Fool's Errand (Tawny Man, #1)(25)

“I had a calf go missing this spring,” the cheese merchant suddenly said. “Cow strayed off pregnant, and came home two days later, empty as a barrel.” He shook his head. “Never found a trace of that calf. But I did find a burntout firepit.”

“Witted ones,” the baker's boy chimed in sagely. “They caught one over to Hardin's Spit the other day, but she got away. No telling where she is now. Or where she was!” His eyes gleamed with the joy of his suspicions.

“Well, that explains it, then,” Baylor exclaimed. He shot a triumphant look my way, then hastily looked aside from my expression. “That's the way of it, then, Tom Badgerlock. And I only wanted to warn you, as neighbors do for one another. You keep good watch on those chickens of yours.” He nodded judiciously, and across the way, the cheese merchant nodded as well.

“My cousin was there, at Hardin's Spit. He saw that Wit whore just sprout feathers and fly. The ropes fell away from her and off she went.”

I didn't even turn my head to see who spoke. The normal movement and noise of the market had resumed around us, but now the gossip hummed with jolly hatred of the Witted. I stood isolated, the warm summer sun beating down on my head just as it did the hapless piglets in Baylor's cart. The surging of my heart was like a shaking inside me. The moment in which I might have killed him had passed like a fever breaking. I saw Hap wipe sweat from his brow. Jinna put a hand on his shoulder and said something quietly to him. He shook his head, his lips white. Then he looked at me and gave me a shaky smile. It was over.

But the gossip in the market went on. All around me, the market chuckled along, healed by the prospect of a common enemy. It made me queasy, and I felt small and shamed that I did not shout out at the injustice of it all. Instead, I took up Clover's lead. “Mind our trade, Hap. I'm going to water the pony.”

Hap, still silent and grave, nodded to me. I felt his eyes on me as I led Clover away. I took my time at the task, and when I came back, Baylor made a point of smiling and greeting me. All I could manage was a nod. It was a relief when a butcher bought all Baylor's piglets on condition that he deliver them to the man's shop. As the sore ox and the miserable piglets left, I let out a sigh. My back ached with the tension I'd been holding.

“Pleasant fellow,” Jinna observed quietly. Hap laughed aloud, and even I broke a sour smile. Later we shared our hardboiled eggs, bread, and salt fish with her. She had a pouch of dried apples and a smoked sausage. We made a picnic of it, and when I laughed at some jest of Hap's, she made me blush by saying, “You look a vicious man when you scowl, Tom Badgerlock. And when you knot your fists, I'd not want to know you. Yet when you smile or laugh aloud, your eyes put the lie to that look.”

Hap snickered to see me flush, and the rest of the day passed in good companionship and friendly barter. As the market day wound to a close, Jinna had done well for herself. Her supply of charms had dwindled measurably. “Soon it will be time to go back to Buckkeep Town, and turn my hand to making more. It suits me better than the selling, though I do like traveling about and meeting new folk,” she observed as she packed up what was left of her wares.

Hap and I had exchanged most of our goods for things we could use at home, but had gained little in actual coin for his apprenticeship fee. He tried to keep the disappointment from his face but I saw the shadow of his worry in his eyes. What if our coins were not sufficient even for the boatbuilder? What then of his apprenticeship? The question haunted me as well.

Yet neither of us voiced it. We slept in our cart to save the cost of an inn and left the next morning for home. Jinna came by to bid us farewell and Hap reminded her of his offer of hospitality. She assured him she would remember, but her eyes caught at mine as she did so, as if uncertain of how truly welcome she would be. Perforce I must nod and smile and add my hope that we would see her soon.

We had a fine day for the journey home. There were high clouds and a light wind to keep the summer day from being oppressive. We nibbled at the honeycomb that Haphad received for one of his chickens. We talked of nothing: that the market was much larger than the first time I had been there, that the town had grown, that the road was more traveled than it had been last year. Neither of us spoke of Baylor. We passed the fork in the road that once would have taken us to Forge. Grass grew on that trail. Hap asked if I thought folk would ever settle there again. I said I hoped not, but that sooner or later, the iron ore would bring someone with a short memory there. From there, we progressed to tales of what had happened at Forge and the hardships of the Red Ship War. I told them all as tales I had heard from another, not because I enjoyed the telling of them, but because it was history the boy should know. It was something everyone in the Six Duchies should always recall, and again I resolved to make an attempt at a history of that time. I thought of my many brave beginnings, of the stacked scrolls that rolled about on the shelves above my desk, and wondered if I would ever complete any of them.

An abrupt question from Hap broke me rudely from my musing.

“Was I a Red Ship bastard, Tom?” My mouth hung ajar. All my old pain at that word shone fresh in Hap's mismatched eyes. Mishap, his mother had named him. .Starling had found him, a scavenging orphan that no one in his village would claim. That was as much as I knew of him. I forced honesty. “I don't know, Hap. You could have been Raiderborn.” I used the kinder term.

He stared straight ahead now, walking steadily as he spoke. “Starling said I was. I'm an age to be one, and it might be why no one save you would take me in. I'd like to know. I'd like to know who I am.”