Hunger woke me shortly after midnight. I lay awake, listening to my belly growl. I closed my eyes, but my hunger was enough to make me nauseated. I got up and felt my way to the table where Verity’s tray of pastries had been, but servants had cleared it away. I debated with myself, but my stomach won out over my head.
Easing open the chamber door, I stepped out into the dimly lit hall. The two men Verity had posted there looked at me questioningly. “Starving,” I told them. “Did you notice where the kitchens were?”
I have never known a soldier who didn’t know where the kitchens were. I thanked them and promised to bring back some of whatever I found. I slipped off down the shadowy hall. As I descended the steps it felt odd to have wood underfoot rather than stone. I walked as Chade had taught me, placing my feet silently, moving within the shadowiest parts of the passageways, walking to the sides where floorboards were less likely to creak. And it all felt as natural.
The rest of the keep seemed well asleep. The few guards I passed were mostly dozing; none challenged me. At the time I put it down to my stealth; now I wonder if they considered a skinny, tousleheaded lad any threat worth bothering with.
I found the kitchens easily. It was a great open room, flagged and walled with stone as a defense against fires. There were three great hearths, fires well banked for the night. Despite the lateness, or earliness, of the hour, the place was well lit. A keep’s kitchen is never completely asleep.
I saw the covered pans and smelled the rising bread. A large pot of stew was being kept warm at the edge of one hearth. When I peeked under the lid, I saw it would not miss a bowl or two. I rummaged about and helped myself. Wrapped loaves on a shelf supplied me with an end crust and in another corner was a tub of butter kept cool inside a large keg of water. Not fancy. Thank all, it was not fancy, but the plain simple food I had been craving all day.
I was halfway through my second bowl when I heard the light scuff of footsteps. I looked up with my most disarming smile, hoping that this cook would prove as softhearted as Buckkeep’s. But it was a serving girl, a blanket thrown about her shoulders over her night robe and her baby in her arms. She was weeping. I turned my eyes away in discomfort.
She scarcely gave me a glance anyway. She set her bundled baby down atop the table and fetched a bowl and dipped it full of cool water, muttering all the time. She bent over the babe. “Here, my sweet, my lamb. Here, my darling. This will help. Take a little. Oh, sweetie, can’t you even lap? Open your mouth, then. Come now, open your mouth.”
I couldn’t help but watch. She held the bowl awkwardly and tried to maneuver it to the baby’s mouth. She was using her other hand to force the child’s mouth open, and using a deal more force than I’d ever seen any other mother use on a child. She tipped the bowl, and the water slopped. I heard a strangled gurgle and then a gagging sound. As I leaped up to protest, the head of a small dog emerged from the bundle.
“Oh, he’s choking again! He’s dying! My little Feisty is dying and no one but me cares. He just goes on snoring, and I don’t know what to do and my darling is dying.”
She clutched the lapdog to her as it gagged and strangled. It shook its little head wildly and then seemed to grow calmer. If I hadn’t been able to hear its labored breathing, I’d have sworn it had died in her arms. Its dark and bulgy eyes met mine, and I felt the force of the panic and pain in the little beast.
Easy. “Here, now,” I heard myself saying. “You’re not helping him by holding him that tight. He can scarce breathe. Set him down. Unwrap him. Let him decide how he is most comfortable. All wrapped up like that, he’s too hot, so he’s trying to pant and choke all at once. Set him down.”
She was a head taller than I, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to struggle with her. But she let me take the bundled dog from her arms and unwrap him from several layers of cloth. I set him on the table.
The little beast was in total misery. He stood with his head drooping between his front legs. His muzzle and chest were slick with saliva, his belly distended and hard. He began to retch and gag again. His small jaws opened wide; his lips writhed back from his tiny pointed teeth. The redness of his tongue attested to the violence of his efforts. The girl squeaked and sprang forward, trying to snatch him up again, but I pushed her roughly back. “Don’t grab him,” I told her impatiently. “He’s trying to get something up, and he can’t do it with you squeezing his guts.”
She stopped. “Get something up?”
“He looks and acts like he’s got something lodged in his gullet. Could he have gotten into bones or feathers?”
She looked stricken. “There were bones in the fish. But only tiny ones.”
“Fish? What idiot let him get into fish? Was it fresh or rotten?” I’d seen how sick a dog could get when it got into rotten, spawned-out salmon on a riverbank. If that’s what this little beast had gobbled, he didn’t have a chance.
“It was fresh, and well cooked. The same trout I had at dinner.”
“Well, at least it’s not likely to be poisonous to him. Right now, it’s just the bone. But if he gets it down, it’s still likely to kill him.”
She gasped. “No, it can’t! He mustn’t die. He’ll be fine. He just has an upset stomach. I just fed him too much. He’ll be fine! What do you know about it anyway, kitchen boy?”
I watched the feist go through another round of almost convulsive retching. Nothing came up but yellow bile. “I’m not a kitchen boy. I’m a dog boy. Verity’s own dog boy, if you must know. And if we don’t help this little mutt, he’s going to die. Very soon.”
She watched, her face a mixture of awe and horror, as I gripped her little pet firmly. I’m trying to help. He didn’t believe me. I prized his jaws open and forced my two fingers down his gullet. The feist gagged even more fiercely and pawed at me frantically with his front paws. His claws needed cutting, too. With the tips of my fingers I could feel the bone. I twiddled my fingers against it and felt it move. But it was wedged sideways in the little beast’s throat. The dog gave a strangled howl and struggled frantically in my arms. I let him go. “Well. He’s not going to get rid of that without some help,” I observed.
I left her wailing and sniveling over him. At least she didn’t snatch him up and squeeze him. I got myself a handful of butter from the keg and plopped it into my stew bowl. Now I needed something hooked, or sharply curved, but not too large. I rattled through bins and finally came up with a curved hook of metal with a handle on it. Possibly it was used to lift hot pots off the fire.
“Sit down,” I told the maid.
She gaped at me, and then sat obediently on the bench I’d pointed to.
“Now hold him firmly, between your knees. And don’t let him go, no matter how he claws and wiggles or yelps. And hold on to his front feet so he doesn’t claw me to ribbons while I’m doing this. Understand?”
She took a deep breath, then gulped and nodded. Tears were streaming down her face. I set the dog on her lap and put her hands on him.
“Hold tight,” I told her. I scooped up a gobbet of butter. “I’m going to use the fat to grease things up. Then I’ve got to force his jaws open, and hook the bone and jerk it out. Are you ready?”