by Jane Yolen
Then he added, but not aloud, Master Robin, Mag, Nell.
Patting his greasy stomach, he grunted happily. He could not remember being this warm and this full for a long time. Maybe not ever.
Going back to the bed, he lay down on it, but he did not close his eyes. Instead he stared for a moment at the low-beamed ceiling where bunches of dried herbs hung on iron hooks. He had not noticed them before.
What else had he not noticed?
He sat up. There were two windows, and the light shining through them reminded him suddenly of the sun through the interlacing of the trees in the forest. This light fell to the floor in strange, dusty patterns. He crawled off the bed and over to the light, where he tried to catch the motes in his hand. Each time he snatched at the dusty beams, they disappeared, and when he opened his hand again, it was empty.
Standing, he looked out the window at the fields and at the forest beyond. There was a strong wind blowing. The trees were bending toward the east. He thrust his head forward, to smell the wind, and was surprised by the glass.
Hard air, he thought at first before his mind recalled the word window. He tried to push open the glass, but he could not move it, so he left that window and tried the other. He went back and forth between them, leaving little marks on the glass.
Angry then, he went to the wooden door in the wall next to the hearth and shoved his shoulder against it. It would not open.
So then he knew another name. Cell. He was in a cell. The fields he could see through the glass and the tall familiar trees beyond were lost to him. He put his head back and howled.
From the other side of the door came a loud, answering howl. One. Then another.
Dogs!
He ran back to the bed and hid under the covers and shivered with fear. There were no trees for him to climb. It was the first time in a long while that he had felt hopeless. That he had felt fear.
Wrapped in the covers, in the warmth, he fell asleep and did not dream.
10. THE BATED BOY
WHEN HE WOKE AGAIN THE ROOM WAS DARKER and the light through the windows shaded. There was a new loaf and a bowl of milk by the door.
The boy clutched the covers and listened, but he could hear no sound of dogs beyond the door. So he went over, warily, to the tray of food and cautiously looked at it sideways, through slotted eyes.
In a fit of sudden anger, an anger that smelled a good deal like fear, he kicked the bowl of milk over and screamed.
There was no answering scream beyond the door.
He went back to the bed, curled up in the coverings as if he were in a nest, and willed himself back to sleep.
A few hours later he stood and urinated all around the bed, marking it for his own. Then, hungry, he went back to the door where the loaf waited on the tray. He ate it savagely, stuffing huge hunks into his mouth, and growling with each bite. When he was done, he sniffed around the place where the milk had spilled onto the floor, but it had all soaked in.
Bored and angry, he paced back and forth between the darkened windows and the door, faster and faster, until he broke into a trot. Finally he ran around the room, until he was dizzy and out of breath.
Then, standing in the very center of the room, he threw back his head to howl once again, but this time the howl died away into a series of short gasps and moans. He went back to the bed and curled into the covers and wept, something he had not done in a year.
When the sounds of his weeping had stopped and he drifted into a half sleep, the door into the room opened slowly. Master Robin entered and exchanged the empty tray for another, one with trenchers full of meat stew and milky porridge. Then he went over and stared down at the boy in the bed.
“Who are you, boy?” he whispered. “And how come you to our wood?” Then he knelt down and sat on the bed, stroking the boy’s matted hair and brushing it from the wide forehead.
At last he murmured in that soothing, low voice, “It does not matter. First we’ll tame you, then we’ll name you.” He smiled. “And then you’ll claim your own.”
The voice, the words, the warmth entered into the boy’s dreams and, dreaming still, he smiled and wiped his finger along his cheek. Then the finger found its way into his mouth and he slept that way until dawn.
The next day was a repeat of the first, and the next and the next. There were trays of food, by the bed or by the door. The hearth fire seemed always to be glowing with embers. Occasional hazelnuts popped mysteriously out onto the hearth. Milk and stew appeared as if by magic. But the boy did not see anyone else, though his sharp ears picked up sounds from beyond the door. Mag’s voice singing. Or Nell’s. And—occasionally—the whine of a dog.
By the fifth day, the room smelled and the floors bore the filthy reminders of the boy’s woods habits. But this time when he woke, Master Robin was in the room waiting for him to wake. He brought the tray of food to the bed and the boy sat up, involuntarily licking his upper lip.
When Master Robin sat on the bed, the boy reached over to grab the loaf.
The man slapped his hand.
The sting did not hurt so much as the surprise. And then there was a sudden memory of that other slap, when he had been holding the joint of meat, back ... back ... before the woods.
“Forgive...” the boy croaked, as if trying out a new tongue.
The man hugged him fiercely, suddenly. “Nothing to forgive, young one. Just slow down. The bread will not run away. It is the manners of the house and not the manners of the woods you must use here.”
The words meant less than the hug, of course. The boy sat back warily, waiting.
Master Robin broke the bread into two sections. Then he picked up a wooden stick with a rounded end and stuck it in the bowl of porridge. “Spoon,” he said. “Do you remember any such?” He was silent for a moment, then held out the thing to the boy. “Spoon.”
