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Description
--30--

Fifteen found Nat at more opposing extremes than ever before. He was an Innkeeper--or at least an Innkeeper's son--second in command after Gavin and alongside Ethy; but he was also a full-fledged carpenter well known in the little village for his fair prices, sturdy pieces, and little flourishes of individuality, all things that the established Carpenter lacked.

Although far more popular than the Carpenter for woodwork, Nathaniel still preferred his own thoughtful silence to polite conversation with those who just did not think as deeply about matters that did not have a direct impact on their daily lives. He spoke rarely, and was spare with his words when he did, but the villagers knew enough to brace themselves when Nat opened his mouth: for anything other than the simplest answers, the boy needed at least three minutes to talk his way through his useless, misty ideas before he got at the meat of the matter. The only people who seemed to appreciate Nat's quiet were the few elderly villagers, who often mistook his quiet for attention, a trait they found lacking in the young people and endearing when they found it. If only for his willingness to be present while they remembered their younger days, Nat won the village elders' hearts just as he had hardened those of its youth.

Perhaps the children were shrewder than the town grandparents, or perhaps they were jealous of the attention that their peer received. In any case, many suspected that there was more to Nat than anyone else was willing to see. Most adults ignored whatever they did not understand, but to those his own age, who stubbornly listened to all the odd things he said, Nat's rare remarks seemed over bold, even disapproving. There was a bite in his comments during weekly lessons that made a mysterious anger flare in their hearts so that they paid extra attention to the Scholars and tried, one after another, to outdo or at least match him. It was not that they wanted to reach Nat's level, but more that they felt he was rising so high that he would soon fly away or crash back down to earth. Though none ever said it aloud, Nat's peers were all too ready to have it done with so that some of the elders' attention would at last return to the village at large.

But the village was a mainland, the wood was a sea, and the inn was an island of its own, as it always had been. The Innkeeper's daughter, Analie, had been a delight to raise from the beginning, always rewarding her parents' and brother's efforts with a smile, a coo, a babble, and, later, a simple word that, to the Innkeepers, spoke the world. Nat had only ever seen babies before, never held one in his arms or heard one wailing in the middle of the night, but he forgave it all the first time Ethy placed Analie in his arms. He had worried that the birth of a legitimate child would shunt him away from his family, but instead, she became the mortar that held the Innkeepers together. Nat knew this and thought about it often, though he never voiced his gladness or gratitude aloud; he was not sure if he would be able to find the right words, or if anyone would take him seriously. Instead, he expressed what she meant to the Innkeepers in the best way he could.

Drawing from the curve of her smile and the roundness of her watchful eyes, Nat carved Analie a sun and strung it on a bit of leather around her neck. After she gnawed it into a shapeless disk, he made more. He replaced the necklace with a slightly rounder sun made of hard oak sanded as soft as Analie's skin so that she could teethe, then recreated the original pendant, adding a little face that might have been hers, and set it in his treasure box to give her when she knew better than to eat it.
The seasons turned upon themselves, making a swamp of the King's road that then dried out and sent up clouds of dust. When the inn was empty, the Innkeepers were as rowdy as a house of full beds, filling the meadow with the sounds of singing and laughing, humming and whistling, clanging and banging. With the royal court stationed at the Fortress, not a week went by without at least two merchants stopping for a night on the way to bring exotic goods to the inland nobles, and they paid ever more as the quality of the inn improved.

The Queen's silvers transformed the lean-to into a sturdy stable with four stalls, rethatched the roof, bought shining new pots, pans, mugs, and tankards, and provided Gavin with a fresh supply of spices for his well-known hot meals and traveler's fare. After that, the extra business paid for smaller luxuries, like fresh wood for Analie's cradle instead of the usual scrap, goose feathers for new blankets, and fine dress clothes for the local Lord's occasional dinner visits. The same spring Analie was born, Gavin asked one of the most familiar merchants for chickens, and to the delight of all who ate at the inn, eggs soon became a regular addition or ingredient in Gavin's meals. When another winter came and caught Nat in a pair of old boots that pinched his toes, he bought a new, never-used pair from a merchant instead of hunting around town for a pair of hand-me-downs.

