Tawny Man 02 - Golden Fool

by Robin Hobb

  So I made the next most foolish decision that I could make, which was to go to the Stuck Pig. A tavern fit for the Witted Bastard. I entered, and as I stood in the doorway with the bright winter sunlight flowing in from behind me, I decided it was one of those places that always looked better by lamplight. Daylight revealed, not just the weariness of the leaning tables and the damp straw that begged pardon on the floor, but the dreariness of the folk who came to such a tavern on a bright winter afternoon. People such as myself, I surmised sourly. A gaffer and a man with a twisted leg and only one arm sat together at a table near the hearth, some game bones between them. At another table, a man with a badly bruised face sat nursing a tankard and muttering to himself. A woman looked up as I came in. When she raised one brow inquiringly, I shook my head. She scowled at me and returned to staring at the hearthfire. A boy with a bucket and rag was scrubbing tables and benches. When I sat down, he wiped his hands on his trouser legs and came over to me.

  ‘Beer,’ I said, not because I wanted it, but because I was there and I had to order something. He bobbed acknowledgement, took my coin, brought me a mug, and went back to his tasks. I took a sip of it and tried to remember why I had walked down to Buckkeep Town. I decided it had simply been the need to be moving. But now I was sitting still. Stupid.

  I was still sitting still when Svanja’s father walked in. I don’t think he saw me at first, coming into the dim tavern from the bright winter day. When I recognized him, I looked down at the tabletop, as if by not looking at him, I could make myself invisible. It didn’t work. I heard his heavy boots on the sodden straw, and then he dragged out a chair and sat down across from me. I nodded at him guardedly. He started at me blearily. His eyes were red-rimmed, but whether from drinking or lack of sleep or drink, I could not tell. His dark hair had been brushed that morning, but he had not shaved. I wondered that he was not at his trade. The tavern boy soon scurried over with a pot of ale for him. He took the man’s coin and went back to his crubbing. Hartshorn took a drink of his ale, scratched his whiskery cheek and said, ‘Well.’

  ‘Well’ I agreed mildly and drank from my beer. I wished so intensely to be somewhere else that it seemed unbelievable that my body remained where it was.

  ‘Your boy.’ Hartshorn shifted in his chair. ‘Does he intend to marry my girl, or just ruin her?’ His face remained calm as he spoke, but I could see both anger and pain bubbling up in him like vapours from the bottom of a stagnant pond. I think I knew then that we would come to blows. I realized it as a sort of enlightenment. The man had to do something to regain some self-respect, and I presented the first opportunity. Both the gaffer and the maimed man had lost interest in their game and were watching us. They knew what was coming as well as I did. They’d be Hartshorn’s witnesses.

  There wasn’t a way out of what was to come, but I tried to find one. My voice was low and steady and earnest. I tried to reach him, father to father. ‘Hap tells me that he loves Svanja. So there is no intent there to ruin her, or to use her and cast her aside. They are both very young. But, yes, there is a danger of ruining, and for my son as well as your daughter.’

  I made a mistake when I paused then. I think if I had kept speaking, he would have stayed seated and paid some attention to my words. I had intended to ask him what he thought that we, as parents, could do to curb our children until their passions round some sort of foundation in planning for a future. Perhaps if I had not been thinking so earnestly of what to say to him, and what we actually could do, I would have noticed that he was earnestly thinking of the best way to give me a beating.

  He surged suddenly to his feet. His mug was in his hand and desperate fury flamed in his eyes. ‘Your son’s fucking her! My little girl, my Svanja! And you think that isn’t ruin for her?’

  I was coming to my feet when the heavy mug hit me in the face.

  A miscalculation, some part of me observed. I had thought he would club me with it, and I thought I’d leaned back out of his range. When he let it fly, that small distance was not enough. It hit my left cheekbone with a crack I heard, and white pain spider-webbed out from the impact.

  Sharp pain makes some men retreat and paralyses others. My time under Regal’s torture had branded in me a different reaction. Attack now, before it gets any worse, before your attacker can overcome you and torment you at his leisure. I had launched myself over the table at him before the thrown mug even thudded to the floor. The pain in my face reached its zenith at about the same time my fist slammed into his mouth. His teeth cut my knuckles and my left hand slammed into his breastbone, above my intended target.

