So it was that I was in the practice yards when the shout went up that the Rousters had returned. I touched the tip of my wooden blade to the earth to signify my surrender to my partner and went to meet them. Their formation was ragged and they rode as defeated and angry men do. They had their comrades’ horses, but were bearing no bodies home. Most likely they had burned them where they fell. I wondered what they had made of finding one man hamstrung, with his throat cut. Perhaps in all the blood, no one would have noticed his specific injuries.
They ignored me as they led their horses to the stables. FitzVigilant had already dismounted and stood holding the reins of his mount, waiting for someone to take the horse. Thick, looking old and weary and cold, sat slumped on his sturdy beast. I went to his stirrup. “Come down, old friend. Put your hand on my shoulder.”
He lifted his face to regard me. I had not seen him look so miserable in a very long time. “They’re mean. They made fun of me all the way home. They bumped me from behind when I was trying to drink my tea and I spilled it all down my front. And at the inn, they sent two girls to tease me. They dared me to touch their breasts and then slapped me when I did.” Tears came into his little eyes.
He told me his troubles so earnestly. I pushed down my wrath to speak gently to him. “You are home and no one will hurt you anymore,” I promised him. “You are back with your friends. Come down.”
“I did my best to protect him,” Lant said behind my shoulder. “But he could not seem to stay clear of his tormentors, or ignore them.”
Having had the care of Thick more than once, I understood well enough. The little man did seem to have the knack for putting himself into the most trouble he could find: Despite his years, he still had difficulty telling mockery from good-natured joking. Until it was too late. And like a cat, he was inevitably most attracted to those who had the least tolerance for him. Those most likely to torment him.
But once he had been able to evade actual physical damage.
I spoke very softly. “Could not you Skill them, Don’t see me, don’t see me?”
He scowled. “They tricked me. One would say, ‘Oh, I like you, be my friend.’ But they would be mean. Those girls, they said they would like me to touch them. That it would be fun. Then they slapped me.”
I winced for the hurt in his eyes and drooping mouth. He coughed, and it was a wet cough. Not good.
“Every one of them deserves a good thrashing, is what I think. Sir.” I turned to find Perseverance approaching. He led three horses. The roan, Priss, and a dappled gelding from my stables. Speckle. That was his name.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded and then took in the boy’s appearance. His right eye was blacked and that cheek well bruised. I recognized that someone had backhanded him. I knew that type of injury well. “And what happened to you?” I demanded before he could answer my first question.
“They hit Per, too,” Thick volunteered.
Lant looked flustered. “He tried to intervene that night at the inn. I told him it would only make things worse and it did.”
I was confronted by incompetence, inexperience, and stupidity. Then I looked at Thick’s woeful face and mentally changed stupidity to na?veté. Thick had never outgrown his innocence. I was silent as I helped him dismount. Thick coughed again and could not seem to stop. “Lant will take you to the kitchens and see that you get a hot, sweet drink. Per and I will take the horses. Then, Lant, I suggest you present yourself to King Dutiful to give your report. Thick will give his at the same time.”
Lant looked alarmed. “Not Lord Chade?”
“He’s very ill right now.” Thick was still coughing. He finally caught a wheezing breath. I relented a little. “Be sure Thick eats well and then take him through the steams. Then I will hear your report at the same time as the king does.”
“Badgerlock, I rather think …”
“Prince FitzChivalry,” I corrected him. I looked him up and down. “And do not make that mistake again.”
“Prince FitzChivalry,” he said, accepting the correction. He opened his mouth and then shut it again.
I turned away from him, holding his horse’s reins and Thick’s. “That wasn’t the mistake,” I said without looking back. “I meant your trying to think. But do not call me by that name again. Not here. We are not ready for it to be common knowledge that Badgerlock and FitzChivalry are one and the same.”
Per made a small choking sound. I did not look at him. “Bring those horses, Perseverance. You’ll have time to explain yourself to me while you settle them.”
The Rousters had gone into what I still thought of as the “new” stables, the ones built since the Red-Ship Wars. I did not want to see them just now. I wanted to be calm when I dealt with them, not merely appear calm. Per followed and I led him and the horses behind the new stables to Burrich’s stables, where I had grown up. They were not used as much as they once had been, but I was pleased to see they were kept clean and that there were empty stalls ready for the horses we brought. The stable boys were in awe of me and scampered so swiftly to the needs of the beasts that Per found very little to do. The other stable boys seemed to recognize him as one of their own, and perhaps thought the bruises on his face were my doing, for they were very deferential to me.