Fic: The Robin Wife (1/3)
Aug. 20th, 2010 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iesikaTitle: The Robin Wife
Characters: Bruce, Dick
Rating: This part G, overall adult, I think.
Summary: A lonely hermit's act of kindness earns him a devoted companion.
Notes: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
au_bingo (prompt: Fantasy and Supernatural, Author's Choice). I went with animal bride folktale. This story was very much inspired by listening to The Decemberists Crane Wife, though it doesn't follow quite the same plot as the Japanese folktale that inspired those songs.)
Words: 4400
The wind was cold, and it howled through the trees in the growing dark, sounding like a live thing - something dark and lonely. Bruce looked up through the snow-covered limbs as he rode, listening to the sound and thinking it fitting after the day he'd had. It was somewhat humiliating, really...the men and women in town were more than willing to take his money when he came to their stalls, but all of his hesitant overtures toward friendlier conversation had resulted in fidgeting and uncomfortable stares.
There was a lot of superstition in this county, and the violent scandal surrounding his parents' deaths had always been enough to set Bruce apart from the townspeople. It hadn't bothered him much when he was younger - when he'd had Alfred. Only with Alfred's passing, when Bruce had been left alone in the big manor house, had he truly realized how isolated he was. He did what he could to help the people in the village - just last fall, he had paid for new slate to re-roof the old chapel - but still their eyes slid from his face when he spoke to them.
Bruce didn't think of himself as particularly fearsome. He was a large man, yes, but he was hardly hideous in appearance, and, despite his isolation, he kept himself neatly groomed and dressed. Alfred had pressed that lesson into him as a child; his mother would not have wanted to see him looking slovenly, and so Bruce kept his face clean-shaven and his hair neatly trimmed, despite the difficulty in doing it himself. His voice was sometimes gruff from disuse, but he refused to take to talking to himself, even when it seemed that his throat would dry up entirely between visits to the market.
Bruce wasn't much of a cook, but since Alfred's death, he hadn't been able to hire a single servant, and so he made do. It didn't really matter that all he could prepare was simple fare, because everything tasted more or less the same to him anyway. Alfred's food had been a delight to the senses, but every bite Bruce had eaten since his death had been like nothing but a mouthful of ashes.
He thought from time to time of leaving the county - selling most of his possessions and moving on, perhaps to a city, somewhere with people and noise and company, where his personal history wouldn't frighten away everyone he met. The idea of leaving his family home, though - of turning his back on the house his father's father had built, the portraits on the walls, the dresses in his mother's wardrobe, the books in Alfred's chambers - it wasn't worth entertaining. He couldn't leave. The manor was his home, lonely as it was, and someday he would die there, just as alone, and molder in his bed with no one to bury him. It was a bitter thought. Bruce shook his head against it and scanned the familiar woods around him, made strange by the accumulation of ice and snow.
A flash of color at the side of the road caught his eye, and Bruce slowed his horse, who shook her head impatiently. She'd taken this path many times, and it was rare that they ever stopped. The red patch was too strange and incongruous for Bruce to ignore, and so he stopped entirely and dismounted. The snow tonight was light, but enough was falling that it should have obscured whatever he'd seen in a matter of minutes. Whatever it was, it hadn't been there long, even though Bruce didn't see any foot or hoof prints in the snow. He crouched, holding the reigns loosely in one hand and brushing back some of the snow to uncover a fallen bird.
It was a robin, as strange as that seemed with the weather as it was. Bruce frowned at its stillness and pulled off one glove, touching his fingers to the red breast and feeling the little thing's heart beat fast. It was injured - wing twisted oddly, a gash across its breast spilling a red as bright as its feathers out onto the snow. Without thinking very hard about what he was doing, Bruce unwound his scarf and lifted the bird carefully from the ground, wrapping it gently in the thick, dark wool and tucking it into the front of his coat.
His horse nudged him impatiently, and he stood from his crouch to pat her nose before climbing back into the saddle. The house wasn't far, now.
*
He lit the fire in the kitchen before he did anything else, and then took the bird from within his coat and set it on a folded cloth. It still seemed insensate, unresponsive to his prodding as he gently touched the little head and neck, smoothed the ruffled feathers over the breast. Its tiny heart was still beating strong, though, and it was breathing fast, so he set some water on to heat and put his gloves back on to go and tend to his horse.
When he returned to the kitchen the bird had awakened somewhat and had managed to escape the cloth. Bruce frowned at it as he stripped out of his outer garments, watching it flutter sluggishly against his table, shaking its good wing and kicking uselessly with feeble legs. He stepped forward just in time to keep it from tumbling off the table, picking it up again carefully and setting it back into the cloth, this time folding the cloth over on top of it to keep it still as he turned to deal with the kettle and fetch some rags.
Holding the struggling bird bound up in the cloth, he cleaned the wound as carefully as he could, and then he folded its wing carefully and wrapped it up tight, despite its renewed struggling. It chirped loudly at him, and he laughed quietly to himself before setting it into the tin Alfred had usually kept stocked with sweets. He dug around in the cupboard until he found a flask that had belonged to his father, and filled it from the kettle before capping it and tucking it underneath the little robin, making a nest of the rags and settling the bird on top. "Can't have you getting chilled," he said, trying to keep his voice soft and soothing.
