It was a battle he was doomed to lose from the start. Before the moon rose more than a hand’s breadth above the houses, he was as fast asleep as the animals below.

* * *

Skif started awake, both hands clutching hay, as a mellow bell rang out directly above his head. For a moment he was utterly confused—he couldn’t remember where he was, much less why he’d been awakened by a bell in the pitch-dark.

Then it all came back, just as someone came across the courtyard bearing a lit lantern.

Hellfires! he thought, a little crossly, yet a little amused. I shoulda known this lot’d be up afore dawn! Mebbe I ain’t been so smart after all!

“Heyla, laddie!” called the aged voice of last night from below. “Be ye awake?”

“Oh, aye, granther,” Skif replied, stifling a groan. “I be a-coomin’ down.”

He brought last night’s lantern down with him, and he and the old man made the morning rounds of the stable in an oddly companionable silence. The old man didn’t ask his name—and didn’t seem to care that Skif didn’t offer it. What he did do was give Skif the name and history of every old horse, donkey, mule, and goat in the stable, treating each of them like the old friend it probably was.

When they finished feeding and watering, the old man led Skif into the Chapter House, straight to a room where others of the Order had stripped to the waist and were washing up. Not wanting to sit down to breakfast smelling of horse and goat, Skif was perfectly willing to follow their example. From there they all went to breakfast, which was also eaten in silence—oat porridge, bread, butter and milk. Skif was not the only person who wasn’t wearing the robes of the Order, but the other two secular helpers were almost as old as the priest who tended the stable. There were younger priests, but they all had some sort of deformity or injury that hadn’t healed right.

One and all, either through age or defect, they seemed to be outcasts, people for whom there was no comfortable niche in a family, nor a place in the society of other humans. Maybe that was why they came here, and devoted themselves to animals…

Yet they all seemed remarkably content, even happy.