Nat knew from the beginning of his apprenticeship he would always have to use his woodworking time to focus on useful things that made money, but his real interest lay in carving. He would have loved to try furniture, but without a market, he could not afford to waste so much wood. Instead, he whittled figurines, boxes, goblets, anything that a merchant might buy to carry off to a customer down the road. As Analie got grew, he developed a playful streak that seemed to have skipped him during his own childhood. Her meaningless lines in the dirt or the arrangements of sticks and leaves she made along the edge of the forest inspired his carvings. He drew from his own memories for the lid of her treasure box, a view of a sky full of fantastically shaped clouds, framed by wisps of tall grass. He decorated spoon ends with carved faces, stars, and acorns, etching their stems with hands, suns, and leaves that made them easier to grip. Merchants paid for such trinkets and odd objects, though Nat guessed from overheard conversations that they sold them for much more. His greatest frustration, however, was that the local Lord, who admired his work and praised his progress whenever he stopped by with his family for dinner, could not hire Nat or provides the patronage that a young Carpenter needed to practice finer work. Until his apprenticeship ended when he turned eighteen, the Carpenter had the right to claim credit for all of Nat's work, which he did. Whenever possible, he neglected his ordinary work during the day and forced Nat to stay late fixing broken tools as an advance punishment for stealing his business.

--31--

As Nat approached sixteen, the village women began discussing his prospects with all of the old fervor that they had once bestowed upon Gavin, but they seemed to think that it was a waste of time to do much more than bandy about someone else's daughters' names.

"Gavin, you've given that boy all your old high-and-mightiness," they would sigh as they shook their heads. Ethy always laughed from her heart at this, thinking of her own blissful--if unevenly aged--marriage and wishing her adopted son the same. Gavin, however, always turned away without comment. From his usual positions in the kitchen or at the common room hearth, Nat could sometimes catch his father's expression if he looked up quick enough. The reaction was far from the happy embarrassment that the village women expected: a strained, twisted smile, a slightly furrowed brow, and a quick shake of his bowed head to clear his mind.

Gavin's behavior stirred up many of Nat's old questions about his parentage. He had long ago dismissed the idea that Gavin was his birth father because they looked nothing alike, but this seemed to indicate the opposite. Nat knew better than anyone else that Gavin had been bound Ethy with a clear conscience, graced Analie with nothing but pure smiles since her birth, and greeted Ethy's announcement of another baby on the way with all the energy and enthusiasm of a man half his age. What was it about the banter and gossip surrounding Nat's potential marriage that bothered him so much? What could worry him enough to remove the smile that Nat knew so well?

--32--

One Wednesday afternoon, after the women had spent an hour muttering that it really was not worth discussing Nat's future wife (but isn't Maybeline lovely, oh yes, she certainly is, but he would never have her, oh that's right, he is his father's son after all...), and after their usual complaints had garnered Gavin's odd reaction several times, Nat set his carving aside and jumped up to follow his father. He cornered Gavin in the kitchen, blocking the doorway, as he had only just realized he could do, and waiting for his father to meet his eyes before he spoke.

"Gavin?" Nat could see that the unusual use of his first name gave Gavin a good idea of what was coming. "Are you really my father?"

He had not meant to sound so unfeeling, but whenever he had asked this question as a boy, the answer had always been a laugh and an, "Of course." He was too old for such simple answers now, and he had to make sure his father knew it.

Gavin sighed and lowered his eyes to the pile of dirty dishes on the counter.

"No, Nathaniel."

Nat blinked in surprise at the return of his formal first name and the direct response.

"You're...not?"

A trace of the old, playful father that Nat knew as a child returned. "Of course I'm only telling you that to make you appreciate me."

The corner of Nat's mouth twitched in a smile. "I do that already."

"Really?" asked Gavin, pleased honestly interested.

"I think so."

Gavin chuckled. "Nat, come outside with me for a minute."

He led the way out the kitchen door into the afternoon heat, nudging chickens out of his way as he crossed the dirt yard to the edge of the wood. He turned to face Nat, leaning back against a tree.

