Maggie led Thomas to the corner table where she’d been working on her wedding dress. He stopped at the taps and took a large tin beer mug, then filled it up with rum and set it on the grate at the edge of the fire. “A man who has been driving a cart all day in the cold needs something warm to wrap his hands around,” Thomas chided her. “You should know that.” Maggie looked at the full mug. It seemed her uncle planned to be drunk in an hour.
Then he came and sat across from her, folded his hands, and looked her in the eyes. She knew that he was no more than fifty-five, but he looked older. His face had grown leathery from years on the road, and his stomach was going to fat.
“Well, Maggie,” Thomas said. “I’ve been driving for over a week to reach you, and-och-to tell the truth, I’m not sure you’re going to like what I have to say. So it’s begging you that I am, to not take it too hard.” Thomas reached into his shirt, pulled out a yellowed envelope. “This here is a paper that your mother made out on her deathbed. She was always harping on me to take more responsibility for the family, sending me letters and whatnot. So she wrote out her will and had John Mahoney witness it, then had it sent by post. By the time the letter found me, it was months after your dear mother’s death. But in this letter, she acknowledged me as your only living kin, and made me your legal guardian. So … the burden of seeing that you’re properly cared for falls to me, don’t you know?”
She sat back as suddenly as if he’d dealt her a physical blow. She gaped at him, then the words tumbled from her mouth. “Mother has been dead for years-and in all of this time, I’ve not had so much as a letter from you!” But now I have an inn, she thought, so you’ve come to make yourself my legal guardian.
Thomas held up his hands, as if to ward away the accusation in her voice. “I know, I know … and I’m dreadful sorry. But I’ve lived the life of a wandering man, don’t you know, and I couldn’t have cared for you properly on the road.”
Maggie looked over her shoulder. Several townsfolk had slipped into the inn, and all of them had listening ears. They were gathering at nearby tables like a flock of geese to a fistful of grain.
“Anyway,” Thomas said, “your mother appointed me to be your legal guardian until the age of eighteen. It’s all signed by the bailiff, proper and legal.” He held the paper out for her inspection.
Maggie gaped at him, astonished. “Now don’t take it so hard, darlin’,” Thomas offered. “It’s true that I didn’t split my britches running to your side after your mother’s death, but you were fourteen, old enough to work, and there’s nothing that will build character in a person faster than having to look after one’s self. Besides, did you ever know a teenager who wanted an obnoxious old man like me hovering over her shoulder? Oh, I’ve worried long nights about you, worried that you might make wrong decisions or worried that you might take sick, and I exchanged letters with your old employer, John Mahoney, on the subject. But I knew you were in the hands of a good, saintly person, and you didn’t need me to meddle in your affairs. But now things are different.”
Maggie wondered what he meant, when he said that now things were “different.” Were things different because she was wealthy, or was he planning to meddle in her affairs? Or maybe both.
Thomas leaned back, smiled a charming smile, as if considering what to say next. “By God, you’re a beautiful young woman, Maggie,” Thomas said, condescending, and she remembered an old saying: compliments are so cheap to give that only a fool would hold one precious. “I can tell that John Mahoney cared for you well. He said in his will that you were a special kind of person, one who doesn’t let life just happen to her, but one who would likely go out and make a good life in spite of what happens. He had faith in you.” More compliments, she mused.
He glanced at the wedding dress spread out on the table. “So, when are you planning to marry?”
“Our wedding is set for Saturday,” Maggie said, not sure what else to answer.
Thomas frowned. “And when did this Gallen O’Day propose to you?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“The day John Mahoney died?” Thomas looked skeptical.
Maggie nodded.
Thomas gazed at his hands, cleared his throat. “It seems that he decided to fall in love with you at a very convenient time-just when you were ready to come into a nice, juicy inheritance.”
Maggie said nothing at first, couldn’t quite think of what she should say for there was too much to be said all in one breath. Neither she nor Gallen could have known anything about the inheritance, and there were so many things that Thomas didn’t know. She’d spent time on other worlds, risked her life fighting the dronon to save rascals like her uncle.
“It’s not like that at all!” Maggie said. “You-and you don’t care about anything but my money! In all these years, you’ve never so much as written me a letter-but now that I have an inheritance you come banging on my door! I should sic the sheriff on you, you nasty old lecherous thief!” She threatened him with the law, suspecting that she couldn’t legally get rid of him, but willing to give it a jolly try. Still, she wanted to frighten him.
She saw a flicker in Thomas’s gray eyes, a slight flaring of the nostrils as he drew breath. She knew she’d struck him right. “You plan on moving in here, don’t you?” Maggie said. “You plan on coming to the inn to lord it over me until I’m old enough to toss you out on your ass.”
“That’s not a fair assessment,” Thomas said calmly. “I’m well-known as a minstrel. Many a satirist my age takes up a winter residence in a hostel, and we enrich the landlords with our talents. I’ll earn more for you than my keep.”
“So you admit it: you plan to live here-for free-while you lord it over me? My mother wouldn’t have made you my guardian. You must have forged that letter.”
Thomas licked his lips, stared at her angrily. Obviously, he had not expected her to see through his ruse, and he hated having it discussed openly, here in front of everyone. He called himself a “satirist,” but he was a professional backbiter. He was used to bullying others, pouncing from behind like a wolf. He’d tried to put her on the defensive, keep her mind occupied. Now she was turning to attack. “I’ll thank you, Uncle Thomas,” Maggie said, struggling to sound calm, “to take your wagon and ride out of my life forever!”
“I don’t begrudge you your hard feelings,” Thomas said. “If you were a filly that I’d left in the pasture for three years, I expect that I would have to use a strong hand to break you. And, alas, that is what I intend to do now.
“Maggie, darlin’,” he said, “whether these magnificent stories told on your beau are true or not, your name-our family name-is mixed up in this scandal. I’ve heard you spoken ill of fifty miles away. You’re running about, making mad resolutions that will most likely ruin your life, and I have to step in. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to marry this Gallen O’Day.”
Thomas pulled at the wedding dress on the table, as if he’d take it, and Maggie grabbed it from his hands.
“There will be no wedding,” Thomas said, slamming his fist on the table. “How could there be? What kind of priest would perform a marriage for a girl so young?” His tone made it sound as if he were naming her a dreamer or a liar. It was true that she was young to marry.
“Gallen’s cousin-Father Brian of An Cochan!” Maggie said, feeling a thrill of victory by being able to name such a priest.
“Father Brian, eh? Not without my permission, I’ll wager.” Thomas glared at her coldly, and Maggie realized he’d just tricked her into telling the priest’s name.
He reached into his purse, and tossed a shilling to a boy of fourteen. “You’re a bright-looking lad. You look as if you know where the cat’s hid its kittens. I want you to carry a message for me: run to An Cochan and tell Father Brian that Maggie’s wedding will have to be called off for the time being. Tell him I’ll arrange a suitable donation to the church in order to … compensate him for his trouble.”