Sworn Brother Read Online Free PDF Page B

apart toes looking for thorns, and casually pulled aside private parts, which he called their yard and stones, to check that they were not sore or bleeding. If he found a gash, he produced a needle and thread, and with one knee pinned down the dog while he stitched up the wound. Occasionally, if the dog was troublesome, he would call on me to assist by holding it, and of course I got badly bitten. Seeing the blood dripping from my hand, Edgar gave a satisfied laugh. ‘Teach you to stick your hand in his mouth,’ he jeered, making me think instantly of the one-handed huscarl. ‘Better than a cat bite. That’d go bad on you. A dog bite is clean and healthy. Or at least it is if the dog isn’t mad.’ The dog which had bitten me certainly didn’t look mad, so I sucked at the puncture wounds left by its teeth and said nothing. But Edgar wasn’t going to miss his opportunity. ‘Do you know what you do if you get bitten by a mad dog?’ he asked with relish. ‘You can’t suck hard enough to get out the rottenness. So you get a good strong barnyard cock, and strip off his feathers, all of them, until he is arse naked. Then you clap his fundament on the wound and give him a bad fright. That way he clenches up his gut and sucks out the wound.’ He guffawed.
    My ordeal would have lasted much longer but for the fact that I mislaid a dog on the fourth day. Edgar had told me to take the pack to a grassy area a few hundred paces from the kennel. There the animals were encouraged to chew the blades of grass for their health. During that short excursion I managed to lose track of the number of hounds I took with me, and when I brought them back into the dog-run I failed to notice that one was missing. Only when I was shutting the dogs up for the night and took a head count, did I realise my error. I closed the kennel door behind me, and walked back to the grassy area to see if I could find the missing hound. I did not call the dog because I did not know its name and, just as importantly, I did not want to alert Edgar to my blunder. He had been so hostile about the possible loss of a hawk that I was sure he would be furious over a missing dog. I walked quietly, hoping to spot the runaway lurking somewhere. There was no dog by the grass patch, and, thinking that the animal might have found its way to the back door of Edgar’s cottage to scavenge, I went to check. Just as I rounded the corner of the little house, I heard a slight clatter, and there was Edgar.
    He was kneeling on the ground with his back to me. In front of him was a square of white cloth spread on the earth. Lying on the cloth where he had just dropped them lay a scatter of half a dozen flat lathes. Edgar, who had been looking down at them intently, swung round in surprise.
    ‘What do they say?’ I asked, hoping to forestall the outburst of anger.
    He regarded me with suspicion. ‘None of your business,’ he retorted. I began to walk away when, unexpectedly from behind me, I heard him say, ‘Can you read the wands?’
    I turned back and replied cautiously, ‘In my country we prefer to throw dice or a tafl. And we bind our wands together like a book.’
‘What’s a tafl?’
    ‘A board which has markers. With practice one can read the signs.’
‘But you do use wands?’
    ‘Some of the older people still do, or knuckle bones of animals.’
‘Then tell me what you think these wands say.’
    I walked over to where the white cloth lay on the ground, and counted six of the wooden lathes scattered on it. Edgar was holding a seventh in his hand. One of the lathes on the ground was painted with a red band. I knew it must be the master. Three of the wands on the ground were slightly shorter than the others.
    ‘What do you read?’ Edgar asked. There was a pleading note in his voice.
    I looked down. ‘The answer is confused,’ I said. I bent down and picked up one of the lathes. It was slightly askew, lying across another wand. I turned it over, and read the sign