Fool’s Assassin

Then we were past and closing the distance between us and the hurrying woman. She called something over her shoulder to the fog man. He pointed at me and warbled back at her happily. The man dragging me shouted something at her, and she responded in a rebuke. He halted abruptly, and then shifted his grip on me so that he held me by the back of my jerkin collar. He swung me up off my feet so that I hung dangling from his hand and shook me at her. She cried out in horror and he dropped me and laughed. When I tried to scrabble away, he put his foot on me and pressed me down into the snow. He said something to her, something mocking and threatening. Her cries turned to entreaties.

I tried to breathe. It was as much as I could do with his foot pressing down on me. She reached us, and her entreaties suddenly became threats. He laughed again, and lifted his foot. She knelt in the snow beside me.

“Oh, my dear, my darling one!” she exclaimed. “Here you are at last. You poor, poor thing! How frightened you must have been! But it’s all over now. We’re here. You’re safe now, and we’ve come to take you home.” She helped me to sit up. She looked at me so kindly, her round face full of anxiety and fondness. She smelled like lilacs. I tried to take a breath, to say something, and instead I burst into tears.

“Oh, my poor boy!” she exclaimed. “Be calm now. You’ll be fine. You’re safe with us now. You’re finally safe.”

The fog man had drawn closer. He pointed at me and joy suffused his face. “There. That one!” His voice was high and boyish. “The unexpected son. My brother.” His happiness at finding me washed over me, suffused me and filled me. I could not prevent the smile that broke out on my face. It came to me in a wave of joy. They’d come for me, the ones I belonged with. They were here and I would be safe, never lonely, never frightened again. His lolling foolish smile and his wide open arms welcomed me. I opened my arms to him, so glad to finally be gathered in.

Epilogue

A child is bitten by a rat. The parent rushes to comfort him. But the bite on the hand becomes septic and the child’s hand must be taken to preserve his life. That day, the child’s life changes forever.

Or a child is bitten by a rat. The parent rushes to comfort him. The wound heals well without a scar and all is well.

But it isn’t. The memory of the bite and the rat will be carried by the child for the rest of his life. Even as a grown man, the sound of scuttling in the night will make him waken bathed in sweat. He cannot work in barns or around granaries. When his dog brings him a dead rat, he starts back in terror.

Such is the power of memory. It is fully as strong as the most feverish infection, and it lingers not just for a period of sickness but for all the days of a man’s life. As dye soaks fibers, drawn into them to change their color forever, so does a memory, stinging or sweet, change the fiber of a man’s character.