Maiden Wreath

Part 10

"It is not your decision!" Hagen reached me an hour later than I had expected. I was just finishing feeding our six pigs. It was so hot all I could think of was swimming - I couldn't even imagine what they must have felt with no ways of getting out of their little box. 

"You were promised to him years ago! He comes from a good family and thus it is important we create a good alliance with them..." Hagen continued, ramping between the two ends of the fence.

I stared at him blankly. What on earth was he talking about?

"What is not my decision?" I asked him, feeding the last turnips from my apron to the pigs and combed the dirt off the cloth before pushing my long braid on my aching back.

"To break off the engagement! Haven't you paid any attention?!?"

I burst laughing. "What on earth gave you that idea?"

His sly hints towards his midsection lead me to the right direction.

I sighed. "Oh!"

"Yes! Oh!"

"But I didn't break off the engagement."  I tried to force myself serious, but this was too laughable. "Who told you that?"

"I assumed that, yes and figured it is the best time to remind you your place in this household, among the rest of the truth that the breaking off of the engagement will be under no discussion."

The sun does come out again as they say! I had to admit – I was impressed! The man had lasted longer than any other candidates for my hand. I let out one very unladylike snort, thinking he might just be decent enough to marry to, before catching Hagen's fast moving hands and kissing them. "I'm clad to hear that."

I collected the pails with the chicken feed, when he crossed my road to ask one very curious "why".

"He didn't tell you, what earned him his little..." I routed, letting the pails down again and gazing him shyly. He had learned to expect anything from my engagements and thus feared anything that looked even close of breaking them up. I didn't blame him for such fears.

"No."

"Then you saw the bruises on Magnus' hurt ribs?" I continued slowly, but his even more puzzled look betrayed his ignorance on the matter. "Then how do you know, I hit him?"

"There is a nice view from the hayloft' hatch." His eyes glinted. "I came to wake you up."

Why did we have to make it on a higher hillside? I know the view from there was spectacular, but that hardly helped keeping any secrets.

"You promised to kill him if you find me with his child, remember?" I tried a fast tactic to lead his attention away. Sometimes it worked, but not this time.

"Apparently what I saw from there, I have no ground for such worries." He grinned openly. "Now what earned him his little mischief?"

"That would be telling now, wouldn't it?" Hagen didn't like the answer and he was ready to jump to his next argument to hear the reason, but I slide away like an eel. "I think he'd rather preferred forgetting it." I tried chatting him up. "I can assure you - this will not affect my promise of marring him."

He was not a man, who liked to be left out of something, but he agreed, from his male point of view, that he'd rather keep it secret too. He shook his head in misbelieve and let me back to my work.

"Just hope he'll recover before the wedding..." he wondered, mumbling the words in his thick beard and scratching his scull.

Dalek didn't come on the evening's feast in the Great Hall. That disappointed me a little, because I was serving there that evening. It was a small thing to do while listening all about the amazing stories of where they'd been and what monsters they'd kill.