Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (librera reader txt) 📕

Doreen rolled her eyes, glancing at Milrina.

Theissen’s face froze a bit. His cheeks flushed. He ducked his head. Milrina took a step closer, her posture much like his.

All around them, their relatives grinned with pleasure watching what could be a romantic interlude between two young lovers. Well, they watched as long as the carpenter and the weaver allowed them to. Both men suddenly broke out into loud cries of, “Let’s eat!” urging the children and their wives away from the scene. Eventually Theissen and Milrina were alone at the fence, though their audience really was only a few yards away waiting for some kind of kiss or affectionate good-bye.

“Theissen—”

“Milrina, wait, before you say anything—”

“I need to know,” she cut in again, stepping closer to him. “I have to know. What will happen between us now?”

He listened to his own breathing, looking at her sincere gaze as she waited. He turned his head and shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She looked likely to punch him in the arm, but lately she had refrained from that. Milrina had gone more lady-like in the recent months. She was even what he could call lovely. His childhood pal was somewhere still in there, but standing before him was a woman with probing eyes waiting for a declaration of love that he just did not feel.

“Milrina—”

“Are we friends at all?” she asked.

He met her eyes. “Yes. Of course.”

She nodded, but did not look satisfied. “Ok, then. What about more? Other things?”

To that he shrugged. “I—”

“Am I ugly?”

Theissen stood right up. “No! No! Not at all! You are beautiful!”

She tilted her head with a shrewd look not unlike the one his aunt gave him when he came over without stopping to see Milrina. “Then what is it? Why can’t you promise me we’ll be married?”

He sighed, slumping down against the fence. “I don’t know. I keep waiting for it, but—”

“Waiting for it? Waiting for what?” She almost stamped her foot, but stopped herself.

With another shrug, Theissen replied, “I’m not sure, really. Inspiration? That awe inspiring feeling that makes a man want to jump off a cliff or do something daring for a girl?”

“That’s stupid,” she said. Milrina reached out and set her hand on his shoulder near his face. “Mother says that love is not some ridiculous feeling that overwhelms you. It is something you build.”

Theissen straightened up. “Well, Dalance says it is just that kind of feeling. When he found his wife, he wrote me and told me all about it.”

“Your brother is silly,” she said.

He fixed a look on her. “He is not. My dad even says that love affects a man to do crazy things. And I just don’t feel that right now!”

Milrina did stamp her foot this time. “Theissen Darol Mukumar! Are you saying you don’t love me at all?”

Groaning, Theissen covered his face with his hands, looking more likely to pull his hair out if not his eyes. “Stop doing that! I like you as a person, but I just don’t know if we really would be happy together, making a family and all that.”

She remained silent, pulling her arms into herself.

“Look,” he threw his hands down. “You and I were forced into this by our mothers, but really, we were only playmates. How do I even know if I like you because I actually like you or if my mom made me like you because no one else would play with me after I stole the magician’s golden ball?”

Milrina averted her eyes.

“And for that matter, how do you really know you like me like that if you haven’t even had the chance to meet other men?” he said.

“You don’t love me.” Her voice was low, in a murmur.

Theissen reached out to take her hand, but Milrina jerked it away. Sighing, he let his arms hang. “I don’t know if I love you or not. I think of you as a friend. But to be honest, if I am to marry anyone, I have to know I made the choice myself and not because my mother made me. Don’t you want to know the same also?”

She lifted her eyes and weakly nodded. “I do. But when you leave, people will look at me and say, ‘Oh, that’s Theissen’s fiancé.’ I won’t have a chance to meet anyone else. And no one else has been as kind to me as you have.”

He wanted to hold her, comfort her. He didn’t know where that feeling came from, but it was hard to resist. Reaching out, Theissen drew Milrina in and wrapped his arms around her, whispering in her ear as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Let’s make a deal. When I go out and you stay here, if either one of us really misses the other, we’ll write letters. And while I am out, if I get really homesick for you and I realize that I want you with me, I’ll send for you and we’ll get married.”

“But if that doesn’t happen?” She whispered back.