The robin chirped back.
*
Within a few days, the robin was well enough to protest its confinement whenever Bruce came near. He fed it carefully every few hours, usually a bit of whatever he was eating - which was mostly venison stew and porridge - cut up small and offered to it on a fingertip. At first the bird seemed reluctant to trust him, but hunger apparently won out, and now it opened its mouth wide whenever he sat by it with his plate. Several times each night it would awaken him with faint peeps from its place on his pillow, and he would turn, still half-asleep, and feed it on the bedside table before stumbling to the fire to fetch the kettle and refresh the flask he was using as a warming bottle.
After a while, the bird stopped protesting his touch, submitting meekly to small touches on the head. It was some weeks, though, before its wing seemed to no longer cause it any pain. Bruce carefully unwrapped the binding and watched as the bird hopped around in circles on the kitchen table, fluttering its wings as if to test them. Bruce sat back with his breakfast and smiled as he watched it jump about. "You're a handsome little dickie-bird," he said quietly, and it turned at the sound of his voice, hopping nearer and cocking its head. "Porridge?"
The bird hopped closer, and Bruce dipped his spoon into his breakfast, holding it near the level of the table while his little friend ate daintily. He poured a bit of water into a saucer and tapped his spoon clean at its edge, leaving a bit of porridge for the bird to peck at.
"I'm sorry there's no bacon this morning," he said, because the bird had proved fond of it. "I'm out of some things. Been putting off a ride into town. Will you come with me?"
The bird cocked its head again. Bruce let his hand rest flat on the table, palm up, and pretended to focus on his breakfast. After a moment, he felt a pressure on the tip of his thumb and looked up. The robin pecked him again, and then looked up, head cocked. Bruce lifted a finger and touched its beak gently. It chirped.
"I'll get my coat, then. You can ride in the pocket."
The bird sat preening comfortably on Bruce's shoulder as he tidied the dishes and fetched his coat and hat, but the moment he stepped outside, it flapped its wings and leapt, fluttering and falling. Bruce held out his hands to catch it, but it righted itself and flew up, toward the dawning sun, through the branches with their budding leaves.
"Wait!" Bruce called, but the bird didn't come back.
*
The ride into town seemed to take longer than it ever had before. It was such a stupid thing, really, to be grieving the loss of a bird. It hadn't even truly been a pet - just a wild creature that had been temporarily unable to fend for itself. Bruce should be happy it had flown away. Its wing had mended, and it had returned to the forest, probably to find a little lady-bird and live happily ever after. Still, he thought as he approached the edge of the square and watched the children hurry out of his way, when he'd had the bird to care for, he hadn't been lonely at all. Even his thoughts of Alfred had been pleasant ones, wondering what the old man would have done or said if he could see Bruce fussing over his little charge like a mother hen.
Oh well. He wasn't sure why he'd thought it would last. Wild birds weren't known to make the best pets. Maybe he should get a dog. He was reasonably sure, after keeping the bird alive for weeks, that a dog ought to be within his power. A dog would probably eat stew. Did dogs eat porridge?
Where did one even acquire a dog? Alfred would have known. Perhaps Bruce would ask the bookseller. He was one of the few people who would actually speak to Bruce for very long. It was easier to have a conversation with a book in hand, discussing this interpretation or that scientific experiment. Then again, it was possible the man was only putting up with his company because Bruce spent so much money in his shop.
Bruce shook his head to himself and dismounted from his horse, looping her reigns over a fencepost and scratching her cheek before taking the empty sacks off her back. He'd get his staples, first - he was out of bacon, and nearly out of coffee, low on salt... Depending on what the butcher had, Bruce might take back a mutton leg or a rack of lamb, or maybe just a few strings of sausage. He needed dried peas. He'd get some milk, too, while he was here, and some fresh bread. He might just have that for supper, and not worry about cooking the roast until tomorrow.
He'd lingered longer that morning than he really should have, taking his time brushing and saddling the horse, and then finally giving up on pretense and just sitting on the step, looking up at the trees. He probably wasn't ever going to stop looking up, but that didn't make his little robin any more likely to return; it just made him pathetic.
A snatch of birdsong stopped him in his tracks, but when he turned to look, it was only a sparrow, declaring its ownership of a nearby mulberry bush. Bruce laughed bitterly at himself and stepped over a shallow puddle, headed for the dry-goods store.
"Hey mister!" a young voice called, and Bruce glanced back despite his doubt that he was the one being addressed. He was surprised, then, to see a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, holding one of Bruce's burlap sacks and smiling. "You dropped this!" He jogged toward Bruce, stepping carelessly in the puddle, and held the bag out. "You've got a lot of bags."
Blinking dully in surprise, Bruce held out a hand and took the sack. The boy was only as tall as Bruce's shoulder, dark-haired and somewhat olive-skinned. Bruce had never seen him in the village before - he was pretty sure he would have remembered. The boy was handsome, his skin clear, his teeth straight and white when he smiled. "Thank you," Bruce said. He tucked the sack under his arm with the others and dipped his head in a slight bow. The boy just beamed wider. "Excuse me," Bruce said, and stepped into the store.
"Are you going to buy a lot of stuff?" The boy asked, following him inside. "Do you want me to help you carry it?"