The boy whispered back, “Spoon.” He put out his hand, and his fingers, closing around the handle, remembered. He ate the porridge greedily, but with a measure of care as well, frequently stopping to check the man’s reactions.
“Good boy. So you are no stranger to spoons. How long were you in the woods then, I wonder? Long enough to go wild. Ah well, we will tame you. I am not a falconer for nought. I know how to bate a bird, how to tame it. I have a long patience with wild things. Eat then. Eat and rest. This afternoon, after we cut your hair and dress you, I’ll take you to the mews to see the hawks.”
11. ROOM
THE MAN LEFT WITH THE TRAY, AND THE BOY did not even try to follow him. There had been a promise. That much he understood. A promise of a trip outside. It was enough.
However, he was too awake and too excited to nap, and wandered instead around the room; not restlessly this time, or angrily. Instead he went slowly, cataloging the room’s contents. It was his room now. He had made it his first by marking it and then by feeling safe in it. Now he needed to know every corner of it.
There was the bed in the center, with its rumpled covers. The heather stuffing smelled a bit of mould now. But it was a comforting smell and he was used to it. The rush-strewn floor was likewise a bit off in its smell, like certain parts of the forest where there was too much bog and quaking earth. But the smell was familiar to him.
To one side of the bed was a small table that occasionally held a candle in an iron holder. He remembered its light when once he had awakened in the night. It had frightened him, then intrigued him. There was no candle now; instead a large bowl and jug stood there. He peered into them both. They were empty.
A great fire of logs burned on the hearth and to one side was a chair with a high back. It had arms carved with hawks’ heads.
There was a tall wooden wardrobe standing by the side of the door. The handle for it was too high for him to reach. As if Master Robin’s invitation had given him permission for exploration, he shoved the chair over to the wardrobe, scrambled up on it, and poked and pushed at the latch until he had gotten it undone. Of course he could not then open
the door of the wardrobe because the chair barred the way. It took him another moment to figure this out. When he pushed the chair out of the way, the door swung open on its own.
Inside he found a pile of fur robes of dark, soft hides that smelled like the fox who had snarled at him, like the wolves whose scent he had been careful to stay upwind of. He ran his hand over the robes, first the smooth way, then the other, and laughed. There was nothing to fear here.
He tugged one of the robes from the closet and wrapped it over his shoulders. Going down on all fours, he threw his head back and howled.
There was an answering howl from the other room.
Dogs! He dropped the fur robe and raced back to the bed where he cowered under the covers.
After a while, the dogs were quiet and the boy crept back off the bed. He went to the window and looked out. A cow grazed on the open meadow, fastened by a chain to its spot. Near it two brown dogs ran back and forth frantically. He had never seen them before. The cow did not seem disturbed by them, but the boy moved away from the window so that they might not see him. Perhaps, he thought, they were new to the pack. When he sneaked back, the dogs were playing still, this time running to fetch something. He saw it was a stick, which they brought over and laid at the feet of the man. It made the boy wonder that they were so tame. Perhaps, then, they were not of the pack after all.
Daringly, the boy put his hand to the window but the dogs never noticed. Nor did the man. With his forefinger, the boy drew a line down the middle of the window several inches long. He looked at it and then, ever so carefully, drew a line across the middle. After a moment’s thought he drew a round thing on the top. Then he stopped and shook his head. The figure was incomplete. It needed something. He stood back from the window trying to puzzle it out, but the lines blurred together, faded.
When he turned around, Master Robin was standing in the room. Next to him were the two women. All three of them were smiling.
12. MEWS
THE OLDER WOMAN, MAG, STOPPED SMILING AS she crossed the threshold, wrinkling her nose as she glanced around the room.
The girl cried out, “Master Robin! The smell!”
“Hush ye!” the man said. He meant it sharply but his voice was not sharp.
The boy stood stone still as they approached him.
“Now, boy, now, little one ...” the man’s low, cozening voice began. He reached for the boy and, for a moment, that was all. Then his large hand gripped the boy’s.
The boy trembled in the man’s grasp. But when the two women drew nearer and the girl put her hand on his arm, the boy snarled, a deep, chesty sound, and bared his teeth.
She drew back at once.
“You are a boy, not a beast,” the man said gently. “You are a child of God, not...”
The boy’s eyes rolled up in his head.
“Are you going to faint on me, boy?” the man asked.
But the boy was staring at the rooftree. “God,” he whispered.
Mag and Nell crossed themselves quickly. The boy did the same, with his free arm.
“Nor Satan’s imp then,” Nell said.
“Of course not, you silly wench.” For the first time there was exasperation in the man’s voice. “Just a child. Gone feral. How often need I tell you so?”
Mag clucked like a hen and smoothed down her apron. “I am not so daft, Master Robin. Tell me what to do.”
“The trews, woman. Bring them me.”
She handed him the grey trousers with the drawstring waist. He prisoned the boy’s two hands with his one big one, but not so as to hurt him, then with the other—and Mag’s help—drew the pants on the boy one leg at a time.
At first the boy shook all over and whimpered. But he did not fight. He was too curious and, though he could not have explained why, found it vaguely familiar as well.
