In which lessons for our fish abound.
Damn it.
You're going to have to leave Estel on his own today.
You're nearly out of wood for the fire. You need to refill the big barrel out back with water from the village's well cuz that's about down to the bottom. You used up the slivers of the last bar and are completely out of soap. You should ask around about where to get more rushes for your floor as these are breaking down and worn to almost nothing. The blackberries along the Road north of the gate are coming in season and you need to get to them before everyone else does. And you need to get Mistress Blackthorn her mending before she leaves to work at the Bree village market for the day. She sent word and was adamant that it was the latest she would wait for you and still pay you for your work.
The last of the water in the small barrel by the door. Wood and tinder by the fire. Piss jar under the bed in case he can't make it out to the garden. Beans and greens and garlic in the pot. Spoon and bowl and cup laid out on the bench, with a good handful of wild strawberries. You wrap the rest in a makeshift bag and jam it into your soft basket. The Bree market is today, and you're hoping to trade them for a few other small things you need.
In the dim light of morning just before dawn when the sun hasn't quite pierced the dense fog that floated down from the north and settled over Bree, Estel watches you turn about the hut getting things ready from where he's stretched out on the cot fully clothed except for his boots. He's been on his feet more, walking about the garden and up and down the road for longer periods at a time, but it still wears him out. He's been pushing hard. Too hard, if his halting gait and grim look on his return are any indication. It's none of your business, and so you don't say anything, but it hadn't been the greatest of nights for how much pain he had been in, and he's got the shadows under his eyes to prove it.
"Hala," he says finally when you've resorted to lining up the spoon and bowl and cup again, as if that's going to make a huge difference in his ability to get to them without overexerting himself. "Be easy. I am not a child and am recovered enough to care for myself."
"Willow bark!" you say and snap your fingers.
Estel sighs and shakes his head as though he cannot believe how ridiculous you are being, before settling on that bland, patient look he hides behind sometimes.
You point to the top shelf where you've kept the willow bark in a box of small drawers. Up there. Estel may be able to reach it without much effort, but for you it's easier if you stand on the cot's frame. A six and a half foot point guard laying in the cot provides the perfect counterbalance and you hang on the edge of the frame with your toes and pull out the little drawer. You drop down to the floor and shake it. Shit, not much left. One, maybe two doses if he doesn't use much at a time.
Oh! Shit! He'd have to heat up water to use it.
You cast about, the drawer still in your hand. "Listen," you say, "it wouldn't hurt you to spend just one day in bed." Last thing you want is to come home and find him face-planted in the garden or, yet again, in a ditch, having fallen there hours before you can get to him and help him up. He still can't make it three rounds about the garden without his hip forcing him to sit down and rest.
Yeah, yeah, you know you're acting like he's a four year old on his first day of preschool, but the great lumbering idiot decided he was good for taking himself out the garden to relieve himself into one of your buckets in the middle of the night, next thing you know he's calling your name. You woke up, only to stumble out back to find him on his hands and knees and unable to get his feet under him for the pain in his hip on one side and his shoulder on the other.
Okay, yeah, that may have been two weeks ago, no, almost three now, but, you know, still…
Shut up.
Fuck. You don't have time. You should have built up the fire earlier. Best you can do now is put a few cups of water in the cast iron pot and put it by the hearth, which you do.
Estel rubs at his forehead and watches you wearily. "Hala, should you not hurry, you will be late. Mistress Blackthorn is not known for her patience."
Great. Yeah, you're just keeping him from going back to sleep with all your anxious dithering.
"Yeah, yeah, okay," you say and grab up your kitchen knife from where it dangles from the rafters and wind a cloth around it before you drop it in your soft basket. You can detour on your way back from berry picking to strip some willow bark by the mill pond. You yank the straps to the basket over your head as you dart out the door. "I'll be back around noon to check on you," you call over your shoulder.
"Ai! Hala! Do not forget the mending!" Estel calls after you.
Fuck!
You turn around, the door banging behind you, and grab up the roll of clothing on the bench before hurtling back out.
"So, you are yet among the living," says Mistress Blackthorn when she throws open her back door to find you standing on her back stoop sucking in air. You may have jogged the whole way from your end of the Road to the posh end, where houses of stone line the bottom of Bree-hill and cluster about The Prancing Pony.
"Oh, yeah, for the time being, anyway," you say, holding out the bundle of mending to her and trying to steady your voice.
She gives a speculative little hum while reaching for the bundle, but a loud clanging comes from the inner rooms and she calls over her shoulder. "Oi! Petunia take your sister out to the garden and have her finish her breakfast there."
