((sloppily penned in Lumi-kieli))
I almost took up the pen to write in my dairy the night before last, but I was in no mood to write. I might have torn pages. How angry I was! I am more calm now and hopefully things will be quiet again. But I have not seen B since, and I am worrying about him, and about if he is upset with me.
Things had been going well with him. He was not upset when he learned of my training from Inurawen, and was glad to see that the room I am renting now is well protected (there is always a guard posted on the entrance to the courtyard that it is entered from), and even did not mind when I asked him about not calling me Tina. (And I did not have to call him Kivi to do it.) We even made plans for the day before yesterday for us to go for a walk together, since we can never talk more than a few minutes before we are interrupted. I wore the nice dress that Biddy made me, and bought some tarts filled with something called strawberry jam, and we went walking on the High Stair and found a lovely little place to sit. We talked and ate, and things were very pleasant. He told me that the place he comes from is so hot that one can die from the heat as quickly, maybe, as Lumi-mâ can kill a person from cold, and we talked about many other things. Maybe about him taking me to see a place a day or two away called Shire.
But then quite soon after we sat down, we were interrupted yet again by one of Furley's hirelings delivering another feather. It makes me so angry that no one will tell me what the feather means! Except Furley, but he lies so much that I do not know if he even knows he is doing it. Why will B not explain to me what is going on? But it was clearly a threat based on how he reacted. Why do all these hirelings believe all Furley's lies, even when they are so absurdly obvious? Even the Watch seems to. It cannot be, though it seems like it must be, that most of the Bree-väki are gullible and foolish. Perhaps they have never encountered lies before, so they have no defenses against them. No, that is crazy. I am the stranger here. I must be the one who is not understanding something about Bree-väki customs or the etelä-kieli or something.
And so our time together, the first we have been able to secure since we began to woo, for which I got dressed up and spent pennies and took a day of not working, was ruined. I tried to reason with Furley about this. It seems so simple to me. He wants B to do some job that B will not do. Why does he keep pursuing him? He has so many hirelings, and Bree is full of people, many of whom would take another job if given it. If B will not do it, why not just learn that no means no, and find someone else? I tried to say so. I want no argument, no threat, nothing at all but for him to just leave us out of this business.
And that is where it became so infuriating that I ended up storming out of the inn. I had to be very contrite the next day and apologize to Mister Butterbur and spend all day making soup (which I only sold two bowls of) using food I bought myself (my purse is starting to get slim again, just when I am now paying rent), just so he would not be cross at me and maybe I might lose my job. The thing that angered me so is that I would say very straightforward and simple and reasonable things, like that I am asking nothing more than that he leave us alone, and he would then repeat back something totally different, making it sound that I was making threats, even that I hate him or his people or something. And everyone ignored what I said and believed his obvious lies about what I had just said right in front of them.
((a large part of the page has been carefully and thoroughly crossed out))
And maybe I will try to talk to Mister Dem and Mister Egfor as well. I am glad that they try to help me, and defend me, but it seemed like they also believed I was making threats or full of hate. And if they are making veiled threats behind me on my behalf, this lends aid to those trying to say I am the one making unreasonable demands. They do it for good reasons but it may be working against me. But perhaps I will not speak to them. The whole matter might be ending so it might not be worth it. I mean to ask B to just ignore the feathers and not let them rouse his anger, as he has asked me to. Besides, Dem and Egfor are only just promised to one another, and that is a joyful thing I should not interrupt! It was bad enough that all this happened on the same night and prevented any proper celebration. I wonder what marrying is like in Bree.
Perhaps it is good that this room I am renting is safe. I was fortunate to get it. It is much smaller than the room in the Pony that Fordhandir let me use, and because it is tucked into the roof, it does not have walls and a roof separately but the roof simply slopes to the floor, so it is mostly shaped as a triangle. The man who owns it (he calls it a 'garrett') says that I am not allowed ever to bring food into it or cook. And there is no fire. Most Bree-väki find it much too cold, too small, find the shape too limiting, and need to be able to have food. But for me, it is still larger than the corner of the ghoati that was mine, a sloped roof meeting the floor is normal to me, and of course it is never cold to me here. And since I work in a pub and inn, I can get hot food there. So for only four silver pennies each moon I get a room that has a window that looks out onto a green, right near the market but around a corner so most people walk right by it and never see it, and the whole green is guarded constantly (I think the lower rooms must be costly and wealthy people live there). Some nights Koira and I stay outside in the green. There was a larger room next to it that is similar otherwise which I could have had for seven silver pennies a moon. I had thought maybe I would like it better, and maybe one day I can switch to it; but while my pouch is still more full than I expected, it is not as full as to be frivolous. (At least if you do not count that gold penny Deorla gave me, which I am hiding. I am thinking of maybe giving it away. If it comes from a murderer associated with someone like Furley, it is probably tainted. If I give it to someone who can use it to help people in need, that will make things right. I need to find if there is someone trustworthy who uses pennies to help people.)
I wonder where B lives and if it is safe. I am trying not to worry about him. He has much business and it is not unusual for me not to see him for a day or two. But I have not seen him since the feather was delivered and he stormed off and confronted Furley. If the threat was acted on, is that not just how it would happen, that I would just not see him? No, he must be well and just busy with setting things right. I will be seeing him soon, and all this will be behind us.
