Passager (4 page)

By the fifth day, the room smelled and the floors bore the filthy reminders of the boy's woods habits. But this time when he woke, Master Robin was in the room waiting for him to wake. He brought the tray of food to the bed and the boy sat up, involuntarily licking his upper lip.

When Master Robin sat on the bed, the boy reached over to grab the loaf.

The man slapped his hand.

The sting did not hurt so much as the surprise. And then there was a sudden memory of that other slap, when he had been holding the joint of meat, back ... back ... before the woods.

“Forgive...” the boy croaked, as if trying out a new tongue.

The man hugged him fiercely, suddenly. “Nothing to forgive, young one. Just slow down. The bread will not run away. It is the manners of the house and not the manners of the woods you must use here.”

The words meant less than the hug, of course. The boy sat back warily, waiting.

Master Robin broke the bread into two sections. Then he picked up a wooden stick with a rounded end and stuck it in the bowl of porridge. “Spoon,” he said. “Do you remember any such?” He was silent for a moment, then held out the thing to the boy. “Spoon.”

The boy whispered back, “Spoon.” He put out his hand, and his fingers, closing around the handle, remembered. He ate the porridge greedily, but with a measure of care as well, frequently stopping to check the man's reactions.

“Good boy. So you are no stranger to spoons. How long were you in the woods then, I wonder? Long enough to go wild. Ah well, we will tame you. I am not a falconer for nought. I know how to bate a bird, how to tame it. I have a long patience with wild things. Eat then. Eat and rest. This afternoon, after we cut your hair and dress you, I'll take you to the mews to see the hawks.”

THE MAN LEFT WITH THE TRAY, AND THE BOY
did not even try to follow him. There had been a promise. That much he understood. A promise of a trip outside. It was enough.

However, he was too awake and too excited to nap, and wandered instead around the room; not restlessly this time, or angrily. Instead he went slowly, cataloging the room's contents. It was
his
room now. He had made it his first by marking it and then by feeling safe in it. Now he needed to know every corner of it.

There was the bed in the center, with its rumpled covers. The heather stuffing smelled a bit of mould now. But it was a comforting smell and he was used to it. The rush-strewn floor was likewise a bit off in its smell, like certain parts of the forest where there was too much bog and quaking earth. But the smell was familiar to him.

To one side of the bed was a small table that occasionally held a candle in an iron holder. He remembered its light when once he had awakened in the night. It had frightened him, then intrigued him. There was no candle now; instead a large bowl and jug stood there. He peered into them both. They were empty.

A great fire of logs burned on the hearth and to one side was a chair with a high back. It had arms carved with hawks' heads.

There was a tall wooden wardrobe standing by the side of the door. The handle for it was too high for him to reach. As if Master Robin's invitation had given him permission for exploration, he shoved the chair over to the wardrobe, scrambled up on it, and poked and pushed at the latch until he had gotten it undone. Of course he could not then open the door of the wardrobe because the chair barred the way. It took him another moment to figure this out. When he pushed the chair out of the way, the door swung open on its own.

Inside he found a pile of fur robes of dark, soft hides that smelled like the fox who had snarled at him, like the wolves whose scent he had been careful to stay upwind of. He ran his hand over the robes, first the smooth way, then the other, and laughed. There was nothing to fear here.

He tugged one of the robes from the closet and wrapped it over his shoulders. Going down on all fours, he threw his head back and howled.

There was an answering howl from the other room.

Dogs!
He dropped the fur robe and raced back to the bed where he cowered under the covers.

After a while, the dogs were quiet and the boy crept back off the bed. He went to the window and looked out. A cow grazed on the open meadow, fastened by a chain to its spot. Near it two brown dogs ran back and forth frantically. He had never seen them before. The cow did not seem disturbed by them, but the boy moved away from the window so that they might not see him. Perhaps, he thought, they were new to the pack. When he sneaked back, the dogs were playing still, this time running to fetch something. He saw it was a stick, which they brought over and laid at the feet of the man. It made the boy wonder that they were so tame. Perhaps, then, they were not of the pack after all.

Daringly, the boy put his hand to the window but the dogs never noticed. Nor did the man. With his forefinger, the boy drew a line down the middle of the window several inches long.
He looked at it and then, ever so carefully, drew a line across the middle.
After a moment's thought he drew a round thing on the top.
Then he stopped and shook his head. The figure was incomplete. It needed something. He stood back from the window trying to puzzle it out, but the lines blurred together, faded.

When he turned around, Master Robin was standing in the room. Next to him were the two women. All three of them were smiling.

THE OLDER WOMAN, MAG, STOPPED SMILING AS
she crossed the threshold, wrinkling her nose as she glanced around the room.

