Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey [162]
To his credit, Joscelin learned quickly. It is harder to learn as an adult than as a child, but if he had lost the ease that childhood affords, he made up for it in stubborn persistence. By virtue of having accompanied me on that first outing, Harald and Knud had appointed themselves my permanent escort, and it amused them to watch our lessons. Joscelin, I learned, they regarded as a genuine barbarian, wild and untamed, hitherto lacking even rudimentary speech. I could not, in truth, entirely blame them for this; if I had seen no more of the Cassiline than they had, I too might have thought him a savage.
It is a fine line, in all of us, between civilization and savagery. To any who think they would never cross it, I can only say, if you have never known what it is to be utterly betrayed and abandoned, you cannot know how close it is.
Gunter turned an indulgent eye to the proceedings. He had paid good coin for a D'Angeline warrior-prince, and if I thought I could transform the snarling captive he'd gotten instead into something worthy of serving a Skaldi tribal lord, he was willing to let me try.
Through the kindness of Hedwig and the other women of the steading, I was able to smuggle a few bits of comfort to Joscelin: a woolen jerkin from one, worn but still serviceable; rags to wrap his hands and his feet inside his boots; even a poorly cured bearskin, which stank, but afforded considerable warmth. Unfortunately, the dogs tore it to shreds and Joscelin was badly bitten on his left arm when he sought to rescue it, but Knud, swearing me to silence, gave me a bit of salve to put on the wounds. He said he'd gotten it from a village witch, who'd put the virtue of healing in it. Whether or not it was true-it smelled much like any other ointment I'd know-Joscelin's arm healed without festering.
I think it pleased Gunter to wait to evaluate Joscelin's progress. I was hard-pressed to track the days passing, but I think it was nigh onto two weeks before he put Joscelin's learning to the test. In all the time before that, he paid heed to him only once, visiting the kennels to greet his favorite dogs, tossing them scraps of dried meat to fight over. But for the glint in his eye, it might have been no more than robust Skaldic humor that made him toss one to Joscelin. I was not there, but I heard about it later; Joscelin caught the scrap neatly in midair and gave his Cassiline bow, forearms crossed.
After that, I gauged him ready enough to meet Gunter as a D'Angeline, and not the feral creature I'd seen him. We rehearsed a greeting, to smooth over his rudimentary Skaldic, and continued to work on the rest. When Gunter chose to acknowledge him, Joscelin was prepared.
It was a dim afternoon, on a day that had threatened snow, and Gunter and his thanes had idled in the hall drinking for some hours when he took it in his head to visit Joscelin. He took me with him, wrapped in fur, and with a few of his men went out to the kennels. They sang and jested and passed a skin of mead. When they reached the kennel, Gunter put his arm around me and shouted for the D'Angeline. Amid a swirl of bounding dogs, Joscelin emerged. He caught himself briefly at the sight of me under Gunter's arm, but kept his features expressionless, standing and giving his bow.
"So, D'Angeline, what have you learned, eh? Has my little dove taught you to speak like a proper man?" Gunter asked, squeezing my shoulders.
"I am at my lord's service," Joscelin said in carefully accented Skaldic, bowing again and standing at Cassiline ease, hands where the hilts of his daggers would have been.
"Ah-ha, so the wolf-cub does more than growl!" Gunter laughed, and his thanes laughed with him. "What will you do if I set you loose from the kennels, eh D'Angeline?"
I had given him a bit of thong to tie back his matted locks. Somehow, in rags and squalor, Joscelin managed to look every inch a Cassiline Brother. "I will do as my lord commands," he said, bowing again.
"Will you?"