Brute (7 page)

“Who?”

“Gray Leynham.”

Warin glanced quickly from side to side, as if to check that nobody was listening, and whispered loudly, “He’s a witch.”

Brute’s empty stomach gave an unhappy lurch. “A
witch
? But then can’t he use his magic to escape?”

“He’s lost his powers.”

Brute had no idea how such a thing might happen. Were magical abilities like a small coin, something that might slip through a hole in one’s pocket and disappear? Or were they more like a dog or a goat that might stray from home? He’d never met a witch before—just Hilma, who could speed healing with her chanting and herbs—and as a child, the stories he’d overhead of witches had scared him. He didn’t much fancy actually living with one, even if this witch was chained behind bars. “Why is he kept prisoner?” he asked as they turned down a wider street.

Warin’s answer was fierce. “He’s a dirty traitor, that’s why!”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know.”

“If he’s a traitor, why didn’t they burn him?” Because that was the punishment for treason, at least in the tales he’d heard.

“I don’t
know
.” Warin huffed at him impatiently. “It don’t matter to us anyway, does it? You just do as you’re told. Long as you can, anyhow. The last man that watched over him, he only lasted three weeks. Think you’ll do better?”

With another sickening clench of his belly, Brute said, “What happened to him?”

“Nothing awful. He just said he wasn’t gonna stay in there no more. I hear he quit the guard and became a sailor instead.”

The boy’s answer did little to ease Brute’s misgivings, so he remained distracted as they ducked down yet another little alley and into a shop of sorts, where a man was measuring a length of fabric. The shelves were stocked with bolts of cloth in many colors—scarlet, cream, and black predominant. There were also racks containing spools of thread, and tables with chalk and string and scissors atop them. “I suppose I’m meant to make a uniform for that,” the tailor said to Warin, scowling at Brute.

“Not a uniform, says Lord Maudit. Just decent trousers—three pairs—and a half dozen shirts, and a cloak. Underclothes as well.” As Warin rattled off the list, Brute had to fight to keep his face neutral. He’d never before owned half that much. Was it possible that the boy was mistaken? But the tailor didn’t seem to think so, because he immediately began to poke and prod at Brute, turning him this way and that so every bit of him might be measured.

The tailor paused when he saw the condition of Brute’s left arm. “How do you manage to dress yourself?” His curiosity seemed to be honestly professional.

“Not very well,” Brute admitted. “It’s hard to tie things.”

The tailor nodded thoughtfully and chewed at his lip. “I’ll see what I can do.”

After the tailor, they visited the shoemaker, who seemed actually eager to make a pair of boots in Brute’s size. “Give me two days,” he said.

“Deliver them to the Brown Tower when they’re ready,” Warin ordered, a bit grandly.

“The Brown Tow— Oh. So he’s the new— Ah.”

Brute was getting tired of people talking about him as if he weren’t there, or at least as if he were too stupid to understand. But he didn’t say anything, not even to ask whether the shoemaker thought he could make boots that a one-handed man could get on.

The next stop was a barber, who waved his blade around a little too freely for Brute’s taste. The barber made him sit on a stool, and then, as an assortment of children watched and giggled, he chopped Brute’s thick black hair so short that hardly more than bristles were left. Brute didn’t mind—easier to care for this way, and he certainly wasn’t vain about his looks. The barber shaved him as well, washing Brute’s face afterward with tepid water scented with astringent herbs.

Their final visit was to a low wooden building. The heat and dampness hit Brute as soon as they entered a small entryway, and Warin smiled. “Usually we gotta pay three coppers if we wanna use the baths, but His Excellency says you get in for free this time.” He explained Brute’s presence—at some length—to the matronly woman who appeared from the back. She looked intrigued but simply handed Brute a stack of towels.

“Wait here,” she said.

Brute and Warin waited, both of them sitting on the foyer’s lone wooden bench. Brute would have liked to ask more about his new charge, but Warin instead droned on about the palace’s various rules and schedules, and the names of who was in charge of what, until Brute’s head was spinning and he felt as stupid as he looked. Fortunately, the woman reappeared. “The one on the left,” she said.

The door on the left led to a small chamber, in the center of which was a round copper tub filled nearly to the brim with steaming water. The room was floored in smooth stone. “Well?” said Warin. “I don’t got all day.”