Ah, that explained it then. The lad was hoping to make a bit of money. "If you like," Bruce said, and handed him a few of his sacks. "What's your name?"
"Um," The boy said, and looked down at the sacks, unfolding them and opening one, looking inside. "Dick?"
Bruce felt the corner of his mouth quirk. "Are you not sure?"
"No, I mean. Dick. My name's Dick. Hey, eggs!" Bruce watched bemusedly as the boy jogged toward the counter and brought his face near to the jar of pickled eggs sitting behind the licorice and taffy.
"Do you want one?" Bruce asked, because he didn't quite know what else to say. The boy was very peculiar. Perhaps he was touched in the head.
"Ew, no," Dick said, making a face. He looked up eagerly when the storekeeper stepped up to the counter. "Hi!" he said, and then stepped back behind Bruce.
"Good morning," the man said. He looked warily between Bruce and the boy, probably wondering what on earth the lad was doing in such company. "Your usual, sir?"
"Yes, please. Anything special this morning?"
The man shook his head in the negative and took the bags Bruce held out without looking him in the face. "I'll just fetch - ah - excuse me." He had to pause and step around Dick, because the boy had approached the side of the counter while Bruce wasn't looking, and was standing in the way, examining a barrel full of dry beans. As Bruce watched, the boy picked one up and sniffed it.
Very peculiar.
*
In theory, an extra pair of hands should have made his shopping go more quickly. In practice, though, every store they stepped into held some new distraction that set his 'helper' darting about between the shelves. Twice the boy stopped to speak to pretty young girls who giggled and fidgeted at the attention. It was a terribly inefficient process, and at this rate Bruce wouldn't be home until well after dark. Still, Bruce found he was enjoying himself.
The boy was friendly and open, and so cheerful he might better be described as *effervescent*. He was strangely childlike despite his age, but he didn't seem to be 'slow'. Quite the contrary - he seemed to remember everything that Bruce said, however offhandedly, hanging onto every word with eyes that were attentive and bright and the color of a clear, sunny sky.
At the bookseller's, it became apparent that no one had bothered to teach the boy how to read. The shopkeep seemed rather surprised when Bruce asked him for a few books meant for very young children, but he didn't ask any questions. Bruce would give the boy the books as part of his payment for a day spent ferrying packages. Considering the curiosity with which the boy attacked everything around him, Bruce was reasonably sure the boy would pester someone into showing him the basics.
It wasn't until he was strapping his purchases onto his horse that he realized the flaw in his reasoning. The boy had been thrilled by the books - he'd been correct about that part. It was the rest of his assumptions that presented the problem.
"What *is* it?" Dick asked, holding one of the coins up to the fading light. "Hey, they're kind of pretty. Shiny. Oh, wait, you traded these for food and stuff. Could I trade one for bacon?"
Bruce snorted and pulled the last strap tight. "Two of them. And no more, no matter what the butcher says."
The boy nodded, counting out his coins as Bruce climbed up into the saddle and checked the strap across his horse's neck. Bruce nudged the mare and set off at a walk, smiling to himself. It had been a long day - physically and emotionally exhausting - and as much as he'd enjoyed the boy's strange company, he was going to be glad to get home and rest. He would leave his bedroom window open, and some bread along the windowsill. Maybe his robin would come back in the morning, looking for a free meal.
Something brushed Bruce's leg, and he looked down. The boy was walking along beside the horse, with one hand touching the animal's broad side. "What are you doing?" Bruce asked. "It's sundown. You should go home for supper. Your mother will be missing you."
"I don't have a mother," the boy said, his tone sober for the first time since Bruce had met him that morning. "We were traveling. Me and my parents. But we were attacked in the woods, and they got hurt really bad. I got away...but when I went back they weren't there."
Bruce stopped the horse. He looked down, and the boy looked up, his eyes wide and sorrowful. Bruce frowned. It was too much like his own story. "Where were you planning to sleep tonight?"
The boy shrugged. "I don't know. The woods? Probably the woods. Or maybe in a barn. Barns are warmer."
Bruce didn't actually debate the matter in his mind. He just looked at the boy's upturned face, remembering the feel of his parents' blood, tacky on his palms, of dust between his fingers as he'd gathered scattered pearls. He held out his hand and slid his foot out of the stirrup. "Come on," he said. "I'll help you up."
*
For supper, they had bread and butter, with milk. It was a childish sort of meal, but a day full of delays had made anything fancier pretty much impossible. Dick didn't seem to mind. He drank three full cups of milk, and then wandered around the kitchen with cream on his lip, looking inside all the cabinets and canisters while Bruce finished his meal at a more leisurely pace.
Bruce let the boy finish the last of the milk in his own cup, and then guided him into a chair with a hand on his arm and handed him a napkin. Dick just looked at it, folding and unfolding, examining one side and then the other, until Bruce finally took it back and wiped the boy's mouth. "Do you have any clothes or other things stashed somewhere?"
"No," the boy said calmly, as if being utterly destitute meant nothing to him. He took the napkin back from Bruce and reached out, brushing it across Bruce's lips and making the man smile.
"Hm," he said. "I imagine there are some things of mine in the old nursery that might fit you. If you don't mind wearing my old cast-offs."
