After Audea had left for the night, Adrie locked the main house door and that of her room. She brought out her bedding, making her usual nest on the rug by the fire. Rather than banking the fire as she undressed and got wrapped in her covers, though, she turned so it illuminated the letter her dear friend had delivered earlier that evening.
After fidgeting, not really looking at the letter, she stirred again. 'I already knows this ain' goin' be a good nigh' - may's well fortify m'self f' this.' She dug a flask of brandy out of her small storage chest, then settled back into her bedding. As she drank, she finally managed to start re-reading the missive.
Dear Adriellyn,
This is at least my seventh attempt to write something to you, as your friends, Miss Owena and Miss Audea suggested. I hope that, this time, I make it through without writing something too stupid for mere crossing out.
I suppose, as much as I didn't like it when they said it to me, I should write this here early - I'm sorry. Even as I go on here to write things I'm sorry for, however, I know that's not good enough. And yet, there is no way to make it better. I was always a horrible mother. Children should not have children, and I was proof of that.
Each of my other attempts to write this have wound up with too much of an attempt to justify things I've done. It's an easy trap to fall into when trying to explain things that happened. I think some amount of explanation is still a good idea, but I hope to avoid the trap this time. The more I look back and try to figure out what you should read from me, the more I realise that there is no justification.
The closest I'll come is telling you this: I did look for you. Obviously not well enough, of course, since you clearly were there to be found, somewhere. I suppose, to explain that, though, I need to tell you what happened, from how I experienced it. I don't know what you remember, so maybe some of this is not news to you, but some will be.
I was a scullery maid. That means they didn't even trust me with the laundry, but only scrubbing floors, metal cooking pans, and cleaning chamber-pots. There was no lower position. And I was in trouble with the cook-steward for somehow not doing well enough at the job. I'm not sure whether I was somehow failing at the work, or he just didn't like me - and it doesn't matter now. What matters is that I was scared, because there was no demotion possible - only dismissal.
Some people - I believe including that steward - thought it horrible that a girl so young as me had a child as old as you, but no husband. And my story was too well known, in part from previous employers, to be claiming to have been widowed. Yes, previous employers does mean I probably really was that bad of a maid, but I got demoted through those changes of employment, too. A bad chamber-maid still might not be a bad scullery-maid - but, again, what matters here is that I was afraid of having nowhere left to go. And, by then, 'back home' was not really an option, either, as that meant only my brother and sister, and I knew how well that would work.
So, in my fear of the unknown, and my hopelessness, I yelled at you. Again. I'm sure you remember other times of it, too. No matter how much I can hope that you've managed to forget most of what I ever did, you were six, nearing seven. You can't have forgot it all. Because of what came later, and how many other times I mistreated you, I'm afraid I don't remember just what I said that day. It was probably worse than usual, but I really don't remember.
What i do remember is almost as soon as you had run off, being told to get out. I had to fight and scream (and get cuffed a couple of times) before even being allowed to collect our few belongings to take with me. And then, there I was, out on the street, with our clothes - mostly rags - and your few toys, and nowhere to go. I went in search of a place to stay, but of course, none of my former employers wanted me back, even in the scullery. I wound up getting taken in, very grudgingly, by some acquaintances who were really more friends of my sister, but they resented the imposition, and it wasn't going to last. And, indeed, when I wasn't successful in finding you, their welcome got even thinner.
Still, they let me in because of you and my sister, and once I had my baggage stowed, I went back out to try to find you. The problem was, I knew nowhere else to look that late in the day except back where I'd just been forcibly removed. I tried to ask if you'd been back. The steward set the dogs on me before I could get enough words out over the din to say that you wouldn't know where to go. And then, there I was, bleeding from bites on my legs and arms, fleeing from the dogs that were not being called off, on a street at dusk, with no idea where you were, or how to find you.
A better person might have managed to keep looking despite the pain and the danger - and the self-loathing. I felt I needed to worry about being able to keep looking later, instead. I've no idea whether I was right in that, but I can't change it. And if I could change one thing in the past, that moment isn't it - I would have someone who could have treated you right take you from me before you'd really remember me. Like when you were about two or three. That would unquestionably have been better for you, and might even have made me wake up to what a self-centred idiot I was and got me to grow up sooner. But I can't make that happen.
