Some time ago I felt like my purse had become heavy enough for my travels next spring. I still had to be careful with my coin, and not buy ale every day, or other luxuries, but I had enough for the tolls, and a little extra. Plus I would have enough of my own provisions for the road. Today, I am having to beg for work once more, and have given up even half-pints of ale until I find some. Plus I have realized that it's not just me that needs warmth in northern winters; Kestrel will need a wool blanket, so I will have to ask Miss Sareva for a price, which will make my purse all the lighter.
All because of a simple, stupid, clumsy mistake. During one of those dark days, after the matter of Haritha and the harvest festival, I was angry and upset and hurt and dark of mood, and I wasn't taking my usual care, storming around in a sulk, and in the process, I dropped and trod upon my hunting bow, and broke it.
A bow can't be mended, at least by any craft I know. And I can't do without one. I've been taking ginger care of it since a few days after leaving Marton, when I realized that it and my fishing hook were what was keeping me fed and alive. And I now realize a bow could be as important as a sword in keeping me alive on my journey; had I thought to use it, it would have protected me from that goblin arrow, especially now that Miss Tylva showed me the proper way to hold the bow.
There were many bows for sale in Bree, but only one that had the strength of draw that suited me, and it is ornate and regal-looking far beyond my station, and cost almost half my purse. So once more I must beg for work in hopes of saving enough coin to pay the Beornings of the Vales.
Miss Tylva wasn't there to teach me the proper stance with a bow. She had spoken to Haritha about what had come between us, found me to hear my side of the story, and finally urged me to speak with Haritha and see what could be resolved. I agreed, reluctantly, anxiously. In part, because Miss Tylva made me believe that Haritha had not meant to hurt me. But more because I felt like I had a misdeed to correct, that I had spoken or acted in some way too much out of hurt and not as was proper. I cannot explain it even to myself, but I wanted to try to make something right.
I thought long and hard about what I might say to her, and what I hoped might come of the conversation. I considered fears, hopes, dreams. Things that are possible, things that are not possible. In the end, I concluded that there were two things I wanted to try to make happen when I spoke with her.
First, to apologize. But if I could not even tell myself what I was apologizing for, how could I hope to speak clearly to her, in the moment, of it? And that's even if I could avoid thickets like the question of Loakee's trustworthiness, and her freedom to dismiss my suspicions and choose her friends as she will. I wracked my feeble brain over what to say, and in the end, I decided that a gift would be the best approach. But I couldn't spare the coin to buy one, so I chose to carving something from wood. At first I thought a horse, as I'd carved many before. What an Eorling thing to think! But she has no special love for horses. I tried instead to carve a flower, but no matter how I worked at it, it was scarcely recognizable as such. Even after getting one of the crafters at Three Farrow to add some paint, I still doubted anyone could tell it was meant to be a daisy. I was embarrassed by how crude it was, but she seemed pleased. She held it and did not laugh at its clumsiness. The apology was, as I feared, even clumsier, and got tangled at times. I felt like I had said what I wanted to say, what I felt, but I wasn't sure whether she'd accepted it, whether there was any forgiveness. Despite all that's happened since, I'm still not entirely sure.
And second, to see if we could somehow come out of this as friends once more. Or friends at all, for while I'd felt like she had been a friend, I wasn't sure if she'd felt the same. This whole mess had come from me thinking there was more than there was, after all. And if we could not be friends, I hoped we could be civil. That, if I saw her in the pub, I wouldn't feel honor-bound to leave, so as not to make her uncomfortable. On this, I am even less sure how things turned out. She did agree, quite quickly, to us being friends again. Too quickly, I think, for I felt like there was more in her thoughts, or feelings, that she chose not to say.
We even ended up agreeing, at the prompting of Miss Tylva, to go as friends to the harvest festival after all, if she could secure permission for the day off work. And in the days since we've talked again, like friends, but ever and again, there was something between us unsaid, some hurt or anger, and I could not make sense of it. She would look at me with a knife-edge in her eyes, or say dark things full of hurt, that made me feel as I had when she turned down my offer of a dance, or worse. We spoke of my journey, and how eager I would be to have companions -- especially her, though I didn't say so, because I felt it was asking too much -- after all, what would make her want to take so long, uncomfortable, and perilous a journey, just to see a land whose beauty she knew nothing of? But I wanted her to know that she would be welcome. Instead, she seemed angry at the idea, and sure, somehow, that I was saying the exact opposite, that I would particularly not want her to come. And she was most cross when Miss Owena asked to hire me to guide her to the Shire. I declined the job, though I need the work desperately, in part because Miss Owena spoke of ruffians and my sword-play skills are still young, but mostly because of Haritha seeming convinced that I wished Owena's company more than her own. There was also anger about the idea that my journey might include stops at the Golden Wood, or that Miss Adriellyn might be able to bring me to Rivendell, perhaps even before the spring. And other things, all equally baffling, all seeming to center on some hurt I could not yet glimpse.
And as I felt more and more sure that these all spoke of the same thing, in a moment of strange clarity, or stranger courage, I asked her to speak with me in private about it. To draw out the hurt into the light. It was a strained discussion full of bitterness and pain, and even afterwards, I still feel there is something else, some dark feeling or worry or fear within her, I do not know of. Something that may yet prove friendships, like bows, once broken cannot be mended. Or if they can, only by one with more wisdom and skill than me.
But one thing came clear, at least. In talking of my plans to journey, she spoke of how I might be glad to bring her because I had made no promises to her, suffered no obligations, and I might just as easily bring some other girl if she chose not to come. At first I mistook her concern to be about the length of time I would be away, but finally it dawned on me she spoke of commitment. Which in truth hurt because it felt unfair. I had asked only friendship because it was all I could ask; how would it be better to promise something I could not keep? And it was she who first drew a limit around what could be asked now, in telling me that, as a recent widow, she could not even dance with me. How could she be angry at me for having offered too much, and not enough, at the same time?
Perhaps even the wisest of men could not answer a question like that. In any case, I could not, but I did find a way forward, by offering to her a simple truth as a promise, easily given because it was already true. If she feared that I might court another girl, despite that I was not free to offer courtship, I could simply promise that I would not. I told her, nay, I swore to her in solemn promise, that until such a day came as I was free to choose whether to ask her to court, and she was free to choose whether to accept such an offer, that I would make no such commitment to any other girl.
Easy to promise both because I could not, and thus would not, make such a commitment; and because there was no other girl to whom I wished to make one. But the intent of the promise was not to change my own behavior. The promise was a gift to her to, I hope, balm her hurt, set her at ease. It was a certainty she could hold in her hands like a carved wooden flower.
I left then, without asking from her any similar promise, to give her the freedom to consider her own feelings. For while I would be glad to have such a promise, to know that she will wait for that day and take no other man before me, it is not for me to ask it, it is for her to choose to give it, or not, as she will. Perhaps I am wrong and there is no other darkness yet to be discovered, but if there is, perhaps it will stand in the way of such a promise. As with everything else that lies clouded before me, I can only wonder, not just what the answer is, but whether an answer will ever come.
