“It kills me sometimes to be faced with that fact, but I can change, Jawen,” Basha said. “I know I could do great things if only I had more of an opportunity.”
“An opportunity? What sort of things are you thinking of?” Jawen asked, leaning toward him.
“An opportunity, a chance for something more. I don’t really know what I want to do, but I’ve an inkling, in the back of my mind, that there is something more to me than this: the Border Guards, or the inn. Those two things are diametric opposites!”
“Basha, you’re sweet, and I do believe in you, opportunity or no opportunity,” Jawen said. She surprised him with a kiss, his first time ever.
Tau’s Cup was brought forth unto you, to prove that you’re king among men, he thought joyfully in that moment before her lips parted from his. “I might be willing to give you a chance if you believe in me too,” Jawen said, smiling.
May you never forget that all the gods dwell above you. The words echoed in his brain as he said, “I believe in you, Jawen,” and he kissed her. “I believe in everything you do,” he whispered.
Protect us, and keep the peace, guide us forth into prosperity, and joyfulness, we ask it of you, the people of Arria. This was beyond anything he’d ever dreamed of, in his wildest wilderness of hope. He’d never imagined… He couldn’t believe this was really happening to him.
“Thank you, Basha, thank you,” Jawen said, kissing him again. Arria, may you reign in her name, Arria, may you be with us evermore…The kiss shifted something buried deep down inside of him. It stirred, longing to get out and face the world with teeth bared and claws extended to prove that he had what it took to survive, but for now it stayed buried. Arria, Arria…It roared into life and death as he kissed her in return. He was alive and wanted to live.
“Basha…” Jawen started to say, when suddenly she was pushed aside.
“You leave her alone!” Hastin cried, punching Basha in the stomach. Basha gasped and stumbled backward, coughing as he tried to concentrate with his vision swimming.
“Basha! Hastin, leave him alone!” Jawen yelled, getting up and storming toward them.
“Jawen, I was just…I’m sorry I pushed you…” Hastin started to say.
“We’re going, Hastin,” she said, turning away from him. “Good-bye, Basha, see you in a little while,” she said before striding away from the two young men.
Hastin went after her. “I’m sorry, Jawen, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
Basha blinked a few times and coughed again as he inhaled and exhaled, staying focused so he wouldn’t pass out. He managed to move toward a tree. He leaned against it and groaned with the soreness of his stomach.
He closed his eyes and smiled, feeling slightly warm at the memory of Jawen’s kisses. He slid down and sighed, sitting with his back against the tree, deciding that it was worth it. He’d be with Jawen, no matter what.
* * * *
Earlier, Jawen grimaced as Hastin sputtered through his coating of fish bait. “I can’t handle this! I’ve got to go to the river and wash myself off,” he said, nodding, as he turned away from her.
Jawen had expected to see Hastin in some sticky, messy situations, but nothing had prepared her for this. “I’ll come with you,” she said.
“No,” Hastin said, turning back to her. “I don’t want you to see me me na…like this.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be back soon. Go look for my sister and tell her we’re going home. I don’t want her hanging around here with boys like Oaka.” He shuddered. “They left all of their fishing stuff here,” Hastin said, banging his foot on a fishing pole as he left.
Jawen sighed. She’d hoped Hastin wouldn’t be shy around her, but the more she tried to open up to him, the more he clammed up. Then when he wanted to be friendly with her, to make up for whatever shortcomings he had, she was hostile to him. It was complicated, and it never seemed to work out between them.
Jawen went off in search of Sisila. Sisila was getting herself into trouble a lot these days, dating Oaka. Sisila and Oaka had been going out for a while, a lot longer than most couples in their young adulthood, but Sisila still lived at home and had to deal with her father and brother if she wanted to sneak out and see Oaka.
Jawen couldn’t believe Sisila would take such risks for a boy like Oaka, who was terrible in her opinion. But she knew how much Sisila loved him, and as long as he didn’t hurt her, Jawen wouldn’t interfere. She thought Sisila and Oaka might even work out as a couple, for despite the risks, they were in love, and maybe that was worth it, even though they might not get married. Jawen hesitated at such a thought. She couldn’t help thinking there was more to life than just being married.
