''Bree''

I have now been in Bree-land long enough to form some fair and settled opinions regarding the folk of these parts.  I have previously scribed some impressions of the Hobbit-people, strange and new as they were to me, but have been in no especial hurry to likewise record my observations of the Men (the “Big Folk”, as hobbits oft refer to us) that live around and alongside them.

Eddies began to swirl in the pit of her stomach as Feorhwen sped through the market gate towards the one place she had vowed never to return. More than two years ago, when she had first found herself adrift in this land, the sight of the inn with the rearing horse painted on its signboard was like sunlight after a storm.  Now it only filled her with a sickening sense of dread.

It had been some time since Isulril had sent Lord Hathostaran on his way. She knew him to be gone, for her sources did not lie. It was a relief to have the man out of the town, out of the way and out of her life. For good, she hoped.

She knew nothing of suffering. She was excessively rich, for a woman of Bree. She dressed too lavishly. She relied too much on her moods and was bad at hiding them. She should live on the streets with the working women, selling herself for coin.

All of these thoughts came to her in the days following the events of the previous days. They were not originally her own thoughts, but rather, things that had been said to and of her over the past week, and even before that. Flashes of what had happened over those days came to her, and she clenched the fist of her uninjured hand.

The crowd clapped uproariously. Usually the approbation of the crowd was more subtle, dimmed down by the soft sounds of the harp. But tonight, at the Harpers Court, the harpists were not there at all. Instead, it was a band of merry fiddle players, playing the score for a small opera, which was performed by a few women in rather profuse costume makeup, as well as some gentlemen in excessive robes.

I met her again that day, the woman with the glinting eyes, the combative woman. She pushed me with a booted foot into the pond outside my house. I still do not know how she had arrived there, having never given her my address.

As the water overcame me, I remember feeling rage and resentment toward her. She had ruined my neat little bandage, had jeopardized my injured hand, and had wounded my pride. But she is like that, is this woman.

The day was temperate, but the wind blew hard, and it looked like it was going to rain, much like it had in the past few days. Isulril did not like the idea of a downpour, so she worked quickly at her tasks, trimming various branches and stems from the plants in the garden of the hospital. She had been working here nearly a month now, but what a tumultuous month it was indeed.

It had been another evening in the company of the physician, after her work in the garden. She had found it difficult to extract from herself her reasons for staying, long after her work had finished. It was becoming something of a companionable habit for her. She felt some guilt on the matter, and had told him so, but she could not express why, to him, or even to herself.