I returned to the tavern eventually. Emeilie found me there. Kind old dear that she is, she instantly recognised my distress and, before I could speak otherwise, rushed off to get a cup of tea for me. We spoke a while, but I could not bring myself to tell her why I was so upset, so she sought to distract me with other topics. It did not work to well. I tried, but my mind lingered on what I had learned, images of that day and what I had done flashed behind my eyes, haunting me unmercifuly.
Flannery found us there later and asked for a private word. I was reluctant to go with her. She is kind, I know, and she did not make me remember out of malice, but I feared what else she would bring to light about my recent past or any judgement she might make for my actions.
She explained to me why she had done so - that the young man with the disturbingly familiar features is the son of Siward and that he had been trying to torment me with what he knew and I did not. Refusing to allow that, and needing me to realise that I may be in danger from him and why, she had sought to bring that day to my mind. Her method worked, clearly, for now I know.
She did not stop there, though. She went on to tell me more of what had occured. These are things that I still do not recall, regardless of her telling, and she admitted that she personally had not been there and thus was only repeating what she had learned from others. Nevertheless, it is clear to me now that my mistakes caused Blodwynn, Baradar and Davick to suffer great indignities and hardship. In their quest for revenge, these shadowy figures - Siward's family, I am told - hurt those closest to me.
In a way, I can understand them targetting Wolf for he went out of his way to keep me from them. He protected me from their ire. I cannot make sense of their decision to imprison and harm Baradar and Blodwynn, though. Those two were innocent. They had naught to do with what I had done. Still, they paid the price for naming me friend - all three of them did - and it was I who brought them to it. I may not have been the one to weild the knife which cut them, but it was most certainly my fault that it occured. I am to blame for their suffering.
This knowledge twists me up inside, knotting my stomach and gripping my heart in a vice of guilt. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never wished to be the cause of harm to another. Maybe it would be best if I just let that man do as he will; I deserve it.
All these things have preyed on my mind ever since and the foggy areas where the memories from the time after should be loom so threateningly now. I still cannot remember and a part of me does not wish to lest I learn something even worse than I already have.
In an effort to still myself, I travelled today to a lake to the north and west of Bree town. Starmere, I think it is called. It was only after I arrived that I recalled the significance of this place and what had happened here long ago. Rather than smile for the memory of being proposed to, I found myself filled with a bitter sadness for my own blind stupidity at that time, believing that the man who had asked the question had actually loved me. What a fool I was!
Regardless of the extra sorrow it brought to me, I sat and waited for the sun to rise, knowing in my heart that I should feel this way and to run would be to cheapen it all. I am glad that I made that decision for i9n the early hours I heard a soft whining from behind me. Turning, I looked to find a bedraggled and horrendously thin black hound staring at me with huge soulful brown eyes. It shivered in fear as I stared, but instead of run it crept a few inches closer.
Over the course of the next few hours, I coaxed it closer with some dried meat that I had hidden away in the pouch beneath my cloak and eventually it came to take the meat from my hand. By sunrise, I had the poor beast laying against my side, my arm around him along with my cloak to keep him warm. He still shivered every now and then, looking up to me nervously as if expecting to be reprimanded, but I simply stroked his matted fur and murmured soothing words.
When I left that place at sunrise, he lingered there a short time before running after me. He followed me back to Bree, and then back to my house in Pemberth, happily - if nervously - submitting to a bath, a brush and a pair of scissors to take the worst of the knots from his fur.
