At least now I know what I'm going for to try to do next, but I sit on the roof at Hengstacer Farm thinking I'm going way too far, taking too much risk. Éogar thinks so too, but he says it's just the kind of big risk I ought to be taking now, to make my name. That it's the sort of thing he did. But I reckon, he succeeded, so his tale seems to him, to most, like it was always a sure thing, looking back. Wherever you are, the road behind you seems like it could only have led to that spot. But for every one what succeeded like he done, there's a dozen more what didn't, and you just don't hear their tale, because it's too sad a tale to tell.
It started when, couple days after Éogar told me as he didn't got anything more for to teach me, he told me as he heard a tale in Bree of some woman what was looking to build, of all things, a mead hall in Bree-land. He went on something about it being a refuge for Rohirrim in the north, and wondered if they might have good mead like he missed from back in the Mark. Didn't seem like much to me at first, but I couldn't stop thinking on it. Maybe it were on account how I been thinking more and more about home, my family, wishing I hadn't given it up for a life that fell apart. Maybe if this hall ever did get built, I might visit it and feel a bit less lonely, more like there's a place somewhere I almost belonged? But I tried to put that aside. After all, how crazy a plan was it to begin with, how unlike to ever happen.
But it kept coming back to my thoughts. Late in the night, lying on the top bunk in the corner of the bunk-room, unable to sleep, I had a sudden thought, like a flash of undeserved certainty. Is that what it's like for everyone else all the time, when they get understanding and ideas so much easier than me, almost as easy as breathing?
Thing is, it's hard to become a master in the guilds. They don't allow anyone to become a master except in two situations. First, when a master dies or retires, so his mastership is available, and someone what's ready to become a master, by the measure of the guild, gets to buy it. That don't happen often; you might have to wait years, or longer. Second, when there's a new need, so the guild agrees making a new mastership, increasing their ranks, is best for the guild, will bring in more coin without taking too much away from the masters as already are. Like Éogar making a breeding farm. Probably that's how Hookworth's stable got founded, maybe by Miss Brynleigh, or by someone what come before her and she bought out when he retired. The guild decided a growing new village needed a stable and giving it one wouldn't take away from the stables already in Bree-land, so a new mastership got made.
And that's what was, maybe, just about to happen. A new mead hall. It's not a village, though maybe one day, that's what might grow around it, like how Hookworth grew up around the barracks of the Knights. Maybe this might be the moment that, if I didn't leap on, someone else would beat me to.
It's not quite a full year since I became an apprentice, so it's fair like that the guild won't even consider me, no matter what I propose. But I know Éogar will speak well on me for this kind of mastership, and I think -- I hope -- Miss Brynleigh still will, even if things atween us is rocky since her husband's death and my fumbled attempts to help her get through it went so badly. And since I come into my apprenticeship so late in life, with many years of tending animals on the farm afore it started, and considering the good reputation that we Horse-lords of Rohan got in this trade, Éogar thinks they might, if I show them I got the coin (which I still do, from the tolls I didn't got to pay), and a good plan, and a good opportunity.
So, as reluctant as I were to go into town and amongst folks, I visited the Comb and Wattle in Combe, and spoke to the woman, name of Freyga, about my idea of being part of her new endeavor. She were a bit too quick to agree, which makes me anxious. This won't work if she can't speak convincingly to the masters about her plans, and why they warrant a whole stable what needs a master. But more, she also got to speak just as persuasive about why I'm a good choice for to do it, and she don't even know me. She didn't seem keen to even ask Éogar or Brynleigh about me. All she knows is I come to a pub and drink ale and talk badly about an idea about a stable. (I forgot to try to speak proper, like I learned in Dale, for her, like I usually do when I first meet someone and want to make a good impression. It's just been too long since I been amongst folk and I weren't thinking clear.)
But she did agree, and now I got a time, three nights from now, to speak afore the masters of the guild, or at least them as come to hear it, about my proposal. What it come to is, I've got the coin and the skill, and am willing to take the risk. I pay to build a stable for this mead hall, by my own design, from my own plans, what I will stock and make ready to run. If I do good, the stable itself becomes the final proof I need to make them know I'm ready to be a master. They create a mastership, I buy it, and then that's my life, running that stable, long as I want it. Free and clear. I'd be able to hire stable-hands, charge guild prices for stabling and other services, even take on my own apprentices. If Freyga's mead hall brings in folk what need to pay for stabling, I'd get prosperous afore too long.
More like, they won't even agree to let me try, and I go back to looking to find a master as will take me on as a journeyman. Maybe on account they don't think I'm ready, or because they don't think this mead hall will warrant a stable. Worse would be if they decide, only after I built the stable, that I'm not ready to be a master, and I sunk half my savings into a stable that I can only hope to sell to someone else what gets the mastership. And worst of all is if after it's built, they decide that the mead hall don't warrant a mastership, and now I paid to build a stable what I can't even run as any more than a bonded journeyman.
After meeting this woman, I went back to Hengstacer. Got there too late to go in, didn't want to wake no one, so I took a horse blanket up to the barn roof and slept up there. Or didn't sleep much, really, just turned over and over in my thoughts what a mad risk I were offering to take. Next morning I talked to Éogar about it, and day after that, he set up the date to talk to the masters.
Now I can't stop wondering if I am leaping too far. And if it's really this opportunity, rare and precious, what moves me to leap, or if I'm more drawn to the hope of a mead hall where I can be amongst folk as welcome me as one of their own kind. I ain't even met the other folk what are helping to build it, though I'm supposed to. Most like, even if they're Eorlingas through and through, still don't mean as they'd make me welcome. I ain't had such great luck in friendships with the other Eorlingas I met in the Northlands, after all.
But no. Even if the folk there keep me at arm's length, I can be lonely there while I sit on a fat pile of gold, as well as I can be lonely anywhere else without the gold. This is a chance what, if it goes well, is the kind might not come again in my life. Just got to remind myself, probably it won't go well, but I will at least have tried.
