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“So, what do you think? You’ve been with Eodwine for a long time, and I imagine your reaction will reflect those of the others, too. Were you expecting this?” Quin asked.
I expected that if Eodwine came back, Athanar would leave. If it had been just Quin he was talking to, Léof might have said it. But not to so many newcomers. Not to Nydfara. The atmosphere of the hall was too charged with tension, and Léof did not wish to accidentally start a fight. “I don’t know that you could say I’ve been with Eodwine ‘a long time,’” Léof hedged. “Less than a year. And I knew him less well than some of the others. But no, I did not expect this, nor did the idea ever occur to me. I doubt anyone else really expected it, either.”
“Then perhaps none of you knew your lord so well as you thought,” suggested Nydfara, joining the conversation for the first time.
Léof scowled at him. “Well enough,” he said. “Are you saying that you did expect it?”
“I made no such claim,” replied Nydfara lightly. “Though I do not find it unreasonable of him, if forestalling division was his goal. A hall cannot have two lords.”
“Well, no, but –” But what? Léof realized he didn’t really have a reply to that statement. Hadn’t he been trying to avoid an argument? “I didn’t say Eodwine did wrongly,” said Léof, still irritated but trying not to let it show. “Just that I wasn’t expecting it.”
~*~*~
Scyld inclined his head, allowing the young stablemaster to have the point (unless someone else wished to take it up, of course). He did not wish to appear to be a trouble-maker, after all, or a picker of needless quarrels. He also knew that there were some of Athanar’s soldiers who would agree with his words; he had seen a couple of nodding heads when he spoke. One could never have too many allies.
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