“So, you've finally realized you need to learn what I can teach you,” he greeted us. The stink of bear hung about the place, making both Nighteyes and me uneasy. Yet I still had nodded.
He laughed aloud, and his welcoming grin divided the forest of his black beard. I had forgotten the size of the hulking man. He lumbered out and engulfed me in a friendly hug that near cracked my ribs. Almost, I felt the thought he sent to Hilda, the bear that was his bondanimal.
“Old Blood welcomes Old Blood.” Holly emerged to greet us gravely. Rolf's wife was as slender and quiet as I recalled her. Her Witbeast, Sleet, rode on her wrist. Her hawk fixed me with one bright eye, then took flight as she drew closer to us. She smiled and shook her head to watch him go. Her greeting was more restrained than Rolf's, yet somehow warmer. “Well met and welcome,” she offered us. She turned her head slightly and sent us a sideways glance from her dark eyes. A quick smile lit her face even as she ducked her head to conceal it. She stood beside Rolf, as slight as he was broad. She preened her short, sleek hair back from her face. “Come within and share food,” she invited.
“And then we shall take a walk, find a good place for your den, and start building it,” Rolf offered, blunt and direct as always. He glanced up through the forest roof at the overcast sky. “Winter draws nigh. You were foolish to delay so long.”
And as simply as that, we became part of the Witted folk who lived in the area outlying Crowsneck. They were forestdwellers, going into the town only for those things they could not make for themselves. They kept their magic concealed from the towndwellers, for to be Witted was to invite the rope and the blade to your door. Not that Rolf and Holly or any of the others referred to themselves as Witted. That was the epithet flung by those who both hated and feared Beast Magic; it was a taunt to be hung by. Amongst themselves, they spoke of their kind as Old Blood, and pitied any children born to them who could not bond with an animal, mind and spirit, as ordinary folk might pity a child born blind or deaf.
There were not many of the Old Blood; no more than five families, spread far and wide in the forests about Crowsneck. Persecution had taught them not to dwell too closely together. They recognized one another, and that was enough community for them. Old Blood families generally practiced the solitary trades that permitted them to live apart from ordinary folk and yet close enough to barter and enjoy the benefits of a town. They were woodcutters and fur trappers, and the like. One family lived with their otters near a clay bank, and made exquisitely graceful pottery. One old man, bonded with a boar, lived amply on the coin the richer folk of the town paid him for the truffles he foraged. By and large, they were a peaceful folk, a people who accepted their roles as members of the natural world without disdain. It could not be said that they felt the same about humanity in general. From them, I heard and sensed much disapproval for folk who lived cheek by jowl in the towns and thought of animals as mere servants or pets, “dumb” beasts. They disparaged too those of Old Blood who lived amongst ordinary folk and denied their magic to do so. Often it was assumed I came of such a family, and it was difficult to dispel such ideas without revealing too much of the truth about myself.
“And did you succeed in that?” the Fool asked quietly.
I had the uneasy feeling he was asking the question because he knew I had not. I sighed. "In fact, that was the most difficult line I walked. In the months that passed, I wondered if I had not made a great error in coming back amongst them. Years before, when I had first met them, Rolf and Holly had known that my name was Fitz. They had known, too, of my hatred for Regal. From that knowledge to identifying me as Fitz the Wit Bastard was a tiny step. I knew that Rolf took it, for he attempted to talk of it with me one day. I told him flatly that he was mistaken, that it was a great and unfortunate coincidence both of name and bondbeast that had caused me a great deal of trouble in my lifetime. I was so adamant on the point that even that blunt soul soon realized he would never badger me into admitting otherwise. I lied, and he knew I lied, but I made it clear that it must be taken as truth between us, and so we left it. Holly, I am certain, knew as much but never spoke of it. I did not think the others in the community made the connection. I introduced myself as Tom, and so they all called me, even Holly and Rolf. Fitz, I prayed, would stay dead and buried.
“So they knew.” The Fool confirmed his suspicion. “That group, at least, knew that Fitz, Chivalry's bastard, did not die.”
I shrugged a shoulder. It surprised me that the old epithet still stung as it did, even from his lips. Surely I had grown past that. Once, I had thought of myself only as “the bastard.” But I had long ago got past that and realized that a man was what he made of himself, not what he was born. I suddenly recalled how the hedgewitch had puzzled over my disparate palms. I resisted the impulse to look at my own hands and instead poured us both more of the elfbark brew. Then I rose to rummage through my larder to see what I could find to drive the bitter taste from my mouth. I picked up the Sandsedge brandy, then determinedly set it back again. Instead, I found the last of the cheese, a bit hard but still flavorful, and half a loaf of bread. We had not eaten since breaking our fast that morning. Now that my headache was quieting, I found myself ravenously hungry. The Fool shared my appetite, for as I whittled hunks off the cheese, he sliced thick slabs off the bread.