"That would be great!" Dick said, eagerly. "I bet they smell like you." Before Bruce could ponder the statement, he stood up, stacking their dishes neatly and carrying them to the sink. "Can we have bacon for breakfast?"
Bruce used the napkin to sweep a few crumbs from the table into his hand, then stood and crossed the room to where Dick was washing the dishes. He dusted his hands over the waste bin and leaned against the counter to watch the boy work. It was strange how much more sure of himself he seemed here, in the home of a complete stranger, than he had in the public square. Strange that a boy who hadn't known what money was had guessed exactly where Bruce kept his scrub-brush and dish-rags.
It was possible he was being scammed. He might wake up to an empty house, all the family silver and his mother's jewelry long gone. He might not wake up at all, his throat slit in his bed, or poison in his nightcap.
"Look!" Dick said, turning suddenly and holding up his hands. There was a thin film of soap stretched between his fingers, like the webbed toes of a duck. Dick was smiling, his eyes bright, looking up at Bruce through the iridescent film of soap.
Bruce leaned forward and blew, sending a few small bubbles floating back toward Dick's face. The boy laughed in delight.
*
"But..." Dick said, standing in the hallway with one of Bruce's nightshirts hanging down well past his knees. "Can't I sleep with you?"
The question startled Bruce, and he stopped in place, holding a candle in one hand and a stack of blankets in the other. "It's a big house," he said when he finally turned. "You'll have your own room. I expect you to keep it neat, but it will be your own space. Every boy needs time to himself."
"I don't," Dick said, mutinously, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'd rather be with you. I don't like being alone."
Bruce looked at the boy, his spare but well-shaped form hidden under the oversized shirt, his long limbs bare, his handsome face pink from the scrubbing Bruce had insisted on. "I'm not certain it's appropriate."
"Appropriate?" Dick said, looking confused, and confirming Bruce's suspicion of his innocence. It pleased him to know that no one has taken advantage of the boy, as could so easily have happened.
"Nevermind. The fact remains, you may not feel that you need time alone, but I am most certain that *I do*. We shall see each other in the morning. Bacon for breakfast, remember?"
Dick shifted on his feet, a frown on his face, but he followed Bruce down the hall to the room Bruce had swept out while the boy got ready for bed. He watched attentively as Bruce shook the blankets out to air them a bit and then tucked them around the mattress, making the bed up just as Alfred had taught him. "Why's it so big?" he asked, when Bruce took the pillows from him and started to fluff them. "If it's only for one person, why's the bed so big?"
Bruce set the last pillow in place and paused without looking back. "Sometimes people share beds. Their circumstances aren't like ours, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if there were only one bed in the house a guest might share with his host. A parent might share with their children, and a man usually shares with his wife."
"I could be your wife." Dick said.
Bruce swallowed and kneaded the pillow a little too hard. "That isn't how it works, Dick. You should go to bed. In the morning, I'll show you around the property. We can talk about which of the chores you'd like to do."
"After breakfast, right?" Dick asked, sitting down on the bed and pressing his hand into one of the soft pillows.
"After breakfast," Bruce confirmed. He felt a strange urge to bend forward and kiss the boy's hair. He patted him on the shoulder instead. "Sleep well. I'm just down the hall, if you need me."
*
Bruce awakened with a jolt at some time in the middle of the night. His fire had died down to glowing coals, and there was only starlight outside the windows. Bruce sat up and ran his hands through his hair, wondering what had woken him. If it had been the usual nightmares, he would be tangled in the sheets right now, covered in sweat.
A thought struck him suddenly, and he slid from the bed, padding over to the window he'd left open, but the crumbs on his windowsill were undisturbed, but for a few ants. He brushed the insects away and turned back to the bed, stretching until his spine popped.
There. A slight sound from the hallway. Bruce hadn't shared his home with another person for a long time. If Dick was awake and moving about, that was almost certainly what had pulled him from his sleep. Bruce crossed the room and listened at the door, but he didn't hear any further movement. Shaking his head to himself, he opened the door, slowly, careful of the hinges.
The door only moved a few inches before it bumped into something soft and came to rest. Bruce closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh, and heard movement and a light groan in reply. "Dick," he said, and pushed the door a little harder, until he could see through the gap.
The boy was folded up in the small alcove outside his door. He pulled his legs in and scooted backward when Bruce pushed the door against his shoulder again, rubbing his eyes the whole time. "Is it morning?" he asked.
"What are you doing out here?" Bruce asked him. "Is there something wrong with your bed?" Bruce had checked the mattress for insects or other vermin, but it had seemed clean. Still, it was possible he'd missed something in the dark.
"I got lonely," Dick said, his voice small. "Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."
Bruce frowned, more at himself than than anything else. He could remember what it was like, after his parents had died - how huge the house had felt, and how lonely. Alfred hadn't ever allowed Bruce to crawl into bed with him - it wouldn't have been proper - but there had been long nights when he'd sat by Bruce's bedside, to be there if the nightmares woke him.
Bruce looked down at the downcast face of the boy in front of him, at the way Dick was hugging his knees to his chest. "Come on," he said, and crouched enough to hold out a hand to him. "You'll catch a cold, out here."
Part 2
Characters: Bruce, Dick
Rating: This part G, overall adult, I think.