"I've been wondering how long it would take you to ask," he said. "I honestly expected it a lot sooner. You used to be such a nosy little boy; do you remember? You once woke up the entire village during the weekly lecture with one of your questions."

No smiles on either end at that memory. Much as the villagers liked to tease Scholar Jarem about that day, the experience and the events that followed were more bitter than sweet for father and son.

Gavin shook his head. "After all these years, you'd think I'd know what to say."

Nat smothered a spark of annoyance. "Just tell me. I'm old enough."

Another one of those twisted smiles. "I know you are." He looked down at his boots and shifted on his feet while Nat counted his breaths. Anxious as he was, he fit in thirteen before Gavin muttered to his toes, "I don't think I can tell you."

"What?" Again that loss of control: the flight of emotion that left his mind so blank that he let slip that awful, vague word. His previous annoyance quickly rushed back into the emptiness. "But you already said you weren't my father."

Gavin nodded, looking at Nat's boots now. "I know."

"So...can't you tell me a little more?" Silence. "Did you know my mother? Do you know her? Do you know why she left me?"

"Nat..."

"What if I was born of an unbound–"

"You certainly were not," Gavin snapped. "I know enough of the matter to tell you that much."

"Then why did she leave me? And why would she leave me with you if you weren't my father? Was I your sister's, Gena's? Or did my mother not leave me at all?" Nat's voice shook with suppressed emotion as all the questions he had bottled up over the years, hoping to answer on his own or by listening, came tumbling out of his mouth one after the other. "Did someone else make her? Was it my father who got rid of me? What if I–"

"Nathaniel!"

It took all of Nat's effort to reel in the string of questions while he waited for Gavin to stop looking at him so pityingly and answer just one of them...just one...

"I can't."
"Can't what?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?" Nat demanded.

Gavin let his eyes slip shut and raised his head, leaning so far back that when he opened his eyes again he was staring straight up into the tree branches...not where Nat wanted him to be looking.

"Nat, you're almost sixteen. You've lived with me your whole life, and you've always been so happy."

"No." This could not be happening, not after he had been so close.

"There's just no point. What's done is done, and it's stayed done for sixteen years. You're the brothers I never saw grow up and the son I never had."

This time Nat's anger flared in Ethy's defense. "You don't know you'll never have a son."

"No, but I do know that I probably won't live to see him—if it is a 'him'—turn sixteen."

"What does that have to do with my parents?"

"Nat, listen to yourself." Gavin's tone was sharp as he brought his head upright and met Nat's eyes at last. "This is the longest conversation we've had in ages between just the two of us, and all you want to know is about someone who didn't even care enough for you t–" But he caught himself as he realized that the sentence could only end in a stewpot of nasty feelings and changed tactics. "Aren't we family enough?"

Nat looked away, and before he knew what was happening, Gavin had caught his jaw between his rough fingers. When he started in surprise and tried to back away, the hold tightened.

"Look at me," Gavin ordered as he yanked Nat's face toward his. "Haven't I been family enough?"

"Papa..."

Gavin drew his hand away quickly, pressing his fingers to his eyes briefly before running them through his hair, where the streaks of grey had begun their steady advance.

"I've loved you, Nat." The words were low and awkward coming from his mouth, not like when he spoke to Analie. "You made me happy without having to hurt someone else."

Nat's mind raced to interpret the last part of the sentence...then he caught himself. Was he really that cold, that he could weigh Gavin's words right in front of him? The guilt he felt was a twisting, slithery kind that squirmed down his tightening throat and curled up in the top of his chest, where he could not ignore it.

Gavin took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I know you don't understand, Nat, and I don't expect you to. How can you, if I don't tell you? But it's better this way. It's better for Ethy and Analie and me, and it's much better for you." He shook his head. "I hope you never have to understand. I hope that, for you."

He stood there for a moment, not meeting Nat's eyes, though Nat thought that if he tried to, he might turn away himself. Then, without another word, Gavin strode toward the inn, kicking the first chicken and stepping over the rest.

"I'm sorry," Nat said, too late. He was not sure if Gavin had heard him or not, but he was sure that he could not remember ever feeling so strongly, not even when the King was about to have him beaten, that he ought to have kept his mouth and his mind shut.

