Nighteyes was suddenly in front of me. What are you doing?
Taking a short rest.
No you're not. You're going down to the cliffs, to Skill.
I rubbed the palms of my hands down the sides of my trousers. My thoughts were formless. “I was just going there for the breeze.”
Once you're there, you'll try to Skill. You know you will. I can feel your hunger as plainly as you do. My brother, please. Please don't.
His thought rode on a keening whine. Never had I seen him so desperate to dissuade me. It puzzled me. “Then I won't, if it worries you so.”
I wrenched my axe out of the chopping block and went back to work. After a time, I became aware I was attacking the wood with ferocity far beyond the task's need. I finished splitting the tumble of logs and began the tedious chore of stacking it so it would dry and yet shed rain. When that was done, I picked up my shirt. Without thinking, I turned toward the sea cliffs. Instantly the wolf was blocking my path.
Don't do this, brother. already told you I wouldn't. I turned aside from him, denying the frustration I felt. I weeded the garden. I hauled water from the stream to replenish the kitchen barrel. I dug a new pit, moved the privy, and filled the old pit with clean earth. In short, I burned through work as a lightning fire burns through a summer meadow. My back and arms ached, not just with weariness but with the complaints of old injuries, and still I dared not be still.-The Skillhunger tugged at me, refusing to be ignored.
As evening came, the wolf and I went fishing for our supper. Cooking for one person seemed foolish, yet I forced myself to set out a decent meal and to eat it. I tidied up and then sat down. The long hours of the evening stretched before me. I set out vellum and inks, but could not settle tothe task of writing anything. My thoughts would not order themselves. I finally dragged out the mending and began to doggedly patch, sew, or darn every garment that needed it.
Finally, when my work began to blear before my eyes, I went to bed. I lay on my back, my arm flung over my face, and tried to ignore the fishhooks that were set and dragging at my soul. Nighteyes dropped beside the bed with a sigh. I trailed my other arm over the side of the bed, resting my hand on his head. I wondered when we had crossed the line from solitude to loneliness.
It's not loneliness that eats at you like this.
There seemed nothing to say to that. I passed a difficult night. I forced myself out of bed shortly after dawn. For the next few days, I spent the mornings cutting alder for the smokehouse, and the afternoons catching fish to smoke. The wolf gorged himself on entrails, but still watched greedily as I salted the slabs of red fish and hung them on hooks over the slow fire. I put more green alder on to thicken the smoke and shut the door tightly. Late one afternoon, I was at the rain barrel, washing slime, scales, and salt from my hands when Nighteyes suddenly turned his head toward the lane.
Someone comes.
Hap? Hope surged in me.
No.
I was surprised at the strength of my disappointment. I felt an echo of the same from the wolf. We were both staring down the shaded lane when Jinna came in sight. She paused a moment, unnerved perhaps by the intensity of our gazes, then lifted a hand in greeting. “Hello, Tom Badgerlock! Here I am, to take up your offer of hospitality.”
A friend of Hap's, I explained to Nighteyes. He still hung back and regarded her warily as I went to meet her.
“Welcome. I didn't expect to see you so soon,” I said, and then heard the awkwardness of my words. “An unexpected pleasure is always the most welcome,” I added to mend the moment, and then realized that such gallantry was just as inappropriate. Had I completely forgotten how to deal with people?
But Jinna's smile put me at ease. “Seldom do hear such honesty harnessed with such fair words, Tom Badgerlock. Is that water cool?”
Without waiting for an answer, she strode up to the rain barrel, unknotting the kerchief at her throat as she did so. She walked like a woman used to the road, weary at the end of the day, but not overly taxed by her journey. The bulging pack high on her back was a natural part of her. She damped her kerchief and wiped the dust from her face and hands. Moistening it more generously, she wiped the back of her neck and her throat. “Oh, that's better,” she sighed gratefully. She turned to me with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “At the end of a long day's walk, I envy folk like you with a settled life and a place to call your own.”
“I assure you, folk like me just as often wonder if life would not be sweeter as travelers. Won't you come in and be comfortable? I was just about to start the evening meal.”