Summary: A lonely hermit's act of kindness earns him a devoted companion.
Notes: For
au_bingo (prompt: Fantasy and Supernatural, Author's Choice). I went with animal bride folktale. This story was very much inspired by listening to The Decemberists Crane Wife, though it doesn't follow quite the same plot as the Japanese folktale that inspired those songs.)Words: 4400
The wind was cold, and it howled through the trees in the growing dark, sounding like a live thing - something dark and lonely. Bruce looked up through the snow-covered limbs as he rode, listening to the sound and thinking it fitting after the day he'd had. It was somewhat humiliating, really...the men and women in town were more than willing to take his money when he came to their stalls, but all of his hesitant overtures toward friendlier conversation had resulted in fidgeting and uncomfortable stares.
There was a lot of superstition in this county, and the violent scandal surrounding his parents' deaths had always been enough to set Bruce apart from the townspeople. It hadn't bothered him much when he was younger - when he'd had Alfred. Only with Alfred's passing, when Bruce had been left alone in the big manor house, had he truly realized how isolated he was. He did what he could to help the people in the village - just last fall, he had paid for new slate to re-roof the old chapel - but still their eyes slid from his face when he spoke to them.
Bruce didn't think of himself as particularly fearsome. He was a large man, yes, but he was hardly hideous in appearance, and, despite his isolation, he kept himself neatly groomed and dressed. Alfred had pressed that lesson into him as a child; his mother would not have wanted to see him looking slovenly, and so Bruce kept his face clean-shaven and his hair neatly trimmed, despite the difficulty in doing it himself. His voice was sometimes gruff from disuse, but he refused to take to talking to himself, even when it seemed that his throat would dry up entirely between visits to the market.
Bruce wasn't much of a cook, but since Alfred's death, he hadn't been able to hire a single servant, and so he made do. It didn't really matter that all he could prepare was simple fare, because everything tasted more or less the same to him anyway. Alfred's food had been a delight to the senses, but every bite Bruce had eaten since his death had been like nothing but a mouthful of ashes.
He thought from time to time of leaving the county - selling most of his possessions and moving on, perhaps to a city, somewhere with people and noise and company, where his personal history wouldn't frighten away everyone he met. The idea of leaving his family home, though - of turning his back on the house his father's father had built, the portraits on the walls, the dresses in his mother's wardrobe, the books in Alfred's chambers - it wasn't worth entertaining. He couldn't leave. The manor was his home, lonely as it was, and someday he would die there, just as alone, and molder in his bed with no one to bury him. It was a bitter thought. Bruce shook his head against it and scanned the familiar woods around him, made strange by the accumulation of ice and snow.
A flash of color at the side of the road caught his eye, and Bruce slowed his horse, who shook her head impatiently. She'd taken this path many times, and it was rare that they ever stopped. The red patch was too strange and incongruous for Bruce to ignore, and so he stopped entirely and dismounted. The snow tonight was light, but enough was falling that it should have obscured whatever he'd seen in a matter of minutes. Whatever it was, it hadn't been there long, even though Bruce didn't see any foot or hoof prints in the snow. He crouched, holding the reigns loosely in one hand and brushing back some of the snow to uncover a fallen bird.
It was a robin, as strange as that seemed with the weather as it was. Bruce frowned at its stillness and pulled off one glove, touching his fingers to the red breast and feeling the little thing's heart beat fast. It was injured - wing twisted oddly, a gash across its breast spilling a red as bright as its feathers out onto the snow. Without thinking very hard about what he was doing, Bruce unwound his scarf and lifted the bird carefully from the ground, wrapping it gently in the thick, dark wool and tucking it into the front of his coat.
His horse nudged him impatiently, and he stood from his crouch to pat her nose before climbing back into the saddle. The house wasn't far, now.
*
He lit the fire in the kitchen before he did anything else, and then took the bird from within his coat and set it on a folded cloth. It still seemed insensate, unresponsive to his prodding as he gently touched the little head and neck, smoothed the ruffled feathers over the breast. Its tiny heart was still beating strong, though, and it was breathing fast, so he set some water on to heat and put his gloves back on to go and tend to his horse.
When he returned to the kitchen the bird had awakened somewhat and had managed to escape the cloth. Bruce frowned at it as he stripped out of his outer garments, watching it flutter sluggishly against his table, shaking its good wing and kicking uselessly with feeble legs. He stepped forward just in time to keep it from tumbling off the table, picking it up again carefully and setting it back into the cloth, this time folding the cloth over on top of it to keep it still as he turned to deal with the kettle and fetch some rags.
Holding the struggling bird bound up in the cloth, he cleaned the wound as carefully as he could, and then he folded its wing carefully and wrapped it up tight, despite its renewed struggling. It chirped loudly at him, and he laughed quietly to himself before setting it into the tin Alfred had usually kept stocked with sweets. He dug around in the cupboard until he found a flask that had belonged to his father, and filled it from the kettle before capping it and tucking it underneath the little robin, making a nest of the rags and settling the bird on top. "Can't have you getting chilled," he said, trying to keep his voice soft and soothing.
The robin chirped back.