Even though she was dating Hastin and her father was encouraging her to think of him as a potential husband, she was beginning to think it would never work out between them. She thought he was too dumb, and she just couldn’t bring herself to care for him. To her, he was her best friend’s older brother, and she still saw him as the boy who stuck his finger up his nose whenever he thought no one was watching.
She wanted someone who had a little more flash, a little more substance, a little more something…someone who wasn’t taken up with appearances but believed in something more beneath the surface. She’d not thought much about her ideal husband, but she was certain Hastin wasn’t it.
I’ve never been left alone for very long inside the forest, she thought to herself as she looked around. Always there was someone beside her, it seemed, wherever she went. It might be a friend, a boyfriend, a sibling, a parent, anyone at all, but Jawen always had company.
She was alone when she ran into Basha, thinking he was Oaka. She watched him as he spoke, listening to what he had to say but also thinking about what she’d decided to do.
She knew Basha was a decent young man, that he was pretty sweet and friendly. Jawen knew they had a bit of a history, but she thought this time she’d get along better with him, that she could overlook those problems. They’d kissed and she knew she liked Basha, but then Hastin had interfered. She was so angry she’d immediately broken up with him.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m breaking up with you.”
“Jawen, you can’t. What will your father say?” Hastin asked.
She stopped. “How dare you! My father has nothing more to say to me about you,” she insisted. “I’ve made my decision, and that’s final. Now go away, Hastin, and leave me alone!” She strode away from him, and Hastin left her alone. She was free to do whatever she pleased, and what pleased her most right then was dating Basha.
She’d start off slow with him, but the thing that frightened her most was her father finding out about her and Basha dating each other after just breaking up with Hastin. That wouldn’t look good to him, and she had to stay in her father’s good graces. She’d have to think of something to distract him so he wouldn’t notice her sneaking off to date Basha. It would require a lot of planning, but she hoped it would be worth it.
* * * *
“You and Jawen? Dating? Uh-uh, no way.” Oaka shook his head. “You and Jawen can’t go out with each other.”
“Why not? What’s so wrong with that?” Basha scowled at his brother. The two of them were floating in the River Daneuve. Sisila was sitting up on the bank, idly picking at a flower, when Basha decided to bring up the topic of what had occurred between Jawen, Hastin, and himself when Oaka and Sisila had been fooling around in the bushes.
“It would be a disaster of the worst kind. Remember when the two of you tried to be friends a few years ago?” Oaka told Basha. “Remember what happened to our father? It can’t work out between you two.”
For Basha, his father’s jailing was still disappointing and shocking. Geda had been released, but it was still unfair that he’d been in jail at all, thanks to Lapo. “We were just children back then, and not very understanding of each other either,” he said, shaking his head, “and I’d never been friends with a girl before.” He s
ighed. “The fact is, I had no idea of what I was getting into, and Jawen, she probably didn’t know me very well either. But now that we know each other a little better, and a lot of time has passed, I think that we’re mature enough to be involved in a relationship. We might be the most perfect couple since you and Sisila,” he added. “What happened in the past between our two families won’t affect us now.”
Oaka frowned. “You don’t know the first thing about Jawen!” he exclaimed. “You just think you do. You don’t know whether or not she’s serious about you, or if this is just some kind of fling for her!”
“Well—”
“Excuse me,” Sisila said.
“I’m serious about her, and I know if given time, she’ll be just as serious as I am,” Basha insisted.
“Oaka, I’m sorry if this seems rude, but could you please stop insulting my friend?” Sisila asked.
“What?” Oaka said, turning to Sisila.
“Jawen is my best friend, and you always seem to belittle her.”
“I’m sorry, Sisila, but she insults me and Basha all the time. How can you be friends with her?”
