and I could find fresh meat.’ My mouth ran at the thought of it. A rabbit torn open, still steaming in the winter night. That was what I wanted.
‘Nighteyes will have to hunt alone this night,’ Heart of the Pack told me. He went to the window and opened the shutters a little. The chill air rushed in. I could smell Nighteyes and further away, a snow cat. Nighteyes whined. ‘Go away,’ Heart of the Pack told him. ‘Go on, now, go hunt, go feed yourself. I’ve not enough to feed you here.’
Nighteyes went away from the light that spilled from the window. But he did not go too far. He was waiting out there for me, but I knew he could not wait long. Like me, he was hungry now.
Heart of the Pack went to the fire that made the room too hot. There was a pot by it, and he poked it away from the fire and took the lid off. Steam came out, and with it smells. Grains and roots, and a tiny bit of meat smell, almost boiled away. But I was so hungry I snuffed after it. I started to whine, but Heart of the Pack made the eye-snarl again. So I went back to the hard chair. I sat. I waited.
He took a very long time. He took all the leather from the table and put it on a hook. Then he put the pot of grease away. Then he brought the hot pot to the table. Then he set out two bowls and two cups. He put water in the cups. He set out a knife and two spoons. From the cupboard he brought bread and a small pot of jam. He put the stew in the bowl before me, but I knew I could not touch it. I had to sit and not eat the food while he cut the bread and gave me a piece. I could hold the bread, but I could not eat it until he sat down too, with his plate and his stew and his bread.
‘Pick up your spoon,’ he reminded me. Then he slowly sat down in his chair right beside me. I was holding the spoon and the bread and waiting, waiting, waiting. I didn’t take my eyes off him but I could not keep my mouth from moving. It made him angry. I shut my mouth again. Finally he said, ‘We will eat now.’
But the waiting still had not stopped. One bite I was allowed to take. It must be chewed and swallowed before I took more, or he would cuff me. I could take only as much stew as would fit on the spoon. I picked up the cup and drank from it. He smiled at me. ‘Good, Fitz. Good boy.’
I smiled back, but then I took too large a bite of the bread and he frowned at me. I tried to chew it slowly, but I was so hungry now, and the food was here, and I did not understand why he would not just let me eat it now. It took a long time to eat. He had made the stew too hot on purpose, so that I would burn my mouth if I took too big a bite. I thought about that for a bit. Then I said, ‘You made the food too hot on purpose. So I will be burned if I eat too fast.’
His smile came more slowly. He nodded at me.
I still finished eating before he did. I had to sit on the chair until he had finished eating, too.
‘Well, Fitz,’ he said at last. ‘Not too bad a day today. Hey boy?’
I looked at him.
‘Say something back to me,’ he told me.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Anything.’
‘Anything.’
He frowned at me and I wanted to snarl, because I had done what he told me. After a time, he got up and got a bottle. He poured something into his cup. He held the bottle out to me. ‘Do you want some?’
I pulled back from it. Even the smell of it stung in my nostrils.
‘Answer,’ he reminded me.
‘No. No, it’s bad water.’
‘No. It’s bad brandy. Blackberry brandy, very cheap. I used to hate it, you used to like it.’
I snorted out the smell. ‘We have never liked it.’
He set the bottle and the cup down on the table. He got up and went to the window. He opened it again. ‘Go hunting, I said!’ I felt Nighteyes jump and then run away. Nighteyes is as afraid of Heart of the Pack as I am. Once I attacked Heart of the Pack. I had been sick for a long time, but then I was better. I wished to go out to hunt and he would not let me. He stood before the door and I sprang on him. He hit me with his fist, and then held me down. He is not bigger than I. But he is meaner, and more clever. He knows many ways to hold and most of them hurt. He held me on the floor, on my back, with my throat bared and waiting for his teeth, for a long, long time. Every time I moved, he cuffed me. Nighteyes had snarled outside the house, but not very close to the door, and he had not tried to come in. When I whined for mercy, he struck me again. ‘Be quiet!’ he said. When I was quiet, he told me, ‘You are younger. I am older and I know more. I fight better than you do, I hunt better than you do. I am always above you. You will do everything I want you to do. You will do everything I tell you to do. Do you understand that?’
Yes, I had told him. Yes, yes, that is pack, I understand, I understand. But he had only struck me again and held me there, throat wide, until I told him with my mouth, ‘Yes, I understand.’
When Heart of the Pack came back to the table, he put brandy in my cup. He set it in front of me, where I would have to smell it. I snorted.
‘Try it,’ he urged me. ‘Just a little. You used to like it. You used to drink it in town, when you were younger and not supposed to go into taverns without me. And then you would chew mint, and think I would not know what you had done.’
I shook my head at him. ‘I would not do what you told me not to do. I understood.’
He made his sound that is like choking and sneezing. ‘Oh, you used to very often do what I had told you not to do. Very often.’
I shook my head again. ‘I do not remember it.’
‘Not yet. But you will.’ He pointed at the brandy again. ‘Go on. Taste it. Just a little bit. It might do you good.’
And because he had told me I must, I tasted it. It stung my mouth and nose, and I could not snort the taste away. I spilled what was left in the cup.
‘Well. Wouldn’t Patience be pleased,’ was all he said. And then he made me get a cloth and clean what I had spilled. And clean the dishes in water and wipe them dry, too.
Sometimes I would shake and fall down. There was no reason. Heart of the Pack would try to hold me still. Sometimes the shaking made me fall asleep. When I awakened later, I ached. My chest hurt, my back hurt. Sometimes I bit my tongue. I did not like those times. They frightened Nighteyes.
And sometimes there was another with Nighteyes and me, another who thought with us. He was very small, but he was there. I did not want him there. I did not want anyone there, ever again, except Nighteyes and me. He knew that, and made himself so small that most of the time he was not there.
Later, a man came.
‘A man is coming,’ I told Heart of the Pack. It was dark and the fire was burning low. The good hunting time was past. Full dark was here. Soon he would make us sleep.
He did not answer me. He got up quickly and quietly and took up the big knife that was always on the table. He pointed at me to go to the corner, out of his way. He went softly to the door and waited. Outside, I heard the man stepping through the snow. Then I smelled him. ‘It is the grey one,’ I told him. ‘Chade.’
He opened the door very