"But mama, she's not dressed yet," comes the reply from the inner room.
"Well then dress her first and then take her out!" she shouts on the heels of a young boy pounding down the stairs from above. He careens around the corner in the hallway and nearly takes his mother out, his attention on the belt he's attempting to fasten.
"How many times must I tell you?" she shouts at her son's back. "No running in the house!"
"Aye, mama," comes his voice echoing in the inner room with the screaming of a young child who apparently is not very happy with being forced into clothing.
Mistress Blackthorn turns back to you and motions impatiently for the bundle as if you were the one holding things up. "See what I must contend with?" she declares as she takes it from you. "Not a one of them has the good sense Yavanna graced a goose." She shakes out the roll and examines each piece as she talks.
"Of all times for Hazel to have got with child, and a troublesome one at that," she complains absently, holding a small shirt up to the lightening sky behind you before going on to a boy's tunic in which the hem had given way. "I'll not take her back into my employ should she have another one, and I told her so with the last she had. I'll not be left so short handed yet again."
C'mon c'mon c'mon. Damn it. You followed her instructions to the letter. It's right over there, on the finely carved, narrow table in the hall with the locked drawers, that one tiny tin penny that is supposed to be yours.
"No!" comes from the inner rooms down the hall behind the mistress and an outcry of "You have to wear it, Pim, mama said," and more wailing and then ringing as something round and metal rolls upon the stone floor, before you hear, "Should she not wish to wear that one, don't make her, Petunia."
"Well then," Mistress Blackthorn declares. She folds the clothes across her arms and leans against the frame to her door. She gives you a smile you trust about as much as the odds of the household making it to lunch without an injury. "I will say one thing for you, your work is much improved these months now you've been amongst good folk."
"Thank you, mistress," you say, though, really, you'd much rather roll your eyes. "Sorry it took me so long. It's been hard to get away."
Her eyes sharpen and she gives you another once or twice over. You wonder what she's looking for when her eyes linger on your neck.
Great.
Just great.
"Aye, so I've heard," she says sharply, with a quick downturn of her mouth. "Well, you know your own business best, I suppose, though I'd not let a man like that in my home, even should I have so little." She leans in and lowers her voice, giving you a searching look, "You've not learned what business he has in Bree or how he came of his injuries, have you?"
"No, mistress," you say and then shrug when she raises a skeptical brow. "He really doesn't talk much, to be honest."
She straightens, smoothing the pile of clothing that hangs over her arm and brushing away an imagined piece of dirt with the flick of her fingers. "Mayhap that's best for you, then," she says, giving you a pointed, sour look.
Fuck. Her.
You refuse to do more than respond with the blankest, dullest look you can manage. She can jab all she wants. You are so not going to give her one freaking infinitesimal ounce of satisfaction.
"Well, I suppose you're waiting for your penny, then," she says, turning away toward the hall at her back.
And that's when a deep voice calls out down from the top floor and she nearly slams the door in your face.
God damn it!
You rap your knuckles against your forehead. Fuck. So close! You were almost out of here and away from her. You have got so much to do today before you can get back and dealing with Mistress Blackthorn's need to infuse every single fucking interaction with patronizing bullshit is crawling around under your skin.
Even through the door you can hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and the rumbling voice of the master of the house, Thomas Blackthorn, trader and head of Bree's market. He doesn't like you terribly much. You may have given him some reason not to. You have no doubt his wife only troubles with you because she can get your services on the cheap.
"Hssst," comes Mistress Blackthorn's voice. She's cracked the door open and glances behind her. She thrusts the penny at you. You'd be lying if you said you didn't practically snatch it from her before she changed her mind or her husband came back.
"Hist, now," she hisses when you've turned away but before you've gotten far. She pokes her head through the widening gap and nods to a spot along the back wall. "You wash those and have them to me by the end of the week and I'll pay you what I usually give to Hazel."
The mistress' whisper follows you while you shuffle over to the tall, lidded basket with straps awaiting you. "Now mind you get those linens as white as you can."
Yep, it smells like an outdoor toilet. You figured it probably would. Little Pim of naked fame has a younger brother, too. Well. Shit. All right. It's a good deal, even if it annoys the hell out of you that you're going to have to spend your week worrying about meeting her standards again. You take up one of the straps. The day you can be free of her -
"And I do mean by the end of the week. I'll take no excuses this time," she whispers loudly as you sling the wash across your back, settling it between your shoulders. "And treat the wool gently. 'Tis fine stuff and not your usual roughspun."
