“I’m not sure,” he answers. “But I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I was tied to a post. If I had friends, surely they would have saved me.”
He delivers this statement with no emotion, but the thought makes my eyes burn.
“Maybe they didn’t know where you were.”
“Maybe,” he admits. “Where did you meet your furry friend?”
“My dog?”
Rook looks down at me. “Is that what you call him?”
“Yes? That’s what he is.”
“Mmm,” he says, and then, “Where did you get him?”
“He just showed up at the farm one day.”
“Which day?”
“I don’t remember.”
“We have that in common.”
“I suppose we do.”
“He’s protective of you,” Rook observes when Toto stops to look back, checking on my progress.
“We’re protective of one another.”
“True friends, then.”
“Yes.”
Toto wags his tail when we catch up and falls in step beside me.
When we come around another bend in the brick road, the trees start to thin and up ahead, I spot a bloom of light in the otherwise dark night.
“The city,” Rook says. We’re in a spot of darkness between lampposts, but I can hear the relief in his voice.
“Thank god. I was beginning to think we were going to spend the night in the forest. Do you think they’ll have a spare bed? What do you use for money here?”
Our steps quicken now that a destination is within sight.
“Piats are gold coins,” Rook explains. “The highest bit of currency. Cuts are silver. Brons are copper. The lowest currency. And then when none of that will do, I suspect a bit of bread or fruit would suffice.”
“So you know the currency but not how you make it?”
“If you had to guess my vocation, what would it be?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see.” I make a show of analyzing him as we walk, and the smirk on his face lights up his green eyes. “Maybe a merchant? Your clothes are nice. You could be a tailor.”
“Why would a tailor be beaten and tied to a pole?”
The way he says this, with distance, it’s almost like it happened to some other person and not him. He’s taking it well, all things considered. Is there freedom in having no memories? No guilt, no remorse, no regrets?
