Eventually, there came an evening when Hap arrived alone, hut my only opportunity for private conversation with him proved less than satisfying. He was morose that Svanja was not with him, and complained bitterly that her father had become more stubborn about forcing her to stay in for the evenings. The man would not give him a chance. When I forcefully steered the conversation to his apprenticeship, he only repeated what he had already told me. He felt dissatisfied with how he was treated in his work. Gindast thought he was a dolt and mocked him before the journeymen. They assigned him the most boring tasks and gave him no opportunity to prove himself. Yet, when I pressed him for an example, those he gave made me see Gindast as a demanding but not unreasonable master.

Hap’s complaints did not convince me he was ill-treated. I formed a different opinion from his talk. My boy was in love with Svanja, and she was the real focus of his thoughts. Many of his repeated mistakes and his late arrivals in the morning could be blamed on this feminine distraction. I felt certain that if Svanja did not exist, Hap would be more intent, and perhaps better satisfied with his lessons. A stricter father might have forbidden him to see the girl — I did not. Sometimes I thought it was because of how such restrictions had felt to me at other times, I wondered if I feared that Hap would not obey such a command, and so I dared not give it.

I saw Jinna, too, but coward that I was, I attempted to visit her home only when the presence of the pony and wagon indicated that her niece was likely present. I wished to slow our headlong lust, even the simple warmth of her bed was a lure I could scarcely resist. I tried. Each time I called on her, I kept my visits brief, begging the excuse of pressing errands for my master. The first time Jinna seemed to accept that tale without question. The second time she asked when I might expect to have an afternoon free. Although she made the query in her niece’s presence, her eyes conveyed a separate question to me. I evaded her, saying that my master was capricious, and would not give me a set time to go freely about my own errands. I couched it as a complaint, and she nodded her condolences.

The third time I visited her, her niece was not home. She had gone off to help a friend in Buckkeep Town who had experienced a difficult birth, Jinna told me this after she had greeted me with a warm embrace and a lingering kiss. In the face of her willing ardour, my resolve to be restrained melted like salt in the rain. With no other prelude, she latched the door behind me, took my hand and led me to her bedchamber. ‘A moment,’ she cautioned me at the threshold, and I halted there. ‘Now come in,’ she told me, and when I did, I saw the charm had been draped with a heavy scarf. She took a deep breath, like a hungry man anticipating a good meal, and suddenly all I could focus on was the surge of her breasts against the bodice of her gown. I told myself it was a foolish mistake, but nevertheless I made it. Several times. And when we both were spent and she was half-dozing against my shoulder, I made an even more foolish mistake.

‘Jinna,’ I asked her softly, ‘do you think this is wise, what we do?’

‘Foolish, wise,’ she had sleepily responded. ‘What does it matter? It harms no one.’

Her question was asked lightly, but I answered seriously. ‘Yes. I think it does. Matter, that is. And perhaps does harm.’

I heaved a heavy sigh, and sat up, brushing her tousled curls from her face. She peered at me near-sightedly. ‘Tom. Why are you always so determined to make this a complicated matter.’ We are both adults, neither of us is vowed to another, and I’ve promised you that you cannot get me with child. Why should not we take a simple, honest pleasure in one another while we may?’

‘Perhaps for me, it feels neither simple nor honest.’ I struggled to make my reasons sound sensible. ‘I do what I have taught Hap is not right to do: to be with a woman I have not pledged myself to. Did he tell me today that he was doing with Svanja what we have just done, I would rebuke him severely, telling him he had no right to—‘

‘Tom,’ she interrupted me. ‘We give our children rules to protect them. When we are grown, we know the dangers, and choose for ourselves what risks we take. Neither you nor I are children. Neither of us is deceived about what is offered by the other. What danger do you fear here, Tom.’

‘I… I dread what Hap would think of me, if he found out. And I do not like that I deceive him, doing that which I forbid him to do.’ I looked aside from her as I added, ‘And I would that there was more to this than just… adults taking a risk for pleasure.’

‘I see. Well, perhaps in time, there may be,’ she offered, but there was an edge of hurt in her voice. And I knew then that perhaps she had deceived herself as to what we shared.

What should I have replied, I don’t know. I took the coward’s part and said, ‘Perhaps in time there will be,’ but I did not believe my own words. We lingered a while longer in bed, and then rose to share a cup of tea by her fireside. When at last I told her I must go, and then lamely insisted that I could not tell her a specific night when I could call again, she looked aside and said quietly, ‘Well, then, come when you’ve a mind to, Tom Badgerlock.’

And with those words she gave me a parting kiss. After her door closed behind me, I looked up at the bright stars of the winter night and sighed, I felt guilty as I began my long walk back to Buckkeep.

I was cheating Jinna out of something, not by denying her a false vowal of love, but by accommodating our attraction. I doubted that would ever feel for her anything more than I felt right now. Worst was that I could not promise myself I would not continue to see her, though a lusty friendship was all I could ever offer her. I did not think well of myself, and felt worse as I forced myself to admit that Hap probably guessed that I now shared Jinna’s bed from time to time. It was a poor example to set for my boy, and the road back to Buckkeep Castle seemed very black and cold that night.

NINE

Stone Wager

The days of winter came and went as relentlessly as the tides that rose and fell on the beaches of Buckkeep Town, and as monotonously. Winterfest approached, that celebration which heralds both the longest night and the gaining day that follows it. Once I would have looked forward to it with anticipation. But now I had too many tasks to do, and no time to do any of them well. During the mornings I was the Prince’s instructor. During the meat of my day, I masqueraded as Lord Golden’s servant. Lord Golden had hired two lackeys to tend his wardrobe and fetch his breakfast, but I was still expected to ride out with him and trail after him at social functions. Folk had become accustomed to seeing me at his side, and so I shadowed him even though his ankle was apparently well healed now. It was useful to me. There were times when Golden led conversations about to test a noble’s opinion of trade with the Outislanders, or the way trading rights had been allocated. I was privy to many a casually expressed opinion, and gathered all such threads of information for Chade.