Both equines still had their winter coats, but were beginning to shed heavily. Jame dragged the bristles down the rathorn’s shaggy neck, scraping a swatch clean. He leaned into the brush with a groan of pleasure and presented her with his neck to scratch, especially up under the ivory armor where a growth spurt had left tender, new, itchy skin.
“How in Perimal’s name did you tame him?” asked Timmon, watching over the mare’s back, fascinated.
“I didn’t. I blood-bound him.”
“Oh. What about the Whinno-hir?”
“Bel was entrusted to me. She goes her own way.”
“And Gorbel doesn’t try to hunt him anymore? This close to the college, you’d think he would be easy game.”
“Gorbel owes Death’s-head his life after the cave bear incident. He steers hunters away from this area. I’m counting on you to do the same, and to keep the secret.”
“Of course. I swore that I would, didn’t I? I’m not as feckless as you seem to think.”
“Do I?” Jame murmured, putting her weight into her task.
“Well, maybe I was. Once. You would have hated me as a child. I hate the thought of me then. Did you know that, in addition to being my half-brother, Drie used to be my whipping boy? Whenever I did anything wrong, he was punished for it. Father used to watch and laugh, but it annoyed him too, because Drie just seemed to drift away from the pain. He was poor sport, Father said, but it made me uncomfortable enough so that I would behave, at least for a while.”
He bent to his task, grooming Bel’s dappled flank, not meeting Jame’s eyes.
“What we didn’t know was that Drie had formed a bond with a huge, old carp in Omiroth’s pond. Whenever he was beaten on my behalf, that’s where he sent his mind, into the deep, murky water, out of touch, beyond pain. I don’t know how Father found out. The next time I misbehaved, though, he made Drie catch that fish and eat it, raw. Drie wasn’t the same after that. He wouldn’t swim, although he had loved to before, and he would cry when whipped. Father was delighted. I was . . . ashamed.”
“So you brought him with you to Tentir, to get him away.”
“Yes. And he’s been much better here, more like the happy, half-awake boy I used to know, at least since last summer.”
When Fash and Higbert threw him into the Silver, Jame thought. Presumably he had met a new companion in the swift waters, carp or trout or catfish. However, the story left a harsh taste in her thoughts, as if someone had asked her to kill and eat Jorin. Or Bel.
Timmon was watching her askance. “I’ve shocked you,” he said. “As uncomfortable as it made me, I don’t think I ever realized the horror of it until I met you and the Falconeers. Now, the whole thing seems abominable. And Father laughed. Would a truly great man do that? I don’t know. I’m confused. Tentir has made me question most of what I used to believe. So you tell me: am I responsible for Narsa’s death?”
Jame bit her lip. Did her loyalty lie with the dead or with the living? To ask the question was to answer it.
“Narsa was carrying your child.”
Timmon’s face bleached behind its freckles. “Oh,” he said. “Then I am responsible. I had better go and tend to the body.”
He turned and wobbled off, leaving Jame with her mouth open. Sweet Trinity, had he simply left Narsa hanging? But he was gone before she could ask.
Currying the two equines took much of the afternoon, until Jame’s arms ached with the continual downstrokes. Hair fell like snow, then like dust, until clean, spring coats shimmered under the brush. The effort and its result did her good, creating two less murky things in the world on the eve of a new year. The sun had set behind the Snowthorns when she finished. It was late afternoon, almost time for the feast.
Calling Jorin and the pook to heel, she went down to the college.
Trestle tables had been set out in the square and cadets sat at them according to house. The time for snatching scarves had apparently passed, although Brier still wore Higbert’s tied around her arm and kept grim watch for him.
Timmon sat at his own table, with empty seats to either side. It would be some time before he made peace with his house or with himself. From the rigid set of his shoulders, Jame could tell that he understood and accepted that.
The randon provided the feast from anything left over from the winter, it being too early for the spring crop. Left to themselves, most houses would have been reduced to root vegetables, dried beans, and salted meat, but this was the eve of the new year and all leftover supplies had been consolidated. Jame saw delicacies and smelt spices alien to her house for months. Galantine pie with dried berries, almond fish stew, swan neck pudding, spiced wine and cider . . . Her mouth began to water.
As cadets settled to the feast, speculation ran rampant among them: who would be scarved the Commandant of Misrule? Perhaps so-and-so because she was funny; perhaps what’s-his-name for the hideous expressions he could make; perhaps someone else because everyone liked him.
A stir arose at the door to Old Tentir. Out of it came Fash and Higbert, carrying chains. The links attached to a collar and the collar, under a dirty white scarf, was worn by Bear.
He stopped on the threshold, swaying, blinking bloodshot eyes.
Since he had emerged during the ambush in the stable, everyone had known at least by rumor that Bear was the legendary monster in the maze, rumored to eat cadets for lunch and supper, if not for breakfast. Even his past had come to light, with randon at last feeling free to describe his feats in happier days. Few, however, had seen him. His huge, shambling form and the obscene cleft in his skull awed them, while the wildness of his looks made many draw away. So did his rank smell, overlaid by the sharp tang of applejack.
They must have gotten him royally drunk to get that collar on him, Jame thought. No wonder he had slept through her clash with Narsa outside his door.
Fash and Higbert led him, stumbling, to the head table and induced him to sit.
Jame found that she had risen to her feet, as had every other cadet. They sat when he did, but on the edge of their benches, poised for Trinity knew what.
In the awkward silence that followed, Fash presented Bear first with a cup of ale, which he swigged down in a gulp, then with a roast haunch of venison. The big man looked at it suspiciously and licked his lips. A nervous laugh rippled through the Caineron as he suddenly snatched it up and tore at it like a wild beast.
This is wrong, Jame thought. Wrong.
Fash snatched the haunch away and held it up, making Bear paw for it. Then he thrust it under the table. Bear went after it. The table heaved. Despite themselves, more cadets started to giggle nervously. Others called at Fash to stop.
The table suddenly overturned as Bear rose. He gripped a chain and jerked Higbert within his terrible grasp.
Brier stood up, holding the cadet’s scarf.
“I order you. Don’t resist.”
Higbert, terrified, went limp. Bear plucked at his limbs, making him dance like a puppet. Rue started to clap in time, followed by others, but Bear’s movements were becoming more and more violent. He had torn a cadet apart before for teasing him.
A black coat swished past and there was Commandant Sheth Sharp-tongue by the high table. From his brother’s grip, he carefully detached Higbert. Bear’s mock scarf, slipping, revealed that the strap around his neck had spikes on it, turned inward. It was a punishment collar for unruly direhounds. Fash jerked on it, and Bear lashed out in pain at the nearest person—his brother. The Commandant fell.
“Get spears!” someone shouted, and weapons appeared in Caineron hands so quickly that they must have been hidden under the table.
This was all planned, thought Jame. She struggled to reach her Senethari’s side, using her claws when cadets didn’t move fast enough. Bear was ringed with steel, striking at any point that came too near. The Commandant lay at his feet.