  Jinna’s warning about him had been valid. He did not go down, but roared his fury at me. I had one of my knees on the tabletop. I got my other leg under me and pushed off from there, my hands going for his throat as the weight of my body bore him down to the dirty floor. The bench behind his knees helped me knock him down, but I clipped my own shins against it painfully as I landed on top of him.

  He was stronger than he looked, and he fought without restraint, without concern for his own body. His entire aim was to hurt me, with no concern for himself and as we rolled and grappled, I heard his knuckles crack as his fist met my skull. I had not made good my grip on his throat, and the benches and tables that crowded the tavern added obstacles to our struggle. At one point he was on top of me, but we were under a table, and I was able to surge up against him and slam his head against the underside of the board. That stunned him for a moment and I rolled clear of his grasp. I scuttled clear of the table and came to my feet. He snarled at me from under the table, showing no sign of relenting in his anger.

  Fights are simultaneous things: in one moment, I readied myself to kick him as he came out from under the table, the tavern keeper roared, ‘I’ve called for the guard! Take your fight outside,’ while the gaffer at the game-table shouted in a cracked voice, ‘Watch out, Rory! He’s gonna kick you, watch out!’ But the voice that broke my concentration was Hap’s crying, ‘Tom! Don’t hurt Svanja’s father!’

  Rory Hartshorn seemed to have no compunction about hurting Hap’s father. He delivered a strong kick to my ankle that unbalanced me as he rolled out from under the table. I fell, but I fell on him. I grabbed his throat, but he tucked his chin, trying to defeat my strangle while his fists pounded my ribs.

  ‘City Guard!’ A bass voice bellowed in warning. As one we were plucked from the floor by two brawny armsmen. They didn’t waste time trying to break our clinch, but dragged us bodily to the door and tumbled us out into the snowy street. A circle of men surrounded us as I still strove to clench my fingers into Rory’s throat. He gripped my hair, forcing my head back as his fingers clawed at my eyes. ‘Kick them apart!’ bellowed a sergeant and my determination suddenly seemed foolish. I let go my grip and twisted myself off Rory’s body. I left a scant handful of my hair in his fist as I did so. Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. Whoever it was, he gripped both my wrists and hauled them expertly up behind my back. I gritted my teeth and concentrated all my will on not resisting him. As I stood panting and docile, I felt his grip ease slightly.

  Rory Hartshorn was not thinking as clearly. He struggled as a guard dragged him to his feet, and was soundly thumped with her truncheon several times for it. When he was finally still, he was on his knees. Blood from his mouth dripped from his chin. He glared at me malevolently.

  ‘Penalty for brawling in a tavern is six silvers. Each. Pay it now and part peacefully, or go to the lock-up, and pay twice as much to get out of there. Tavernkeeper. Any damages within?’

  I didn’t hear the man’s reply because Hap hissed suddenly by my ear, ‘Tom Badgerlock, how could you?’

  I turned to look at my boy. He recoiled from my face. I wasn’t surprised. Even in the cold of the winter day, my cheek burned hot. I could feel it puffing. ‘He started it.’ I meant it by way of an explanation, but it sounded like a boy’s sulky excuse.

  The guard who held me gave me a shake. ‘You! Pay attentio
n. Sergeant asked you if you got the six? Do you?’

  ‘I’ve got it. Give me a hand free to reach for my purse.’ I noted that the tavernkeeper had not tallied up any damages against us. Perhaps that was a benefit of being a regular customer there.

  The guardsman released both my hands, warning me, ‘No stupid tricks, now.’

  ‘I’ve already done my stupid trick for the day,’ I muttered, and was rewarded with a grudging chuckle from him. My hands were starting to swell. It hurt to tug my purse strings open and count out the coins for them. Now there was my queen’s largesse well spent. My guard took the coins from me and walked away to hand them to his sergeant, who counted them and then slid them into a town bag at his belt. Rory Hartshorn, still gripped by a guard on either side, shook his head sullenly. ‘I don’t have it,’ he said mushily.

  One of the guard snorted. ‘The way you’ve been spending coin on drink the last few days, it’s a wonder you had any money to buy beer today.’

  ‘To the lock-up,’ the sergeant decreed stonily.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ Hap said suddenly, I had almost forgotten he was there until I saw him tug at the sergeant’s sleeve.

