The gardener was a pawn, he had no Talent. He was a little angry, but unsuspicious. So, let the man have the help he had been promised. Let the gardener have his boy. I slipped into a niche of the wall where it extended out over the moat into a privy used by the servants of the courtyard, and the grooms. No one had noticed me. The guardsmen had begun a straggling procession toward the kitchens; the remaining ones were looking away toward the hills. I took one leaf of the herb, only one, and bit down on it as I thought about a boy, a vacant-eyed boy, a boy dressed only in a dirty shirt, a brown-legged boy with greasy, brownish hair and no-colored eyes, an unremarkable boy with a gap in his teeth. I thought of the boy, the boy, how he would feel about helping the gardener, harder work than he liked, but they told him to help or no food, so he’d help, damn them all anyways. The boy put Grimpt’s boots and clothing down the privy, belted Peter’s shirt tightly around his slim waist and stepped out of the privy and into the garden where he stood sullenly at the gardener’s elbow.
“They told me off to help you,” he said.
“Oh, they did, did they? Well, it’s about time. Promised me help this morning, they did, and not a sign of it. You take that barrow, there, and go fill it up at the dung heap. Dig down good, now, you understand. I don’t want any fresh. I want old stuff that’s all rotten down. And be quick about it.” As the boy turned away, the man asked, “And what’s your name?”
“What’s it matter?” the boy muttered.
“What’s it matter? Well, it don’t matter. But I got to call you something, don’t I? Can’t go around yelling ‘boy’ or I’d have half the young ones in the place buggering around. I need something to lay a tongue to…”
“Name’s Swallow,” the boy said. “Y’can call me Swall; they mostly do.”
Swallow
SWALLOW HAD A DIRTY FACE and could spit through the gap in his teeth. There had been a boy once at Mertyn’s House who could do that; Peter had envied him. Swallow had lice in his hair, or at least he scratched as though he did, and an evil, empty-headed leer. When the gardener received a noon meal, Swallow received one as well, a large bowl of meat and grain and root vegetables, the same again at night with the addition of a mug of bitter beer and a lump of cheese the size of his fist. The gardener had a hut beside the fortress wall, near the kitchen gardens. The cooks had a place near the kitchen. Others had cubbies and corners here and there, closets and niches hidden in the thick walls behind tapestries. Swallow found a place in the hay loft above the stables, a good enough place, both warm and dry. He was to every intent and eye invisible. No one in the place noticed him, and no one in the place except the gardener could have said who he was or how long he had been there. Swallow was one of them, the pawns, the unconsidered. When, in the middle of the afternoon, there was a great tumult in the castle with men running to and fro and a confused trumpeting of voices as a search for Grimpt was conducted, no one thought of Swallow. No one spoke to him, or asked him anything. Swallow watched them running about, his mouth hanging open and his face vacant, but they did not see him. All night long while Swallow slept burrowed deep in the warm hay, the castle hummed with men coming and going, wagons rumbling toward and away from the sound of axes in the forest. He may have wakened briefly at the noise, but went to sleep at once again. Swallow had worked hard all day. What was this confusion to him?
Thus he could be completely surprised the next morning when he listened to the whispers of the guardsmen as they ate their first meal in the early sunlight of the yard.
“The Prisoner is gone, they say. Gone right out of his clothes. Nothing left of him at all.”
“And Grimpt gone, too? Filthy sot. I’ll believe that when bunwits lay eggs.”
‘No. It’s true. He’s gone right enough. They’ve searched every corner for him. It’s said now he went down the privy and over the moat.”
“Down the privy. Ay. That’s the place for old Grimpt, right enough.”
“They found his boots in the moat. Fished them out.”
“What’s it all about? Do they say Grimpt took the prisoner with him?”
“No. There’s talk of a Great Game coming. The prisoner was taken out by Powers, by a Wizard, they say. Or burned up in his clothes by a Firedrake.”
“The clothes ‘ud burn, too.”
“They say not.”
“Ah, well. They’ll say anything.”
The gardener had been listening also, came to himself and shut his mouth with an audible snap, caught Swallow by an arm and spun him around. “Enough of this loll-bagging about. Great Game or no, there’s lawn to level, and we’d best at it.”
Swallow spent the better part of the day rolling a heavy cylinder of stone over clipped grass, muttering the whole time to anyone within ear shot. The gardener wasn’t listening, but Swallow let no opportunity for complaint pass by. Huld came through the garden at noon, his face drawn and tired. He did not notice the boy. Swallow saw Huld but kept his eyes resolutely upon the stone roller. It was not his business to draw the attention of Demons. Mandor, too, came into the garden, but by that time Swallow was having his lunch in the courtyard, almost out of sight around the corner of the iron gate. Mandor saw nothing. His eyes were fixed and glazed, and there was dried foam upon the corners of his mouth. Swallow looked up from his bowl to see adoration upon the faces around him. His own face became adoring at once, and he did not start eating again until those around him did so.
Late in the afternoon two Armigers rode in, bringing with them two pawns and a Healer. Swallow watched them ride in, as did everyone else in the place, his mouth open, his fingers busy scratching himself. The Healer was escorted into the castle, and the pawns were told to stand by the wall until they were summoned. It seemed to Swallow that they looked almost familiar, and he turned away to continue his work as Peter said to him softly, “Swallow, that is my friend Yarrel and my friend Chance.” Hearing the voice from within frightened Swallow, and it was a long moment before Peter could fight his way to the surface again.
“There is more to this business than I thought,” I said to myself. I had created a reality, a half-person who grew more real with each passing hour, more real than myself. And yet, to be safe, it had to be so. Swallow had to be more real than Peter, without any thoughts which would attract attention. I sank below the surface of me, thinking of myself as a fish. .
Fish, fish. I could set a hook into this fish, a hook which would pull it up to the surface when it was needed but would let it swim down into the darkness otherwise. A hook. The faces of my friends, the names of Mertyn and Himaggery and Windlow. These would be my looks. When these pulled, I would rise to peek above the water only to sink again quickly out of sight. I imagined the hook, barbed, silver, tough as steel. I set it deep into Peter and let him go.