Kushiel's Dart

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?" Gunter looked skeptical. "Well, there is water to be drawn and wood to be fetched and Hedwig has been complaining about the housecarls, so mayhap we have a use for you, wolf-cub. But how do I know you will keep your word, hm? How do I know you'll not try to flee, nor assault us in our sleep if I give you half a chance? I've not men to waste, setting a guard on you all day!"
    It was too much Skaldic too fast; I saw Joscelin blink in consternation. "He wants your word that you'll not try to escape nor attack the steading," I said in D'Angeline.
    Joscelin thought. "Tell him this," he said to me. "While he keeps you safe, I will protect and serve this . . . steading ... as if it were my own. I will do aught he asks, save turn on my own people, unless they be d'Aiglemort's men. This I swear, upon my oath."
    I repeated his words to Gunter in Skaldic, slowly, so that Joscelin could follow the gist of it and nod agreement. Gunter scratched his chin.
    "He has a mighty hatred for Kilberhaar," he said thoughtfully. "So much I fear he may choose vengeance over honor, no matter how he swears. What do you say, little dove? Will the wolf-cub honor his oath?"
    "My lord," I said honestly, "he is more bound by this oath than words can compass. Mountains will fall and cattle will fly before he breaks it."
    "Well, then." Gunter grinned at Joscelin. "It seems my dove has tamed the wolf, where all my dogs have failed. I will give you one night to say farewell to your new friends, and in the morning we will see what kind of servant you make."
    The Cassiline followed the sense of his words, if not the exact meaning. He bowed again, then sat cross-legged in the snow, ignoring the dogs that milled around sniffing him. "I will wait my lord's command," he said in Skaldic.
    "Is he going to sit there all night?" Gunter asked me curiously.
    "I don't know." I'd had my fill of stubborn Cassiline honor, and despaired of understanding the logic that drove it. "He might."
    Gunter roared with laughter. "What a man! Some prize I will have to show at the Allthing, if he will serve! The wolf and the dove, yolked in tandem at Gunter Arnlaugson's steading! Even Waldemar Selig might envy such a prize." In high