      He made his sound that is like choking and sneezing. ‘Oh, you used to very often do what I had told you not to do. Very often.’

      I shook my head again. ‘I do not remember it.’

      ‘Not yet. But you will.’ He pointed at the brandy again. ‘Go on. Taste it. Just a little bit. It might do you good.’

      And because he had told me I must, I tasted it. It stung my mouth and nose, and I could not snort the taste away. I spilled what was left in the cup.

      ‘Well. Wouldn’t Patience be pleased,’ was all he said. And then he made me get a cloth and clean what I had spilled. And clean the dishes in water and wipe them dry, too.

      Sometimes I would shake and fall down. There was no reason. Heart of the Pack would try to hold me still. Sometimes the shaking made me fall asleep. When I awakened later, I ached. My chest hurt, my back hurt. 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 grey one,’ I told him. ‘Chade.’

      He opened the door very quickly then, and the grey 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 grey one pushed back his hood. He looked at me for a time with his light-coloured 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 any more?’

      ‘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 grey 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 grey 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 grey 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 grey 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