“There is no need to rush me,” Primrose complained as Bened propelled her into an inn. “It is not as if I leapt into the water in the dead of winter. My skirts are already dry.”
“I still cannot believe you risked your life for that rat,” he grumbled, and then asked for two bedchambers and to be shown to a private parlor with a fire. He added a request for some food and hot tea even as he ushered Primrose to the parlor the maid directed him to.
The minute they entered the parlor, Primrose took the basket with the puppy in it to the hearth and waited while Bened made a fire. She then opened the basket, took out the little dog to set it in her lap, and rearranged the small scrap of blanket so that it covered more of the rough sides before setting it back inside but leaving the top of the basket open. The puppy took a minute to settle herself then sighed and closed her eye.
Except for the eye socket that had a covering of skin and fur instead of a proper lid, the animal was a pretty little thing. It had long fur, mostly white, with fox-red spots. Her face had that same red fur as a cap on her head and a mask over the eye area but white down the middle. It looked very much like the dogs standing with King Charles in a painting her father had hung in the library.
She ran her thumb gently over the place where another eye should have been and sighed. There was nothing there. This was not something that could be fixed. It was a one-eyed dog. The only other dog she had ever had had also had some faults but she had loved Constantine. He had been her constant companion for three years and then was suddenly gone. Primrose frowned for she did not recall much more than that but she was sure she ought to.
“That is odd,” she muttered as she stroked the dog.
“What is odd?” asked Bened as he served her some hot tea. “Odder than nearly drowning yourself to save a one-eyed dog?” He watched her stroke her thumb over the patch of skin where an eye should be again. “Is there any eye there?”
“No, nothing. I did wonder if it was just that the lids had formed wrong but, no, there is no eye at all. I can barely feel the hollow in the bone where it should have formed. What I was thinking was a bit odd was that I can clearly recall my little dog, Constantine, but nothing about why he was suddenly gone. For three years he was always there and then he was not.”
“He ran away.”
“He must have and yet I barely recall any more than everyone searching for him for a day or two and then nothing.” She laughed uneasily. “’Tis as if a door shuts on my memories the moment the grief I feel over losing him begins to rise.”
“Because there is something there you do not wish to recall.” He sat down beside her.
“That would explain the remnants of fear and horror I felt as I just pushed to try to recover the memory. When I was trying to find some reason for my fear of the dark, the same thing happened. I also discovered that I have a lot of holes in my childhood memories.”
“One tends to forget a lot of one’s childhood.”
“True, but you usually recall the big things. Something made me not grow out of a deep, childish fear of the dark, especially when caught outside in it, but now that I know what it was that caused it, sad and upsetting though it was, the fear will ease. Is that not how we learn?”
“It is indeed.” He sat down next to her, slowly reached out so as not to frighten the animal, and scratched one of the puppy’s soft ears. “Thinking of how hard this creature fought that current despite being so small, it is even a greater shame that he was born maimed and a runt. He could have grown into a fine hunter.”
“She would have made a fine hunter indeed. She may make one yet. You cannot be certain a missing eye will affect her as badly as you think. She was born with it, first began to see with it. To her, looking at the world through but one eye is normal.”
“Ah, like a three-legged dog?”
“Did you have a three-legged dog?”
“When I was a lad. Best dog I ever had. Good hunter and tracker. Could even run, just not too fast and it was not a pretty thing to see.” He grinned when she laughed. “I jest, which would greatly surprise my family, but it was wrong for that woman to order the dog drowned. Some pups come out wrong. You can see it at the start. Look each over, snap the necks of the ones you think will not be chosen or live long or well.” He patted her on the shoulder when she made a soft sound of protest. “Quick, clean, and, done when newly born. Not a slow death with each moment left one of utter terror. That is cruelty.”
“This time I am happy the lady was so certain of her breeders that she did not bother to check the perfection of the litter until they were weaned and ready to be sold.”
“I think that is one of those foolish little dogs ladies love to carry everywhere and yaps a lot.”
“Those dogs are untrained heathens. This dog shall be a Wootten dog, well-mannered and intelligent.”
“Of course.”