Fool's Fate

Page 14

“Isn't your objection actually that you know Svanja lives close by there?” he asked me pointedly.
I suppressed a sigh. I turned my steps in the direction of the Stuck Pig. “I thought she had thrown you over for her sailor boy with his pretty gifts.”
He flinched, but kept his voice level when he replied. “So it seemed to me, also. But after Reften went back to sea, she was free to seek me out and speak the truth of it. Her parents arranged and approve of that match. That arrangement is why they so disliked me.”
“Then they thought you knew she was promised, and continued to see her anyway?”
“I suppose so.” Again, that neutral voice.
“A shame she never thought to tell her parents she was deceiving you. Or to tell you of this Reften.”
“It wasn't like that, Tom.” A low growl of anger crept into his voice. “She didn't set out to deceive anyone. She thought, at first, that we would be only friends, and so there was no reason to tell me she was spoken for. After we began to have feelings for one another, she was afraid to speak, for fear I might think her faithless to him. But in reality, she had never given her heart to him; all he had received was her parents' word.”
“And when he came back?”
He took a deep breath and refused to lose his temper. “It's complicated, Tom. Her mother's health is not good, and her heart is set on the match. Reften is the son of her childhood friend. And her father does not want to have to take back his word after he agreed to the marriage. He's a proud man. So, when Reften came back to town, she thought it best to pretend that all was well for the brief time he was here.”
“And now that he is gone, she's come back to you.”
“Yes.” He bit the word off as if there were no more to say.
I set my hand to his shoulder as we walked. The muscles there were bunched, hard as stone. I asked the question that I had to ask. “And what will happen when he comes back to port again, with gifts and fond notions that she is his sweetheart?”
“Then she'll tell him that she loves me and is mine now,” he said in a low voice. “Or I will.” For a time we walked in his silence. He did not relax under my hand but at least he did not shrug it off. “You think I'm foolish,” he said at last as we turned down the street that went past the Stuck Pig. “You think she is toying with me, and that when Reften comes home, she will again throw me aside.”
I tried to make my voice say the hard words softly. “That does seem possible to me.”
He sighed and his shoulder slouched under my hand. “To me, also. But what am I to do, Tom? I love her. Svanja and no other. She is the other half of me, and when we are together, we make a whole that I cannot doubt. Walking with you now and telling you of it, I sound gullible, even to myself. So I voice doubts, like your own. But when I am with her and she looks into my eyes, I know she is telling me the truth.”
We tramped a bit farther in silence. Around us, the town was changing its pace, relaxing from the day's labors into a time for shared meals and family companionship. Tradesmen were closing their shutters for the evening. Smells of cooking wafted out of homes. Taverns beckoned to such as Hap and me. I wished vainly that we were simply going to sit down to a hearty meal together. I had thought him in safe waters, and had comforted myself with that whenever I thought of leaving Buckkeep. I asked a question both inevitable and foolish. “Is there any chance that you could stop seeing her for a time?”
“No.” He answered without even drawing breath. He looked ahead as he spoke. “I can't, Tom. I can no more put her aside than I could give up breath or water or food.”
Then I spoke my fear honestly. “I worry that while I am gone, you will get into trouble with this, Hap. Not just a fistfight with Reften over the girl, though that would be bad enough. Master Hartshorn has no fondness for either of us. If he believes you have compromised his daughter, he may seek revenge on you.”
“I can deal with her father,” he said gruffly, and I felt his shoulders stiffen again.
“How? Take a beating from him? Or beat him insensible? Remember, I've fought him, Hap. He'll neither cry for mercy, nor grant it. If the City Guard had not intervened, our fight would have continued until one of us was unconscious, or dead. Yet even if it doesn't come to that, there are other things he could do. He could go to Gindast and complain that his apprentice lacks morality. Gindast would take that seriously, would he not? From what you have said, your master is not well pleased with you just now. He could turn you out. Or Hartshorn could simply turn his own daughter out into the streets. Then what?”