Brute (12 page)

“Do you
want
to die?”

“No!” Brute was surprised at the vehemence of his own response. Not very long ago his thoughts had been quite different on the matter.

“Then I’ll ask you again. Why are you still here?”

“It’s my job, milord. My responsibility.”

“Responsibility! You feed the man and you clean up his shit.”

It seemed to Brute as if he did a bit more than that, although he didn’t say so. “I know it’s not like… like running a country. But it’s…. Until recently I was a laborer. I hauled rocks and timbers and carts.”

“Work any mule could do.”

“Mostly, yes, milord. But it was my job then and I did it. Now I’ve been told to look after the prisoner and I do that.”

Lord Maudit sneered. “Do you do everything you’re told to?”

“Not always.” Brute squared his shoulders. “I do when I think it’s right.”

The lord was silent a moment, although his jaw worked. Finally he sighed very loudly and walked across the room to an ornate wooden armoire. The piece of furniture was huge, taller even than Brute, and it towered over the tiny nobleman. He pulled at a handle on its side and a door swung open; then he reached in and produced a blown-glass cup of blue and gold and a crystal decanter three-quarters full of amber liquid. He poured until the cup was nearly full. Every one of his movements was quick and exact, as if he woke up in the morning and planned out what each muscle would do for the day. When he swallowed his drink, even his throat worked precisely.

He drank the entire contents of the glass, gazing steadily at Brute the whole time. Then he replaced the glass and decanter in the cupboard and closed the door with a tiny
thunk
. He marched over to Brute, and although Brute was a good two and a half feet taller, somehow it seemed as if Lord Maudit were looking down at him. “What if I offered you thirty gold pieces to leave your employment at the palace?”

Brute’s jaw dropped with an audible click. “Thirty….” He’d never even glimpsed a gold piece, not once in his life.

“Thirty gold pieces. I’m sure you cannot do the sums, but that would be enough for you to purchase a home for yourself. Nothing elaborate, but a large step up from whatever hovel you previously inhabited. It would keep even you in food and ale for the rest of your life. Provide enough for a few small luxuries, if you managed your finances with care. You’d be sufficiently well off that you might attract a wife. Some woman who would be willing to overlook your obvious… limitations in exchange for a life of secure comfort.”

“Wh-wh-why….” He seemed to have caught Gray’s stutter. “Why would you offer me such a thing?”

Lord Maudit’s eyes narrowed. “My reasons are no concern of yours. What is your answer, Brute?”

Brute didn’t know whether this was some sort of test, and if so, what the proper response was supposed to be. For a moment he pictured himself living in his own home, never having to worry about whether he could afford his next meal. And then he pictured Gray Leynham alone in his miserable cell, with even the small comforts of quilt and scraps of decent food gone. “I’ll stay here,” he replied firmly.

The lord shook his head. “Dammit, Friddy,” he mumbled. Then he sighed again. “Young Warin’s family has a long history here.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.” Brute was taken aback by the conversation’s sudden change in direction.

“Not simply as cooks, although I imagine you might appreciate that function the best. Warin’s grandfather fought with King Aldhelm at the Battle of Two Rivers, and his great-grandmother was a midwife who attended the royal births. They’re good people, Warin’s family. Loyal and hardworking. The kind of men and women we rely on to keep the kingdom functioning well.”

“Warin and Alys have been very kind to me.”

“The boy thinks you ought to be declared a national hero, and his sister isn’t far behind in her views.”

Brute shifted his feet uncomfortably. “It was a very small thing, milord, and I don’t think—”

“What you think is immaterial.” Lord Maudit pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve been asked to grant you a boon.”

“A… what, sir?”

“A bonus or a favor. A reward of sorts. So. What is it you wish to have?”

Taken aback once more, Brute could only stand there with his mouth open.

The lord rolled his eyes and huffed. “I do have other matters to attend to today. What shall it be? A silver ring, perhaps? A dozen bottles of the king’s finest wine? Use of a horse and carriage for a week? A title, maybe? A plot of land—”

“Lessons,” Brute blurted out.

“Pardon me?” Lord Maudit’s thin eyebrows rose and disappeared under his forelock.

“I want to learn to read. Warin said he used to attend lessons.”

“Why would someone like you need to read?”

