Robert the carpenter was a man who wore his years like well-fitted clothes; comfortably, without pretence. His hands were scarred from decades of work, his face weathered by time and labour, his eyes sharp with the particular intelligence of someone who had learned more from observation than from books.
He stood at the edge of their table, a tankard in his hand, his expression unreadable.
"Your Grace," he said. "Mind if I join you?"
Frederick glanced at Lydia, then back at Robert. "Please."
Robert pulled over a chair from a nearby table, not asking permission, simply assuming it would be granted, and settled into it with the ease of a man who had spent fifty years learning how to be comfortable in any situation.
"I've been watching you," he said, without preamble.
"So I've noticed."
"Not just tonight. These past weeks. The fair, the forge, walking through the village like you're trying to remember which way is up." Robert took a sip from his tankard. "It's been... educational."
"I'm glad I could provide entertainment."
"It's not entertainment. Or not just entertainment." Robert set down his tankard and leaned forward. "I've lived in this village my whole life. Sixty-two years. I've seen lords come and go; your grandfather, your father, now you. I've watched the way nobility treats common folk, the casual cruelty that comes from never having to see us as real."
"I'm not…"
"Let me finish." Robert's voice was firm but not hostile. "I've also seen the exceptions. The rare ones who actually look at us, who see us as people instead of furniture. They're few and far between, but they exist."
"And you're trying to determine which category I fall into."
"I'm trying to determine if you're worth the risk." Robert's eyes were steady. "Lydia's not entertainment. She's not a diversion for a bored aristocrat. She's one of us; she has been since she was seven years old, standing at her parents' grave, too small to understand what she'd lost."
Lydia felt her throat tighten.
"I was friends with her father," Robert continued. "Best man I ever knew; honest, hardworking, with a heart bigger than his common sense. I was there when he met Eleanor. I watched him court her, marry her, build a life with her. I was there when they died, too."
"I didn't know," Frederick said quietly.
"Why would you? You were locked away in your manor, learning Latin and proper deportment." Robert's voice wasn't accusatory, just matter-of-fact. "Different worlds, yours and ours. Always have been."
"They don't have to stay that way."
"Don't they?" Robert leaned back, studying him. "Let me tell you something about those different worlds, Your Grace. In your world, marriage is a transaction. Properties merged, bloodlinespreserved, alliances formed. Love is a pleasant bonus if it happens, but nobody expects it."
"I'm aware."
"In our world, marriage is different. It's choosing someone to stand beside you when the work is hard and the money is short, and the future is uncertain. It's building a life from nothing but effort and hope." Robert's voice softened. "It's waking up every morning next to someone you actually want to be with, not someone your family picked out of a ledger."
"That's what I want," Frederick said. "That's exactly what I want."
"Is it? Because what you want and what you're willing to sacrifice are different things." Robert's eyes were shrewd. "Right now, you're in the flush of new love. Everything feels possible, every obstacle seems surmountable. But what about five years from now? Ten? Twenty? When your aunt has made your life miserable, when society has closed its doors, when your own children are whispered about in the streets?"
"Then I'll still choose her."
"Easy to say now."
"It's not easy to say. Nothing about this is easy." Frederick’s voice hardened. "Do you think I don't know what I'm risking? Do you think I haven't counted the cost, weighed it against every expectation I've ever been taught to value?"
"Have you?"
"Yes." Frederick met Robert's gaze directly. "I've spent my entire life doing what I was supposed to do. Being what I was supposed to be. And you know what it got me? An empty house and an empty heart and the certainty that I would die alone without ever having actually lived."
The room had gone quiet again. People were listening, pretending not to, nursing their drinks and studying their hands, but definitely listening.
