[Envinyatar]

He found the bed frame in the old shed at the back of the stables. It was dusty and the wood was nicked from having been moved about so often, but it was serviceable. The latticework of rope to hold up the mattress had been chewed through by the mice, and would have to be repaired. The mattress was a more difficult task, until he remembered that there were several stored in the Inn attic. All fairly intact at the seams, but sorely in need of a new stuffing of fresh hay.

Ruby had come over to give a quick sweep and dusting to the sitting room. And it was she who ordered a pair of her admirers in the Inn to drag two mattresses down the back stairway to the stable. ‘What do you need two of them for,’ she asked, as Derufin gave her instructions. ‘Is he such a little lordling that he’ll be wanting the double comfort?’

‘One’s for my assistant, to take into the loft,’ he returned, pulling the ropes tightly through the holes in the frame and knotting them off. He glanced up in time to see Ruby raise her eyebrows at the word ‘assistant’. ‘Hmmmph!’ she snorted at his use of the term. ‘That flighty looking Elf? You’ll be lucky she doesn’t run off on you and leave you wondering where she’s got off to! Something odd about that one.’

‘Oh Ruby, you might have been saying the same things months ago about me.’ He looked up at her and grinned. ‘And come to think of it, I’ll just bet you did!’ The Hobbit blushed and exiting his rooms turned her attention to dumping the old straw filling out in the stable yard, giving the ticking a sturdy shake or two, and stuffing the mattress with fresh, sweet smelling hay.

Derufin helped her carry the plumped mattress into the room and deposit it on the latticework. Together they made up the bed, hauled an old standing closet in to put near the door, and moved the small desk and chair to the wall by the window. As a last thought, he hammered a long nail into the beam at the head of the bed, and hung a candle lantern on it.

‘That should do,’ she said casting a critical eye about the small room. She eyed the second mattress left propped against the end horse stall. ‘Come on then. I’ll give you a hand with it. Go shake the old hay out and shake the dust off the covering. I’ll stuff it with new straw and you can haul it up to the loft for her.’

It was getting dark by the time they were through with their housekeeping chores. The stars shone out brightly against the clear, black sky. The Inn yard was quiet as they crossed it, except for the occasional croak of a lone frog in the small pond nearby. Derufin’s stomach starting growling about halfway to the back kitchen door.

‘You forgot to eat, didn’t you?’ Ruby stifled a giggle and motioned him into the low lit kitchen. Cook had retired for the night, in anticipation of her early morning baking routine. ‘Quiet now!’ she whispered. ‘I’ll find you a bowl of the chicken stew and a couple of biscuits to fill in the corners. The peas are gone. You’ll just have to take my word for it that they were very tasty.’ She bustled about the kitchen fixing a tray for him. ‘Go on out to the Common Room, I’ll bring it out when it’s warmed up a bit.’

Derufin hied himself through the door as she shooed him out. Stopping behind the bar, he poured himself a pint of nut brown ale, and plopped himself down contentedly on a chair in front of the small fire, his feet propped comfortably on the hearth.