Fool's Fate by Hobb Robin Read Free Book Online Page B

lacks morality. Gindast would take that seriously, would he not? From what you have said, your master is not well pleased with you just now. He could turn you out. Or Hartshorn could simply turn his own daughter out into the streets. Then what?”
        “Then I take her in,” Hap replied grimly. “And I care for her.”
        “How?”
        “Somehow. I don't know how, I just know that I would!” The anger in his furious reply was not for me, but for himself, that he could not think of a way to refute the question. I judged that it was a good time to hold silence. My boy could not be dissuaded from his path. If I sought to do so, he'd only turn away from me to pursue her.
        We walked on, and as we drew closer to the Stuck Pig, I had to ask, “You don't meet her openly, do you?”
        “No,” he answered reluctantly. “I walk past her house. She watches for me, but we pretend not to notice one another. But if she sees me, she makes an excuse of some kind and slips out later in the evening to meet me.”
        “At the Stuck Pig?”
        “No, of course not. There's a place we discovered, where we can be alone.”
        And so I felt a part of their deception as I walked with Hap past Svanja's house. I hadn't known where she lived until now. As we passed the cottage, Svanja was sitting on the step with a small boy. I hadn't realized that she had siblings. She immediately rose and went inside with the child, as if snubbing Hap and me. We walked on to the Stuck Pig.
        I was reluctant to enter, but Hap went ahead of me and so I followed. The innkeeper gave us a brusque nod. I was surprised he didn't order me out. The last time I'd been there, I'd brawled with Hartshorn and the City Guard had been called. Perhaps that was not so unusual an event there. From the way the inn boy greeted Hap, he'd become a regular. He took a corner table as if it were his accustomed place. I set out coin on the table, and in response we soon had two mugs of beer and two plates of indifferent fish stew. The bread that came with it was hard. Hap didn't appear to notice. We spoke little as we ate, and I sensed him tracking time, estimating how long it would take Svanja to make an excuse and then slip off to their meeting place.
        “I was minded to give Gindast some money to hold for you, so that you'd have funds of your own as you needed them while I'm gone.”
        Hap shook his head, mouth full. A moment later he said quietly, “That wouldn't work. Because if he was displeased with me for any reason, he'd withhold it.”
        “And you expect your master to be displeased with you?”
        For a time he didn't answer. Then he said, “He thinks he needs to regulate me as if I were ten years old. My evenings should be my own, to do as I please. You've paid for my apprenticeship, and I do my work during the day. That should be all that concerns him. But no, he would have me sit about with the other apprentices, mending socks until his wife shouts at us to stop wasting candles and go to sleep. I don't need that sort of supervision, and I won't tolerate it.”
        “I see.” We ate more insipid food in silence. I struggled with a decision. Hap was too proud to ask me to give the money to him directly. I could refuse him to express my disapproval. Certainly I didn't like what he was doing. I foresaw it would lead him to trouble...and if that trouble came while I was gone, he might need money to extricate himself. Certainly I'd seen enough of the Buckkeep Town gaol to know I didn't want my boy to spend time there, unable to pay a fine. Yet if I left him money, would I not perhaps be giving him enough rope to hang himself? Would it all go for gifts to impress his sweetheart and tavern meals and drink? It was possible.
        It came down to this: did I trust this boy that I'd raised for the last seven years? He had already set aside much of what I had taught him. Yet so Burrich