Gyth got a snore like a fly .. buzz, buzz, buzz. Only Gyth could make a snore sound like yer wanted to dance. I know where she'll be off come mornin', so I'm gettin' there first.
No sleep anyhow. each time I closes my eyes I'm awake in a moment, m' sheets are covered in sweat. At least its mine. Havin' a bit of coin for me work is getting me a cleaner bed, I suppose. First time I been out in the night an' not liked it. I likes the way shadows are, little hidy holes that disappear in the sun. I like that moonlight makes small things alive, I like me an' the cats and the mice are all runnin' about. Lookin' in windows, seeing 'em all sleepin ... heh.. seein' what else they'm up to. Up on a roof, you'm the cyng, Steora eorl of Bree! i can see it all, up here.
Slippin over the roof of the word-hoard... it aint fun tonight. Them boney grabby hands jump from all the shadows. Leoht and her bloody dead lady. She'm only a Bree-lander... I still dursn't know why we had ter take her up into the downs and down into the earth. Corpse-hall, bone-house. Cracky clicky bones, aint right. All up on their feet. Now 'm tellin' Him tonight, his gift aint workin ... I -did- feel scared and them boney old men clacked their teeth at me and i know, I KNOWS, they seen me. Iffen dead men can walk - and I seen it, true! then they talk.. gyth says they can. I tells 'em i dursent want their treasure! Now I'm tellin' Him, I aint doing no more of it. I aint. i wont. Not if dead old bones walk.
I gets in through the window, heh. He just sits there, starin' right at me in the dark. He's allus there, allus knows. I think I'm tellin' him straight out ... but then I finds m'self lighting the fire. I shows him the iron ring, tell him it don't work, i dursnt want it. it didn't make me feel brave, only sick, them dead 'uns didn't run, only Bawde and Wine an' the eorl kept 'em off. stupid bloody bit of black iron an' I dursn't want it!
He takes the ring offen me. He's got black eyes like the dark under a stone. Looks at me with 'em, I aint able to stop Him when he takes m'fingers. They'm warm, his hands... not cold, not hard. He laughs at me, an' its like when you stand up too quick an' the world spins. Its a good laugh, he's m' friend. He shakes his head an tells me the ring aint fer that, says it works ag'in the living, not the dead. Pushes the ring on m'finger Himself, an ' I don't feel sick. Not now.
