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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.
His mother had wanted him to learn a trade, but she didn’t know anyone who would take him on as a helper, much less as an apprentice, so, about four years before, when he was old enough to earn his own meals, Mr. Ibson helped her place him for work in the kitchen at the Minister of Culture’s estate, not far outside the capital city of Fairfield.
Upon his arrival, one of the household clerks had sat Fitch down along with a few other new people and explained the rules of the house, where he would sleep with the other scullions and such, and what his duties were to be. The clerk explained in grave tones the importance of the place where they labored; from the estate, the Minister of Culture directed the affairs of his high office, overseeing nearly every aspect of life in Anderith. The estate was also his home. The post of Minister of Culture was second only to that of the Sovereign himself.
Fitch had simply thought he’d been sent to some merchant’s kitchen to work; he’d had no idea his mother had managed to get him placed in such a high household. He’d been immensely proud. Later, he found that it was hard work, like any other work, in any other place. There was nothing glamorous about it. But still, he was proud that he, a Haken, worked in the Minister’s estate.
Other than what Fitch had been taught about the Minister making laws and such to insure that Anderith culture remained exemplary and the rights of all were protected, Fitch didn’t really understand what the Minister of Culture did that required so many people coming and going all the time. He didn’t even understand why there needed to be new laws all the time. After all, right was right, and wrong was wrong. He’d asked an Ander once, and had been told that new wrongs were continually being uncovered, and needed to be addressed. Fitch didn’t understand that, either, but hadn’t said so. Just asking the first question had brought a scowl to the Ander’s face.
Unable to pull out the oak splinter, he bent to pick up a stick of apple wood while keeping an eye to the avenue and the butcher’s cart. One of the approaching strangers, a brawny man in unfamiliar military attire, wore an odd cloak that almost looked to Fitch like it was covered in patches of hair.
Each of the man’s fingers was ringed, with a leather strap from each of those rings going over a knuckle to a studded black leather bracer around his wrists and forearms. Silver studs girded his boots, too. Fitch was stunned to see the glint of metal studs in the man’s ear and nose.
The man’s leather belts held weapons the likes of which Fitch had never even conjured in his nightmares. Riding in a hanger at his right hip was an axe with the great horns of its blade curling back around until they almost touched. A wooden handle dark with age and use, had a spiked ball attached to its top via a chain. A long spike, like a single talon, capped the bottom of the handle.
The man’s thatch of thick dark hair made him look as if he were possibly an Ander, but his thick brow spoke that he wasn’t. The tangle of dark hair fell around a bull neck that must have been nearly as big around as Fitch’s waist. Even at a distance, the sight of the man made Fitch’s stomach go queasy.
As the stranger strode past the slow butcher’s cart, the man drank in a long look at the person on the other side of Brownie. He finally moved on, turning his attention back to the windows of the estate, searching them, too, with dark intent.
13
Knowing better than to stand and wait for the cart to make it the rest of the way up the avenue to lane to the kitchen yard, Fitch hurriedly gathered up an armload of apple wood and lugged it inside. In his haste to be back outside, he heaved it all into the bin without thinking, but over the people talking and calling out, the sounds of myriad foods sizzling in pans, the crackle of the fires, the rapping of spoons in bowls, the grinding of pestles in mortars, the rasp of brushes, and the general clatter of everyone working, no one heard his wood carelessly thunking home. Some spilled out, and he was going to leave it, but when he spied Master Drummond not far off, he dropped to his knees and quickly stacked the wood in the bin.
When he rushed back out, his heart hammering, his breath caught up short when he saw who’d brought the butcher’s cart.
It was her.
Fitch wrung his hands as he watched her leading Brownie into the turn round. His hand-wringing twisted the splinter lying under his flesh, making him grimace. He cursed under his breath, then snapped his mouth shut, hoping she hadn’t heard. He trotted over to the cart, shaking the stinging hand to dispel the pain.
“Good day, Beata.”
She only glanced up. “Fitch.”
He groped for something to say, but couldn’t think of anything meaningful. He stood mute as she clucked her tongue, urging Brownie to back up. One hand held the trace chain as her other hand stroked the horse’s chest, guiding, reassuring, as he clopped backward. What Fitch wouldn’t give to have that hand touch him in such a gentle manner.
Her short red hair, so soft, so lustrous, so fetching the way its fullness tapered to turn in and caress the nape of her neck, ruffled in the warm spring breeze.
Fitch waited beside the cart, fearing to say something stupid and have Beata think him a fool. Even though he thought about her often, he figured thoughts about him probably never passed through her mind. That was one thing, but to have her think him a fool would be unbearable. He wished he knew some interesting bit of news, something to make her have pleasant thoughts about him.
Expressionless, Beata gestured as she walked back to the cart where he stood. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
The shape of her, so close, paralyzed him. The dusky blue dress swept up from the top of the flare of the long skirt, hugging her ribs, swelling over her bosom in a way that made him have to swallow to get his breath. Worn wooden buttons marched up the front. A pin with a simple spiral head held the collar closed at her throat.
It was an old dress; she was, after all, a Haken, like him, and not deserving of better. Edges of the blue fabric were frayed here and there, and it faded a little at the shoulders, but Beata made it look somehow majestic.
With an impatient sigh, she snatched up his hand to look for herself.
“It’s noth
ing… it’s a splinter,” he stammered.
She turned his hand over, laying it palm up in her other as she pinched up the skin to inspect the splinter’s depth. He was stunned by the unexpected warm touch of her hand holding his. He was horrified to see that his hands, from being in the hot soapy water cleaning pots and cauldrons, were cleaner than her hands. He feared she would think he did no work.
“I was washing pots,” he explained. “Then I had to bring in oak. Lots of heavy oak. That’s why I’m sweating.”
Without a word, Beata pulled the pin from the top of her dress. The neckline fell open a few inches, revealing the hollow at the base of her neck. His jaw went slack at seeing so much of her, so much she ordinarily kept hidden. He wasn’t worthy of her help, much less to look upon the flesh at her throat she meant to be kept hidden. He made himself look away.
Fitch yelped when he felt the sharp pin probe. Frowning in concentration, she absently muttered an apology as she dug at the splinter. Trying not to contort his face with pain, he instead curled his toes against the dirt as he waited.
He felt a deep, sharp, painful tug. She briefly inspected the long, needle-like oak splinter she’d pulled out, and then tossed it aside. She closed her collar and secured it once again with the pin.
“There you go,” she said, turning to the cart.
“Thank you, Beata.” She nodded. “That was very kind.” He followed in her steps. “Uh, I’m to help you take in the load.”
He dragged a huge hind section of beef to the end of the cart and ducked under to heist it onto his shoulder. The weight nearly buckled his knees. When he managed to get it wheeled around, he saw Beata already going up the path with a fat net full of pullets in one hand, and a section of mutton ribs balanced on the other shoulder, so didn’t see his mighty effort.
Inside, Judith, the pantler, told him to get a list of everything the butcher had sent. He bowed and promised he would, but inwardly, he cringed.