Description
--30--

Fifteen found Nat at more opposing extremes than ever before. He was an Innkeeper--or at least an Innkeeper's son--second in command after Gavin and alongside Ethy; but he was also a full-fledged carpenter well known in the little village for his fair prices, sturdy pieces, and little flourishes of individuality, all things that the established Carpenter lacked.

Although far more popular than the Carpenter for woodwork, Nathaniel still preferred his own thoughtful silence to polite conversation with those who just did not think as deeply about matters that did not have a direct impact on their daily lives. He spoke rarely, and was spare with his words when he did, but the villagers knew enough to brace themselves when Nat opened his mouth: for anything other than the simplest answers, the boy needed at least three minutes to talk his way through his useless, misty ideas before he got at the meat of the matter. The only people who seemed to appreciate Nat's quiet were the few elderly villagers, who often mistook his quiet for attention, a trait they found lacking in the young people and endearing when they found it. If only for his willingness to be present while they remembered their younger days, Nat won the village elders' hearts just as he had hardened those of its youth.

Perhaps the children were shrewder than the town grandparents, or perhaps they were jealous of the attention that their peer received. In any case, many suspected that there was more to Nat than anyone else was willing to see. Most adults ignored whatever they did not understand, but to those his own age, who stubbornly listened to all the odd things he said, Nat's rare remarks seemed over bold, even disapproving. There was a bite in his comments during weekly lessons that made a mysterious anger flare in their hearts so that they paid extra attention to the Scholars and tried, one after another, to outdo or at least match him. It was not that they wanted to reach Nat's level, but more that they felt he was rising so high that he would soon fly away or crash back down to earth. Though none ever said it aloud, Nat's peers were all too ready to have it done with so that some of the elders' attention would at last return to the village at large.

But the village was a mainland, the wood was a sea, and the inn was an island of its own, as it always had been. The Innkeeper's daughter, Analie, had been a delight to raise from the beginning, always rewarding her parents' and brother's efforts with a smile, a coo, a babble, and, later, a simple word that, to the Innkeepers, spoke the world. Nat had only ever seen babies before, never held one in his arms or heard one wailing in the middle of the night, but he forgave it all the first time Ethy placed Analie in his arms. He had worried that the birth of a legitimate child would shunt him away from his family, but instead, she became the mortar that held the Innkeepers together. Nat knew this and thought about it often, though he never voiced his gladness or gratitude aloud; he was not sure if he would be able to find the right words, or if anyone would take him seriously. Instead, he expressed what she meant to the Innkeepers in the best way he could.

Drawing from the curve of her smile and the roundness of her watchful eyes, Nat carved Analie a sun and strung it on a bit of leather around her neck. After she gnawed it into a shapeless disk, he made more. He replaced the necklace with a slightly rounder sun made of hard oak sanded as soft as Analie's skin so that she could teethe, then recreated the original pendant, adding a little face that might have been hers, and set it in his treasure box to give her when she knew better than to eat it.
The seasons turned upon themselves, making a swamp of the King's road that then dried out and sent up clouds of dust. When the inn was empty, the Innkeepers were as rowdy as a house of full beds, filling the meadow with the sounds of singing and laughing, humming and whistling, clanging and banging. With the royal court stationed at the Fortress, not a week went by without at least two merchants stopping for a night on the way to bring exotic goods to the inland nobles, and they paid ever more as the quality of the inn improved.

The Queen's silvers transformed the lean-to into a sturdy stable with four stalls, rethatched the roof, bought shining new pots, pans, mugs, and tankards, and provided Gavin with a fresh supply of spices for his well-known hot meals and traveler's fare. After that, the extra business paid for smaller luxuries, like fresh wood for Analie's cradle instead of the usual scrap, goose feathers for new blankets, and fine dress clothes for the local Lord's occasional dinner visits. The same spring Analie was born, Gavin asked one of the most familiar merchants for chickens, and to the delight of all who ate at the inn, eggs soon became a regular addition or ingredient in Gavin's meals. When another winter came and caught Nat in a pair of old boots that pinched his toes, he bought a new, never-used pair from a merchant instead of hunting around town for a pair of hand-me-downs.