Theissen sighed, knowing the chance for that was actually more likely. “Then, well, in the mean time both of us are free to look and decide if marrying each other is really what we want.”

Milrina sobbed.

He held her tighter wishing he could do something to ease the heartache he knew he had caused. “You can even take a trip, like Alania did. See the world.”

But Milrina pulled back and shook her head. “My mom would not approve.”

“But your dad would,” Theissen said, and he pointed toward the Weaver who was watching. “Talk with him. I’m sure he’d allow you to look for your own happiness.”

She bowed her head against his chest. “I will miss you.”

Theissen rested his head against hers. “Same here.”

Their relatives watched for some time, but no kiss. The aunts were disappointed, but the cousins glanced at each other knowingly. The fathers were busy doing something else.

When Theissen and Milrina parted, both looked more than the usual sad. Milrina leaned on the gate and waved to him, watching her childhood friend go up the road towards the main highway out of the village. The rest of the family watched from the eating tables, perhaps allowing that singular image of a true love bidding him good-bye.

If only they knew what Theissen was actually thinking as he trudged up the hill and into the town to where he would join the main road, then they would have gathered at the gate and made more noise. The young man gazed back, seeing his poor lonely cousin wishing she had not been tangled in their mothers’ romantic plans.

But it was time to go and he could not linger. Theissen was on his way to become something of his own.

He was now a journeyman.

Journeyman

Theissen Darol Mukumar Carpernterson’s march from his home was only the beginning of the well wishes and congratulations he received as he tried to leave Lumen Town before sunset. By the time the sixteen-year- old journeyman carpenter passed the main hall and had gone along the mill road, he was lugging with him a killed bird and two caught fish, along with a small sack of wheat to eat for a meal sometime. He avoided the route past the magician’s home, also steering clear of the shoemaker’s shop, giving him a windy sort of path out of town. By the time the strapping, yet tired, young man veered out onto the highway, it was well beyond sunset and he threw himself exhaustedly to the roadside where used his uncle’s cloak as a blanket, barely making camp. It wasn’t until morning that he truly set out, but that was after funny looks from the village fisherman who tipped his hat and asked if Theissen had liked the fish.

Theissen walked at a steady pace north along the peninsula for several days. Along his journey he saw his aunts and uncles’ carriages rumble by kicking up road dust and scattering the insects resting on the road. His older sister waved from the window of her carriage, clattering past with a screaming baby on her lap. However, they all cheered him as he waved back, leaving him coated in their dust but also grinning to himself that so many had wished him well.

There were many villages in between his village and the first town on the map his father had given him, none of them marked, though Lumen village had been. Theissen also noticed that no roads were marked on the map except in his own father’s handwriting pointing to rivers he might take water and good places to stop for help if he needed it.

The first recognizable village he met along the highway was smaller than Lumen and considerably less organized. The houses were the same style of construction, though there were a few more rumbled shacks on the skirts with bare patches of poorly tended gardens. Their owners looked likewise unkempt, all peering up at him with suspicion on their faces. It was strange, like they could not believe they had a visitor. When he went in to the village center to find the communal well to gather water for his bladder, he noticed the well was covered and there was a sign hanging next to it with a cankered brass bell.

Peering at it, Theissen started to read aloud. “To call for water, ring bell.”

He shrugged, reached up to the worn rope pulled on it. The bell clanked with a slight resonant sound.

Almost immediately a stringy man opened a door from a nearby shack no bigger than a woodshed and toddled over with a wide straddling step as if he had been sitting on a horse too long. He looked Theissen up and down first, and then without a word he undid the lock and lifted the lid to the well, revealing a bucket. Slinging that over the well pull, he dropped the bucket down.

“Um,” Theissen peered down into the well and then looked at the man, “Should I assume I am paying you for this service?”

Poking his head up nearly into his face, the man shut one eye, grinding his teeth. “Are you saying that to be funny? Of course you’ll be paying me.”

Theissen just shrugged, glancing around again. “So, I assume that no one can just lower the bucket and get water freely, right?”

The man had just started hauling up