Freedom is now within my sights, I need only reach out. Claw my way up out of this chasm I have found myself in. Grasp the ledge and pull myself up. How sweet it will be.
Perhaps I will finally be able to take that journey to the Shire I was denied in the summer.
These past few days I have been as busy as ever. First with the arrangement of celebration. I do hope the Dalesman enjoys his gift. I certainly would. A pity I could not hire the brothel keeper herself but she would never leave her business unattended or be seen to give favours publically. Now I merely wait upon the numbers. Otherwise I will simply prepare more food than is neccessary. Rather too much than too little. I say.
I have found myself in recent days when not scribbling away dreaming. When I am with her it seems as though no time has lapsed since our parting. As though the awkwardness between us which has simply dissipated into the wind. I do spend far too much time thinking of her for comfort. I think, but with the warmth and good cheer our nights together bring there always seems to be an underlying churning of my stomach.
Indeed, I was quite glad to focus my mind on interviewing the candidates applying for my job. Though it seems the list of my preferred candidates are growing thinner. Firstly the Gondorian exile who is far from a known quantity and despite my incessant efforts to make conversation and for her to volunteer more information about herself I am none the wiser about her. Perhaps I will have to take a more direct line of questioning.
No, I will not take chances. It seems also she has found herself another employer. I am reliably informed that a skilled bookkeeper can keep the books of more than one client to a satisfactory degree. I think however as a result, with some reluctance I am leaning toward placing her candidacy in the rejection pile after much deliberation.
Today I also had a most interesting encounter, with a most interesting woman. The interview was to take place in the hunting lodge in Bree, so I locked my study and headed out. I do not know why I didn't place this one in the rejection pile as soon as I saw her name. Association with thieves I do not frown upon in and of itself. Which you might think strange for a businessman with property to guard. Let us just say it would be hypocritical of me given my own past associations. But I have seen for myself in the summer what a betrayal of confidence merely among the guardsmen in my employ can do. The damage it can inflict. Therefore whilst her honesty is to be admired, I cannot allow this woman access to my sensitive accounts given that she freely confesses to have counted Blackwolds, and other miscreants in the Alley among her friends. It seems to me she is a bit of a wild one and I'm looking for somebody rather more... boring.
Like the prior applicant she has admitted to creative calculus. She volunteered a lot more information. It was certainly not akin to getting blood out of a stone. A mercy for which I am thankful for. It seems her employer is either a tax fraud or a bootlegger of strong drink given her admittance and my line of questioning. I get the feeling she only stayed under the employ of this man out of care and affection. A credible character reference he is not given that the man is oft so drunk he very frequently doesn't know where he is. And the only other woman she said might give her one is another who's profession I know to be questionable given my knowledge of her alias and what my father briefly told me before he met his untimely end. As well as what I have read of her. There is also the fact that whilst I see no real reason to keep her for an enemy or any reason not to be pleasant. I do not quite trust her anymore.
It seems my young dining companion was quite aware of my mercenary connections. It seems she is in love with our vanished Captain who initiated the game of Pass the Sigil quite recently. Whilst also claiming to be in love with her husband who she has mentioned to me before. Most peculiar, this girl cast out of society by her father. A man whos identity she did not reveal to me. Seems less than enamoured of the conventions society dictates. Who can blame her. Her only crime was to lay with a boy she liked and for this she was thrown out of her home to fend for herself on the streets. I wonder if the Rat's friend knows that her Captain shared a bed with this woman.
It is a tale not at all dissimilar to the girl with the sweet sing song voice and an eye for travelers who most captivated my attention in that seaside Inn, who sired my bastard. Who turned to whoring near the docks of Dol Amroth.Yes, she was also thrown out by her father onto the streets after the departure of me and my men. A stern and as miserable a fellow as I have ever laid my eyes on. I suppose it is natural to be protective of daughters, I have only ever been on the receiving end of a father's wrath myself. But when my own daughter comes of age I suppose I would not be able to help myself were we in touch. I'd like to think she will be a free and independent spirit but I shouldn't like to think she will be taken advantage of.
It brings a tear to my eye sometimes to dwell on my daughter at times. She will be five this year. I am no father in the traditional sense of the word. I am absent from her life. Yes, I stay away but it is for her own good. But to callously throw your own daughter out onto the street simply because she spread her legs for a man? This, I could never do.