*
Within a few days, the robin was well enough to protest its confinement whenever Bruce came near. He fed it carefully every few hours, usually a bit of whatever he was eating - which was mostly venison stew and porridge - cut up small and offered to it on a fingertip. At first the bird seemed reluctant to trust him, but hunger apparently won out, and now it opened its mouth wide whenever he sat by it with his plate. Several times each night it would awaken him with faint peeps from its place on his pillow, and he would turn, still half-asleep, and feed it on the bedside table before stumbling to the fire to fetch the kettle and refresh the flask he was using as a warming bottle.
After a while, the bird stopped protesting his touch, submitting meekly to small touches on the head. It was some weeks, though, before its wing seemed to no longer cause it any pain. Bruce carefully unwrapped the binding and watched as the bird hopped around in circles on the kitchen table, fluttering its wings as if to test them. Bruce sat back with his breakfast and smiled as he watched it jump about. "You're a handsome little dickie-bird," he said quietly, and it turned at the sound of his voice, hopping nearer and cocking its head. "Porridge?"
The bird hopped closer, and Bruce dipped his spoon into his breakfast, holding it near the level of the table while his little friend ate daintily. He poured a bit of water into a saucer and tapped his spoon clean at its edge, leaving a bit of porridge for the bird to peck at.
"I'm sorry there's no bacon this morning," he said, because the bird had proved fond of it. "I'm out of some things. Been putting off a ride into town. Will you come with me?"
The bird cocked its head again. Bruce let his hand rest flat on the table, palm up, and pretended to focus on his breakfast. After a moment, he felt a pressure on the tip of his thumb and looked up. The robin pecked him again, and then looked up, head cocked. Bruce lifted a finger and touched its beak gently. It chirped.
"I'll get my coat, then. You can ride in the pocket."
The bird sat preening comfortably on Bruce's shoulder as he tidied the dishes and fetched his coat and hat, but the moment he stepped outside, it flapped its wings and leapt, fluttering and falling. Bruce held out his hands to catch it, but it righted itself and flew up, toward the dawning sun, through the branches with their budding leaves.
"Wait!" Bruce called, but the bird didn't come back.
*
The ride into town seemed to take longer than it ever had before. It was such a stupid thing, really, to be grieving the loss of a bird. It hadn't even truly been a pet - just a wild creature that had been temporarily unable to fend for itself. Bruce should be happy it had flown away. Its wing had mended, and it had returned to the forest, probably to find a little lady-bird and live happily ever after. Still, he thought as he approached the edge of the square and watched the children hurry out of his way, when he'd had the bird to care for, he hadn't been lonely at all. Even his thoughts of Alfred had been pleasant ones, wondering what the old man would have done or said if he could see Bruce fussing over his little charge like a mother hen.
Oh well. He wasn't sure why he'd thought it would last. Wild birds weren't known to make the best pets. Maybe he should get a dog. He was reasonably sure, after keeping the bird alive for weeks, that a dog ought to be within his power. A dog would probably eat stew. Did dogs eat porridge?
Where did one even acquire a dog? Alfred would have known. Perhaps Bruce would ask the bookseller. He was one of the few people who would actually speak to Bruce for very long. It was easier to have a conversation with a book in hand, discussing this interpretation or that scientific experiment. Then again, it was possible the man was only putting up with his company because Bruce spent so much money in his shop.
Bruce shook his head to himself and dismounted from his horse, looping her reigns over a fencepost and scratching her cheek before taking the empty sacks off her back. He'd get his staples, first - he was out of bacon, and nearly out of coffee, low on salt... Depending on what the butcher had, Bruce might take back a mutton leg or a rack of lamb, or maybe just a few strings of sausage. He needed dried peas. He'd get some milk, too, while he was here, and some fresh bread. He might just have that for supper, and not worry about cooking the roast until tomorrow.
He'd lingered longer that morning than he really should have, taking his time brushing and saddling the horse, and then finally giving up on pretense and just sitting on the step, looking up at the trees. He probably wasn't ever going to stop looking up, but that didn't make his little robin any more likely to return; it just made him pathetic.
A snatch of birdsong stopped him in his tracks, but when he turned to look, it was only a sparrow, declaring its ownership of a nearby mulberry bush. Bruce laughed bitterly at himself and stepped over a shallow puddle, headed for the dry-goods store.
"Hey mister!" a young voice called, and Bruce glanced back despite his doubt that he was the one being addressed. He was surprised, then, to see a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, holding one of Bruce's burlap sacks and smiling. "You dropped this!" He jogged toward Bruce, stepping carelessly in the puddle, and held the bag out. "You've got a lot of bags."
Blinking dully in surprise, Bruce held out a hand and took the sack. The boy was only as tall as Bruce's shoulder, dark-haired and somewhat olive-skinned. Bruce had never seen him in the village before - he was pretty sure he would have remembered. The boy was handsome, his skin clear, his teeth straight and white when he smiled. "Thank you," Bruce said. He tucked the sack under his arm with the others and dipped his head in a slight bow. The boy just beamed wider. "Excuse me," Bruce said, and stepped into the store.
"Are you going to buy a lot of stuff?" The boy asked, following him inside. "Do you want me to help you carry it?"
Ah, that explained it then. The lad was hoping to make a bit of money. "If you like," Bruce said, and handed him a few of his sacks. "What's your name?"
