“Were they that open that they were Witted? Never have I heard of such a village.”
“It was not that they were open about what they were, so much as that I was excluded for what I was not. Children are not subtle.”
The bitterness of her words shocked me. I recalled, abruptly, how the rest of Galen's coterie had treated me with disdain when I could not seem to master the Skill. I tried to imagine growing up amidst such snubbing. Then a thought intruded. “I thought your father was Huntsman for Lord Sitswell. Did not you grow up on his estate, then?” I wanted to know where this place was, where Witted ones were so common their children had come to expect it of their playmates.
“Oh. Well, but that came later, you see.”
I was not sure if she lied then, or if she had lied earlier, only that the untruth hung almost palpably between us. It made an uncomfortable silence. My mind darted amongst the possibilities. That she was Witted, that she was an unWitted child in a family with Witted siblings or parents, that she had made the whole tale up, that all of Lord Sitswell's manor was riddled with Witted servants. Perhaps Lord Sitswell himself was of the Old Blood. Such speculation was not entirely useless. It prepared the mind to sort whatever other information she might toss my way into the appropriate possibilities. I barkened back to an earlier conversation we had had, and found a chance remark that put a chill down my back. She had said she would know these hills well, having spent time not far from Galeton, amongst her other folk. Chade too had mentioned something of that. I tried to find a way to renew the conversation.
“So. You sound as if you do not share the currently fashionable hatred of the Witted. That perhaps you do not wish to see them all burned and cut up.”
“It's a filthy habit,” she said, and the way she said it made me feel as if fire and blade were too small a cure for it. “I think that parents who teach their children to indulge it should be whipped. Those that choose to practice it should not marry nor have children. They already have a beast to share their homes and lives. Why should they cheat a woman or a man by taking a spouse? Those who are Witted should have to choose, early in their lives, which they will bind to, an animal or another human. That's all.”
Her voice had risen on the vehemence of her reply. At her last words, it dropped away, as if she suddenly recalled that Lord Golden was sleeping. “Good night, Tom Badgerlock,” she added belatedly. She tried to soften her tone, perhaps, but it still plainly told me that our talk was over. As if to emphasize it, she rolled on her blanket to put her back to me.
Nighteyes rose with a groan and came stiffly to rne. He lay down beside me with a sigh. I let my hand come to rest on his ruff. Our shared thoughts flowed as secretly as our blood.
She knows .