It had been another rainy day. Not cold exactly, but the sort of day it was good to be helping out in the kitchen rather than the fields. And that is what both Bronaa and Ethel had been doing until recently.
Each had their respective work to do, each had their additional tasks, and then there was helping around the house and tavern in general. And there was bow practice, only not too much that day that they had run to the barn with their accompanying dogs to take shelter from a small deluge.
“So how is the story telling coming along?” Ethel asked, collapsing into a pile of hay that had been stacked on one side of the wooden floor.
Bronaa sank to her knees nearby, trying to wipe the rain from her face with a dryer part of her cloak, then chuckling at her failure. “I am enjoying the learning and the telling. And Averel Thane is very helpful. I finally feel like I can be of use.”
Leaning forward, Ethel batted her friend playfully on the arm. “He will make a bard of you yet. Your voice is to be your main weapon, in keeping our history alive and our people inspired.”
Bronaa rubbed her dog, Toothless, behind his ears and grinned. “Perhaps. Sometimes I feel a bit giddy with it. I am only a peasant after all, and likely to be unwelcome in many a Hall.”
Patting the hay nearest Toothless, Ethel encouraged her own dog, Herne, to come and play. “We are all but ordinary folk, eh? But that doesn’t mean extraordinary things can’t happen to us.”
“Like your mama training to take over from Lady Northgyth?”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“My mama says yours is being trained to take over from Lady Northgyth, as a healer, and seer, sort of know where things are and..”
Ethel had found a short length or rope and begun a tug of war with Herne, the dog growling and yelping in play. Toothless sat up in the straw, then trotted over to join in. Soon girls and dogs were covered in hay, and laughing like they hadn't for some time.
“Remember what it was like to be young, Bronaa?”
Both sat up rather solemnly.
“Remember the mead?” Bronaa replied.
Both laughed again. Then they settled down, the patter of the continuing rain having a calming effect as they spent a moment just listening. Just remembering.
“Sometimes it feels as if we are growing up too fast.” Bronaa ran a hand slowly over the floor, with her hound following the movement with his eyes. “Soon we will both be full grown. And then what? I had hoped to make a good match. Well I still do, but I also want something I can give to our folk. Like our Riders protect us, our healers, your mama, make our injuries mend fast, our farmers and cooks feed us……”
“My mama isn’t that well,” Ethel interjected. “We don’t quite know what to do at the moment, but papa and I will do all we can. That’s for certain.”
With a gasp, then a comforting hand laid on her friend’s shoulder, Bronaa nodded in understanding. “I thought she hadn’t been quite herself lately. I hope she gets better soon.”
Ethel smiled a little dryly. “I am sure she will. It’s just that I am not really able to help. I am not a healer at heart. Oh, I am keen to know how to staunch the flow of blood, or strap a broken limb, but herbal work… it isn’t me.”
Bronaa lowered her head, knowing the death of the young guard Ethel had tried to save, had gone hard on her friend. She had done her best, but some wounds were too grievous for any aid.
Changing the subject, Ethel asked “So where has Brynleigh gone? Did that stable boy, Gyric, tell you why she isn’t here, but Jack is?”
Bronaa lay back against the wall a moment. She had found it a bit odd herself, but wasn’t one to pry overly in other’s business… unlike her mother. “Gyric, aye, I remember his name now. Well he didn’t say anything other than he was to care for the horses.”
“Quite a job for one lad! So it was Brynleigh who hired him?”
“He didn’t say.”
“So all he said was “Brynleigh is not here”?
“Ethel… please… I don’t know. Now you mention it, it does seem a bit out of character for what I know of her. I would say, well… she has been looking rather well in herself lately and may have gone into Edoras to purchase a new dress, or cloak?”
“It just seems well… leaving Jack here seems odd.”
Wraping her cloak tightly about her, Bronaa nodded in agreement. She shivered slightly, then broached a subject that had played on her mind the past couple of days.
“You said that Yllfa isn’t that well. Is that why she is leaving?”
Ethel’s brow furrowed immediately. “Who told you that?”
