by Robin Hobb
We walked on, my arm across his shoulders for a time, until he reached up to clap me on the shoulder. I let him go then, to walk on his own and silently finish his thinking. It was the best I could do for him. My thoughts of Starling were not charitable.
Night caught us before we reached the cottage, but there was a moon and both of us knew the road. The old pony meandered along placidly and the clopping of her hooves and the creaking of the two-wheeled cart made an odd sort of music. A summer rain began to fall, damping the dust and cooling the night. Not far from home, Nighteyes came nonchalantly to meet us, as if mere chance had brought him out upon the road. We journeyed companionably together, the boy in silence, the wolf and I in the effortless communion of the Wit. We absorbed the other’s experiences of the day like an in-drawn breath. He could not grasp my worry for the boy’s future.
He can hunt and he can fish. What more does he need to know? Why send one of our own off to another pack, to learn their ways? We are diminished by the loss of his strength. We grow no younger, you and I.
My brother, that is perhaps the strongest reason why he should go. He must begin to make his own way in the world, so that when the time comes for him to take a mate, he can provide well for her and their children.
What of you and me? We will not help him in that providing? We will not watch the cubs while he hunts, or bring back our kill to share? Are we not pack with him?
Among human pack, this is the way of it. It was an answer I had given him many times in our years together. I knew how he interpreted it. It was a human custom that made no sense, and he need not waste time trying to understand it.
What of us, then, when he is gone?
I’ve told you. Perhaps we shall travel again.
Ah, yes. Leave a cosy den and a predictable food supply. That makes as much sense as sending the boy away.
I let his thought hang unanswered, for he was right. Perhaps the restlessness Chade had stirred in me had been the last gasping of my youth. Perhaps I should have bought that wife-finding charm from Jinna. From time to time I had considered the idea of looking for a wife, but it seemed too perfunctory a way to take a mate. Some did so, I knew, merely seeking out a woman or man who had similar goals and no excessively irritating habits. Such partnerships often grew into loving relationships. But having once experienced a relationship not only founded on years of knowing one another but blessed with the heady intoxication of genuine love, I did not think I could ever settle for anything else. It would not be fair to ask another woman to live in Molly’s shadow. In all the years that Starling had intermittently shared herself with me, I had never thought to ask her to marry me. That thought gave me pause for a moment: had Starling ever hoped that I would? Then the moment of wondering passed and I smiled grimly to myself. No. Starling would have found such an offer baffling, if not laughable.
The last part of our journey was darker, for the track to our cottage was narrow and overshadowed on both sides by trees. Rain dripped from the leaves. The cart jounced along. ‘Should have brought a lantern,’ Hap observed, and I grunted agreement. Our cottage was a darker hummock in the shadowed hollow we called home.
I went inside and kindled a fire and put our traded goods away. Hap took a light and settled the pony. Nighteyes immediately sighed down onto the hearth, as close to the fire as he could get without singeing his coat. I put on the kettle and added the few coins we had gained to Hap’s small hoard. It wasn’t going to be enough, I grudgingly admitted. Even if Hap and I hired ourselves out the rest of the summer to bring in hay and other crops, it still wouldn’t be enough. Nor could we both work that way, unless we were resigned to our own chickens and garden perishing from neglect. Yet if only one of us hired out, it might be another year, perhaps longer, before we had saved enough.
‘I should have started saving for this years ago,’ I observed sourly as Hap came in from outside. He set the lantern on its shelf before dropping into the other chair. I nodded at the pot on the table and he poured himself a cup of tea. The stacked coins on the table were a pitiful wall between us.
‘Too late to think that way,’ he observed as he took up his cup. ‘We have to start from where we are.’
‘Exactly. Do you think you and Nighteyes could manage here for the rest of the summer while I hired out?’
He met my gaze levelly. ‘Why should you be the one to hire out? The money would go for my apprenticeship.’
