I nodded again, uncertain, but not knowing what else to do.

He peered at me. “You can speak, can’t you? You’re not a mute as well as a bastard, are you?”

I swallowed. “No, sir. I can speak.”

“Well, then, do speak. Don’t just nod. Tell me what you think of all this. Of who I am and what I just proposed that we do.”

Invited to speak, I yet stood dumb. I stared at the poxed face, the papery skin of his hands, and felt the gleam of his green eyes on me. I moved my tongue inside my mouth, but found only silence. His manner invited words, but his visage was still more terrifying than anything I had ever imagined.

“Boy,” he said, and the gentleness in his voice startled me into meeting his eyes. “I can teach you even if you hate me, or if you despise the lessons. I can teach you if you are bored, or lazy or stupid. But I can’t teach you if you’re afraid to speak to me. At least, not the way I want to teach you. And I can’t teach you if you decide this is something you’d rather not learn. But you have to tell me. You’ve learned to guard your thoughts so well, you’re almost afraid to let yourself know what they are. But try speaking them aloud, now, to me. You won’t be punished.”

“I don’t much like it,” I suddenly blurted. “The idea of killing people.”

“Ah.” He paused. “Neither did I, when it came down to it. Nor do I, still.” He sighed suddenly, deeply. “As each time comes, you’ll decide. The first time will be hardest. But know, for now, that that decision is many years away. And in the meantime, you have much to learn.” He hesitated. “There is this, boy. And you should remember it in every situation, not just this one. Learning is never wrong. Even learning how to kill isn’t wrong. Or right. It’s just a thing to learn, a thing I can teach you. That’s all. For now, do you think you could learn how to do it, and later decide if you want to do it?”

Such a question to put to a boy. Even then, something in me raised its hackles and sniffed at the idea, but boy that I was, I could find no objection to raise. And curiosity was nibbling at me.

“I can learn it.”

“Good.” He smiled, but there was a tiredness to his face and he didn’t seem as pleased as he might have. “That’s well enough, then. Well enough.” He looked around the room. “We may as well begin tonight. Let’s start by tidying up. There’s a broom over there. Oh, but first, change out of your nightshirt into something . . . ah, there’s a ragged old robe over there. That’ll do for now. Can’t have the washer folk wondering why your nightshirts smell of camphor and pain’s ease, can we? Now, you sweep up the floor a bit while I put away a few things.”

And so passed the next few hours. I swept, then mopped the stone floor. He directed me as I cleared the paraphernalia from the great table. I turned the herbs on their drying rack. I fed the three lizards he had caged in the corner, chopping up some sticky old meat into chunks that they gulped whole. I wiped clean a number of pots and bowls and stored them. And he worked alongside me, seeming grateful for the company, and chatted to me as if we were both old men. Or both young boys.

“No letters as yet? No ciphering. Bagrash! What’s the old man thinking? Well, I shall see that remedied swiftly. You’ve your father’s brow, boy, and just his way of wrinkling it. Has anyone ever told you that before? Ah, there you are, Slink, you rascal! What mischief have you been up to now?”

A brown weasel appeared from behind a tapestry, and we were introduced to one another. Chade let me feed Slink quail eggs from a bowl on the table, and laughed when the little beast followed me about begging for more. He gave me a copper bracelet that I found under the table, warning that it might make my wrist green, and cautioning that if anyone asked me about it, I should say I had found it behind the stables.

At some time we stopped for honey cakes and hot spiced wine. We sat together at a low table on some rugs before the fireplace, and I watched the firelight dancing over his scarred face and wondered why it had seemed so frightening. He noticed me watching him, and his face contorted in a smile. “Seems familiar, doesn’t it, boy? My face, I mean.”

It didn’t. I had been staring at the grotesque scars on the pasty white skin. I had no idea what he meant. I stared at him questioningly, trying to figure it out.

“Don’t trouble yourself about it, boy. It leaves its tracks on all of us, and sooner or later you’ll get the tumble of it. But now, well . . .” He rose, stretching, so that his cassock bared his skinny white calves. “Now it’s mostly later. Or earlier, depending on which end of the day you fancy most. Time you headed back to your bed. Now. You’ll remember that this is all a very dark secret, won’t you? Not just me and this room, but the whole thing, waking up at night and lessons in how to kill people, and all of it.”