Assassin's Apprentice

The moon was high when Burrich rolled me gently over. The Fool held high a torch and Smithy capered and danced about his feet. Burrich gathered me up and stood, as if I were still a child just given into his care. I had a glimpse of his dark face, but read nothing there. He carried me down the long stone staircase, and the Fool bore the torch to light the way. And he took me out of the keep, and back to the stables, and up to his room. There the Fool left Burrich and Smithy and me, and I do not recall that there had been one word spoken. Burrich set me down on his own bed, and then dragged it, bedstead and all, closer to the fire. With returning warmth came great pain, and I gave my body over to Burrich, my soul to Smithy, and let go of my mind for a long while.

I opened my eyes to night. I knew not which one.

Burrich sat next to me still, undozing, not even slumped in his chair. I felt the strictures of bandaging on my ribs. I lifted a hand to touch it, but was baffled by two splinted fingers. Burrich's eyes followed my motion. "They were swollen with more than cold. Too swollen for me to tell if they were breaks, or just sprains. I splinted them in case. I suspect they're just sprained. I think if they were broken, the pain of my working on them would have wakened even you.

He spoke calmly, as if telling me that he had purged a new dog for worms as a preventive against contagion. And just as his steady voice and calm touch had worked on a frantic animal, so it worked on me. I relaxed, thinking that if he were calm, not much could be wrong. He slipped a finger under the bandages supporting my ribs, checking the tightness. "What happened?" he asked, and turned aside from me to pick up a cup of tea as he spoke, as if the question and my answer were of no great import.

I pushed my mind back over the last few weeks, tried to find a way to explain. Events danced in my mind, slipped away from me. I remembered only defeat. "Galen tested me," I said slowly. "I failed. And he punished me for it." And with my words, a wave of dejection, shame, and guilt swept over me, washing away the brief comfort I had taken in the familiar surroundings. On the hearth, a sleeping Smithy abruptly waked and sat up. Reflexively, I quieted him before he could whine. Lay down. Rest. It's all right. To my relief, he did so. And to my greater relief, Burrich seemed unaware of what had passed between us. He offered me the cup.

"Drink this. You need water in you, and the herbs will deaden the pain and let you sleep. Drink it all, now."

"It stinks," I told him, and he nodded, and held the cup my hands were too bruised to curl around. I drank it all and then lay back.

"That was all?" he asked carefully, and I knew to what he referred. "He tested you on a thing he had taught you, and you did not know it. So he did this to you?"

"I could not do it. I didn't have the ... self-discipline. So he punished me." Details eluded me. Shame washed over me, drowning me in misery.

"No one is taught self-discipline by beating him half to death." Burrich spoke carefully, stating the truth for an idiot. His movements were very precise as he set the cup back on the table.

"It was not to teach me ... I don't think he believes I can be taught. It was to show the others what would happen if they failed."

"Very little worth knowing is taught by fear," Burrich said stubbornly. And, more warmly: "It's a poor teacher who tries to instruct by blows and threats. Imagine taming a horse that way. Or a dog. Even the most knot-headed dog learns better from an open hand than a stick."

"You've struck me before, when trying to teach me something."

"Yes. Yes, I have. But to jolt, or warn, or awaken. Not to damage. Never to break a bone or blind an eye or cripple a hand. Never. Never say to anyone that I've struck you, or any creature in my care, that way, for it's not true." He was indignant that I could even have suggested it.

"No. You're right about that." I tried to think how I could make Burrich understand why I had been punished. "But this was different, Burrich. A different kind of learning, a different kind of teaching." I felt compelled to defend Galen's justice. I tried to explain. "I deserved this, Burrich. The fault was not with his teaching. I failed to learn. I tried. I did try. But like Galen, I believe there is a reason the Skill is not taught to bastards. There is a taint in me, a fatal weakness."

"Horseshit."

"No. Think on it, Burrich. If you breed a scrub mare to a fine stud, the colt you get is as likely to get the weakness of the mother as the fineness of the father."

The silence was long. Then: "I doubt much that your father would have laid down beside a woman that was a 'scrub.' Without some fineness, some sign of spirit or intelligence, he would not. He could not."

"I've heard it said he was tranced by a mountain witch woman." For the first time I repeated a tale I'd heard whispered often.