The girl cried out, “Master Robin! The smell!”

“Hush ye!” the man said. He meant it sharply but his voice was not sharp.

The boy stood stone still as they approached him.

“Now, boy, now, little one ...” the man's low, cozening voice began. He reached for the boy and, for a moment, that was all. Then his large hand gripped the boy's.

The boy trembled in the man's grasp. But when the two women drew nearer and the girl put her hand on his arm, the boy snarled, a deep, chesty sound, and bared his teeth.

She drew back at once.

“You are a boy, not a beast,” the man said gently. “You are a child of God, not...”

The boy's eyes rolled up in his head.

“Are you going to faint on me, boy?” the man asked.

But the boy was staring at the rooftree. “God,” he whispered.

Mag and Nell crossed themselves quickly. The boy did the same, with his free arm.

“Nor Satan's imp then,” Nell said.

“Of course not, you silly wench.” For the first time there was exasperation in the man's voice. “Just a child. Gone feral. How often need I tell you so?”

Mag clucked like a hen and smoothed down her apron. “I am not so daft, Master Robin. Tell me what to do.”

“The trews, woman. Bring them me.”

She handed him the grey trousers with the drawstring waist. He prisoned the boy's two hands with his one big one, but not so as to hurt him, then with the other—and Mag's help—drew the pants on the boy one leg at a time.

At first the boy shook all over and whimpered. But he did not fight. He was too curious and, though he could not have explained why, found it vaguely familiar as well.

The shirt, when it went over his head, was more familiar still. He smoothed it down his chest, liking the feel of the cloth against him. In his memory there was another such shirt, one that came down to his knees, of a softer weave. It had kept him warm, he remembered, until it had—at last—fallen apart sometime in late spring. Only he did not remember spring. He thought of it as the warm time, when the river ran swiftly over the stones.

Then the man put a strange harness over the boy's head and around each shoulder and across his chest and back. It was plaited of rope and had a lead that Master Robin tied around his own wrist.

That reminded the boy of the cow tied out in the field, but he did not try to pull away. It made him feel as if he were part of the man and he liked that.

Master Robin sent the two women scuttling out of the room with a single word. “Go!” he said. They ran out like badgers scattering back to the sett. The boy laughed as they closed the door behind them. Master Robin laughed, too.

“So,” the man said, “you can laugh and you can cry and you can speak some. You are no idiot left out by a father, no simpleton cast out of his town. I wonder why you were set adrift?” He stroked his beard as he spoke in that low voice.

The boy did not understand the question. What was
adrift?
What was
simpleton?
What was
town?

“Would you like to see the birds in the mews?”

That at least he understood.
Birds.
He nodded.

“Well. And well.” Master Robin pulled the boy close to him by the lead, then patted him on the head. “Tomorrow we will worry about your hair.”

 

The birds were housed in a long, low building, with small windows of thinned-down horn.

“The mews,” Master Robin said as they entered. He gave name to other things as they walked through the room. “Door. Perch. Bird. Lamp. Rafters.”

Mimicking his tone, the boy repeated each word with a kind of greed, as if he could not get enough of the names. As he spoke, his face took on the same look it had when he had smelled the first loaf of bread, eyes squinting, head up, in feral anticipation.

They walked slowly, kicking up sawdust as they went. The boy took in everything as if it were both his first and his hundredth time in such a place.

He stood at last in front of a trio of hooded birds on individual stands where the heavy sacking screens hanging from the perches moved in the slight wind like castle banners. It looked as if he were about to speak. Instead he leaned forward, trembling, straining against the harness and lead.

Just then the two brown dogs, mixed-breed hounds, bounded into the mews.

The boy screamed and tried to run.

“Stay, damn you, stay!” the man shouted, whether to the dogs, the boy, or the hawks now agitated on their perches, their feathers ruffling—it was not clear.

The boy continued to shriek, his eyes wild.

The man turned to the dogs. “Sit!” he thundered, holding up his hand.

The two dogs immediately sat, tongues lolling. The smaller dog moved forward on its hind end, closer to the man, whining.

“Lie down,” he thundered at them.

They lay down. The boy stopped shrieking but hid, trembling, behind the man. The hawks still fluttered, but at last even they quieted.

The man dragged the boy around in front of him by the rope. “These dogs will not harm you if I tell them so. They will guard you. They will be your friends.”

The boy's trembling did not cease, but he was silent.

Holding the boy close, the man brought him to the dogs. “He is our boy,” the man said. “You will
guard.
Now,
greet.
” The larger of the two dogs crawled on its belly to the boy and licked his foot. The smaller dog followed. “Now, boy, pat their heads. Pull their ears. Let them hear thy voice.”