“I see where my loyalties lie,” Sisila said. “And while I do love you, Oaka, I can’t abandon my friend to a fate of loneliness. We don’t see eye to eye sometimes, but she’s always been there for me, and I’ll always be there for her.” Sisila stood up. “We’re like two sisters raised together. We’ve a lot in common. I don’t ask you to love her, but I can ask you to respect that. Besides, she doesn’t interfere in my affairs, and I don’t interfere in hers. Especially when it comes to you and Basha,” she added before walking away.
Oaka turned to Basha. “I still don’t see how you could love Jawen.”
“Respect that,” Basha said and swam out of the river.
“All right, I won’t interfere,” Oaka said, rolling his eyes before he sighed. “But I still want to complain!” he added, following Basha.
* * * *
“Hastin, I can’t believe you hit Jawen,” Sisila said as she and Hastin walked up to their father’s manor house.
“Did Jawen tell you I hit her?”
“Yes, she did,” Sisila said, eying the ground.
“It was an accident, and I’m sorry,” Hastin told her. “Tell her I was only trying to stop Basha from pestering her, and I might have pushed her, but it was only a little shove. I didn’t actually hit her.”
“It was only a shove,” Hastin muttered as he stared at his sister. Was she telling him the truth? He wondered if he should question her more thoroughly, but as they entered the manor house, Sisila ran ahead of her brother to their father’s study.
Baron Augwys looked up as his youngest daughter entered the study. “Did you knock?” he asked.
“Father, I want to speak to you, in private,” Sisila said, curtseying and then slamming the door shut before Hastin could get in.
“Sit down,” Baron Augwys said, gesturing toward one of the chairs as he stared at her.
Sisila locked the door as Hastin began knocking outside. “Let me in!” he shouted, his voice muffled by the thick wood.
“I want to tell you, Father, that I’ve thought long and hard about it,” Sisila was saying as she walked around to grab one of the rolled-up maps on her father’s bookshelf. She knew Hastin was on the other side of the door, listening.
“I’ve examined all my options,” she said, unrolling the piece of paper. “And I’ve finally decided it’s time for me to move out of the house.”
“Your reason, Sisila?” Baron Augwys asked, leaning toward her.
Sisila sighed. “I love you, Father and all of my siblings, but I think it’s time for me to stretch my wings,” she said, “to get a bit of freedom before I settle down and choose a husband. I don’t intend to go wild, but I’d like to show you I’m responsible enough to tend and manage my own home. To live on my own will give me a chance to know myself and see what I’m capable of, by myself, before I’m willing to give marriage a chance. Can you give me this chance?” she asked.
“Sisila, I don’t know what to say. It seems you’ve thought this out, but you’re only sixteen, still a child in many ways. Where would you live?”
“Here.” She pointed to a spot on the map. “It’s a perfect little cottage within town limits, not too far away from here, and it’s just my size, a one-person residence. I’ve a little money saved up, just enough to support myself, and the cottage is available for rent. Just a few months is all I need to prove to myself that I can do this.”
“All right, Sisila, all right, I’ll consider it,” Baron Augwys said, sighing as he leaned back and waved her away. “You may go. Let your brother in now!”
Sisila slowly nodded and then went to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open.
Hastin fell on the floor at her feet. “Father, I’ve got to talk to you,” he said, getting up and bowing to his father, all while watching Sisila go with a small scowl on his face. He slammed the door shut behind her. Unlike her brother, she didn’t linger to eavesdrop.
* * * *
“Father, what was she telling you?” Hastin asked as he turned around. He had to make it seem like he didn’t know.
“Sisila is planning to move out of the house,” Baron Augwys said.
“What? Why?” Hastin shook his head. “Father, you can’t let her do that. She…I suspect her of dating Oaka, the eldest son of the innkeeper.”
“The innkeeper’s son?” Baron Augwys sighed.
“That’s right, the innkeeper’s son.” Hastin smiled grimly as he anticipated what his father would do to Oaka. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked boldly.
“Nothing,” Baron Augwys said after a moment.
