The White Horse Inn, Act III

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

"What I've been up to?" repeated Saeryn, returning to a comfortable tailor's seat on the bench and cupping her small hands around her tea. She thought for a moment, comfortably lazing in the late afternoon light as her companions dug into the meal she had brought them. The shadows were beginning to fall heavily and the lamps had not yet been lit. Her cheeks glowed pink in the flickering firelight.

"After you and your daughter took leave with the lady Giedd, I took my own leave of Æòel, who perhaps you've not seen?" Saeryn queried, noting Eodwine's gentle shake of his head, "and Bethberry, giving them a time for talk. Perhaps Æòel will accept my invitation to stay as my guest. Gudryn is a dove, but I would never dream to impose on your family, nor on Mistress Bethberry for female companionship. I left the lass to decide. Should she accept, she knows where I can be found.

"After that, I searched my dear brother's room for signs of his whereabouts, like any good inquisative sister would." Saeryn winked at the men, showing her jest. "Being entirely unable to find Degas, I looked out the window, considering a ride. Yes, I know." she interrupted Eodwine's start. "I know I'm still bandaged and shouldn't be on a horse until my bruises are less tender... But then I noted the clouds rolling across the fields outside the city and decided that I'd rather not get caught out of doors when the rain began. Only the rain threatened all afternoon without a hint of real wet. The wind picked up as the warmth disappeared... but no rain."

She sighed wistfully, dreaming of the wind in her hair as she rode bareback across the open plains, heavy droplets staining her mare's brown coat with spots of black... No time soon, she reprimanded herself.

"And so," she continued, watching her audience for signs of boredom and seeing none, "I decided that it would be the perfect day for random tasks. So I cloistered myself in my room, mended clothes, put away my things, and frittered a few hours away doing small tasks. By mid-afternoon, I assure you, I was bored and my muscles were stiff and aching with the cold and disuse... so I went to the kitchens where it is so wonderfully warm... and I begged leave to help make supper. I chopped the very carrots and potatoes in that stew, if you'll believe me."

She smiled, content as a child satisfactorily completing her chores. Eodwine did not miss the nearly hidden question in her eyes and hid a smile.

"And the vegetables are most excellent, m'dear. The perfect size, and cooked tenderly as any master could do." She almost managed to hide her delight at the compliment and he almost managed to hide his delight at the child that still showed through her grown up facade. She mistook his smile, and probed some herself.

"And your day, Master Eodwine? I heard rumours of an errand for the King?"

[littlemanpoet]

"They turned out to be untrue," said Eodwine matter of factly. "The messenger seems to have guessed wrong."

"But you were summoned?" Falco asked. "That's the word hereabouts."

"Yes, I was summoned." Eodwine took a drink while Saeryn and Falco waited for him to continue.

Eodwine glanced at each of them, their eyes big with anticipation waiting for him to spill his news. He was not teasing, actually. No, far from it, though it must seem that way to him. Rather, he was sore put to it to find words to carry his thought.

"The King has ended my service to him," he said finally with a sigh. Now their eyes were big as saucers.

"Whatever for?" Falco managed, finding his voice.

"Seems I've been set out to pasture, as it were." Eodwine looked at Saeryn. "Well?" he grinned. "You're obviously full of a question waiting to be asked. Out with it."

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

"Well..." began Saeryn, considering for a moment the polite art of dancing around a subject gracefully and deciding quickly that it would be an unwarranted waste of time. Perhaps another conversation would be better for a duel of words, but he'd said 'out with it', and that called for little hesitation. She laughed as she realized that she'd been hesitating, and spoke up. "You left with the lady Giedd," she intoned with a smile and a gentle teasing lilt to her voice. "Mayhap you can foresee the question without the inconvenience of bothering to state it?"

Saeryn palmed a soft roll, still warm, and began to tear it into small pieces, tossing them in the air in a most unlady-like fashion and catching them in her mouth. She leaned back as far as she could before wincing back into a better posture and glanced at Eodwine, waiting for response. She was not certain why Falco did not rise to the occasion, but she attached his mysterious silence to the ferver with which he devoured his second dinner. Finishing her first roll, she snaked her hand between his mug and bowl, confiscating one of his. She met his glare with a wide grin.

"Come now, Master Eodwine," she prodded the laughing man. "A man free of duty to the crown, with a new daughter and out for the day with a lovely lass of the town? Whyever did you return to us?"

[littlemanpoet]

Eodwine regarded Saeryn with amusement. "Right to the point indeed," he murmured, then quaffed his ale.

"I wager," said Falco, finding a spare moment between hobbit-sized mouthfuls (which are big) of food, "you've forgotten what to do, or to say to the lass. If I were you-"

"You are not me, friend Falco Buffoon, and therefore I will have my say in the matter. Little you know." He cuffed the hobbit on the pate in good smithly fashion.

"Ack! I'm no Garreth, arunning off at the mouth to be treated so!"