Brute didn’t have an answer to that. He hadn’t needed reading to work for Darius, and he didn’t need it to care for Gray. It wasn’t as if he had delusions of becoming a scholar someday, or of being respected for anything but his size. “I want to… to know things,” he finally mumbled.

Lord Maudit snorted, but then he shrugged. “Very well. You shall have your lessons.”

I
F
B
RUTE
hadn’t been simultaneously excited and nervous, he would have been embarrassed. He sat cross-legged on a polished marble floor in a large, mostly unadorned room. A dozen boys and girls—ranging in age from about six to ten—sat in front of him. They kept twisting around to stare at him, erupting into uncontrollable giggles.

The schoolmaster was an ancient man who used a staff to walk—and to poke at the shoulders of children who became too boisterous. Master Sighard looked as if he would have preferred to see a donkey join his class rather than Brute, but clearly he’d been given orders on the matter. That didn’t stop him from glaring darkly at Brute from under his fantastically bushy eyebrows.

“We shall now begin our sums,” Master Sighard intoned, and several of the children groaned. “I don’t suppose you know your numbers either.” He pointed the end of his staff at Brute.

“No, sir,” Brute admitted.

“Quoen, help him.”

Quoen was a tiny girl with messy brown hair and a smudge of breakfast on her chin. Earlier in the morning she’d been chosen to sit beside Brute and show him how she wrote her letters on a piece of slate. She’d taken the job very seriously, quizzing him as she went, and now she scrambled across the floor and plopped herself down at his side. While the Master took charge of the rest of the class, Quoen quietly coached her new partner.

“This is a one,” she said, showing him a single straight line. “See? Like one finger. You try.”

It was difficult for him to grasp the bit of chalk in his fingers, but he did as told. After he made six attempts to copy her mark, she was finally satisfied. She took the slate back and wrote another figure. “A two. It has a line too, plus a squiggle.” His attempts met with considerable disapproval, and it took quite a while before his diminutive teacher was satisfied.

By the time lessons ended at lunchtime, Brute felt helplessly stupid. He stood and stretched his cramped legs—his hips were complaining a little too—and craned his neck down to look at Quoen, who was giving him a gap-toothed smile. “Here,” she said, handing her slate up to him. “I wrote the letters on it so’s you can practice. I’m gonna see what you remember tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Mistress Quoen,” he said, which made her giggle before she ran away.

As soon as the children were all gone and before Brute could make his escape, Master Sighard clomped his way over. He must have been a tall man before age had bent his back. His sparse gray hair trailed past his shoulders. “Who put the idea in your head that you should be here?” he demanded. “Is this meant as some kind of joke?”

“It’s not a joke, sir. I never had the chance when I was a boy, and I was hoping I could try now.”

“Waste of time.”

Brute didn’t bother to point out that he had plenty of time. His official duties only took a few minutes each morning, and then he had little to do except wander the palace. “I’ll do my best,” he said.

Master Sighard humphed and hobbled away without another word.

That evening, after he and Gray had eaten, Brute sat at his table with a flickering candle, laboriously copying and recopying Quoen’s letters. He didn’t know the names of all of them yet, although she’d taught him a rhyming song to help him remember. He hummed the tune to himself as he worked.

“Wh-wh-what are you d-d-d-doing?” Gray’s chains wouldn’t quite allow him to reach the cell bars, but he shifted forward as far as he could, as if wishing to join Brute.

“I’m… practicing letters. Trying to. I’m not very good at it.”

“Wh-wh-why?”

“Because I’m clumsy and stupid and—”

“No! Wh-wh-why l-l-l-learn?”

“Everybody keeps asking me that. The other day I went for a walk, and I saw a bookshop. Hundreds—no, thousands of books. And it was like each one had a secret. I guess I’d like to see some of those secrets.” He set the chalk down and rubbed his hand across the smooth tabletop. “I bet you know how to write.”

Gray shook his head. “C-c-can’t. I l-l-l-lost the w-w-w-words. T-t-t-tongue’s c-c-clumsy, a-a-a-and fingers t-t-too. Fuck.” He rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyelids. “D-d-don’t know if I-I-I-I c-c-can r-r-r-r-read.”

It was often a bit of a challenge to decipher the full meaning of Gray’s stammered words. Brute pondered a few moments before saying, “You mean you used to speak without a stutter?”