"Um," The boy said, and looked down at the sacks, unfolding them and opening one, looking inside. "Dick?"
Bruce felt the corner of his mouth quirk. "Are you not sure?"
"No, I mean. Dick. My name's Dick. Hey, eggs!" Bruce watched bemusedly as the boy jogged toward the counter and brought his face near to the jar of pickled eggs sitting behind the licorice and taffy.
"Do you want one?" Bruce asked, because he didn't quite know what else to say. The boy was very peculiar. Perhaps he was touched in the head.
"Ew, no," Dick said, making a face. He looked up eagerly when the storekeeper stepped up to the counter. "Hi!" he said, and then stepped back behind Bruce.
"Good morning," the man said. He looked warily between Bruce and the boy, probably wondering what on earth the lad was doing in such company. "Your usual, sir?"
"Yes, please. Anything special this morning?"
The man shook his head in the negative and took the bags Bruce held out without looking him in the face. "I'll just fetch - ah - excuse me." He had to pause and step around Dick, because the boy had approached the side of the counter while Bruce wasn't looking, and was standing in the way, examining a barrel full of dry beans. As Bruce watched, the boy picked one up and sniffed it.
Very peculiar.
*
In theory, an extra pair of hands should have made his shopping go more quickly. In practice, though, every store they stepped into held some new distraction that set his 'helper' darting about between the shelves. Twice the boy stopped to speak to pretty young girls who giggled and fidgeted at the attention. It was a terribly inefficient process, and at this rate Bruce wouldn't be home until well after dark. Still, Bruce found he was enjoying himself.
The boy was friendly and open, and so cheerful he might better be described as *effervescent*. He was strangely childlike despite his age, but he didn't seem to be 'slow'. Quite the contrary - he seemed to remember everything that Bruce said, however offhandedly, hanging onto every word with eyes that were attentive and bright and the color of a clear, sunny sky.
At the bookseller's, it became apparent that no one had bothered to teach the boy how to read. The shopkeep seemed rather surprised when Bruce asked him for a few books meant for very young children, but he didn't ask any questions. Bruce would give the boy the books as part of his payment for a day spent ferrying packages. Considering the curiosity with which the boy attacked everything around him, Bruce was reasonably sure the boy would pester someone into showing him the basics.
It wasn't until he was strapping his purchases onto his horse that he realized the flaw in his reasoning. The boy had been thrilled by the books - he'd been correct about that part. It was the rest of his assumptions that presented the problem.
"What *is* it?" Dick asked, holding one of the coins up to the fading light. "Hey, they're kind of pretty. Shiny. Oh, wait, you traded these for food and stuff. Could I trade one for bacon?"
Bruce snorted and pulled the last strap tight. "Two of them. And no more, no matter what the butcher says."
The boy nodded, counting out his coins as Bruce climbed up into the saddle and checked the strap across his horse's neck. Bruce nudged the mare and set off at a walk, smiling to himself. It had been a long day - physically and emotionally exhausting - and as much as he'd enjoyed the boy's strange company, he was going to be glad to get home and rest. He would leave his bedroom window open, and some bread along the windowsill. Maybe his robin would come back in the morning, looking for a free meal.
Something brushed Bruce's leg, and he looked down. The boy was walking along beside the horse, with one hand touching the animal's broad side. "What are you doing?" Bruce asked. "It's sundown. You should go home for supper. Your mother will be missing you."
"I don't have a mother," the boy said, his tone sober for the first time since Bruce had met him that morning. "We were traveling. Me and my parents. But we were attacked in the woods, and they got hurt really bad. I got away...but when I went back they weren't there."
Bruce stopped the horse. He looked down, and the boy looked up, his eyes wide and sorrowful. Bruce frowned. It was too much like his own story. "Where were you planning to sleep tonight?"
The boy shrugged. "I don't know. The woods? Probably the woods. Or maybe in a barn. Barns are warmer."
Bruce didn't actually debate the matter in his mind. He just looked at the boy's upturned face, remembering the feel of his parents' blood, tacky on his palms, of dust between his fingers as he'd gathered scattered pearls. He held out his hand and slid his foot out of the stirrup. "Come on," he said. "I'll help you up."
*
For supper, they had bread and butter, with milk. It was a childish sort of meal, but a day full of delays had made anything fancier pretty much impossible. Dick didn't seem to mind. He drank three full cups of milk, and then wandered around the kitchen with cream on his lip, looking inside all the cabinets and canisters while Bruce finished his meal at a more leisurely pace.
Bruce let the boy finish the last of the milk in his own cup, and then guided him into a chair with a hand on his arm and handed him a napkin. Dick just looked at it, folding and unfolding, examining one side and then the other, until Bruce finally took it back and wiped the boy's mouth. "Do you have any clothes or other things stashed somewhere?"
"No," the boy said calmly, as if being utterly destitute meant nothing to him. He took the napkin back from Bruce and reached out, brushing it across Bruce's lips and making the man smile.
"Hm," he said. "I imagine there are some things of mine in the old nursery that might fit you. If you don't mind wearing my old cast-offs."
"That would be great!" Dick said, eagerly. "I bet they smell like you." Before Bruce could ponder the statement, he stood up, stacking their dishes neatly and carrying them to the sink. "Can we have bacon for breakfast?"