"Eat your second supper, hobbit." Eodwine turned back to Saeryn, whose smirk was at whose expense he was not quite sure. "The Lady Giedd is no lass, but a woman of good standing among the folk of Edoras. I will admit that she is no hardship upon the eye. But truth be told, I was at the Golden Hall the better part of the afternoon and only arrived at the lady's house not two hours ago." Falco had swallowed, and had begun to silently imitate Eodwine behind his back, much to the amusement of Saeryn, who did an admirable job of keeping a straight face.
"I told her my news," Eodwine continued, "and left Gudryn with her for now. What words passed between us I am not free to say, out of due honor to the lady. Any good Ealderman would say no different. So you shall have to ask her yourself, maybe later this evening if she comes this way with Gudryn. But I have not seen your brother Degas in a long while. What has become of him?"

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

"Well answered." Saeryn responded, not a hint of disappointment evident. "Of Degas..." she sighed and rolled her eyes. "He's just that way. He values his freedom, my brother, I'll give him that. I'm sure he had many good reasons for leaving before dawn without a word even to me, all of which he'll surely explain abashed when I tell him he ought to when he gets back... But he'll certainly return... he's left all of his things.

"Falco, now that you've finished your own meal, what say you to a tale? How did your day transpire?" She smiled inwardly to see his antics cut short as Eodwine's gaze turned to him. He glanced at his outstretched hand and pulled it back quickly as though it had not just been snaking silently through the air to about an inch from Eodwine's head. She laughed quietly, more of a smile, and looked at him expectantly.

[Bêthberry]

"A tale, by my word, a tale," enjoined a voice, neither sharp nor shallow, and Eodwine, Saeryn and Falco looked up behind them to see Ruthven and Bethberry approach.

"You're late," observed Falco, "we've all supped and then some. I won't be tellin' any tales to those on empty stomachs."

A ripple of laughter burst out from the Innkeeper while the older woman cackled. "And will ye be thinkin' we won't be applaudin' your efforts, our stomachs bigger than our fancies?" inguired Ruthven, who was always ready for a little give and take--although sometimes it was take and give--with the halfling.

"Pfft, as if I worried over what the audience thinks," intoned Falco solemnly.

"It's all appetite, as you will," replied Ruthven, "and sometimes words make a savoury sauce to coat the roasted bird."

"No one's being roasted here," interrupted Falco.

"Now, now," interjected Eodwine. "Let's save the flaming desserts until after our dinners have settled a bit. Please, Bethberry, Ruthven, won't you join our table?"

Bethberry nodded appreciatively at Eodwine's fine manners. She wondered why he was here and not away on his errand for the king, but she was too well mannered to ask directly what caused the change in his plans. The woman Giedd came to mind, but she thought better of asking directly about her.

"We were afraid a hungry halfling such as yourself wouldn't leave anything for us, so we ate else," commented Ruthven.

"Ruthven, for shame! We thought nothing of it and don't you start in so soon after bread has been broken with your teasing ways." Bethberry turned towards Saeryn.

"We had dinner at Ruthven's with the young girl Æòelhild, who for some reason is too shy and skittish to want to be seen by others. She's returned with us now, but gone to the back room to sort some linen, for she was anxious, she said, to earn her keep."

"What! Ruthven a cook? And did she serve rewarmed mutton with day old bread?" asked Falco, his eyes wide with wonder and just a glint of merriment in them.

Saeryn could not hold back at this possibility. "Falco, you are simply attempting to change the subject. It was a tale I asked for, not a roast. Please now, regale us."

Bethberry and Ruthven pulled two chairs up to the large table and poured themselves some water.

"I second that request," said Bethberry. "Play on, McTeller, please," she remarked to the halfling, noting at the same time the slight furrow in Eodwine's brow.

[littlemanpoet]

"Well then," said Falco, pushing out his chest like a robin to make room for all he had eaten. "While Eodwine was busy getting stripped of his job by the King-"

"Leave me out of your tale, if you don't mind, Mr. Boffin," said Eodwine, noticing Bethberry's surprised look.

"Anyways, to pass the afternoon I took a walk down south and east a ways till I found myself outside the town. The weather was fine as it hadn't snapped a chill yet, and the clouds rode high up in the sky.

"I comes to this big old sycamore and what do I see but an toothless old man kicking at the trunk with his boots, and scolding and yammering at it like it had done wrong by him.

"Well, I stopped and watched this go on for a few moments, and lo and behold, it turns out this man's telling the tree it has no business following him about, and would it leave him in peace. I figured he had to be daft, and continued on my way.

"I walked for a while longer and came as far as a stream from the mountains that went under a small bridge, and had a drink and took a wee bit of a snooze. When I woke up it looked like the sun had moved not more than an hour, and I turned around and headed back to town.

"Well, sooner than I expected, here's this old man even angrier than before, still kicking at the tree, yelling at it not to follow him. Well, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I asked him why he was yelling at the tree.

"He gave me a queer look and said, 'If'n anybody could tell why I'm mad it should be you! Don't you think I remember you comin' by and stoppin' to watch me yell at this here tree?'

"'I hadn't thought you'd noticed,' I said.

"'I did,' he announced, 'only that was back there under that lee of the mountain, and you're watchin' me here instead.'

"Sure enough, I looked at where he was pointing, and I'd give away my best Old Toby if I couldn't see that he was right. I said, 'So this here tree's a-followin' you?'

"'That it is,' he said, and resumed kicking and yelling. That's my tale. There's a sycamore what follows this old man around, and I saw him and it just east of town."

Falco took a long pull at his ale mug.