“Are you having fun?”

His head lifted a bit. “A barrel of it.”

He drained half the contents of my waterskin. Then I untied the ropes that held him to the rear wall and helped him down to the straw, taking a quick inventory of the bloody stripes on his arms and legs. “I’m not going to clean you up. None of this looks too serious.”

“Crackin‘ uncomfortable though.” He stretched out and groaned.

“Why did you disobey a warrior? Of all the idiotic things. Would it have killed you to wipe the fellow’s boots? You’ve done worse. You love horse muck.”

He grinned, which, with his face all purple and swollen, looked pretty horrible. “Damn. Was it his boots? I couldn’t figure it out. Thought he was telling me to wipe the shit off his door.”

“You didn’t know the word for boots? You mean I was right?”

“Is that a rock in your stew or what?”

I hadn’t laughed in so long I’d almost forgotten how, but we both took off with that, until he rolled onto his side holding his ribs, and said, “Oh, damn, you’ve got to stop. Yell at me or something. This hurts too much.”

“Here. I should have thought. Show me where it hurts the most.”

He pointed to a tender, swollen bruise on his left side below the ribs, and I traced my finger around it to make it numb. I did the same to a couple of other places that looked particularly bad. “This won’t fix them, only stop the hurting for a while.”

“It’s a deal better. Are you… are you coming to be a Healer, then?” He said it almost with reverence.

The thought nauseated me. “No. I could never do that.”

“Whenever you need to go, just put me back on the wall. Firebreather will take care of me.”

“Nobody’s expecting me tonight. I arranged it.”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“You won’t. Do you want something to eat? I’ve got some things in my cloak.”

“I’d eat your boots if I knew the word for it.”

That set us laughing again, and it was a while until I could pull the bread and cheese from the pocket of my cloak, along with a flask of cavet that I heated up with sorcery.

After he had spent a few moments demolishing the food and drinking the cavet, he eased himself against the wall, and said, “So what do you do here besides take horse lessons from the Zhid?”

“I learn sword fighting and hand combat and sorcery.”

“I know you’re good at wrestling. Never thought I’d have a nub shorter’n me put me down so quick. Are you good at the other things, too?”

“I’m getting better. Swordsmanship-that’s the hardest. I improved really fast when I first came here, but not so much lately. I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at it as I want.”

“Why is it so important?”

“I’ve debts to pay. Debts of honor.”

“Maybe I don’t understand debts of honor-being who I am and all. It would be an education if you’d tell me.”

It was like ripping a hole in your waterskin. No matter how small the hole, everything got out eventually. I started just to tell him about my life debt to the Lords, but ended up telling him everything while we sat in that horse box- about how my whole life had been a lie and a betrayal, that no one had been who they said they were, and how it was all the fault of one man. I dumped everything on an ignorant stable Drudge who had never owned a pair of boots.

He was quiet for a long time after I was done, then shook his head slowly. “Blazes… that is the damnedest story. I’ve got to think on it a while before I can even know what to think. Some of it’s clear enough, but some… Why did you think this wicked prince that was really your da killed your nurse? I didn’t see that.”

“It was obvious. It’s why Seri brought him to Comigor, to take her revenge on Lucy and Papa. And it was his knife that did it. I saw it.”

“But that was in your dream you saw his knife. I’ve seen horses fly in dreams.”

I didn’t like him questioning me. “Your head’s in a muddle. I don’t expect you to understand. And I don’t know why I babbled all of this to someone who doesn’t know the word for boots.”

“It’s true. I don’t got half your brains, and what brain I’ve got is full of horse muck.”

“You must be about horses like I am about sword fighting. You’d like to be the best at it, wouldn’t you? At training them and knowing about them. I’ll bet you’d like to run a stable of the best horses there were anywhere.”

He screwed his swollen face into a frown. “I never told nobody that. You didn’t go picking at my head, did you?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I appreciate that. Gives me the crawlies to think on it.”

About that time a faint buzz in my head told me it was second watch, about two hours before dawn. “Do you want to sleep for a while? I should go soon, and once I do, it’ll be harder for you.”

“No need. I can sleep anywhere. It’s an advantage when you’re born low. Go ahead and put me back.”

I tied him back up to the wall, trying to duplicate the way the warrior had fixed him. “I can’t come in the morning, you know,” I said.

“It’s all right. It was a better night than I expected.” He was asleep before I shut the gate.

It had been foolish for me to do what I’d done, but I felt a little better than I had in a while. When I went to the stable the next afternoon for my riding lesson, I wandered past Firebreather’s stall. The boy wasn’t there anymore. Two days passed before I saw him again, mucking out a stall, still bruised and scratched, but otherwise looking no worse for the experience. I looked right through him, and he didn’t turn his head.