“So you can avoid them?” Halcom nodded thoughtfully. “That’s no bad idea. Clever of you to think of it.” And he proceeded, with forthright candor, to outline the character of every man he thought Skif ought not to take service with. He was so candid that Skif was, frankly, shocked. Not at the litany of faults and even vices—his upbringing in the worst part of Haven had exposed him to far worse than Halcom revealed. No, it was that Halcom was not at all reticent about unrolling the listing of faults of his “own kind.”

As Halcom spoke, Skif found himself at war within himself. He wanted to trust Halcom, and he had sworn never to trust anyone. More than that, he wanted to like Halcom. It seemed to him that Halcom could easily become a friend.

And he did not want any more friends.

“That leaves plenty of good masters to take service with, mind,” Halcom pointed out when he was finished, and smiled. “And for all my differences with my own family, I can quite cheerfully recommend you to take service with them. They’re quite good to those who serve them well.”

Huh. It’s only their own flesh’n blood that they muck about with, eh? Skif thought. Guess you’n’me have more in common than I thought.

“It was your own uncle that turned you out, wasn’t it?” Halcom said suddenly, startling Skif again with his knowledge of Skif’s “background.” Halcom laughed at his expression, wryly. “I suppose we have more in common than either of us would have suspected.”

“’Twas your nuncle sent ye off?” Skif ventured.

Halcom nodded, and his face shadowed. “My existence was an embarrassment,” he admitted sourly. “My uncle feared that my presence in his household would cast a shadow over some pending betrothal arrangements he was negotiating. My father—his younger brother—has no backbone to speak of, and agreed that I ought to be persuaded to a vocation.”

“What?” Skif asked indignantly. “They figger you’d scare the bride?”

“My uncle suggested that the prospective bride’s father might rethink his offer if he thought that deformity ran in my family,” Halcom said bluntly, his mouth twisting in a frown. “Since my parents are dependent on his generosity for a place, I suppose I can’t blame them…” He sighed deeply, and his expression lightened. “In the end, really, I’m rather glad it happened. I had very little to do with myself, I’m really not much of a scholar, and—well, needless to say, I’m not cut out for Court life either. I’ve always loved animals, and neither they, nor my fellow Brothers, care about this wretched leg of mine. And I did manage to shame my uncle into making a generous donation when he dumped me here.”