The White Horse Inn, Act III

[Bêthberry]

The first timid rays of the dawn's light poked into Bethberry's room. They did not find her sleeping, but quietly poised in thought and reminiscence as she watched a spider trace a path over the wooden ceiling brace. She looked up, out her window towards the eastern sky, streaked with red and covered with grey whisps of mist. She rose and took to her desk, as she did every morn, to write in a small, leather-bound book. What she wrote no one knew, although she had once found one of the maids running a finger over the leather binding. The woman had succumbed to the temptation to open the cover and read, but she had been interrupted by the return of the former Innkeeper and had dropped the book as if it had burnt her fingers. Since that discovery, Bethberry had kept the book well hidden whenever she was absent from her room. This morning her thoughts kept her long at writing.

Still, she had finally descended to the Mead Hall, humming to herself the aire "Speed bonnie boat" and sought out Aylwen, but not before she had observed from a distance the singer Hearpwine bound into the kitchen and help himself to some food and drink. That man takes altogether too many liberties, she thought to herself. If Aylwen does not speak to him after the contest about his forwardness, then I shall. Being high strung and nervous is no excuse for impertenance, no matter what charm he has. Yet she nodded civilly to him, as to the lone woman eating breakfast and the mother and child, who looked oddly sombre. Bethberry decided to watch them discretely, should they need another voice at hand.

Oscric was not long to remain the eldest veteran at the Horse. Bethberry watched as Aylwen conversed with another old man who had with grace, precision and some slowness entered the Inn and inquired, apparently, about the Innkeeper. There was something about how he held his head, cocking his ears for sounds and noises, and something too about how the cane he held seemed an extension of himself. Bethberry poured herself a mug of hot spiced cider, took a small seed cake, and then sat to one side to watch him. In the background she could hear Frodides working in the kitchen and her daughter flirting with the patrons. That girl was coddled too much, Bethberry thought. Yet what child has not been, since the War?