Nat knew from the beginning of his apprenticeship he would always have to use his woodworking time to focus on useful things that made money, but his real interest lay in carving. He would have loved to try furniture, but without a market, he could not afford to waste so much wood. Instead, he whittled figurines, boxes, goblets, anything that a merchant might buy to carry off to a customer down the road. As Analie got grew, he developed a playful streak that seemed to have skipped him during his own childhood. Her meaningless lines in the dirt or the arrangements of sticks and leaves she made along the edge of the forest inspired his carvings. He drew from his own memories for the lid of her treasure box, a view of a sky full of fantastically shaped clouds, framed by wisps of tall grass. He decorated spoon ends with carved faces, stars, and acorns, etching their stems with hands, suns, and leaves that made them easier to grip. Merchants paid for such trinkets and odd objects, though Nat guessed from overheard conversations that they sold them for much more. His greatest frustration, however, was that the local Lord, who admired his work and praised his progress whenever he stopped by with his family for dinner, could not hire Nat or provides the patronage that a young Carpenter needed to practice finer work. Until his apprenticeship ended when he turned eighteen, the Carpenter had the right to claim credit for all of Nat's work, which he did. Whenever possible, he neglected his ordinary work during the day and forced Nat to stay late fixing broken tools as an advance punishment for stealing his business.

--31--

As Nat approached sixteen, the village women began discussing his prospects with all of the old fervor that they had once bestowed upon Gavin, but they seemed to think that it was a waste of time to do much more than bandy about someone else's daughters' names.

"Gavin, you've given that boy all your old high-and-mightiness," they would sigh as they shook their heads. Ethy always laughed from her heart at this, thinking of her own blissful--if unevenly aged--marriage and wishing her adopted son the same. Gavin, however, always turned away without comment. From his usual positions in the kitchen or at the common room hearth, Nat could sometimes catch his father's expression if he looked up quick enough. The reaction was far from the happy embarrassment that the village women expected: a strained, twisted smile, a slightly furrowed brow, and a quick shake of his bowed head to clear his mind.

Gavin's behavior stirred up many of Nat's old questions about his parentage. He had long ago dismissed the idea that Gavin was his birth father because they looked nothing alike, but this seemed to indicate the opposite. Nat knew better than anyone else that Gavin had been bound Ethy with a clear conscience, graced Analie with nothing but pure smiles since her birth, and greeted Ethy's announcement of another baby on the way with all the energy and enthusiasm of a man half his age. What was it about the banter and gossip surrounding Nat's potential marriage that bothered him so much? What could worry him enough to remove the smile that Nat knew so well?

--32--

One Wednesday afternoon, after the women had spent an hour muttering that it really was not worth discussing Nat's future wife (but isn't Maybeline lovely, oh yes, she certainly is, but he would never have her, oh that's right, he is his father's son after all...), and after their usual complaints had garnered Gavin's odd reaction several times, Nat set his carving aside and jumped up to follow his father. He cornered Gavin in the kitchen, blocking the doorway, as he had only just realized he could do, and waiting for his father to meet his eyes before he spoke.

"Gavin?" Nat could see that the unusual use of his first name gave Gavin a good idea of what was coming. "Are you really my father?"

He had not meant to sound so unfeeling, but whenever he had asked this question as a boy, the answer had always been a laugh and an, "Of course." He was too old for such simple answers now, and he had to make sure his father knew it.

Gavin sighed and lowered his eyes to the pile of dirty dishes on the counter.

"No, Nathaniel."

Nat blinked in surprise at the return of his formal first name and the direct response.

"You're...not?"

A trace of the old, playful father that Nat knew as a child returned. "Of course I'm only telling you that to make you appreciate me."

The corner of Nat's mouth twitched in a smile. "I do that already."

"Really?" asked Gavin, pleased honestly interested.

"I think so."

Gavin chuckled. "Nat, come outside with me for a minute."

He led the way out the kitchen door into the afternoon heat, nudging chickens out of his way as he crossed the dirt yard to the edge of the wood. He turned to face Nat, leaning back against a tree.

"I've been wondering how long it would take you to ask," he said. "I honestly expected it a lot sooner. You used to be such a nosy little boy; do you remember? You once woke up the entire village during the weekly lecture with one of your questions."

