Chapter 28 Chapter 28 Living Another Life

First, the training Chade had given me lured me into spying on her, and I knew her room on the servants floor and which window belonged to her.I casually knew when she came and went, and I stood where I could see her footsteps and watched her go to the market, feeling ashamed, but try as hard as I could, I couldn't stop myself from standing there.I knew several of the maids who were her friends, and though I couldn't speak to her, I could always greet and chat with them, hoping for Molly's involuntary attention and longing helplessly for her.I don't want to sleep or eat, and I don't feel interested in anything.

Sitting one evening in the guardhouse opposite the kitchen, I found a place in the corner to lean against the wall, stretched my booted legs over the opposite stool, and made it clear that I didn't want company.A glass of ale, which had been warmed hours ago, was in front of me, but I wasn't even in the mood to get drunk.I didn't look at anything and tried not to think, and the stool was jerked away from under my outstretched feet.I almost fell out of my seat, and when I settled down I saw Burrich sitting across from me. "What's the matter with you?" he asked rudely.He leaned forward and raised his voice: "Are you sick again?"

I looked back at the table and said quietly, "A few shakes, but not really bad convulsions, just when I'm too tired." He nodded solemnly, and waited.I looked up to see his deep eyes looking at me, and that concern touched my heart.I shook my head, suddenly there was no sound. "It's Molly," I said after a while. "You didn't find where she went?" "No. Here she is, at Buckkeep, Patience's maid, but Patience won't let me see her, she says..." Burrich had opened his eyes wide at my first few words, and now he looked around us, then nodded at the door.I got up and followed him to the stables, then upstairs to his room.I sat at his table in front of the fire, and watched him bring out Tills brandy and two glasses, and then set out his tools for mending leather, since he still had a never-ending pile of harness to mend.

He gave me a bridle that needed a new strap, and he himself delicately trimmed the drop of a saddle.He pulled up his stool and looked at me. "This Molly, I've seen her, she's in the laundry room with Lacey? Head held up proudly? A shiny red coat?" "That's her hair." I correct him reluctantly. "The hips are wide enough to give birth." He praised it greatly. I glared at him. "Thank you." I said coldly. His grin shocked me. "Be angry! I'd rather you be angry than feel sorry for yourself. Come on, tell me!" And I told him, maybe more than I did in the guard room, because it was just the two of us.I drank some brandy, too, and the familiar sights, smells, and artifacts of his room surrounded me.I couldn't find a safer place in my life, safe enough to tell him my pain.He didn't speak or comment, and even when I was done he remained silent, and I just watched him knead the dye into the newly carved buck shape in the leather.

"So, what should I do?" I heard myself asking. He put down the work at hand, drank the brandy, then poured the wine into the glass, and looked around the room. "You ask me, of course, because you have noticed that I have an unexpectedly nice wife and many children?" The sarcasm in his tone shocked me, but before I could react, he choked out laughing: "Forget what I said! In the end, I made the decision, and I made it a long time ago. Fitz Junqi, what do you think you should do?" I stared at him sullenly. "What went wrong at the beginning?" Seeing that I didn't answer, he asked again: "Didn't you just tell me that you pursued her like a boy, but she treated you like a man? She is looking for a man, so don't act like a man." Be angry like a frustrated kid, be a man." He downed half a glass of brandy and poured us both.

"How?" I begged him. "Like you show your masculinity everywhere else. Be disciplined, live for the mission, so you can't see her. If I know a woman, it doesn't mean she doesn't want to see you, remember. Look You yourself, your hair is like the winter coat of a pony. I bet you've been wearing that shirt for a week and you're as thin as a winter pony. I doubt you'll ever win her respect again with that virtue. Eat Get something, comb it every day, and for the sake of God Ida, do some exercise, stop hanging around the guard room, and find something for yourself."

I nodded slowly, thanking him for his advice.I knew he was right, but I couldn't help but protest: "But if Patience won't let me see Molly, none of this will do anything to me." "In the long run, boy, it's not between you and Patience, it's between you and Molly." "And King Shrewd." I said indifferently. He gave me a mocking look. "According to Patience, one cannot swear to the king and give one's heart completely to another woman. 'You can't put two saddles on the back of a horse,' she told me. It's the words of a woman who is married to the Crown Prince, and who is happy to spend perhaps a short time with him." I gave Burrich the mended reins.

He didn't take it, for he was raising his brandy glass, and set it down on the table so suddenly that the wine spilled all over the edge of the glass. "She told you that?" he asked me hoarsely, still looking into my eyes. I nodded slowly. "She said she was deluding herself to think that Molly would be content with the little private time the King had with me." Burrich leaned back in his chair, a series of conflicting emotions flooding his face.He looked away at the fire, then back at me.For a moment he seemed about to speak, but then he sat up straight, gulped down the brandy, and stood up abruptly. "It's too quiet here, shall we go to Buckkeep for a walk?"

The next day, I got up without bothering to feel dizzy and dizzy, so as not to look lovesick.The brat's impatience and sloppiness cost me her, and now I have to restrain myself like an adult.If time was the only way I could wait for her, I'd take Burrich's advice and use that time well. So, I wake up very early every day, even before breakfast is ready.In the room all my own, I stretched hard, then rehearsed parry moves with an old stick, and didn't go downstairs until I was sweaty and dizzy, to relax in the steaming steam.Slowly, very slowly, I began to regain my vitality, and the new clothes Master Ji Jingfeng forced on me began to fit.While I still couldn't get rid of the occasional shaking, I had fewer attacks and I was able to get back to my room before I fell in disgrace.Patience said I looked better, and Lacey was happy to give me something to eat every chance she could.I picked myself up again.

I dine with the guards every morning, and everyone just gobbles it up and doesn't care about the rules.After breakfast, take Soot to the stables for a jog in the snow to maintain its physical condition.When I took him back to the stable, it felt like home in his own care.Burrich and I had a quarrel over my use of Wisdom before our string of disasters in the Kingdom of the Hills, and I couldn't get into the stables to comb the soot and prepare it's food myself.The stables were very busy, and the warm smell of the animals mingled with the gossip of the workers about the keep.Hands or Burrich would find time to chat with me when I was lucky, and on other busy days watch them discuss how to stop a stallion from coughing, or heal a sick boar the farmer brought to the castle , can bring me bittersweet satisfaction.They were too busy to chat and joke, so they ignored me carelessly.It should be like this!I've started living another life, but can't expect the old days to be there for me forever.