“What?” Hastin said, genuinely shocked. “You can’t let her do this. You can’t let her go out on her own when she might be dating someone like Oaka. It’s highly inappropriate!”
“I can do this, my son; I can let her go,” Baron Augwys said, sighing again as he pushed back his chair and stared out the window. “It’s her choice ultimately whom she’ll marry, and if she can stand being on her own, in a hut without any one of us being around her every day, then she can manage her own life.” He lowered his head. “She might be happy, and she might love Oaka, and I’ll give her this chance at love and happiness for now. She deserves that chance.” He muttered the last.
“Father, how can you? You’re abandoning her!” Hastin cried. “Oaka isn’t a suitable match for her!”
“Look around you, son!” Baron Augwys exclaimed, gesturing. “I’m not exactly the richest man in Arria. I’m not the king, nor am I the Duke of Coe Kiki. I’m the Baron of Coe Baba, the lowest, poorest title in all the land. What nobleman’s son will have my youngest daughter for marriage, when there is little chance of her inheriting anything substantial?”
Hastin looked down, embarrassed to be reminded of his own lowly status in society, not much better than Sisila’s.
“I’m looking out for her best interest,” his father told him. “At least the innkeeper’s son will be able to provide her with a livelihood. It’s not exactly the best, but learning how to manage her own household, manage the inn…” Baron Augwys chuckled. “I might provide her with some patronage.” He sighed. “Go away, Hastin. Leave me be. I still have to consider her proposal.”
When Hastin didn’t turn around to leave, Baron Augwys knew he had more bad news to impart. “All right, Hastin, what did you do now?” Baron Augwys asked resignedly.
“Why do you assume I did something?” Hastin sighed as one of his father’s eyebrows hiked up in skepticism. “All right, I might have made Jawen break up with me. By accident.”
“Hastin, you know Lapo will be very angry with me if he hears you and Jawen have broken up? That man,” he scoffed, “he’s the most arrogant man I’ve ever met, but Hastin, we owe him a lot of money.” Baron Augwys looked desperate. “Couldn’t you’ve done something to prevent this from happening?”
“I’m sorry, Father,
it wasn’t entirely my fault, Jawen broke up with me. She had a reason. It was her decision, all right? So, I don’t think she will tell him,” Hastin added. He didn’t want to mention Basha’s involvement to his father; the breakup was embarrassing enough.
“So…you don’t think she’ll tell her father that you and she have broken up,” Baron Augwys calculated. “So, to all intents and purposes, you two are still dating in her father’s eyes. Is that correct?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
The baron nodded. “We’ll keep up this pretense, but until further notice, try to get back into Jawen’s good graces, all right? Try to make yourself more attractive to her.” Baron Augwys sighed. “I had hoped you might be able to marry whomever you wished for love and happiness, but Lapo was so insistent that at least one of his children should marry into nobility, that I had to give him that chance. Sencaen might have married your sister, but he ran away from home and married somebody else, and now you—you might have to wait a few more years to marry Jawen’s younger sister, Talia. Or I might lose all hope with Lapo’s children and ask you to marry Iibala instead.”
Hastin shuddered and blanched at the mention of Iibala. “No, Father, I’ll convince Jawen to fall in love with me. You can count on that,” he said with a small bow.
For months, Hastin did try to do just that, while Jawen tried to keep up the pretense that she was dating Hastin, going out with him once or twice a month to appease her father and make him less suspicious. Hastin tried to impress Jawen and make her believe how much she might love him. But Jawen remained indifferent to him.
Instead, Hastin noticed how much Basha and Jawen snuck off together, once or twice a week. Perhaps they’d have gone out more if they had been allowed to, but they were both so busy and under heavy supervision, with Basha helping his parents out at the inn and Jawen taking care of her siblings and doing housework alongside her mother. Hastin didn’t know exactly what they did whenever they got together, but he could imagine, and he didn’t like what his mind came up with.
The Smiling Stallion Inn Page 26