  ‘Got what?’ the sergeant asked in surprise.

  ‘His fine, I’ll pay Hartshorn’s fine for him. Please don’t lock him up.’

  ‘Don’t want your money! Don’ wan nothin’ from him.’ Rory Hartshorn was starting to sag between the men that held him. Bereft of his fury, pain was taking him over. Then, horribly, he began to weep. ‘Ruined my daughter. Ruined our family. Don’ take his dirty money.’

  Hap went white. The sergeant looked him up and down coldly. Hap’s voice cracked as he said, ‘Please, don’t lock him up. It’s bad enough, isn’t it?’ The purse he lifted and tugged open was clearly marked with the sign of his master, Gindast. Hap scooped coins out of it and proffered them to the guard. ‘Please,’ he said again.

  The sergeant turned away from him abruptly. ‘Take Hartshorn to his home. Fine suspended.’ He turned coldly away from my boy, who reeled as if he had been struck. Shame burned his face scarlet. The two guardsmen holding Hartshorn hustled him away, but it was now plain that they were aiding him to walk rather than restraining him. The rest of the city patrol moved off on their regular rounds. Suddenly Hap and I were alone in the middle of the cold street. I blinked and my own hurts began clamouring to make themselves known. The worst was my cheekbone where the heavy mug had connected. My vision in that eye was blurred. I felt a moment of selfish gratitude that Hap was there to help me. But when he turned to look at me, he did not seem to see me at all.

  ‘It’s all ruined now,’ he said helplessly. ‘I’ll never be able to make this right. Never.’ He turned to stare after the retreating Hartshorn. Then his swung his gaze back to me. ‘Tom, why?’ he demanded heartbrokenly. ‘Why did you do this to me? I went to live with Gindast like you told me to. I was getting everything sorted out. Now you’ve ruined it.’ He stared after the departing men. ‘I’ll never make peace with Svanja’s family now.’

  ‘Hartshorn started the fight,’ I said stupidly, and then cursed my own pathetic excuse.

  ‘Couldn’t you have walked away?’ he asked self-righteously. ‘You’ve always told me that’s the best choice in a fight. To walk away if you can.’

  ‘He didn’t give me that opportunity,’ I said. My anger was starting to swell worse than my face. I walked to the edge of the street, and reached up to take a handful of somewhat clean snow from an eave edge. I held it to my face. ‘I don’t see how you can blame me for any of this,’ I added sullenly. ‘You’re the one who set it all in motion. You had to rush her into bed.’

  For an instant he looked as if I had struck him. But even before I could feel regret for my words, he shifted into anger. ‘You speak as if I had a choice,’ he said coldly. ‘But that’s to be expected, I suppose, from a man’s who has never known real love in his life. You think all women are like Starling. They’re not. Svanja is my true love forever, and true love should not be made to wait. You and her father and mother would have us hold back from completing our love, as if tomorrow were a certainty for any of us. But we won’t. Love demands that we grasp it all, today.’

  His words enflamed my anger. I was certain that they were not his own, but had been harvested from some tavern minstrel. ‘If you think I’ve never known love, then you don’t know anything about me,’ I retorted. ‘As for you and Svanja, she’s the first girl you’ve ever said more than “hello”, and you tumble into her bed and proclaim it love. Love is more than bedding, boy. If love doesn’t come first and linger after, if love can’t wait and endure disappointment and separation, then it’s not love. Love doesn’t require bedding to make it true. It doesn’t even demand day to day contact. I know this because I have known love, many kinds of loves, and among them, I’ve known what I felt for you.’

  ‘Tom!’ he barked in rebuke. He glanced behind his shoulder at a passing couple.

  ‘You fear they will misunderstand what I say?’ I sneered. At the anger in my voice, the man took the woman’s arm and hurried her past us. I must have looked a madman. I didn’t care. ‘I fear you’ve misunderstood it all along. You came to Buckkeep Town and forgot everything that I ever tried to teach you. I don’t even know how to talk to you any more.’ I went back to the eaves for another scoop of snow. I glanced back at Hap, but he was staring stonily into the distance. In that instant, my heart gave him up. He was gone from me, following his own path, and there was nothing I could do. This arguing with him was as useless as all the words Burrich and Patience had spent on me. He’d go his own way, make his own mistakes, and maybe, when he was my age, learn his own lessons from them. Wasn’t that what I had done? ‘I’ll still finish paying for your apprenticeship,’ I said quietly. I spoke as much to myself as to him, telling myself that there it would end. That it had already ended save keeping that bargain with myself.

