The tourney had ended a scant five days before and already Pocket had been forced to flee to his under-stair sanctuary, abandoning his chores in order to avoid the abuse from the tongues of the servants and the hands of their children. As always, the young were the first to harass him; shoving him aside, should he be unlucky enough to pass them in the halls, kicking over his water pail while he scoured the ovens, one pair of boys had even spit on him from a covered bridge as he dallied about in the castle yard. The first gob landed wetly on his foot, alerting him to the danger and he was able to avoid the second disgusting attack. He danced out of range and looked up to see their gloating faces staring down. With the children, this sort of thing was expected. Their parents were not so bold, but no less cruel. Where once their eyes passed over him as if he were invisible, now they fell upon him with disdain, some even seeming to search him out as they would a spider that needs to be stepped on. He had learned years before that he could not trust the cooks and only ate meals he could scrounge himself or those Moragh prepared for him. He was careful never to be alone with any of the men for too long, lest some accident befall him.

Accidents were becoming common place in the castle. A fire broke out in the kitchens the morning of Sir Tillory’s funeral and the next day two of the hunting hounds escaped from the kennels, bringing down several of some poor shepherd’s stock before they were rounded up again. The blacksmith’s daughter fell down the well in the outer bailey and near drowned. She was still sick with fever, lying in the leech’s quarters in a bed next to the Mumbler. Both were raving, throwing exclamations in fits and spurts at the ceiling, neither aware of the other yet seeming to try and out-do one another with their fretful ramblings. The Mumbler had gone to the leech complaining of pain in his ear and within hours was reduced to a sweat-covered pile of gibbering nonsense and twitching limbs.

Pocket was blamed for all of it.

Suddenly, he was no longer just the changeling’s get, an unwanted reminder of the foul couplings of mortal and Fae. He was the skulking doom of the entire castle, death in the shadows, misfortune made flesh. All of the castle servants knew he answered to the Mumbler, and when the old man was laid low by his mysterious ailment, their accusations turned towards Pocket. As the other incidents stacked up, their suspicion increased. The blacksmith sent him fleeing the leech’s quarters, his tear streaked face swollen with red fury, his weathered hands leaving his daughter’s limp fingers and curling into tight promises of pain. The big man knocked over half the leech’s stock of unguents in his attempt to reach Pocket, his violence fueling the mad ranting of the two unfortunates lying in their cots. Fortunately, the blacksmith was blind with despair, clumsy with grief and Pocket escaped amidst the breaking of pottery, the splintering of wood and the cries of the stricken. He had only tried to bring the girl some flowers.