No smiles on either end at that memory. Much as the villagers liked to tease Scholar Jarem about that day, the experience and the events that followed were more bitter than sweet for father and son.

Gavin shook his head. "After all these years, you'd think I'd know what to say."

Nat smothered a spark of annoyance. "Just tell me. I'm old enough."

Another one of those twisted smiles. "I know you are." He looked down at his boots and shifted on his feet while Nat counted his breaths. Anxious as he was, he fit in thirteen before Gavin muttered to his toes, "I don't think I can tell you."

"What?" Again that loss of control: the flight of emotion that left his mind so blank that he let slip that awful, vague word. His previous annoyance quickly rushed back into the emptiness. "But you already said you weren't my father."

Gavin nodded, looking at Nat's boots now. "I know."

"So...can't you tell me a little more?" Silence. "Did you know my mother? Do you know her? Do you know why she left me?"

"Nat..."

"What if I was born of an unbound–"

"You certainly were not," Gavin snapped. "I know enough of the matter to tell you that much."

"Then why did she leave me? And why would she leave me with you if you weren't my father? Was I your sister's, Gena's? Or did my mother not leave me at all?" Nat's voice shook with suppressed emotion as all the questions he had bottled up over the years, hoping to answer on his own or by listening, came tumbling out of his mouth one after the other. "Did someone else make her? Was it my father who got rid of me? What if I–"

"Nathaniel!"

It took all of Nat's effort to reel in the string of questions while he waited for Gavin to stop looking at him so pityingly and answer just one of them...just one...

"I can't."
"Can't what?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?" Nat demanded.

Gavin let his eyes slip shut and raised his head, leaning so far back that when he opened his eyes again he was staring straight up into the tree branches...not where Nat wanted him to be looking.

"Nat, you're almost sixteen. You've lived with me your whole life, and you've always been so happy."

"No." This could not be happening, not after he had been so close.

"There's just no point. What's done is done, and it's stayed done for sixteen years. You're the brothers I never saw grow up and the son I never had."

This time Nat's anger flared in Ethy's defense. "You don't know you'll never have a son."

"No, but I do know that I probably won't live to see him—if it is a 'him'—turn sixteen."

"What does that have to do with my parents?"

"Nat, listen to yourself." Gavin's tone was sharp as he brought his head upright and met Nat's eyes at last. "This is the longest conversation we've had in ages between just the two of us, and all you want to know is about someone who didn't even care enough for you t–" But he caught himself as he realized that the sentence could only end in a stewpot of nasty feelings and changed tactics. "Aren't we family enough?"

Nat looked away, and before he knew what was happening, Gavin had caught his jaw between his rough fingers. When he started in surprise and tried to back away, the hold tightened.

"Look at me," Gavin ordered as he yanked Nat's face toward his. "Haven't I been family enough?"

"Papa..."

Gavin drew his hand away quickly, pressing his fingers to his eyes briefly before running them through his hair, where the streaks of grey had begun their steady advance.

"I've loved you, Nat." The words were low and awkward coming from his mouth, not like when he spoke to Analie. "You made me happy without having to hurt someone else."

Nat's mind raced to interpret the last part of the sentence...then he caught himself. Was he really that cold, that he could weigh Gavin's words right in front of him? The guilt he felt was a twisting, slithery kind that squirmed down his tightening throat and curled up in the top of his chest, where he could not ignore it.

Gavin took a deep, shuddering breath.

"I know you don't understand, Nat, and I don't expect you to. How can you, if I don't tell you? But it's better this way. It's better for Ethy and Analie and me, and it's much better for you." He shook his head. "I hope you never have to understand. I hope that, for you."

He stood there for a moment, not meeting Nat's eyes, though Nat thought that if he tried to, he might turn away himself. Then, without another word, Gavin strode toward the inn, kicking the first chicken and stepping over the rest.

"I'm sorry," Nat said, too late. He was not sure if Gavin had heard him or not, but he was sure that he could not remember ever feeling so strongly, not even when the King was about to have him beaten, that he ought to have kept his mouth and his mind shut.