Gray nodded.

“But now you can’t, and you can’t write either. Why?”

The reply was especially quiet. “The p-p-price.” And although Brute might have liked to learn more—because that answer was intriguingly cryptic—Gray turned his back on Brute and scooted into the far corner of his cell, where he leaned his face against the wall.

G
RAY
had a nightmare nearly every night for the next week, which left Brute feeling haggard and drawn in the morning. But still he showed up promptly for his lessons and set his mind on pleasing Quoen, who was sometimes as harsh a taskmaster as Darius.

“No!” she corrected him for the twentieth time that morning. “That’s a
d
. It makes a sound like in
dog
. The
b
is this one, like in your name. See?”

“Buh,” he sounded out. “Like Brute.”

She nodded magisterially at him. “That’s right. Now, what sound does this one make?”

He squinted at the bit of chalk mark. “Um… guh?”

“Very good!” She beamed and patted his big hand with her tiny one. “And this one?”

Before he could answer, Master Sighard hit the tip of his staff twice against the floor. “That is all for today. I’ve an appointment. Make sure you practice. Wini, I expect you to have those verses memorized for next time.” Wini grumbled as the rest of the children cheered, and soon Brute was alone in the room.

The morning was only half gone and it was far too early for lunch, but with nothing else to do with himself, he made his way to the kitchens. He found Alys there in a rare moment of near-repose, sitting on a stool in the yard close to the ovens and shelling peas. She smiled up at him. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it? I’m trying to enjoy as much as I can before the heat settles on us.”

“Can I join you?”

“Of course!” She waved at the low stone wall behind her, and when he sat down, she turned her stool and baskets around so she was facing him.

“Sorry I can’t help you,” he said. “I don’t think I can manage it one-handed.”

“You’d get chalk all over the peas anyway. How are the lessons coming?”

“Slowly. Those children learn so much faster than I do!”

She shrugged. “That’s because their heads are empty. Yours is filled with other things. Your past, your duties….” She let her voice trail away as she cocked her head at him. “Do you have a girl waiting for you back in your village, Brute?”

For a moment he thought she was teasing him, but her face was serious, and she’d never yet said anything cruel to him. “No,” he said.

“Have you thought about settling down with someone? Most men your age already have, and there are plenty of eligible women around here.” She smiled coquettishly and batted her eyelashes.

Brute nearly choked on his own tongue. “You—you’re really nice and, and b-beautiful, Alys, and, and any man would be lucky to have you, but, but—”

She burst out laughing, and he wanted to die of mortification. He had been remembering Lord Maudit’s words about a girl being willing to overlook Brute’s shortcomings in order to gain security, and he knew already that Alys was fond of him so… so he’d momentarily forgotten what a monster he was. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his head hanging low to hide his blush, and he scrambled off the wall and began to walk away.

But she stood too, scattering peas in the process, and hurried after him, grabbing at his arm to stop him. “Brute! Wait!”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I’ll just—”

“You’ll just sit down again and talk to me!” She let go of his arm to put her hands on her hips. She was giving him very much the same look she gave Warin when the boy was recalcitrant in his duties. So, like a chastened child, Brute resumed his seat on the wall while she picked up her baskets and sat to shell her peas. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to laugh.”

“I was being stupid. I know nobody like you could ever… ever want me.”

“Oh, Brute.” She shook her head. “It’s not that I couldn’t want you. I was laughing at myself, for putting things so badly. I have a… well, a betrothed, I suppose. Cearl. He used to deliver vegetables to the palace, and he’s kind of shy, and… and we fell in love. But he said he wouldn’t marry me unless his prospects were better. He went off to sea, to earn enough money to buy a fleet of carts and donkeys so he can have his own delivery business. He’s been gone nearly a year now.”

Brute sighed and tried to get past his humiliation. “You must miss him.”

“I do. But Brute, you’re a fine man too. That’s all I was trying to say. And you look… well, sometimes you look a little lonely. Would you like me to introduce you to some girls? Dreota, for example. Do you know her?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “She’s a laundress and very sweet, but she’s also a little shy. And she’s tall! Taller than most men, actually, and for some reason men
do
hate having to crane their necks to look up at their wife’s face—makes them feel less manly or some sort of nonsense like that, I guess—so nobody’s courted her, and I think the two of you—”