Alas, I seem to have veered from the subject at hand. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner at the hunting lodge and our chat. She was charmingly eloquent, had read up on my homeland and no doubt possessing the skill with which I need. Sadly, it is not to be. I will write to her when the time has passed to inform her that she was not successful. I had learned more information about her than I perhaps would have otherwise.
Bree is a strange town in these times, I left Gondor behind me after seeing my bastard right. But it seems the sights and scents of that fine country follow me. I walked into the Inn in town. Naught on my mind but simply plucking a bottle from behind the fat man's counter and riding off homeward to lay my head down in bed. I sighted the dark-haired lover of the Rat's friend. I bid the fat man pour him a drink. My mind already on extricating myself from any tiresome social interactions given my weariness. But then as with the last time I spoke to the man in such circumstances. My attempts at avoiding conversation proved to be unsuccessful. Of course, I could have physically departed and bid goodnight to either of them. The second individual I refer to encroached upon me again the same as the last I wrote of her. An exquisite beauty if there ever was one, long black hair falling down to her shoulders and a smile which draws you in. She is the type of woman that would leave perhaps a younger and less experienced me blushing with my tongue tied in knots, struggling to unravel them. I know next to nothing of this woman other than the fact she is highborn, from Gondor and she was seemingly lacking her companions this time around. I had flattered her in our last encounter. Promised that she would be pampered. Indeed, when she proposed I make good on my promise it took only a split second to agree during an hour when I really should have been catching up on some much needed sleep.
Indeed, she trusted me enough to walk with me alone after we had bid our mutual friend goodbye through the cobbled streets. I happened to mention that it was brave of her to walk the streets with me after dark. Supposedly she has heard good things about my character. She claims herself a good judge of it too. Most curious considering the things people used to whisper of me and say behind my back. I do not know why I mentioned my stepmother. The fact that some had branded me murderer through peculiar circumstances years after I had ended her with no evidence to back up their claims when her body was burnt long ago and no one doubted my claims of innocence at the time. A ridiculous assertion, I told her. It is of course not a lie to suggest that the individuals in question who sullied my reputation in such a manner had a vindictive agenda given that it was so long after a death no one could possibly know the truth of apart from those involved. And those involved are no longer around for the most part and I have no reason to think that they would seek to smear my name after all this time.
It does seem that such mutterings had not reached my companion's ear, mind. Perhaps I only mentioned it because there is something about finely dressed, mysteriously charming women that remind me of my stepmother. Whom I left bleeding oh so prettily upon the stone floor as I set the fire. It was not difficult to blame my father's retainer for the murder of them both. He was a greedy man, he would do anything for coin. Carry out murders, torturings and beatings without question. It was not a stretch of the imagination to indict him in absconding with a fair portion of their gold having killed them. I killed a vile woman and blamed her equally vile servant. I make no apology for it.
We talked there in the back room of my Inn over a bottle of finest red, Dorwinion of origin. I do not often drink wine but I did this night. We exchanged tales and jests of our reportedly horrid deeds. It seems she has been accused of being a slaver. Well, I was once accused of being a slaver too by the denizens of the town simply because I had a number of companions of the fairer sex. An accusation which certainly is most ridiculous. Supposedly because she has a servant. Well, what lady of Gondor does not have a servant. Yet all the same, I keep an open mind to these rumours. Doesn't mean I believe them.
My eyelids grew weary, whilst she was bidding me to regale her with tales of my adventures my mind did wander once more to the thought of my bed. With any luck she may yet return. Perhaps with one of her rich friends. Spend a little coin on the very expensive bottles in my cellar that rarely get touched. If she does truly have the mind to acquire some hired blades or a bodyguard then I will take her to my friends upon the hill.
I'd say it was a rather productive evening. Though to say that there wasn't any impurity within my thoughts as I bid her goodnight would be a lie. It was a welcome distraction from any inconvenient feelings which seem to linger every time I have seen my childhood friend.
If naught else. I am nearly caught up with my papers, sufficiently so. Freedom, you are mine to grasp. I will now keep on top of them daily until I hire someone to take this tedium off my hands.
As an afterthought, to quickly note down as I do not forget. I saw that fair maiden sat alone whilst I conversed in the Inn. I must remember to repay her kindness to me.
