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Both jumped, for Wistala’s steps were light on the rag rugs Widow Lessup had made to save the hall floors from dragonclaw and tailscale.
“The moony girl’s got a thane-letter,” the older of the girls said. “The master insists on reading it before giving it to her.”
Lada exploded out of the library like Auron leaping up onto the egg shelf, and all three listeners instinctively flattened themselves against the wall to get out of her way.
“Beast!” she said to Wistala, clutching the open letter to her breast as she fled to her room.
Wistala went into the library, found Forstrel standing behind Rainfall in his chair.
“I think that last was intended for me, my dear,” Rainfall said.
Wistala had once seen Jessup turn his younger son over on his lap and strike him for starting a fire out of some scrap wood where the inn was being constructed, and couldn’t help but think Lada would benefit from a similar treatment, for she had no snout to tail-snap in Mother’s fashion.
Widow Lessup’s voice intruded through the door as she sent her girls off to work. Forstrel made himself look busy at the bookshelves.
“Can I get you anything, sir?” Widow Lessup asked, her dark eyes hard and angry.
“A little wine, thank you, ye’en,” Rainfall said.
“Perhaps the letter held an offer for her to return to Galahall, that we might have some peace?” Wistala said.
“A brief mention that she was often in his thoughts and that he yearned to see her again,” Rainfall said.
“He’s well consoled by his other wards,” Forstrel said.
“Rumormongering improves nothing, Yeo Lessup,” Rainfall said. “He’s still the thane, and I won’t have that kind of talk. Go save your mother a trip back upstairs, if you please.”
“Why doesn’t the thane just marry her?” Wistala asked after Forstrel left. “Wouldn’t that make his path to ownership that much shorter?”
“Ahh, but Hypatian tradition allows only one wife, so he must choose carefully. Poor Lada is small fry from our river. Hammar has cast his net far at sea looking for a greater catch.”
Wistala digested this. “Have these circumstances been explained to Lada?”
“She will not listen. She’s like a sleepwalker who will not awaken till she falls off a cliff. Let us survey the road and bridge. I won’t have Ragwrist hurling jests as he once did daggers about the state of the roads under my care.”
The dwarven couriers returned before Ragwrist arrived, and rather than another formal session in the reception hall, Rainfall invited them to a quiet dinner at the Green Dragon Inn.
While the dwarves saw to their mounts and packhorse in the barn, Rainfall and Jessup together hatched a plan to give the dwarves a fine tale to carry back to their delvings.
Rainfall and Jessup took her in the great common room of the inn, showed her the wide river-stone chimney dividing the kitchen and storerooms from the common room and two of the sleeping rooms upstairs. Rainfall told her what to do when he snapped his fingers once, and then the second time.
She smelled that one of Yari-Tab’s kittens had already installed itself as the inn feline. Ah, there it was, sleeping on the mantel of the smaller fireplace on the outer wall of the common room.
Wistala found the inn rough-hewn and bare compared with the careful workmanship of the interiors of Mossbell, but something about the thickness of the logs and stone-and-masonry walls Jessup had used suggested safety and comfort as much as the carven door-frames and window seats of Mossbell. She recognized a mug, a favorite of Rainfall’s, on a special shelf all its own behind the counter of the common room.
“The landlord’s mug, may it be refilled many times,” said Jessup, taking it down and pouring a sweet-smelling liquid from a tapped keg resting on one side of the bar.
“I see you’ve copied the old style,” Rainfall said, reclining on a lounge next to the big fireplace. A blanket covered his legs. “The first Hypatian posthouses were built much like this, when there were barbarians of doubtful behavior to consider.” He sampled the mead. “Delicious. My compliments to the innkeeper and Old Golpramp for his clover-honey.”
Jessup smiled at being called an innkeeper. He poured himself a pewter mug. “To better days between the Apple and the Whitewater, thanks to troll-killings and dragon hoards.”
Wistala felt she should point out that the coin from Tumbledown would be more appropriately called a “rat hoard,” but she let the hominids talk. Jessup’s family watched her from the doorway to the kitchen. They’d seen Wistala only at a distance until now and stood as still as the painted dragon on the wood panel leaning next to the door.
“Father, the dwarves come,” the youngest of Jessup’s boys shouted as he came in through the door.
“Very well, Wistala, up the chimney.”
Though it was wide, she had a little difficulty backing up it. Her tail end found purchase, and she braced herself with her legs.
