Chapter Text
The sun had long set beyond the horizon when I started to worry for real. Sometimes the boy would linger at the market to watch other people's lives. As far as I know, he didn't make any friends, but he would wander around alone in search of simple boyish entertainment. He never came back too late. Nighteyes ran out to meet him twice today, but came back with nothing.
“I can smell his pony and him in the den of men,” he told me, and I calmed down a little. Surely Hap had met some of the village boys and stayed to visit. Nothing terrible had happened.
My quiet, reclusive life weighed heavily on the boy. He had grown too old; he needed more than just abundant food and a warm bed. I had told myself many times that it was time to let him go, so that he could find an apprenticeship with a good carpenter or joiner. Hap had shown a talent for such pursuits at a fairly early age, and the sooner he started learning, the better he would master the craft. But I wasn't ready to part with him yet, and so I was jealous.
Burrich would’ve given me a trashing if I had stayed out with my friends so late. Lately, I had often thought about the man who raised me and wondered what Burrich would have said or done in my place. When the boy forgot to water the pony, I caught myself thinking that he was lucky I was not the man who could slap him on the back of the head and kick him with my boot. I could yell at him, talk to him harshly, ignore him, but I never hit him.
I smiled remembering an incident when I had made Burrich lose his temper so much that he couldn't calm down until evening. At that time, I was just getting used to the lack of normal sleep. In the morning, I worked in the stables, then went to fencing and writing lessons, and in the evening, as soon as I closed my eyes, Chade would open the secret door and invite me to lessons on poisons. That morning, I was nodding off and fighting the urge to crash into the nearest haystack. Burrich, as always, expected me to clean the mares' stalls while the other boy, whose name I can't remember, did the same in the stalls of the few stallions. I felt that the amount of work assigned to me was unfair. In addition to the stalls, my duties included caring for my mare, Sooty. By the time I mounted her around noon, I had no energy left to ride for long. Burrich saw this and knew how much work awaited me for the rest of the day. It seemed like he didn't care about my other teachers. His orders had to be followed, and he didn't care if I didn't have time to eat lunch before going to Hod's class.
That day, I honestly cleaned Sooty's stall and filled a wooden wheelbarrow to the brim. I had to take it out of the stable and tip it into the manure pile, then come back and finish the last stall, and then take the wheelbarrow away again.
The mere thought of having to lift the wheelbarrow with manure up the hill twice made me feel sick. I did it once, then came back, cleaned the manure from the last stall, and threw it into the neighboring one, where the stallion stood. That way, I didn't have to take the full wheelbarrow again, and I left it empty. Pleased with my own ingenuity, I lay down in the hay to take a nap before saddling Sooty, but I was soon awakened by Burrich's angry shout. It turns out I was so sleepy that I didn't notice that the same boy had been watching my trick while watering the horses. Burrich was very angry. He lectured me at length in front of all the stable boys, who already disliked me for being special. I don't remember what I said to him. It must’ve been something that hurt him deeply, because the next thing I remember is him dragging me upstairs to his room and whipping me with the reins he had given me for repair. I didn't set anyone else up, but Burrich softened his stance and redistributed the work so that none of his boys felt worse than the others.
“Go check again,” I asked Nighteyes. He was just as worried and whimpered sadly from time to time. “But be careful. Don't get too close, so the dogs don't smell you.”
The wolf slipped out the door. Through his eyes, I saw that he had trodden a path through the field from the house to the village and was now moving much faster.
I had the thought of reaching out to the boy with the Skill, but I immediately dismissed it. Today I had already used elfbark and must not give in to temptation.
Maybe he had a girlfriend and stayed with her? Maybe he secretly took her to a picturesque beach and got his first kiss. At his age or even earlier, all my thoughts were filled with Molly — my first and only love. If Burrich had found out about us back then, he would have trashed me up again.
I was lost in my thoughts the second time. It was evening, I was thinking about Molly, and I couldn't shake this overwhelming feeling of longing. At that time Burrich and I had a falling out, Chade would never invite me and I was devastated. Verity had just warned me that I wasn't the only one seeing my dreams about Molly. I was ashamed and tried my best to keep my desires to myself, not to broadcast them to anyone using the Skill. I don't know how it happened, but that day, instead of dreaming about Molly all night long, I involuntarily reached out to Verity and witnessed my uncle getting everything I had been longing for just minutes before.
Verity quickly noticed me and repelled me so rudely that my hurt feelings overcame my embarrassment. I sat up in bed, put up walls in my mind, and stared into the darkness for a long time, trying to calm my thoughts.
When I lay down again, curiosity ate away at me. What was I thinking back then? Fifteen is a truly amazing age. I knew I would be noticed, I knew Verity wouldn't like it. I knew I would be ashamed again and that I would offend my uncle, but I did it anyway.
This time, Verity repelled me so hard that my head hurt. I couldn't sleep anymore. Thoughts of Kettricken's warm, smooth skin mingled with dull pain and regret for what I had done. Now I understand how much I offended them both with my boyish curiosity, but at the time I didn't dwell on it for too long. Towards morning, despite the stinging feeling of guilt, I was finally able to fall asleep. Not for long. It was still dark when the page boy ran into the room and woke me up. Verity urgently invited me to the Tower.