I experienced an odd little shift in perception. Because I was ‘bigger and stronger and could earn more’ was no longer true. His shoulders were as wide as mine, and in any test of endurance, his young back would probably hold out better. He grinned sympathetically as he saw me grasp what he already knew. ‘Perhaps because it is something that I’d like to give you,’ I said quietly, and he nodded, understanding what those words really meant.
‘You’ve already given me more than I could ever pay back. Including the ability to go after this for myself.’
Those were the words we went to bed on, and I was smiling as I closed my eyes. There is monstrous vanity in the pride we take in our children, I told myself. I had bumbled along with Hap, never really giving much thought to what I was or was not teaching him about being a man. Then one evening, a young man meets my eyes and tells me that he can fend for himself if he needs to, and I feel the warm flush of success. The boy had raised himself, I told myself, but I still smiled as I fell asleep.
Perhaps my expansive mood left me more open than usual, for I Skill-dreamed that night. Such dreams occasionally came to me, more taunting my addiction than assuaging it, for they were uncontrollable things that offered brief glimpses with none of the satisfaction of full contact. Yet this dream was tantalizing with possibility, for I felt that I rode with an individual mind rather than sampling the stray thoughts of a crowd.
It seemed as much memory as vision. In the dream, I ghosted through the Great Hall at Buckkeep. Scores of elegant folk decked out in their finest clothes filled the hall. Music wafted through the air and I glimpsed dancers, but I moved slowly through standing folk conversing with one another. Some turned to greet me as I passed, and I murmured my responses, but my eyes never lingered on their faces. I did not wish to be here; I could not have been more uninterested. For a moment, my eye was caught by a fall of gleaming bronze hair. The girl’s back was to me. Several rings rode on the slender hand that lifted to nervously tug her collar straight. As if she felt my gaze, she turned. She had caught my eyes on her, and she blushed pink as she curtseyed deeply to me. I bowed to her, proffered some greeting and moved on through the crowd. I could feel her looking after me; it annoyed me.
Even more annoying was to see Chade, so tall and elegant as he stood on the dais beside and slightly behind the Queen’s chair. He, too, had been watching me. He bent now to whisper something in her ear, and her eyes came unerringly to me. A small gesture of her hand beckoned me to join them there. My heart sank. Would I never have time that was my own, to do as I pleased? Bleakly and slowly, I moved to obey her.
Then the dream changed, as dreams will. I sprawled on a blanket before a hearth. I was bored. It was so unfair. Below, they danced, they ate, and here I was … A ripple in the dream. No. Not bored, simply not engaged with anything. Idly I unsheathed my claws and inspected them. A bit of bird down was caught under one of them. I freed it, then cleaned my whole paw thoroughly before dozing off before the fire again.
What was that? Amusement tinged the sleepy thought from Nighteyes but to reply to him would have required more effort than I was willing to make. I grumbled at him, rolled over and burrowed back into sleep.
In the morning I wondered at my dream but briefly, dismissing it as a mixture of errant Skill and my own boyhood memories of Buckkeep mingling with my ambitions for Hap. As I did the morning chores, the dwindling firewood stack caught my attention. It needed replenishing, not only for the sake of summer’s cooking and night comfort, but to begin a hoard against winter’s deep cold. I went in to breakfast,
thinking I would attend to it that day.
Hap’s neatly packed carry-sack leaned beside the door. The lad himself had a freshly washed and brushed air to him. He grinned at me, suppressed excitement in his smile as he dolloped porridge into our bowls. I sat down at my place at the table and he took his place opposite me. ‘Today?’ I asked him, trying to keep reluctance from my voice.
‘I can’t start sooner,’ he pointed out pleasantly. ‘At market, I heard the hay was standing ready at Cormen. That’s only two days from here.’
I nodded slowly, at a loss for words. He was right. More than right, he was eager. Let him go, I counselled myself, and bit back my objections. ‘I suppose there’s no sense in delaying it,’ I managed to say. He took this as both encouragement and an endorsement. As we ate, he speculated that he could work the hay at Cormen, and then perhaps go on to Divden and see if there was more work to be had there.