The shirt, when it went over his head, was more familiar still. He smoothed it down his chest, liking the feel of the cloth against him. In his memory there was another such shirt, one that came down to his knees, of a softer weave. It had kept him warm, he remembered, until it had—at last—fallen apart sometime in late spring. Only he did not remember spring. He thought of it as the warm time, when the river ran swiftly over the stones.
Then the man put a strange harness over the boy’s head and around each shoulder and across his chest and back. It was plaited of rope and had a lead that Master Robin tied around his own wrist.
That reminded the boy of the cow tied out in the field, but he did not try to pull away. It made him feel as if he were part of the man and he liked that.
Master Robin sent the two women scuttling out of the room with a single word. “Go!” he said. They ran out like badgers scattering back to the sett. The boy laughed as they closed the door behind them. Master Robin laughed, too.
“So,” the man said, “you can laugh and you can cry and you can speak some. You are no idiot left out by a father, no simpleton cast out of his town. I wonder why you were set adrift?” He stroked his beard as he spoke in that low voice.
The boy did not understand the question. What was adrift? What was simpleton? What was town?
“Would you like to see the birds in the mews?”
That at least he understood. Birds. He nodded.
“Well. And well.” Master Robin pulled the boy close to him by the lead, then patted him on the head. “Tomorrow we will worry about your hair.”
The birds were housed in a long, low building, with small windows of thinned-down horn.
“The mews,” Master Robin said as they entered. He gave name to other things as they walked through the room. “Door. Perch. Bird. Lamp. Rafters.”
Mimicking his tone, the boy repeated each word with a kind of greed, as if he could not get enough of the names. As he spoke, his face took on the same look it had when he had smelled the first loaf of bread, eyes squinting, head up, in feral anticipation.
They walked slowly, kicking up sawdust as they went. The boy took in everything as if it were both his first and his hundredth time in such a place.
He stood at last in front of a trio of hooded birds on individual stands where the heavy sacking screens hanging from the perches moved in the slight wind like castle banners. It looked as if he were about to speak. Instead he leaned forward, trembling, straining against the harness and lead.
Just then the two brown dogs, mixed-breed hounds, bounded into the mews.
The boy screamed and tried to run.
“Stay, damn you, stay!” the man shouted, whether to the dogs, the boy, or the hawks now agitated on their perches, their feathers ruffling—it was not clear.
The boy continued to shriek, his eyes wild.
The man turned to the dogs. “Sit!” he thundered, holding up his hand.
The two dogs immediately sat, tongues lolling. The smaller dog moved forward on its hind end, closer to the man, whining.
“Lie down,” he thundered at them.
They lay down. The boy stopped shrieking but hid, trembling, behind the man. The hawks still fluttered, but at last even they quieted.
The man dragged the boy around in front of him by the rope. “These dogs will not harm you if I tell them so. They will guard you. They will be your friends.”
The boy’s trembling did not cease, but he was silent.
Holding the boy close, the man brought him to the dogs. “He is our boy,” the man said. “You will guard. Now, greet.” The larger of the two dogs crawled on its belly to the boy and licked his foot. The smaller dog followed. “Now, boy, pat their heads. Pull their ears. Let them hear thy voice.”
He showed the boy what to do, but the boy was still too frightened, until the smaller dog suddenly rolled over on its back and showed the boy its belly. He touched its belly tentatively and then threw his head back and laughed. The dog flipped over and lay its quivering head on his bare foot. Bending down, the boy patted the dog’s head. Then he pulled its ears.
“Dog,” he said, in a voice that consciousl
y mimicked the man’s deep tones.
But he did not dare touch the larger dog. He just nodded at it.
“Enough for one lesson,” the man said. “Time to eat.” And they walked through the long, low building and into the slanting light of the fall day, which was a surprise to them both.
“Dog,” the boy said as they walked past the corner of the building, where waist-high nettles hid the broken stones of an old wall. The small dog came to him, and trotted contentedly at his heels all the way into the house.
13. DOG
THE SMALL DOG SLEPT AT THE BOY’S BEDFOOT until the middle of the night, when it got up and crept into the bed with him. The new heather in the mattress reminded the boy of the outdoors and the warmth of the dog recalled a time well before memory. He stirred slightly and slipped into a dream that was softer and gentler than any dreaming he had had in a year.
But after a while, the dog began to dream, too, of coursing after hare through the bracken. His legs scrabbled on the bedclothes and he scratched the boy’s leg, not drawing blood, but pulling him swiftly out of sleep.
The boy woke disoriented and then, remembering, stuck his face in the dog’s side, drinking deeply of the smell.
“Dog,” he said, then raised his head and looked about.
The room was partly lit by light streaming in through the window. The boy rose from the bed, careful so as not to disturb the sleeping dog, and padded over to the lighted sill.
Under a full harvest moon, round and orange, shadows shifted across the field as if dream waves rolled across a dream ocean. The boy could just see the corner of the mews. And seeing the mews, he remembered the trio of birds on their perches shaking their wings in fear.
Something about those birds was important to him, but he did not know what. He only knew, suddenly and with fierce conviction, that he had to go to them.