You would sigh if she weren't likely to cut you off entirely if you aren't sufficiently grateful. God damn it. No matter how well you get their things clean and how carefully you treat them, she's just invented an excuse to not pay you in full.
You paste on a grin and give her a thumbs up, which only serves to make her shake her head with an annoyed look and wave you off. The door closes behind her and you're a couple steps down the path when you remember.
Soap!
Fuck fuck fuck.
You've dashed back as fast as you can, hoping to catch her. Still, when you knock, you do it softly, tapping at the wood with your nails, and really really really hope she's the one who answers.
It is, but she is not pleased. "You little fool!" she hisses and, glancing behind her, shuts the door quickly at her back, "You truly have all the wits of a common carp! What are you thinking? I swear, should word of this get back to my husband that I've given you work, I'll not even pay half."
"Soap, mistress," you say, doing your best to keep your voice low and interrupt her at the same time. "I don't have soap."
This seems to be unthinkable, as she halts and stares at you with her mouth agape. "You've not…" she begins but then stops, shaking her head as if, of course, someone like you wouldn't use soap regularly, what was she thinking. She gives you a hard look and you obey the implicit command to stay where you are.
It's another minute of standing on the stoop and trying to decide what to make of the muffled sounds coming through the door when she reappears. She shoves something hard wrapped in a kitchen towel in your hands.
"There, more than enough. You take care to bring back what is left and don't show your face until it is done," she says and motions sharply behind you. "Get on with you now."
"Not there!" you hear behind you. You look back to find her gesturing broadly at the alley lined with hedges that runs behind the houses, away from the Road that will take you straight to your door.
God damn it. Yeah. It's an extra block or two going this way, but she's not going to want you anywhere near the line of sight of anyone in the house.
And so off you go down the deeply rutted alley, dodging its piles and rills of horse and donkey dung in various stages of decomposition running off and joining the rest in the ditches along the Road, gangs of young boys rushing past you, cooks, man-servants carrying buckets, women-servants carrying baskets and pails, and a gardener trailed by a gang of youths with bundles of withies carried on their shoulders.
"Oh, hallo Fish," you hear in a bright voice and there's Bob coming out into the alley. He closes the gate to someone's back garden behind him and the latch thunks closed.
"Hey!" You smile. "What's up?" you ask as he falls in step with you.
"Oh, aye, naught but the same," he says and, smiling, offers up his basket. It's stuffed full of greens and onions and radishes. "Just an errand for Cook." He squints up at you. "Looks like you've got your hands full there, yourself."
You grimace and he laughs. "You need say naught. I can smell the swaddling clothes from here," he says. "Don't suppose that's from Mistress Blackthorn's brood is it, what with Mistress Pansy declaring Hazel off work?"
"Might be," you say, "though I'm not to let on that she's given me work."
"Aye." He taps his finger against his nose. "We'll not give her the excuse for her temper, then. Mum's the word," he says and returns your grin.
Good old Bob.
"How's the missus?" you ask as the two of you proceed down the alley.
Bob nods and touches his cap at a woman carrying her own basket of washing on her back. "Oh, aye, good, good," he says after she passes. "I'll tell her you were asking after her."
"Please do." You hope he does. She's one of those people that have nothing but a kind word to say about whoever she meets. "She still recovering well?"
"Oh, aye! Every day she feels better. And thank ye kindly for helping out at The Pony for me so I could be with her. The missus says she owes you a pie of your choice for it."
"Really?" You swing the weight of the basket around so you can look at him fully instead of just glancing at him through the sides of your eyes. He's grinning at you. Yep. Really. Oh man.
You should put him off. I mean, seriously, he doesn't owe you anything. Last winter would have been a particularly grim time if he hadn't found things for you to do to help him out here and there and then threw in a few extra leftovers or odds and ends that he claimed were sure to go to rot if you didn't take them. You were more than grateful enough for whatever work he could spare you. He certainly didn't owe you a thing, but, damn, his wife Poppy bakes a mean pie.
He grins and bumps into you and you stumble a little, getting your feet back under you beneath the heavy basket you're carrying. "Aye, you just let me know what it is ye want and it's yours."
"Oh man," you say. "That is so awesome. I can't wait."
Well, shit, wait 'til Estel gets a chance to taste it. You're sure to get a true smile out of him then.
"No, seriously," you say when Bob chuckles. He looks as delighted as you do. "I mean, I know it would be the polite thing to put up a fuss, but I'm not even going to pretend to protest. Her pies are awesome. If she's offering, there's no way I'm passing that up."
Bob laughs throughout your whole protest, his eyes crinkling up. "Aye, well, she'll be delighted to hear ye think so."