Well, I did get my bites and cuts taken care of, and I went out looking again in the morning, but I had no luck. I sometimes went past that same house, but the dogs were always in the yard, and I didn't dare ask there again. I'm sorry. And, apparently, I had no idea of where to look for a lost little girl besides that. And I had to try to find work, besides, despite how much word spreads between house stewards and how I was simply not wanted anywhere. Maybe I should have turned to whoring - but I'd already proved entirely too fertile as a foolish coquette, which is how I wound up a mother at fifteen. That line of work seemed a really bad idea.
I alternated odd jobs of cleaning with aimless walking about calling for you, but eventually, I ran out of options for places to stay in Esgaroth, and I simply had no skills suitable to keeping me alive without shelter. Which sounds pathetic, since at least I was grown and had some idea what was happening. I have no idea how it was for you, at six. I hope someone took you in - but your friends' reactions to me make me think otherwise, and that somehow, you managed where I was too afraid to try.
I wound up convinced, though, that you had to have fallen into the lake and drowned. That, or been takin in by someone. I couldn't imagine any other reasons why I hadn't been able to find you. And, as I said, I no longer had any place I could stay. I wrapped up my meagre belongings, selling what had been yours so I could make the trip - and went back north, to my brother and sister, after all. And it went about as poorly as I'd expected, even with a heavily edited tale of how I'd lost you - told in a way to emphasise the notion that you'd drowned. I was guilty of a lot, and lying to myself about it all is part of it.
So, I'm sorry I was a horrible mother while I had you. And I'm sorrier than I can ever express over having driven you away that morning. And for all that I don't know what I could have done better in looking for you afterward, I'm sorry I wasn't any better at that, as well. I can't help thinking that you're better off for having been without me - but that also feels like more attempts to lie to myself, to try not to feel so guilty as I truly am. I don't know what you went through - and your friends have made it pretty clear that, even as little as they seemed to know, they knew you'd been through a lot.
If you're still reading, and haven't given up in utter disgust at me, I should say that I know my sister, your aunt, is also in Bree. My throbbing face and eye are making sure I don't forget. And her punch has only to do with how I'd eventually left Dale again, based on what little she said before the Watch got involved. I don't know why she's in town, but if you meet a five-foot-four white-blonde forty-ish woman who can clearly lift anvils and talks like a Daler, and has nice-enough clothes, you might ask if her name is Adriwen. Yes, I named you after her, in rather a pathetic attempt to regain some measure of affection from my family. It even sort of worked, in that she moved down to Esgaroth after she heard that, trying to expand the family's smithing business, and helping to take care of you. But when Papa died, our brother couldn't keep things going well enough in Dale for that, and she had to go back north.
Anything good in your upbringing in the time before I lost you drove you away and lost you, I probably should ascribe to her, and what looking after you she did while I worked. It's clear from your friends' loyalty to you that you are of much better character than I am, and I know I was no good as a mother.
I hope you'll understand that I'm afraid to meet you, in large part because I once again have nowhere to stay, and I expect a bad winter. I'm trying to build a shelter here in the woods, but I can't afford a second eye swelling shut just now. I'm afraid I might get that anyway from your friend Audea.
At the same time, they've said that you might want to hear things from me - things I tried to write, but I know that reading it is not the same. I'm still selling some meat and hides in the markets, and will get my courage up to visit the Pony again. I won't be too hard to find if you decide you want to. I've run away from things too much in my life. Arguably, it's what I'm best at - but I'm running out of places to run. And even if I didn't think that, I've finally discovered that I can't run away from myself. So, I'll be around, as long as I don't freeze or something.
Of course, you might want nothing to do with me at all, not even for hearing any apologies or reasons. Well, not finding me probably won't be any harder than finding me, and if it's made clear how much you don't want to see me... I can avoid the Pony after all.
Oh! In case they didn't tell you - you were born on 17 October. I was hoping you'd be a little later, 1 November, so we'd have the same birthday. If you've ever been around childbirth, you'll know how stupid a notion that was on my part... and stupid and self-centred is exactly what I was. Probably still am, for all I think I've grown up since. But that is certainly what I was.
While I hope to meet the loyalty-inspiring young woman you clearly have become, I know that I have no claim on your time, your regard, or your affections. I may have birthed you, but I lost all right to call myself your mother.
Hopefully and remorsefully yours,
Marnewyn
It had taken the young woman most of the brandy, and many stops to wipe her eyes, along with the occasional struggle not to hit things, but she made it through the letter again. 'Go' more out of it this time. Ain' sure I's ready f' meetin' even m' aunt jus' yet, though.' She snorted in amused derision at herself. 'Specially 'alf-drunk in the middle o' the night.' She set the letter and the flask aside, banked the fire, and settled down for some troubled sleep.