Brute had rarely bathed before, at least not like this. Usually he made do by overturning a bucket or two of well water on his head or, if the weather was cold, wiping at his body with damp rags. He almost never had the coins to spare for the White Dragon’s tin tub. On the infrequent occasions when the weather was fine and he had a few hours to himself, he would make his way to the secluded bit of river near his hidden cave and wade in as far as he dared. The idea of immersing himself in a giant bowl, as if he were an ingredient in an exotic soup, seemed strange and a bit decadent.

“Hurry
up
,” Warin whined.

Brute hesitated a moment longer before he drew off his cloak and pulled his shirt over his head. Warin took the discarded clothing. “You always been that strong?” he asked.

Brute glanced down at himself. He didn’t feel especially strong. He’d lost weight and muscle tone since the accident, but his chest still bulged impressively enough beneath its coating of dark hair. “I used to be small,” he said. “Until I was about your age. Then I grew.”

“Is your father that big?”

Brute’s father had
seemed
very large indeed, when Brute was a boy. At least until the day Brute watched him hanging from a rope. That day his father looked very small. “Not like this,” Brute answered.

“Huh.” Warin shrugged, and then gestured for Brute to hurry things along. But when Brute managed to unlace his trousers and unwrap his breechclout, Warin whistled long and loud. “I guess all of you grew,” he said, clearly impressed.

Brute blushed and climbed hurriedly into the tub, splashing a good bit of water over the sides as he did so. His sex organs were proportionate to the rest of him. It wasn’t only his ugly face that made the whores demand double their usual price. The boys complained that, even if he took care with them, they’d be sore afterward, and their master claimed they’d be useless for at least a day.

The water felt unimaginably wonderful. It was lightly scented with something minty and astringent, and just hot enough to make his skin tingle. The tub would have been roomy for most men but was a bit of a tight fit for him. Still, he felt buoyant and light. He would have sung if he hadn’t had an audience. Instead, he hunched down and submerged himself completely, staying underneath for as long as he could hold his breath, wondering as he did so how he’d managed not to drown when he fell off the cliff and into the river.

When he stuck his head out of the tub again, Warin was standing there and looking amused. “You look awfully happy to be getting clean,” the boy observed. “My ma used to have to just about throw me into the water when she wanted me to bathe.”

“She doesn’t anymore?”

Warin’s face tightened. “She’s dead. Two years back. Childbed fever.”

“I’m sorry,” said Brute, although really he envied Warin a bit. The boy’s mother might be gone, but by the looks of things, he wasn’t faring too badly. Not like Brute, who’d been stuck with a mean drunkard of a relative, a man who’d resented the child with which he’d been saddled.

“Here,” Warin said, and handed Brute a hunk of soap. It wasn’t coarse and lumpy like the stuff Cecil supplied at the White Dragon. Brute had always half suspected that Cecil’s soap took off more skin than dirt. But this soap was smooth and almond scented, and it produced a rich and creamy lather. There were definite benefits to living in a palace, Brute decided.

Brute scrubbed and then soaked, but eventually Warin grew impatient again, right around the time the water began to cool. Brute’s stomach was clamoring louder than ever for dinner, so he climbed out of the tub and took the towel—large and thick—that Warin handed him. Drying off one-handed was a little awkward, and he was forced to put on his old, travel-smirched clothes again, which he regretted.

To Brute’s considerable relief, the next bit of their journey took them back to the kitchens. He was still hopelessly lost, and vowed to note the route more carefully when they left. But in the meantime, Warin dragged him to a young woman with rosy, dimpled cheeks, her red hair arranged in a thick braid. “What’s this then, brat?” she asked Warin, and Brute realized that they must be siblings. Fond ones, judging by the way she rumpled his hair.

“Brute.”

“Uh-huh. And what am I supposed to do with him?”

“Feed him, of course.”

She grinned, revealing a chipped front tooth. “Looks like he’s apt to eat the cupboards bare.”

“Lord Maudit says Brute’ll be staying in the Brown Tower now.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh. I guess His Excellency’s run out of volunteers here, and now he’s having to hire one-pawed trolls instead.”

