2. A Wizard's Housekeeper
While her grandmother had never seen the wizard during her lifetime, he had come to Himling twice when Tamer was a child.
She remembered sitting on his knees and braiding his beard while he told her tales of dragons and small creatures he called 'Hobbits'. He returned ten years later, when she was almost a woman grown, a gawky girl of fourteen. He sailed into the harbour in his small grey boat on a clear autumn evening, a day of extraordinary fair weather and good winds. She recognized him at once, although his clothing, a shimmering grey cloak, silver scarf and blue hat, was foreign to her eyes, used to the home-spun dresses of Himling as she was. He remembered the long white beard and the bushy eyebrows. And when his dark eyes met hers, filled with a hidden fire, she felt as if he had never been gone.
She ran to tell her mother even as he stepped on shore. A fire had to burn brightly in the fire place when he reached his cottage and a hearty stew should be simmering on his hearth to welcome him to his home after so many years.
At that time Tamer's mother was already ailing. Tamer was the youngest of seven children, and the hard life on the island did not allow for an easy old age. So it was Tamer who ended up kindling the fire and putting the large pot on the hearth for the stew, and it was her who ended up staying in the small chamber off the kitchen to take care of the wizard's every day needs. Not that he had many needs that required her presence at all. Indeed, upon hearing about her mother being so poorly, he suggested that she stay with her mother and care for her and not for him. But being the housekeeper of the grey wizard was a matter of pride for her family. The keeping of his cottage and garden had been the mainstay of her family for generations. No small was the fear to lose his good-will, despite his gentleness in his dealings with his housekeepers. So there was no question about it between Tamer's mother and Tamer: Tamer would be the next housekeeper and she was plenty old enough to live up to that responsibility. Indeed, she better rise to the occasion splendidly. For her mother expected a daily report, and her father's belt was made of leather, broad and painful in its licks, should her efforts not be deemed satisfactory.
So Tamer donned a grown woman's garb of long dress, apron and proper kertch, packed her bundle and bid her family goodbye. Very straight she held herself, a tall thin girl almost painfully aware of her new status, trying to suppress her nervousness, trying to ignore the curious looks of neighbours and the chattering of the children. She was the wizard's housekeeper now and on her shoulder's rested the well-being of her family.
It was early evening when she reached the cottage.
The wizard sat on the bench in front of the house, smoking a long, curved pipe, leisurely blowing pipe rings into the soft lights of the evening.
She curtsied as prettily as she knew how, keeping her eyes as low as her mother had taught her to. "Good evening, master," she said, trying to keep to what her parents had taught her as the proper way of speaking, the clear clipped sounds of the mainland as opposed to the lilting singsong of their island voices. "I will cooking dinner in but a moment, just allow me to put my things in the chamber. Unless you need me at once for something?"
Aware of how nervous and rushed her words had come out, she felt her cheeks glowing with embarrassment and stared down at the tips of her scuffed shoes.
"Nay, Tamer," the wizard said, his voice scratchy in a way that sent a shiver down her spine, but friendly, relieving her of some of her worries. "Don't worry, my dear. I need a housekeeper, if that! Certainly not a slave! Get settled down and I'll be quite happy with whatever soup you can put on the table tonight."
"You're very kind, master," she mumbled, blushing even more. Then she hurried inside, feeling that she would never live up to the task of being a wizard's housekeeper.
