He didn’t flinch. ‘About as unhappy as you made me when you didn’t obey me. But, then, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Doubtless you never forbade anything to your Hap that you yourself were guilty of. And I’m sure he always listens to your wisdom.’ He was very good. The sarcasm was there only if I looked for it.
That silenced me, for a time. But there was still one more question. ‘But why, Burrich? Why did you, why do you still so despise the Wit? Web, a man I much admire, sees no harm or danger in his magic. How could your own magic disgust you?’
He smoothed his hair back from his face and then rubbed his eyes. He spoke reluctantly. ‘Ah, Fitz, it’s a long, old tale. My grandmother, when she discovered I had the taint, was horrified. Her father had it. And when he was faced with the choice of saving his wife and small children from slavers or getting his Wit-partner out of a burning stable, he chose his Wit-partner. And because of that, slavers took them. My great-grandmother lived a short, miserable time after that. My grandmother said she was a very beautiful woman. There are few worse traits for a slave to have. Her masters used her and her mistresses abused her out of jealousy. My grandmother and her two sisters witnessed it all. And grew up as slaves, used and abused. Because the man who should have made his primary bond to his wife instead chose a horse over her and his children.’
‘One man, Burrich. One man making a bad decision. Or who knows what went through his head? Did he think that if he got to the horse, it could carry his wife and children to safety? Or help him battle the slavers? We can’t know. But he was only one man. That seems a small foundation upon which to condemn all the Wit.’
He exhaled a short breath through his nose. ‘Fitz. His decision condemned three generations of his family. It did not seem small to anyone who bore that burden. And my grandmother feared that if I were allowed to go on as I had begun, I would do the same. Find an animal, bond to it, and put it above all other considerations. And after she died, for a time, she was right. I did exactly that. As did you. Have you never looked at your own life and said, “take the Wit away, and what changes?” Think on it. If Nosey had not come between you and me, would not we have been closer when you were a boy? If you had not bonded to Smithy, would you have done better with your Skill-lessons? If Nighteyes had not been in your life, could Regal have found excuse to condemn you?’
For a moment, I was stymied. Then I replied, ‘But if the Wit had not been held a shameful thing, none of that would have been true. If you had spoken of it as Old Blood and taught me why I must not bond, if the Wit had been held in esteem as the Skill is, then all would have been well.’
His face darkened with rising blood, and for a moment I glimpsed Burrich’s old temper. Then, with a patience that only time could have taught him, he said quietly, ‘Fitz. It is a thing I was taught from the time my grandmother first discovered the taint in me. The Wit is shameful magic, and it shames a man to practise it. Now, you talk of people who practise it openly and find no disgrace in it. Well, I have heard of places where men marry their sisters and have children, where women go about with their breasts showing, where it is not accounted shameful to discard your mate simply because her youth has faded. Yet, would you teach your children that these behaviours are good? Or would you teach them to live as you yourself were taught?’
Chade startled me when he spoke. ‘There are unspoken rules to every society. Most of us never question them. But surely, Burrich, you must have some time wondered about what you were taught. Did you never decide that you would determine for yourself if the magic was worth having?’
Burrich turned to regard Chade with his clouded eyes. What did he see? A shape, a shadow, or only his Wit-sense of the old man?
‘I always knew it was worth having, Lord Chade. But I was an adult, and I knew the cost of it. Your prince out there; what price would he have to pay for his useful, worthwhile magic if it became known that he was Witted? You deny he has it to shield him from hatred and prejudice. Do you fault me that I tried to shield Chivalry’s son?’
Chade looked down at the work of his hands and didn’t answer. He had finished. Six containers, everything from flasks to saltboxes, were filled with his explosive powder and resting in kettles or pots. ‘I’m ready,’ he said. He lifted his gaze to me and smiled a strange smile. ‘Let’s go and free the dragon.’
I could not read his green eyes. I could not decide if he truly intended to free the dragon from the ice or meant to blast it to pieces. Perhaps he himself didn’t know. But as if his resolve were contagious, I suddenly felt tight with the need to end this.
‘How dangerous is this?’ Burrich asked.
‘Just as dangerous as it was last night,’ Chade replied testily.
Burrich put out a hand and ran his fingertips lightly across the pots. ‘Not six times as dangerous?’ he asked. ‘How will you do it? Will one man set them all, or six?’
Chade thought a moment. ‘Six men, each to get a kettle fire going. And then Fitz, to go down the line putting the containers in each pot.’
I nodded to the wisdom of that. Six men each judging their own time to put the powder in and flee might end up running into one another. ‘I’ll do it.’
I carried three of the pots and Chade carried the other three. Burrich brought the sack of fuel and a smaller kettle of coals from the guards’ hoarded night fire. The day seemed very bright to me as we walked up the hill. It was warm, for that place, and the sun glinted off the glistening ice. As we walked up the hill together, Burrich asked me, ‘Are you sure Nettle is safe now? I do not understand the risk she took, but it seems to have frightened all of you.’
I swallowed and admitted my guilt. ‘I asked her to go into the dragon’s dream and wake him. Her strongest Skill-talent is the manipulation of dreams. I never paused to consider that it might be dangerous, that the dreams of a dragon might be a far different challenge than the dreams of a man.’
‘Yet still she went?’ There was quiet pride in Burrich’s voice.
‘Yes, she did. Because I asked her. I’m ashamed that I risked her.’
He was silent for several strides then said, ‘So. She knows you, and knows you well enough to trust you. For how long?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s a hard thing to explain, Burrich.’ I felt a flush rise but forced myself to speak on. ‘I used to … look in on you. Not often. Only when it got so … It was wrong of me.’
His silence was long. Then he said, ‘That must have been a special torment for you. For the most part, we have been happy.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Yes. It was. Yet I never realized I was involving Nettle to do it. She was my … I don’t know, my focus point, I suppose. After a time, she became aware of me. She knew me through her dreams of me, as a, as a wolf man.’ I halted, flustered.