Innkeeper's Song

LAL

What does it matter? From the moment we saw him on the threshold, we all knew what was going to happen. Well, no, not everything—at least I didn’t. If I had known? I can’t say. Whether or not it was I invited him in, the real choice was Nyateneri’s. Nyateneri knows that.

Yes, I was drunk—though not nearly drunk enough, by my reckoning—and yes, I was adrift between old, old aches and furies, as I had not been for a very long time. But I do not love out of pain, and I do not desire out of need or fear, no matter how far off my course I am. What went to my heart about Rosseth that midnight—short, square, tangle-headed Rosseth the stable boy—was the way he looked at Nyateneri, somehow seeing her real injury through all the innocently selfish dreams that clouded his eyes. No one has ever looked at me like that; no one ever will; nor do I want to be seen so now, truly, it’s far too late. But just then, just then.

I hope I was the one. I hope it was I who said it: “Oh, come in, Rosseth, come in and welcome.” But I honestly don’t remember.