Like Burrich's words, Verity's speech faded from my memory, giving way to the shock of the whipping I received for my curiosity. It was the only time Verity ever did that to me, and I remembered it for a long time. He used a birch and surprised me so much with his decision to discipline me that for the whole of the following week I shamefully hid from him and was afraid to even think about Molly or any other woman.
No, it was unlikely that Hap had a girlfriend. He told me everything — loneliness ate away at him just as much as it did me. At least I had the wolf, but the boy had to be content with my company only.
What if he got drunk? In my time of deep sorrow, I did so without hesitation. Burrich himself taught me to drink, and then got angry that I did the same thing alone. Once, when he was away, I got drunk in town again and returned to the castle, barely able to stand. That was when I first met Lady Patience, my father's eccentric widow. She looked at me with disgust, and I treated her as if she were a mere servant. How afraid I was she would tell Burrich about our meeting and my inappropriate behavior. But he didn't find out. Hod did.
My fencing instructor often threatened me with a belting. Noticing my bad mood and distraction, she laughed and suggested laying me across the bench and birching me. I never took her threats seriously, but after that incident with alcohol, I decided it was better to get it from Burrich than from her.
In the morning, I was suffering from a terrible hangover. I couldn't think straight, had a headache, and stayed in bed so long that I was late for training. When I appeared before Hod, she immediately understood everything. She canceled training and told me to run to the kitchen and beg Sarah to give me something for the poisoning. I did as she said, and when I cheerfully showed up for training the next day, all that awaited me was a bench in the middle of the arena and Hod with a wide belt in her hands. It was excruciatingly painful, and I remember begging her to forgive me and assuring her that I would never touch alcohol again in my life. She didn't believe me, and as I later found out, it was because of her friendship with Lacey, Lady Patience's maid.
“I found him.”
The wolf's words allowed me to breathe.
“Where are you?”
“We are going home. Don't worry. He's not hurt.”
Although I trusted the wolf, I couldn't help but look at the boy through his eyes. Hap sat on his pony and wiped tears from his cheeks. The Nighteyes overtook him and rushed towards the house.
Something had happened, and I couldn't stop wondering what it was. Why was the boy crying? Had someone hurt him?
“People stole your colours from him,” suggested Nighteyes. “I could track them down.”
“No. Go home.”
The wolf obediently trotted off down his path. Hap’s pony was in no hurry to follow and remained on the road.
So, the boy had been robbed. He wasn't hurt, but why was he crying? Was he really that upset about my inks being gone? I should be crying about it, not him. I doubt he gave it to the thieves on purpose.
Once, I accidentally threw an important scroll into the fire, on which Chade had written down a combination of herbs for his experiments with fire. He told me to get rid of the ruined notes, but I was lost in thought and threw away something I shouldn't have. I realized my mistake the moment I did it, but the thin paper burned so quickly that I didn't even have time to blink.
I hid it from Chade for as long as I could, until he suddenly remembered the scroll a month later. If I’d told him right away, he would have written down the herbs again while they were still fresh in his memory, but I was afraid, and my mentor completely forgot what he had mixed.
I was a poor liar those days. When Chade asked me if I had seen the scroll, my guilt showed on my face. The old assassin got the confession out of me with just a couple of questions, and then he howled so desperately that I felt even worse. He was angry with me, but at the same time he valued me so much that all he could do was spank me and then hug me to death. I could swear that he was crying not so much because the discovery had slipped away from him, but because he had made me cry.
Nighteyes was the first to appear at the door. I immediately rushed to the door to meet the boy, but he was still trudging through the darkness on his pony.
“I could scare it into going faster.”
“No.”
The wolf loved playing with the pony. Sometimes he scared it, despite my requests to stop, but over time I noticed that the pony stopped reacting sharply. More often Nighteyes's attempts to play ended with an angry kick to the ribs.
The boy didn't look me in the eye. He unsaddled the pony, gave it food and water, and stayed outside. I waited for him at the table with dinner ready, but I had to get up and find him.
“What happened?”
Hap flinched when I asked him the question. I could tell by the look on his face that he was going to sit outside all night just to avoid talking to me.
“I didn't sell anything.”
“Why?”
He lowered his head, and I barely managed to keep myself from yelling at him. He hadn't been so secretive and irritable before. Couldn't he answer faster?
“Were you robbed?” I helped him out. He was surprised by my insight, but just sniffed and shook his head. “What's the matter?”
“I got distracted, and they cut my bag.”
“That means, you were robbed. Who did it? Did you remember them?”
He shrugged. I was furious that he hadn't reported every little detail to me. That's what Chade taught me. To remember everything. Even things that might not seem useful at first glance.
But Hap wasn't a killer. He was a boy. It wouldn't have occurred to him to remember the location of a scratch on the thief's face. He didn't look at his boots and guess where he might have walked, considering the level of dirt.
“I'll make new ink,” I reassured him, and he jerked his head up to look at me. “What?”
“I thought you'd be angry with me.”
“I’m angry, but not with you. I’m angry with whoever took my things taking advantage of your defenselessness.”
“I'm not defenseless...”
I wanted to laugh. At his age, I also thought a lot about myself.
“Nighteyes will bite their heels if he finds them,” I promised and reached out to gently lift him by the shoulder. The boy snorted mockingly. “Come on, dinner is getting cold. Tomorrow you'll help me make some new ink, and then... then we'll go sell it together.”
He looked at me with such surprise that I felt awkward. I put my arm around his shoulder and squeezed it approvingly, leading him into the warmth of our hut.