Soul of the Fire

Fitch nodded. He hadn't meant to be disrespectful-that was the last thing he would want to do; he owed everything to the Anders. But every now and then, he felt the Anders took offense too easily, though he knew it was his insensitivity and ignorance that lead to such misunderstandings, so he guessed he had no one to blame but himself.

As soon as the cauldron was hung, Fitch rolled his eyes and hung his tongue out the side of his mouth, intimating to Morley that they would drink themselves sick that night. Morley swiped his red Haken hair back from his face and simulated a drunken, if silent, hiccup before plunging his arms back into the soapy water.

Smiling, Fitch trotted out the postern to retrieve the firewood. The recent drenching rains had moved east, leaving behind the sweet aroma of fresh, damp earth. The new spring day promised to be warm. In the distance, the lush fields of verdant new wheat shimmered in the sun. On some days, when the wind was from the south, the smell of the.sea drifted in to wash over the fields, but not today, though a few gulls wheeled in the sky.

Fitch checked the avenue each time he trotted back out for another armload, but didn't see the butcher's cart. His tunic was damp with sweat by the time he'd finished with the oak. He'd managed to hustle it in with only one splinter, a long one, in the web of his thumb.

As he plucked billets from the mound of apple wood, he caught the rhythmic creaking of an approaching cart. Sucking at the painful oak splinter, trying unsuccessfully to catch hold of the buried end with his teeth, he surreptitiously glanced to the shade of the great oaks lining the long avenue into the estate and saw the plodding gait of Brownie, the butcher's swayback horse. Whoever was bringing the load was on the other side of the cart. With that, and the distance, he couldn't tell who it was.

Besides the butcher's cart, a number of other people were also arriving at the sprawling estate; everyone from scholars visiting the Anderith Library, to servants bringing messages and reports, to workers bringing wagons with deliveries. There were also a number of well-dressed people coming with some other purpose.

When first Fitch had come to work in the kitchen, he had found it, and the whole estate, a huge and baffling place. He had been intimidated by everyone and everything, knowing it would be his new home and he had to learn to fit into the work if he was to have a sleeping pallet and food.

His mother had told him to work hard and with luck he would always have both. She had warned him to mind his betters, do as he was told, and even if he thought the rules harsh, follow them. She said that if the behests were onerous, he should still do them without comment, and especially without complaint.

Fitch didn't have a father, one he knew anyway, though at times there had been men he'd thought might marry his mother. She had a room provided by her employer, a merchant named Ibson. It was in the city, beside Mr. Ibson's home, in a building that housed other of his workers. His mother worked in the kitchen, cooking meals. She could cook anything.

She was always hard-pressed to feed Fitch, though, and wasn't able to watch over him much of the time. When he wasn't at penance assembly, she often took him to work with her, where she could keep an eye on him. There, he turned spits, "carried this and that, washed smaller items, swept the courtyard, and. often had to clean out the stables where some of Mr. Ibson's wagon horses were kept.

His mother had been good to him, whenever she saw him, anyway. He knew she cared about him and about what would become of him. Not like some of the men she occasionally saw. They viewed Fitch as little more than an annoyance. Some, wanting to be alone with his mother, opened the door to his mother's single room and heaved him out for the night.

Fitch's mother would wring her hands, but she was too timid to stop the men from putting him out.

When the men put him out, he'd have to sleep on the doorstep to the street, under a stairway, or at a neighbor's, if they were of a mind to let him in. Sometimes, if it was raining, the night stablehands at Mr. Ibson's place next door would let him sleep in the stables. He liked being with the horses, but he didn't like having to endure the flies.

But enduring the flies was better than being caught alone at night by Ander boys.

Early the next day his mother would go off to work, usually with her man friend who worked in the household, too, and Fitch would get to go back inside. When she'd come home on the days after he'd been shoved out for the night, she'd usually bring him some treat she'd filched from the kitchen where she worked.