Chapter 4: What the Boy Counts

The abbot's rooms were three stone chambers over the gate, and the Bear's was the last.

It was a long, low room with a fire and a table and a bed pushed against the far wall.

A map of the passes lay across the table, held flat by an iron lamp, a bottle and a pair of dividers.

Gotzon opened the door, said, "Master, the boy," and went out again.

I stood just inside it with my cap on.

The Bear sat in a chair by the fire, in his shirt, with his boots off.

He had been reading, or looking at a page, and he laid it face down on his knee as the door closed.

"Sit," he said.

I didn't.

"Then stand," said the Bear.

He poured a small cup from the bottle and held it out to me.

I shook my head.

He drank it himself.

"You count the gate," he said.

"You count the east door.

"You count how many strides it is from the hall to the wall.

"My steward tells me you stopped on the third bend of the road in, and counted the chapel stones.

"What else do you count?"

I thought about lying.

I had told four lies since yesterday and I was good at them.

But I knew in my body that this man would look at me a second time, and that a lie to him would have to be a good one.

"I count what could kill me," I said.

"Or my sister."

He turned the cup in his big hand.

"Then tell me."

"The gate has one bar.

"If forty men leaned on it from inside, it would hold.

"If four rode at it from outside with a ram, it would not.

"The river is the real wall.

"It is cold enough to stop a man in half an hour.

"The east door is not locked, and nobody stands at it, and the post-boy walks through it at noon."

"And what do you make of that?"

"I make nothing of it," I said.

"A man who leaves the east door open either wants somebody to leave or is sure nobody will."

The Bear was quiet.

The fire popped, and the sound was loud in the room.

"Which?" he said.

"I don't know yet."

"Honest," he said.

"That is something."

He stood.

I did not step back, though every bone I had told me to.

He walked to the window over the gate and stood with his back to me, a wide dark shape against the lantern.

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