![]() ![]() I know you've heard people say Chivalry was cold and stiff and correct to a fault. "When I woke up, the dog had a master again. "Chade said I should leave you tomorrow," he said quietly. About a hand of years later, the blood plague went through Chalced. I made my mother and grandmother's life a bit better with my new trade, though they never suspected what I did. In a sense, I transferred my bond to her. "My grandmother forced me to survive Slash's death. "I learned to talk," he said after a bit. I heard him making up his bed and lying down on it. His voice was the only sound in the fire lit room. Why he suddenly spoke so openly, I did not know. Now the words were spilling out of him, washing away my years of wondering and suspecting. Drink had never loosened his tongue, but only made him more silent. All the years I had known him as a taciturn man. Grizzle's troops were gentlemen compared with the dregs that soldiered for Jecto, but I still preferred the company of horses to theirs. Somehow I ended up taking care of my troop's horses. I went to the Six Duchies, where there are no slaves, nor slavers. When I escaped, I did what she had always dreamed of doing. I spent several months, no, almost a year, learning my grandmother's hatred of slavers. It was my only key to survival amongst the kind of men I soldiered with then. No one expects a boy to fight with a beast's ferocity and guile. Not knowing or caring why we fought, if there was any right or wrong to it." He snorted softly. "I first fought for some petty land chief in Chalced. He said he feared more to stay, feared he could not keep his resolve with you. Like a dog, or a stallion, I thought it was the only way to establish position with the others. In the first month I was with Chivalry, I was up before him for discipline twice. I didn't meet their standards as a man, let alone as a soldier. I had run out of money and been painfully sober for three days. #Poseidon meaning crackThese were crack troops, his personal guard. I don't know why his sergeant took me on. He'd come to Rippon to settle a boundary dispute between Shoaks and Rippon duchies. Eventually, to become a soldier again, this time for a young prince named Chivalry. Besides, there were scarcely enough animals left in that stable to warrant calling it such. Keeping them alive kept me from killing myself. Neko died, just a day after he started to sicken. "Some kind of horse plague went through that man's stables. Up the coast, to Rippon." He cleared his throat. "Duke Grizzle sold Neko and six mares, and I went with them. He did not need to explain further to me. ![]() Or at least, to have the shape of one." Burrich was silent a moment. A mare in season, and the better stallion to have her. Sometimes he put Neko to fight other stallions, as some men fight dogs or cocks for amusement. I had the care of him, but he was not mine. "When the Sandsedge war was done, Duke Grizzle took me home to his own stables. And there was no one at home strong enough to oppose my will. But I was not a boy who would play in the cottage at quiet games. "A lifetime of being a slave does not leave a woman with sound health. My grandmother looked after me, but she was very old, and often ill." I heard more than saw his bitter smile. My father was dead before I was born, taken by the sea. My mother did washing to support my grandmother and me. A little coast town, a fishing and shipping port. ![]()
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