You did not seem a man who would share his life with an animal.” The tone of her voice left me no doubt as to how she regarded such a habit. “Well. I do.” A tiny spark of anger made me forthright. “He’s everything to me. Everything. I have never had a truer friend, willing without question to lay his life down for mine. And more than his life. It is one thing to be willing to die for another. It is another to sacrifice the living of one’s life for another. That is what he gives me. The same sort of loyalty I give to my king.”