‘Divden?’
‘Three days past Cormen. Jinna told us about it, remember? She said their barley fields looked like an ocean when the wind stirred the growing grain. So I thought I might try there.’
‘Sounds promising,’ I agreed. ‘And then you’d come home?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Unless I heard of more work.’
‘Of course. Unless you heard of more work.’
In a few short hours, Hap was gone. I’d made him pack extra food, and take some of the coins with him in case of extreme need. He’d been impatient with my caution. He’d sleep by the roadside, he told me, not in inns. He told me that Queen Kettricken’s patrols kept the highwaymen down, and that robbers would not bother with poor prey like himself. He assured me that he would be fine. At Nighteyes’ insistence, I asked him if he wouldn’t take the wolf with him. He smiled indulgently at this, and paused at the door to scratch Nighteyes’ ears. ‘It might be a bit much for the old fellow,’ he suggested gently. ‘Best he stays here where you two can look after one another until I get back.’
As we stood together and watched our boy walk down the lane to the main road, I wondered if I had ever been so insufferably young and sure of myself, but the ache in my heart had the pleasant afterglow of pride.
The rest of the day was oddly difficult to fill. There was work to be done, but I could not settle into it. Several times I came back to myself, realizing I was simply staring off into the distance. I walked to the cliffs twice, for no more reason than to look out over the sea, and once to the end of our lane to look up and down the road in both directions. There was not even dust hanging in the air. All was still and silent as far as I could see. The wolf trailed me disconsolately. I began half a dozen tasks and left them all half-done. I found myself listening, and waiting, without knowing for what. In the midst of splitting and stacking firewood, I halted. Carefully not thinking, I raised my axe and drove it into the splitting block. I picked up my shirt, slung it over my sweaty shoulder and headed towards the cliffs.
Nighteyes was suddenly in front of me. What are you doing?
Taking a short rest.
No, you’re not. You’re going down to the cliffs, to Skill.
I rubbed the palms of my hands down the sides of my trousers. My thoughts were formless. ‘I was just going there for the breeze.’
Once you’re there, you’ll try to Skill. You know you will. I can feel your hunger as plainly as you do. My brother, please. Please don’t.
His thought rode on a keening whine. Never had I seen him so desperate to dissuade me. It puzzled me. ‘Then I won’t, if it worries you so.’
I wrenched my axe out of the chopping block and went back to work. After a time, I became aware I was attacking the wood with ferocity far beyond the task’s need. I finished splitting the tumble of logs and began the tedious chore of stacking it so it would dry and yet shed rain. When that was done, I picked up my shirt. Without thinking, I turned towards the sea cliffs. Instantly the wolf was blocking my path.
Don’t do this, brother.
I already told you I wouldn’t. I turned aside from him, denying the frustration I felt. I weeded the garden. I hauled water from the stream to replenish the kitchen barrel. I dug a new pit, moved the privy, and filled the old pit with clean earth. In short, I burned through work as a lightning fire burns through a summer meadow. My back and arms ached, not just with weariness but with the complaints of old injuries, and still I dared not be still. The Skill-hunger tugged at me, refusing to be ignored.
As evening came, the wolf and I went fishing for our supper. Cooking for one person seemed foolish, yet I forced myself to set out a decent meal and to eat it. I tidied up and then sat down. The long hours of the evening stretched before me. I set out vellum and inks, but could not settle to the task of writing anything. My thoughts would not order themselves. I finally dragged out the mending and began doggedly to patch, sew or darn every garment that needed it.
Finally, when my work began to blear before my eyes, I went to bed. I lay on my back, my arm flung over my face, and tried to ignore the fishhooks that were set and dragging at my soul. Nighteyes dropped beside the bed with a sigh. I trailed my other arm over the side of the bed, resting my hand on his head. I wondered when we had crossed the line from solitude to loneliness.
