There was not much time. Men were mustering in the yard. And talk had only broken the dam: Yuri glared at him with tears brimming, temper and shame equally ruddy in his cheeks. "You get to do everything. Bogdan ignores me. It's not fair!"
"It's the first time, I promise you, it's the first time I've ever gone anywhere—and next time, you will go. You'll be tall as I am in another year."
"It won't do any good. The baby has to stay home if the rest of you get killed. For the rest of my life they'll say, 'Somebody has to stay home . . .' "
"Take care of Zadny. Keep out of trouble. Promise me?"
"I promise." Sullenly. Tearfully.
"Come on." He tousled Yuri's hair and Yuri batted at his hand.
"Don't treat me like a baby. Don't do that."
"I promise. Never again." This morning seemed an ominous time for Never Agains. He skirted around that thought, into irrevocable decision. "Come on. Walk me to the yard."
Yuri got up in glum silence and dusted himself off. Zadny came wagging up, brushed his cold nose against Tamas' hand, and got in his way—Zadny was roundly cursed for that habit, by cook, by Taddeuscz the houndsmaster, by Bogdan, especially since the day Zadny had gotten shut upstairs and chewed Bogdan's best boots. Zadny had a way of crossing one's path on stairs, or in doorways. Zadny chewed on things. He was lost, Tamas was wont to argue on his dog's behalf. —He likes to be close to people. He hasn't grown into his feet yet. He hasn't had anyone to teach him manners.
He thought of Zadny underfoot in the yard, with the horses, or the very likely chance of Zadny following them down the road. "Yuri," he said, "we have to tie him," and Yuri agreed, and got a rope.
It was a betrayal. He got down on one knee and tied the knot tight, getting dog all over him in the process, and a wet kiss of forgiveness in the face. "Be good," he told Zadny.
"Stay, mind Yuri." After which he got up, wiped his face and his leather surcoat, and went with Yuri out of the kennels.
Barking pursued them through the gate, onto the trampled earth and flagstone of the larger courtyard, where horses and grooms mixed with stray goats and a handful of agile pigeons. The escort was gathering, with relatives and well-wishers, mothers and wives and younger brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents, all weaving perilously in and out among the horses, all turned out in holiday best because it was no hunting parry they were organizing, it was as bold and ambitious a setting-forth as anyone had made for years in Maggiar, to legendary over-mountain, with the chance of trolls along the way—fifteen men, all told, with their horses and three pack ponies loaded with grain and canvas for the mountain passes. The commotion caught Tamas up, making his heart beat faster. Colors and edges seemed both bright and unreal this morning. Master Nikolai was shouting at the grooms. Jerzy was flirting with a knot of Zav's cousins. Bogdan, looking every bit a lord's son and a warrior, was taking his leave of their mother and father at the top of the steps.
Tamas eeled through the confusion, hurried up the few steps to the landing with Yuri in his wake. "Do you suppose you can get this lot away today?" then- father asked Bogdan just then. Bogdan laughed and took his leave, clapping Tamas on the arm and ruffling Yuri's hair as he passed, with, "Be good, little brother."
Tamas went and kissed his mother—"Be careful," she said to him, straightened his cloak-pin and remarked how handsome he was, but she had said a great deal more than that last evening—about witches and trolls and the necessity of watching what he ate and what he drank and never, never, never believing something that looked too good to be true.
"We'll be back before high summer," he told her, seeing tears glistening—high summer was what master Nikolai had assured all of them; he kissed her a second time, guilty for her tears, then briskly hugged his father, who patted him on the shoulders, saying, dryly, "Tamas,—keep a leash on your brother."
"I will," he promised, startled: his father had never said such a thing before, never hinted in all their lives that he doubted Bogdan's leadership, and he was not sure it was not a joke, except his father was not laughing. Had there been some falling out this morning? Bogdan at least had been laughing as he left.
Their father hugged him a second time, closer, clapped him on the back and shoved him after Bogdan, as if that was after all his final judgment of the sons he was sending out into the world—but, lord Sun, he had no idea how he was supposed to restrain Bogdan's headlong rush at obstacles: master Karoly could hardly do that. He was the younger son, Bogdan was in command, and their father told him to keep Bogdan out of difficulties?
The clatter of horses racketed off the courtyard walls, drowning shouts and conversations as Tamas went down the steps, past master Karoly, in armor like the rest of them, who was on his way up to his father. He spotted his own horse in the milling yard: the grooms had brought him, and they had indeed tied his packs on for him as they had said. He headed that direction in relief, done with good-byes and parental tears. Now his only worry was not to look foolish among the older men—when out of nowhere a chubby girl ran up, pressed a heavy packet into his hands and fled.
He stopped, confused, as Yuri turned up at his elbow, breathlessly asking could he have use of his hunting bow while he was gone, his own was too short for him, and he needed a far heavier pull than Bogdan's old cast-off . . .
"Yes," Tamas said absently. The packet the girl had given him smelled wonderfully of cake and spice; and he wondered who she was, or what he had done to deserve her attention. Other girls were giving out gifts of cakes or garlands to their sweethearts—but he was notoriously, famously shy of girls— everyone teased him for it; she intended he give it to Bogdan, that was most probably the answer.
"Tamas? Can I?"
He remembered his promise not to ruffle Yuri's hair—just in time. Yuri stood looking up at him, promising fervently, "I'll take care of it," —meaning the bow, which would only gather dust this summer, and that was not good for a bow. Or for other things. "Use anything," he said. "Anything of mine you like." One did not hunt trolls and come back and play with kites and tops. The clothes, he would outgrow. The few things else . . . why detail a few sentimental trinkets? Yuri had the last of his boyhood to go, the exploring years, the hunting and the fishing out at distant farms a marvelous half day away from home and supper. . . .
Pottery crashed. Michal's horse, fighting the grooms to avoid a gaggle of girls, backed into stacks of baskets, then surged back toward the screaming girls, across a ruin of apples. Chaos spun through the yard, Michal and the grooms all cursing as they restrained the horse.
"All right, all right," the master huntsman shouted, "to horse, lord Sun, clear back, can we have less commotion and get us underway? Master Karoly? M'lord Tamas? Can we get to horse?"
His face went hot. He glanced back, where Karoly was still with their father, insisting, he suddenly realized, on rehearsing every detail he had gone over with their father last night—he knew Karoiy and he could catch the gist of it from here. So he ran back up the steps, tugged master Karoly by the sleeve, with: "Master Karoly, we're leaving right now," and drew the old man down to the yard.