I been making myself feel all right about the fact that I can't go back and live in the Mark no more, by thinking of how I'm in a life I chose, and a life where everything goes right on account it's what I chose. It's like I'm the hero of a minstrel's tale; once I chose it, it's like it's fate, so everything got to keep going right with it. But this ain't no minstrel's tale, and I ain't no hero, and things go wrong, very wrong. Sometimes when something's too good to be true, it's too good to be true.
First, though, I got to go over everything as is still right, cling to every one of them. Hookworth's still there, and I still got a home in it (though I ain't yet seen Miss Ramield to finish the purchase), it weren't given to no one else, and folks there still welcome me. Miss Brynleigh, though she's still carrying some the hurt from her tragedy, ain't keeping me away no more, she is glad to see me again. My apprenticeship's still waiting, and the stable is in good shape, well-stocked, so Miss Brynleigh ain't been suffering too much trying to keep it without me. (I reckon Miss Inayat is still helping out.) Adri is staying at my house for now until she can go see how things are at the rooms she rents, and it's good to be able to help a friend, even if only in a little way. Met some new folks in Hookworth, a cheerful fellow named Jonn and a quieter lad named Aeroden, and it seems like things is good in the village.
But as I remind myself all of them things, my thoughts keep hiding away from, then jumping back to, what happened this morning. I'd been back a day and two nights, had taken the time to do laundry and clean up and suchlike, afore I saddled up Kestrel. He were seeming almost smug after a day of rest and good oats and proper care in the stables, and now he weren't carrying nothing but his saddle, me, and two bottles of mead from Woodhurst. So once we got out of the village, we kept off the road and away from Bree so we could stay on open fields where he could gallop, which he don't get to do enough, and it feels awful exhilarating. The miles atween us and the Cob farm went by in no time.
It being spring I weren't surprised to see several folk out in the fields. Afore I even got to the farmhouse, though, Beoda were coming out to meet me. She were smiling, but there were something wrong about it, and when I dismounted she stopped a few feet away, and after saying she were glad I got home safe and asking if Adri were also all right, she led me to walk along the lake, away from the farm, on account, she said, we had to talk.
Well, the long and short of it is she gave me back my ring. Turns out there's some trouble with the farm what she told me of in confidence, and the family can't spare her. She got a duty to the family what comes afore her promises to me, just like my duty to the Thane came afore my promises to her and Miss Brynleigh, and that duty might be years, might never be done. I kept trying to give ideas how we could still marry, but everything I could think, she and the family already had thunk, and found the problem with it, and she were sure that this were how it had to be. And if the whole Cob family been thinking on this so long there's no chance a lackwit like me would find a solution they didn't already think of.
She said it wouldn't be fair to me for her to hold me to the promises I made her, and she released them all, and asked me to release her the same. I didn't want to let it be over but she insisted, she begged, she told me she'd been crying at the thought of it and needed it to be set right so she could heal, and I could too. In fact, she made me promise, swear even, I wouldn't wait for her, that if I met another nice girl I wouldn't hold back on her account. I made the oath because she asked so earnest and I can't say no to her, but it don't seem like a feller like me can hope for that kind of fortune twice. I ain't no hero of a minstrel's tale. This ain't fate, it's just a regular life of a regular fellow.
