The Golden Fool. Робин Хобб
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I did not want more tea. We had already drunk three pots of it, and I had visited her back-house twice. Yet she offered the tea to let me know I was welcome to stay, no matter how late, or early, the hour had become. So, ‘Please,’ I said, and she set her knitting aside, to repeat the ritual of filling the kettle with fresh water from the cask and hanging it from the hook and swinging it over the fire again. Outside, the storm rattled the shutters in a fresh surge of fury. Then it became not the storm, but Hap’s rapping at the door. ‘Jinna?’ he called unevenly. ‘Are you awake still?’
‘I’m awake,’ she replied. She turned from putting the kettle on. ‘And lucky for you that I am, or you’d be sleeping in the shed with your pony. I’m coming.’
As she lifted the latch, I stood up, gently dumping the cat off my lap.
Imbecile. The cat was comfortable. Fennel complained as he slid to the floor, but the big orange tom was too stupefied with warmth to make much of a protest. Instead he leapt onto Jinna’s chair and curled up in it without deigning to give me a backward glance.
The storm pushed in with Hap as he shoved the door open. A gust of wind carried rain into the room. ‘Whew. Put the wood in the hole, lad,’ Jinna rebuked Hap as he lurched in. Obediently he shut the door behind him and latched it, and then stood dripping before it.
‘It’s wild and wet out there,’ he told her. His smile was beatifically drunken, but his eyes were lit with more than wine. Infatuation shone there, as unmistakable as the rain slipping from his lank hair and running down his face. It took him a moment or two to realize that I was there, watching him. Then, ‘Tom! Tom, you’ve finally come back!’ He flung his arms wide in a drunkard’s ebullience for the ordinary, and I laughed and stepped forward to accept his wet hug.
‘Don’t get water all over Jinna’s floor!’ I rebuked him.
‘No, I shouldn’t. Well. I won’t then,’ he declared, and dragged off his sodden coat. He hung it on a peg by the door and peeled off his wool cap to drip there as well. He tried to take his boots off standing, but lost his balance. He sat down on the floor and tugged them off. He leaned far to set them by the door under his wet coat and then sat up with a blissful smile. ‘Tom. I’ve met a girl.’
‘Have you? I thought you’d met a bottle from the smell of you.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he admitted unabashedly. ‘That, too. But we had to drink the Prince’s health, you know. And that of his intended. And to a happy marriage. And for many children. And for as much happiness for ourselves.’ He gave me a wide and fatuous smile. ‘She says she loves me. She likes my eyes.’
‘Well. That’s good.’ How many times in his life had folk looked at his mismatched eyes, one brown and one blue, and made the sign against evil? It had to be balm to meet a girl who found them attractive.
And I suddenly knew that now was not the time to burden him with any grief of mine. I spoke gently but firmly. ‘I think perhaps you should go to bed, son. Won’t your master be expecting you in the morning?’
He looked as if I had slapped him with a fish. The smile faded from his face. ‘Oh. Yes, yes that’s true. He’ll expect me. Old Gindast expects his apprentices to be there before his journeymen, and his journeymen to be well at work when he arrives.’ He gathered himself and slowly stood up. ‘Tom, this apprenticeship hasn’t been what I expected at all. I sweep and carry boards and turn wood that is drying. I sharpen tools and clean tools and oil tools. Then I sweep again. I rub oil finishes into the completed pieces. But not a tool have I had in my hand to use, in all these days. It’s all, “watch how this is done, boy,” or “repeat back what I just told you” and “This isn’t what I asked for. Take this back to the wood stock and bring me the fine-grained cherry. And be quick about it”. And, Tom, they call me names. “Country boy” and “dullard”.’
‘Gindast calls all his apprentices names, Hap.’ Jinna’s placid voice was both calming and comforting, but it was still strange to have a third person include herself in our conversation. ‘It’s common knowledge. One even took the taunt with him when he went into business for himself. Now you pay a fine price for a Simpleton table.’ Jinna had moved back to her chair. She had taken up her knitting but not resumed her seat. The cat still had it.
I tried not to show how much Hap’s words distressed me. I had expected to hear that he loved his position and how grateful he was that I had been able to get it for him. I had believed that his apprenticeship would be the one thing that had gone right. ‘Well, I warned you that you would have to work hard,’ I attempted.
‘And I was ready for that, Tom, truly I was. I’m ready to cut wood and fit it and shape it all day. But I didn’t expect to be bored to death. Sweeping and rubbing and fetching … I might as well have stayed at home for all I’m learning here.’
Few things have such sharp edges as the careless words of a boy. His disdain for our old life, spoken so plainly, left me speechless.
He lifted his eyes to mine accusingly. ‘And where have you been and why have you been gone so long? Didn’t you know that I’d need you?’ Then he squinted at me. ‘What have you done to your hair?’
‘I cut it,’ I said. I ran a self-conscious hand over my mourning-shortened locks. I suddenly did not trust myself to say more than that. He was just a lad, I knew, and prone to see all things first in how they affected himself. But the very brevity of my reply alerted him that there was much I had not said.
His eyes wandered over my face. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded.
I took a breath. No help for it now. ‘Nighteyes is dead,’ I said quietly.
‘But … is it my fault? He ran away from me, Tom, but I did look for him, I swear I did, Jinna will tell you—’
‘It wasn’t your fault. He followed and found me. I was with him when he died. It was nothing you did, Hap. He was just old. It was his time and he went from me.’ Despite my efforts, my throat clenched down on the words.
The relief on the boy’s face that he was not at fault was another arrow in my heart. Was being blameless more important to him than the wolf’s death? But when he said, ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ I suddenly understood. He spoke the exact truth. It would take a day, perhaps several, before he realized the old wolf was never coming back. Nighteyes would never again sprawl beside him on the hearthstones, never nudge his hand to have his ears scratched, never walk at his side to hunt rabbits again. Tears rose in my eyes.
‘You’ll be all right. It will just take time,’ I assured him thickly.
‘Let’s hope so,’ he responded heavily.
‘Go to bed. You can still get an hour or so of sleep before you must rise.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I suppose I’d better.’ Then he took a step towards me. ‘Tom. I’m so sorry,’ he said, and his awkward hug took away much of the earlier hurt he had dealt me. Then he lifted his eyes to mine to ask earnestly, ‘You’ll come by tomorrow night, won’t you? I need to talk to you. It’s very important.’
‘I’ll come by tonight. If Jinna does not mind.’ I looked past Hap’s shoulder at her as I released him from my embrace.
‘Jinna won’t mind at all,’ she assured me, and I hoped only I could hear the extra note of warmth in her voice.
‘So. I’ll see you tonight. When you’re sober. Now to bed with you, boy.’ I rumpled his wet hair, and he muttered a good night. He left the room to seek his bedchamber and I was suddenly alone with Jinna. A log collapsed in the fire and then the small crackling of its settling was the only sound in the room. ‘Well. I must go. I thank you for letting me wait for Hap here.’
Jinna set down her knitting again. ‘You are welcome, Tom Badgerlock.’
My cloak was on a peg by her door. I took it down and swirled it around my shoulders. She reached up suddenly to fasten it for me. She pulled the hood