I saw no one until after the sun had set, and the jumping glow of campfires painted the tent walls orange. In the time alone, I slowly regained feeling in my arms, sensation creeping back like waves of fiery insect bites. I shut my eyes against the pain and folded my wings overhead, sealing myself in a dark, quiet cocoon. With their stinking world at bay I was free to sing in silence, to work my lines with a pen that needed no ink, in a place where no man could intrude and none was ever invited.
My reverie was shattered by the thick, slurping grunts of someone eating nearby. I drew my left wing back to see the captain sitting at a table by the bed, gnawing a joint of grey, boiled-to-death mutton.
Captain Barrett looked up and caught my eye. “Do you eat, angel?” He asked through greasy lips.
“Yes, of course I eat.”
He wiped his hands on a scrap of cloth at his waist, and seized the mutton bone like a club. “We don’t have rations to spare for prisoners, but I won’t watch you starve.” He held the bone out to me.
After a moment's hesitation I stuck my hand through the bars, careful not to touch the iron. If he got close enough, I could take his whole arm off.
The captain stopped just out of reach and wiggled the joint at me, as if I were a stray. “Stretch for it,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you want me to beg too?”
He shook his head. “No, but an uncle of mine used to train dogs, and you get the same glint in your eye when you're about to attack.” He wiggled the bone again. “So come on, then. Be a good boy and reach for it.”
Hunger won over pride, and I did.
Captain Barrett watched me peel cartilage from the joint, and winced when my sharp teeth cracked the bone in two to expose the marrow. “My mother used to crack marrow bones for us, when we were little,” he said.
I did not reply.
“It was the first food we had as kids. Rich, fatty, best thing I’d ever tasted.” He sighed. “Until my first side of bacon, that is.”
I glared, but he wasn’t looking at me. He stared off into the corner of the tent. “Five boys, can you imagine? All clamoring to be fed. My brothers used to lurk around the table when Ma served me marrow, even though they’d already had their meals.”
“Rats'll do that too.”
“Poor Ma.” He shook his head. “All she wanted was a little girl to spoil, and instead she got five boys.”
“A desirable trait in a breeding sow.”
“Would have named her Harmony,” he murmured. “But out I came and ruined everything.”
“A tradition you uphold to this day.”
He looked up suddenly, frowning. “Why did I just tell you that?”
I crunched through the bone like rock candy. “Because I’m an excellent listener.” Some of the bone shards cut my mouth, and the smoky taste of my own blood spiced my meal.
He stepped back. “It felt so comfortable, like speaking to an old friend.”
“Of course it did. What sort of spy would I be if no one wanted to tell me their secrets?” I licked grease from my fingers. “What did she name you then, you-who-should-have-been-a-girl? She must have had a name picked out, and you were the last piglet, so…Harry?”
“Harmon,” he said.
“Harmon,” I echoed. “How awful.”
Captain Barrett snorted and left the tent. I heard him call the men together, his voice carrying through the night as he warned them all to keep their distance, lest I corrupt their minds.
I looked over at the bed slumped in the corner, where their captain would eventually have to sleep. Alone in my presence. Let him try to find rest there, if he dared.