The magician’s dog is a small terrier thing with coarse wiry hair. The magician calls him Rowan because of the reddish tint to his brown coat. He might weigh as much as twenty pounds soaking wet. Maybe. There’s a bald patch on his left shoulder from a bout with mange a few years back and one of his ears has a notch missing from a scrap with a tomcat.
The dog is the kind of ratty little thing that most people would overlook. The dog doesn’t mind being overlooked, because he has a secret. Not even the magician knows the secret, but that’s not saying much. Lyndon, the magician, is pretty shit at magic.
A better magician would notice the way Rowan’s aura is out of sync with his shape, suggesting some kind of transformation has occurred. Most good magicians would get curious about that and use their skills to discover that Rowan’s true form is human. A lucky one might even recognize that Rowan is none other than the missing-and-presumed-dead King Artis. However, there were only about two or three magicians in the whole world talented enough to reverse Rowan’s curse after they learned his true identity. Lydon, obviously, is not one of them.
He’s good at botany, though. That’s the one thing that reliably pays his rent, and today he’s walking back into town with a basket full of herbs, flowers, and tubers from his hike to the lake. Rowan trots along behind him, tongue lolling.
It was a marvelous walk. Rowan ate some grass, chased five rabbits, almost caught one of them before it disappeared into its little hidey hole, and pissed on too many things to count. His nose and his brain are still full of the smells of the plants and animals between here and there. It’s enough to fill his little doggie dreams for days to come. On days like today, Rowan hardly misses being a man. Men have no idea of all the sensory pleasures they’re missing out on.
“What do you say to an ale?” Lyndon asks the little dog. Rowan heads to the house of Mrs. Malster because his nose tells him that she’s got a fresh batch of ale ready to sell to her neighbors. Lyndon buys them a mug and pours a little of it out into a dish for Rowan. The dog used to have a different name, years ago, but he doesn’t mind Rowan. He’s been called a lot of things, many of them vile. As the dog laps up his drink, his little doggie beard gets coated with foam. This afternoon is just about as good a day as he’s ever had, and that’s saying something considering the hedonism of his former life.
“What’s going, Lydon?” Mrs. Malster asks as he drinks her ale.
“I’m about to do some fresh ointments. I’ve got a little pot of hand cream with your name on it if you’ve got any dinner to go along with this drink.”
“I’ve hardly enough for myself and my lads,” she says, none too pleased at the prospect of making it stretch for one more mouth. Two, if you count Rowan, but she doesn’t. Lyndon’s happy to share his portion with the dog.
Lyndon holds up a big handful of borage and some wild garlic. “You can have these to add to the stew, if that sweetens the deal.”
She grabs them and huffs off inside her little house to add them to the stew pot. As she goes, she mutters about the new taxes and how these days even a good alewife like herself can only afford a bit of bacon once a week. People mutter about taxes a lot these days. Or, maybe it’s just that Rowan never noticed before he got cursed. He’s noticed a lot of new things since that mad witch turned him into a dog.
A bit later, as Lyndon and Rowan share their meal, Rowan can taste a hint of bacon in the porridge. There are no actual chunks of bacon in the stew, but stews like this get refreshed and recycled day after day and he thinks that maybe two days ago there was real bacon in it. There’s still just a tiny bit of grease cooked into the oats. It’s a good meal. It fills his belly up. Just as he’s thinking that a nap in the late afternoon sunshine would be the ideal thing to do next, a man walks up to them.
“Hey, you’re the magician, right?” The man says to Lyndon. The man’s clothes are a little nicer than Lyndon’s and Mrs. Malster’s. They’ve probably only been handed down three times, and the patches are only one or two layers deep mostly. His body is well-muscled from hard work, but his boots are in good condition. The smell of coal and metal from his body fills Rowan’s nostrils. Blacksmith. Good, skilled work. The man certainly has more money than the other two humans have.
“I am,” Lyndon replies. At the same moment, Mrs. Malster makes a kind of “huh” sound deep in her throat like she’s almost, but not quite, ready to argue that title. She remembers the sleeping spell she asked him for to cure a bout of insomnia. She ended up sleeping for a week and almost got buried alive, because her family thought she had died. She stops herself from sharing that story, because Lyndon’s hand cream is the only thing that keeps her chapped hands from bleeding in the winter. So she doesn’t want to outright insult him.
“Good,” the man says. “I need a spell.” He looks at Mrs. Malster and hesitates. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
Once they’re inside of Lyndon’s little shop, Rowan goes behind the curtain that separates the work area from the sleep area of the small room. He burrows into the blankets to sleep off the full belly and ale, but before he nods off, he hears the blacksmith talking to Lyndon about how he needs a love spell.
The next day, as Lyndon works on the spell, Rowan remembers his wife. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, of course. His father’s idea to seal an alliance with the neighboring kingdom of Pencombe. Pencombe and Gateswic, united in matrimony. Oh glorious day! The wedding had been expensive, the bride haughty, and Rowan itchy. His most treasured memory of his wedding night was getting out of the heavily brocaded cloth-of-gold garments and plopping naked on his bed. Alone.
Things only got worse from there. His new wife, Bruga, was needy and demanding, always wanting him to dine with her, to talk about matters of state, to try and impregnate her. It was all a massive bore. He avoided her every chance he got, running off to go on a hunt or to see one of his mistresses. Of course none of those mistresses truly cared about him. If they had, a visit to one of them would have fixed his curse years ago. No, he realized that all they ever wanted him for was his money, the weasels.
Smoke poofs up from a bowl in front of Lyndon. The smell of singed eyebrows fills the room. “Hmm…” he says. He pokes at the mixture he’s created. Then he says, “I think that was right.”
Rowan does not share his optimism. But, what does he know about magic? Even less than Lyndon, and that’s saying something.
That night, after the two of them share their dinner, Lyndon opens a book a local apothecary loaned him. He thumbs through the index, then turns to the section about herbal remedies. Rowan jumps up on Lydon’s bench and plops down beside the magician, so his side is pressed against the man’s leg. Lyndon reaches down to pet the dog as he begins to read out loud. “A preparation of pomegranates for the treatment of loose bowels and stomach worms…”
Lyndon often reads to his dog. He doesn’t have any expectation that Rowan understands, but Rowan has learned a few things. For starters, he’s learned that most of the people who write these books have a fascination with bowels. As Lydon reads, he scratches Rowan gently along his back bone. He uses the perfect amount of pressure. Wedged between the arm of the chair and the magician, Rowan is warm and comfortable. He’d rather be here than in his old drafty castle.