There's no reason to be worried or nervous, folks tell me, but I still am. Today's the day two meetings happen. I meet the father of the girl I mean to court, to ask permission; and she meets Kestrel. I'm not sure which one makes me more nervous!
I first met Beoda (she doesn't want me to call her Miss and I really need to work on remembering that) just a few days after I came back from the journey me and Miss Adri took to Imladris. It was a loud night in the Prancing Pony with a lot of folk about, and Miss Baker joined the table where I sat, along with Miss Brynleigh and others, telling the tale of the journey. And coming with Miss Baker was her friend Beoda who I hadn't met yet. I would later find out she's the sister of Miss Heulyn, who I met once before, while preparations were being made to rescue Miss Baker's parents. And their family knows Mister Barleycorn's since way back, too. Seems everyone knows everyone here, just like back home.
But from the moment she came up to the table I felt a little more addled and slower than usual, which is saying a lot. I just couldn't think clearly, and wasn't sure why, except that I knew I kept wanting to look at her, and talk to her. Then right off, I think before I even learned her name, she and Miss Brynleigh said some things to one another that I mistook as meaning she already had a suitor. I remember being a little lost for a few moments, and not even sure why. Then they had me talking about the wolves and I took hold of the story and what clarity came with retelling it, and tried not to think about why I was feeling all addled.
The next day I worked in the stables and whittling late Yulemath gifts. Without any coin to spare for gifts, I'd taken a bit of deadfall from a particularly dark, glossy wood in Imladris, and brought it back with me. There was enough for only three carvings, so I made a flower for Miss Baker, a tree for Miss Brynleigh and Mister Barleycorn, and a bird for Miss Syaven. That last one took a lot of time because I don't know how to carve birds. Well, I do now. I carved a lot of them badly in regular ash until I felt sure I could carve one properly in this Imladris wood, which Miss Cesistya said the Elves call amaranth-wood. Ended up having to leave that one for her, since I haven't seen her since the Yule Ball.
So while I was working, and carving, I had time to think. Took a while before I realized that I was jealous of whoever was lucky enough to be Miss Beoda's suitor, because something about her, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, made me feel sure she was a good person. I mean, there's plenty of reasons to think that. Being from a long-standing farm family, who's good friends with other people I already know to be honest and virtuous and kind, for instance. But it seemed more than that somehow. But I know I can't trust my own instincts that well, they've been wrong before, which is why her meeting Kestrel is so important; he is better at sensing deceit than I was. (I've run into Haritha in town a few times, and her words, daggered as ever, don't really hurt anymore; but knowing how wrong I was, that still hangs over me as both hurt and worry.)
I saw Beoda around the Pony a couple more times in the following days, and each time, I made a great effort to push aside that feeling, like my thoughts were swaddled in warm wool, and just be civil and proper and friendly. Offered her a whittled farm animal, which she at first declined, causing me to silently curse myself a fool for making the offer; might it seem like an improperly forward gesture, as if I were trying to be a rival suitor? Or so I thought at the time; thinking back on it later I thought that it probably didn't seem that way to anyone but me, and that only because, secretly, I did want to be exactly that.
Last night, I was in the Pony trying to read the letter Miss Syaven left me to thank me for the bird carving. (She's very kind, though I know the carving is crude; and the letter is almost like a lovely poem, and took me quite a long time to read. I'm still not sure I figured out one of the words.) I saw Beoda come in with a burly fellow who I later learned was named Vidargeir, and who apparently comes from a Woodman village named Eburwod in, or near, the Mirkwood. But at first, with them coming in together, I thought for sure he must be the suitor, the one I envied, but also the one I dearly hoped was a good and kind man who would treat her as well as I felt that she deserved.
I was as clumsy and foolish as ever while trying to be amiable with both of them, and trying not to think about the wool-swaddled feeling. I barely remember what we talked about, apart from being introduced to Vidargeir and learning where he was from. And getting the dim sense that he wasn't meaning to stay in Bree-land for long, once he'd found his brother. Did that mean he wasn't the suitor? Or, what if he was, and that meant he would be leaving and perhaps her as well?
Then she went to the counter to get mead for the table, and I took the moment to ask him if he was her suitor, quietly, while she couldn't hear. His answer was baffling as could be: he said he didn't know, since he doesn't know the Bree-lander customs. But since they'd only just met, and he hadn't presented her with a severed bear head -- or something, I got a little lost there -- he didn't think they were. And when she came back to the table with mead, he just came out and asked her! Her answer was that he hadn't asked her to court, so they couldn't be courting, simple as that. Odd as Northron customs can be, even I can follow that one: you ask first, and she says yes or no, and if she says yes, you're courting. If only everything were that straight and clear.
Not long after, she had to run to help her sister with something -- this is how I found out she was Miss Heulyn's sister -- which left me alone with Vidargeir. We fell to talking about whether Beoda even had a suitor; and, maybe it was the mead, or maybe the courage still lingering in me from having once asked a girl to dance and having her say yes, but I admitted to him that I wished it were me. And somehow, he convinced me I should ask when she came back. He made it out to be so simple to be bold. It wasn't simple for me, but with enough mead in me, I managed it.
Well, I can't really say I managed it, because what little I remember of it came out rather in a jumble and somehow it got to be about the carved sheep instead, but eventually, somehow, I got through that and came out the other side with her not only telling me I'd been mistaken, and she didn't have a suitor, but also somehow agreeing to court.
If I don't remember clearly everything up to this point, what came next is even more a haze, where I felt like I might just float off into the sky if it weren't for the Pony's roof. Mostly we talked about ourselves and each other, getting to know each other a bit more. About our families and homes, about my plans and duties, about where we lived, about what we did, about what we expected from the future. There was also something baffling about a hobbit that wanted the extra whittlings I had out, but later left without taking them, but I don't really know what.
Then we got to talking about what it'd be like when we told Miss Baker that we were courting, and then Miss Brynleigh, and then who should walk in just then but Miss Brynleigh herself, with Mister Barleycorn not far behind her. I was trying to reassure Miss Brynleigh that courting wouldn't mean I'd not be as diligent and attentive an apprentice as I had been, and she seemed more dumbstruck than I'd been, but Mister Barleycorn hardly seemed surprised. Straight off he offered advice on Bree-lander courting customs, before I could even ask. First thing he advised was that I should ask her father for permission soon as possible, which is why that's the other thing I'm nervous about. Everyone seems to agree that he'll have no reason to deny it, so long as I'm honest, respectful, and firm. Which I know I can do, though it's also perilously close to being bold, and to the kind of thing where I get my words all mixed up. And it only added a bit of worry when Miss Brynleigh told how her folks had disowned her after she married Mister Barleycorn; that's part of why they're going with us, come spring, to try to put all that to rights. If even they could have things not turn out right, how easy would it be for me to muck it up?
So now I am making for the North Gate, reminding myself that I managed to get through being bold enough to ask her. That was surely the hardest part. And these two meetings would be the next hardest parts. After that, if I get through those, it'll be less scary, right?