  I turned and began the long walk back up to Buckkeep Castle. Breathing the cold air made my battered ribs ache. Not much choice about that. My hands were starting to swell, too. There was a sick familiarity to the pain of my puffing knuckles. I wondered dully when was I going to be old enough and wise enough to stop getting into physical fights. And I wondered at the curious disconnection in my chest, the gap where Hap had been in my life but moments before. It felt like a mortal injury.

  When I heard running footsteps behind me, I spun to confront them, fearing another attack. Hap skidded to a halt at sight of my battle grimace. For a frozen instant, we just stood and regarded one another. Then he reached out and clutched at my sleeve, saying, ‘Tom. I hate this. I’m trying hard, and I’m doing and saying all the wrong things. Svanja’s parents are angry with her all the time, and when she complained to me about it and I said perhaps I should meet them and promise to go more slowly, she got angry at me. And she’s angry at me for living at Gindast’s and having to stay in most nights. But I did go to Gindast, on my own, and ask to move in. And he made me eat dirt, but I kept my head down and took it, and I’m there now, doing it his way, like you said. I hate how early we get up, and how he rations how many candles we can burn at night, and how I can’t go out at all most nights. But I’m doing it. And today, for the first time, he sent me on an errand, to pick up some brass fittings over on the smiths’ street. And now I’m going to be late getting back with them, and I’ll have to, bow my head to that when he scolds me. But I can’t let you walk away and think I’ve forgotten everything you taught me. I haven’t. But I have to find my own life here, and sometimes the things you taught me just don’t seem to fit with how everyone else thinks. Sometimes the things you taught me don’t seem to work here. But I’m trying, Tom. I’m trying.’

  The words tumbled out from him in a rush. When they had cascaded away and silence threatened to fill in, I put my arm across his shoulders and hugged hirri despite the pain in my ribs. ‘Hurry on your errand,’ I said by his ear. I tried to think of other words to add, but couldn’t find any. I c
ouldn’t tell him it would come out right, because I wasn’t sure it would. I couldn’t tell him that I’d trust his judgment, because I didn’t. Then Hap found the words for both of us.

  ‘I love you, Tom. I’ll keep trying.’

  I sighed in relief. ‘Me, too. I love you, and I’ll keep trying. Hurry, now. You’re long-legged and swift. Perhaps you won’t be late if you run.’

  He gave me a fleeting smile, and turning, raced off toward the smiths’ street. I envied him the easy movement of his body. I turned back towards Buckkeep Castle.

  Halfway up the hill road to the Castle, I met Burrich coming down. Swift rode behind him, his hands clutching his father’s waist.

  I strained to look back at them after they had passed, but I refused it. I feared too terribly that Burrich would be looking back at me.

  The rest of the walk to Buckkeep Castle seeined cold and dreary. I went to the steams. The guardsmen, coming and going, left me alone. I had hoped the moist heat would ease some of my aches, but it didn’t. The long climb up to our chambers hurt, and I knew that if I sat still, I would stiffen, but all I could hink of was my bed.

  The day had been a wretched waste, I told myself. I doubted that even my efforts with Dutiful and Thick would ///

  As I approached the door to our chambers, it maid came out of it. Garetha bore a basket I gazed at her, startled, she glanced up and ear fruit.

  opened. The garden af dried flowers. As ler eyes met mine.

  She suddenly flushed a scarlet that all but obscured her freckles. Then she looked away from me and rushed ofi down the hall, but not before I had caught sight of the necklace she wore. It was a single charm on a leather strand. The little carded rose was painted white, with a stem inked black. I knew the Fool’s work when I saw it. Had he taken my ill-conceived advice? Inexplicably, my heart sank in my chest. I tapped cautiously at the door and announced myself before I entered. As I shut the door behind me and looked round, I found a perfectly poised Lord Golden ensconced in the cushioned chair before the hearth. For an instant, his amber eyes widened at the sight of my bruises, but just as swiftly he had control of myself.