Good. Good!
You continue on for a few more paces and, for no reason you can discern, Bob's smile fades and he becomes increasingly uncomfortable, scratching at his neck, pulling on his ear and squinting down the alley ahead of you and glancing back behind where you've come.
"Not seen ye in some time," he says at last.
Oh.
Damn it. Here it comes.
"Now, don't get me wrong," he says, holding out his hand in a placating move, apparently having caught your abrupt change in expression. "Your business is yer own. 'Tis but good to see you well, is all."
You really really like Bob. You just hope you're going to continue really liking Bob after this conversation you're about to have.
"You are well, are ye not?" he asks, peering up at you as you walk together.
"Yes, Bob," you say, "I am well. Why do you ask?"
This makes him even more uncomfortable for some reason. He scans up and down the alley with another quick glance. He then pulls you down the alley a bit further and then into the shade beneath branches of a tall oak overhanging the hedge. "Aye, well, it's just that," he starts and pauses, looking away and pressing his lips together tightly before speaking low. "I'm doubly glad to have chanced upon ye, here where we can speak with no other ears about. I've been meaning to call on ye, but, well, what with one thing and another, I've not had the chance."
Oh god. What now?
"This Strider fellow, he's been out and about, see?" He leans in closer and stabs a finger at the dirt beneath your feet. "Came down this very alley here just before you, as quick and soft on his feet as ye please."
You blink at him. For the life of you, you can't think why Estel would be here of all places.
"Word is he's been lodging with you," Bob goes on and then looks away when you don't deny it. "Aye, well, be that as it may, not seen him much 'til the past few days, but he's been asking around about you. Not the first he's been sighted close to where you've been when about."
What? But he's been so slow to heal. He still wears out so easily after just a short trip around the garden, coming in holding his side and short of breath. Why just yesterday, he had complained… When had he… But if he's been… Why would he…
Oh.
Bob's voice is soft. "Just thought ye should know, is all."
Oh.
He hadn't been slow to heal after all.
Oh god.
"Now, now," says Bob when you turn away, your feet moving and trying to take you someplace, you're not sure where. He's got a hand gripped on your arm with surprising strength holding you still and maneuvered himself in front of you. Everything goes blurry and your face is on fire and you can't believe you've started crying right where the whole of Bree is going to have a chance to watch you pass by. All you're grateful for now is that you can't see the pity on Bob's face.
So fucking stupid. So fucking naive.
"Oh, Fish," he says and, reaching up to pat your cheek, then turns you by your arm so at least your back is to the alley and your face hidden away from anyone who might be passing by.
"Now there," Bob says, leaning in close. He rubs and pats at your arm with his rough hand as you swipe at your nose and cheeks.
"You've a good heart on ye, Fish," he says, shaking your arm at the elbow. You just nod along with him, not really hearing what he's saying. "Don't you take this too hard now, you hear me? He's one of them Rangers. Lor' knows what they're up to most times. I have no cause to say they're not honorable men, but they're not for the likes of you and me. They have their own thoughts and keep them close. You think twice before ye get mixed up in that, now."
By the time you make it back to your home, the sun had risen and burned off the fog that lingered in the low places about the foot of Bree-hill.
You thought maybe you'd catch him. He hadn't expected you back so soon, after all. But, after you drop the basket in the shade behind the back wall where it can't be seen from the Great Road, you go to check on Estel. Just in case. You know, just in case he needs something. Right?
He doesn't.
Of course he doesn't. He's not there. The cot is empty and made up. The pots in their place, the drawer where you left it on the bench next to the strawberries. The rushes darkened by time and wearing swept up in no particular pattern across the floor. His coat no longer hangs by the door. No bow and quiver of arrows, no empty housing for a sword he does not have, no pack leaning against the wall, or boots lined up next to them. The hut is empty and undisturbed, as if he'd never been there.
You sit on the cot and, turning the bundle Mistress Blackthorn gave you over and over in your hands, watch the door. You've got soap. The water can wait until tomorrow. You've got enough wood to last through morning's breakfast, and, well, the blackberries probably aren't fully ripe yet, anyway.
The sun rises. The hut warms. The light shines through the window and makes patches that appear and slide across the floor before fading as they rise up the opposite wall. You keep yourself busy inside. It's not until after the sun sets, when there's nothing left to do but get ready for bed, when there's been no scuff of feet on the path or knock on the door, that you finally admit to yourself what you already knew.
You don't tell anyone. Not even Bob.
You don't want to talk about it.
Because there's really nothing to talk about, is there.