Bruce used the napkin to sweep a few crumbs from the table into his hand, then stood and crossed the room to where Dick was washing the dishes. He dusted his hands over the waste bin and leaned against the counter to watch the boy work. It was strange how much more sure of himself he seemed here, in the home of a complete stranger, than he had in the public square. Strange that a boy who hadn't known what money was had guessed exactly where Bruce kept his scrub-brush and dish-rags.
It was possible he was being scammed. He might wake up to an empty house, all the family silver and his mother's jewelry long gone. He might not wake up at all, his throat slit in his bed, or poison in his nightcap.
"Look!" Dick said, turning suddenly and holding up his hands. There was a thin film of soap stretched between his fingers, like the webbed toes of a duck. Dick was smiling, his eyes bright, looking up at Bruce through the iridescent film of soap.
Bruce leaned forward and blew, sending a few small bubbles floating back toward Dick's face. The boy laughed in delight.
*
"But..." Dick said, standing in the hallway with one of Bruce's nightshirts hanging down well past his knees. "Can't I sleep with you?"
The question startled Bruce, and he stopped in place, holding a candle in one hand and a stack of blankets in the other. "It's a big house," he said when he finally turned. "You'll have your own room. I expect you to keep it neat, but it will be your own space. Every boy needs time to himself."
"I don't," Dick said, mutinously, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'd rather be with you. I don't like being alone."
Bruce looked at the boy, his spare but well-shaped form hidden under the oversized shirt, his long limbs bare, his handsome face pink from the scrubbing Bruce had insisted on. "I'm not certain it's appropriate."
"Appropriate?" Dick said, looking confused, and confirming Bruce's suspicion of his innocence. It pleased him to know that no one has taken advantage of the boy, as could so easily have happened.
"Nevermind. The fact remains, you may not feel that you need time alone, but I am most certain that *I do*. We shall see each other in the morning. Bacon for breakfast, remember?"
Dick shifted on his feet, a frown on his face, but he followed Bruce down the hall to the room Bruce had swept out while the boy got ready for bed. He watched attentively as Bruce shook the blankets out to air them a bit and then tucked them around the mattress, making the bed up just as Alfred had taught him. "Why's it so big?" he asked, when Bruce took the pillows from him and started to fluff them. "If it's only for one person, why's the bed so big?"
Bruce set the last pillow in place and paused without looking back. "Sometimes people share beds. Their circumstances aren't like ours, though."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if there were only one bed in the house a guest might share with his host. A parent might share with their children, and a man usually shares with his wife."
"I could be your wife." Dick said.
Bruce swallowed and kneaded the pillow a little too hard. "That isn't how it works, Dick. You should go to bed. In the morning, I'll show you around the property. We can talk about which of the chores you'd like to do."
"After breakfast, right?" Dick asked, sitting down on the bed and pressing his hand into one of the soft pillows.
"After breakfast," Bruce confirmed. He felt a strange urge to bend forward and kiss the boy's hair. He patted him on the shoulder instead. "Sleep well. I'm just down the hall, if you need me."
*
Bruce awakened with a jolt at some time in the middle of the night. His fire had died down to glowing coals, and there was only starlight outside the windows. Bruce sat up and ran his hands through his hair, wondering what had woken him. If it had been the usual nightmares, he would be tangled in the sheets right now, covered in sweat.
A thought struck him suddenly, and he slid from the bed, padding over to the window he'd left open, but the crumbs on his windowsill were undisturbed, but for a few ants. He brushed the insects away and turned back to the bed, stretching until his spine popped.
There. A slight sound from the hallway. Bruce hadn't shared his home with another person for a long time. If Dick was awake and moving about, that was almost certainly what had pulled him from his sleep. Bruce crossed the room and listened at the door, but he didn't hear any further movement. Shaking his head to himself, he opened the door, slowly, careful of the hinges.
The door only moved a few inches before it bumped into something soft and came to rest. Bruce closed his eyes and breathed out a sigh, and heard movement and a light groan in reply. "Dick," he said, and pushed the door a little harder, until he could see through the gap.
The boy was folded up in the small alcove outside his door. He pulled his legs in and scooted backward when Bruce pushed the door against his shoulder again, rubbing his eyes the whole time. "Is it morning?" he asked.
"What are you doing out here?" Bruce asked him. "Is there something wrong with your bed?" Bruce had checked the mattress for insects or other vermin, but it had seemed clean. Still, it was possible he'd missed something in the dark.
"I got lonely," Dick said, his voice small. "Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."
Bruce frowned, more at himself than than anything else. He could remember what it was like, after his parents had died - how huge the house had felt, and how lonely. Alfred hadn't ever allowed Bruce to crawl into bed with him - it wouldn't have been proper - but there had been long nights when he'd sat by Bruce's bedside, to be there if the nightmares woke him.
Bruce looked down at the downcast face of the boy in front of him, at the way Dick was hugging his knees to his chest. "Come on," he said, and crouched enough to hold out a hand to him. "You'll catch a cold, out here."
Part 2
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Date: 2010-08-21 12:39 pm (UTC)Oh, wow. I love this. A LOT. The concept of the wounded little bird who is in fact a boy, oh heck yes do LOVE.
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Date: 2010-08-22 03:29 am (UTC)