It’s not loneliness that eats at you like this.
There seemed nothing to say to that. I passed a difficult night. I forced myself out of bed shortly after dawn. For the next few days, I spent the mornings cutting alder for the smokehouse, and the afternoons catching fish to smoke. The wolf gorged himself on entrails, but still watched greedily as I salted the slabs of red fish and hung them on hooks over the slow fire. I put more green alder on to thicken the smoke and shut the door tightly. Late one afternoon, I was at the rain barrel, washing slime, scales and salt from my hands when Nighteyes suddenly turned his head towards the lane.
Someone comes.
Hap? Hope surged in me.
No.
I was surprised at the strength of my disappointment. I felt an echo of the same from the wolf. We were both staring down the shaded lane when Jinna came in sight. She paused a moment, unnerved perhaps by the intensity of our gazes, then lifted a hand in greeting. ‘Hello, Tom Badgerlock! Here I am, to take up your offer of hospitality.’
A friend of Hap’s. I explained to Nighteyes. He still hung back and regarded her warily as I went to meet her.
‘Welcome. I didn’t expect to see you so soon,’ I said, and then heard the awkwardness of my words. ‘An unexpected pleasure is always the most welcome,’ I added to mend the moment, and then realized that such a gallantry was just as inappropriate. Had I completely forgotten how to deal with people?
But Jinna’s smile put me at ease. ‘Seldom do I hear such honesty harnessed with such fair words, Tom Badgerlock. Is that water cool?’
Without waiting for an answer, she strode up to the rain barrel, unknotting the kerchief at her throat as she did so. She walked like a woman used to the road, weary at the end of the day, but not overly taxed by her journey. The bulging pack high on her back was a natural part of her. She damped her kerchief and wiped the dust from her face and hands. Moistening it more generously, she wiped the back of her neck and her throat. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she sighed gratefully. She turned to me with a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. ‘At the end of a long day’s walk, I envy folk like you with a settled life and a place to call your own.’
‘I assure you, folk like me just as often wonder if life would not be sweeter as travellers. Won’t you come in and be comfortable? I was just about to start the evening meal.’
‘Many thanks.’ As she followed me to the door of the cabin, Nighteyes shadowed us at a discreet distance. Without turning to look at him directly, she observed, ‘A bit unusual, a wolf as a watchdog.’
I often lied to people, insisting that Nighteyes was merely a dog that looked like a wolf. Something told me this would be an insult to Jinna. I gave her the truth. ‘I adopted him as a cub. He’s been a good companion to me.’
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br /> ‘So Hap told me. And that he does not like to be stared at by strangers, but will come to me when he’s made up his mind about me. And as usual, I’m telling a tale by starting in the middle. I passed Hap upon the road a few days ago. He was in high spirits, with every confidence that he will find work and do well. I do believe he will; the boy has such a friendly, engaging manner that I cannot imagine anyone not welcoming him. He assured me again of a warm welcome here, and of course he spoke true.’
She followed me into my cabin. She slung her pack to the floor and leaned it up against the wall, then straightened and stretched her back with a relieved groan. ‘Well. What are we cooking? You may as well let me help, for I’m never content to sit still in a kitchen. Fish? Oh, I’ve a wonderful herb for fish. Have you a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid?’
With the ease of the naturally gregarious, she took over half the dinner chores. I had not shared kitchen tasks with a woman since my year among the Witted folk, and even then, Holly had been a near-silent companion at such times. Jinna talked on, clattering pots and pans and filling my small home with her bustle and friendly gossip. She had the rare knack of coming into my territory and handling my possessions without me feeling displaced or uneasy. My feelings bled over to Nighteyes. He soon ventured into the cabin, and assumed his customary attentive post by the table. She was unruffled by his intent stare, and accepted his adeptness at catching the fish trimmings she tossed his way. The fish was soon simmering in a pot with her herbs. I raided my garden for young carrots and fresh greens while she fried thick slabs of bread in lard.