“I am
not
a troll!” Brute said indignantly.

“Course not. Trolls are better dressed.” Her smile was too warm for Brute to take offense, and he found the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Wait here. No—you’re in the way.” She pointed at the wall. “Wait there instead.”

Brute pressed himself against the smooth stone, and Warin joined him. “That’s Alys. Try to find her when it’s mealtimes. She’s bossy, but she’ll set you up real good.”

“Do you have other brothers and sisters too?”

“Yep. Four sisters and two brothers. Alys is the oldest.”

Brute wondered what it would be like to grow up surrounded by so many other people. Crowded. Noisy. Never any privacy.

Alys returned a short time afterward with two tin buckets. She passed them to Brute, who was able to hold them in his one hand. “See you in the morning,” she said before hurrying away.

On the way back to the Brown Tower, they took a brief detour and stopped at a well. Warin filled an earthen jug and hoisted it onto his skinny hip. “This oughta be enough to last you until tomorrow. If you need more, just tell the guard at the door and he can send someone.”

Brute nodded and followed the boy again.

Warin stopped several paces from the tower’s entrance. As the guard watched them curiously, Warin helped Brute steady the jug in the crook of his left arm. “So it’s pretty easy for you from now on. If you need something, let me know.”

“Where can I find you?”

“I’m always around somewhere. Just ask someone.”

Brute felt an odd sense of abandonment as Warin waved and then scampered away into the growing dusk. The guard unlocked the front door, not quite looking Brute in the eye as he passed. It occurred to Brute that he had no idea whether there were other prisoners here as well, other caretakers. Maybe the place was full of treacherous witches and maimed giants. If so, they were all silent. The only sound Brute heard was the padding of his own bare feet and the slight sloshing of the water in the jug.

The door to his new quarters stood open.

He placed the buckets and the jug on the table. Someone had lit a pair of fat candles that were affixed to shelves on the wall, and a third one just outside the cell. The flames should have cast a cheery glow—the candles were much larger and nicer than any Brute had used before—but instead they only emphasized the darkness of the cell in the corner. The shadows seemed to dance and caper like demons.

“Um… hello?” Brute said, and when the words came out hoarser than he’d intended, he cleared his throat. “I’ve brought dinner.”

There may have been a soft clanking of chains in response, but he wasn’t sure. He moved the jug to one side and began to unpack the larger of the tin buckets. He was very pleased with what he found: a loaf of bread still warm from the ovens, a lidded pottery bowl full of a fragrant meat stew, a large hunk of cheese, and two small apples. There was even a jar of ale and a double handful of walnuts. The smaller bucket was less promising—it contained only a bowl of some sort of mush and a crust of dry bread. Was poor food part of the prisoner’s punishment?

Brute planned to feed his charge first, but then his stomach complained again, and he decided he just couldn’t face the man quite yet. He sat at his table and dove into the meal. It was delicious—the best he’d ever had. The stew was full of succulent meat and tender vegetables and spices he couldn’t identify; the bread was crusty and wonderfully soft inside. Even the ale was better than he was used to. Alys had been so generous in her portions that he felt quite full by the time the food was gone.

He placed his empty dishes in the bucket, then fetched a tin cup he’d spied on a shelf. After filling it with water from the jug, he held the cup in the crook of his left arm and balanced the prisoner’s meal awkwardly on top. That kept his hand free to unfasten the bolt on the barred door.

“Are you hungry?” Brute asked.

The blanket shifted a bit, and the matted hair appeared, but the prisoner didn’t answer. With a sigh, Brute entered the cell.

The space wasn’t very big, and he crossed it in only a few paces. He stood uncertainly over Gray Leynham for a moment before dropping inelegantly to his knees. “Here’s your dinner.”

The prisoner moved again, finally positioning his face in such a way that Brute could see it well. Leynham’s beard was as long and matted as his hair, all of it too filthy for the original color to be distinguished. His cheeks were nearly as sunken as his empty eyes, his skin moon-white where it wasn’t caked with grime. His skinny neck looked red and inflamed at the edges of the iron collar. Brute couldn’t get any sense of his age, and he couldn’t tell whether the fetid smell came from the prisoner, his ragged blanket, or the waste bucket in the corner. Maybe all three.