A breeze followed the girl through the open door, billowing her skirts and hair out ahead of her. Her boots fell like drum beats over the flagstone floor. The members of the household seemed to bend around her, waiting. She nodded to Gildis by way of greeting as she swept past. Petals drifted to the floor in her wake.

Cenhelm and Thengel exchanged matching looks of surprise. This was the lady of the house? Thengel combed his memory and realized Gladhon had never described the lady of Bar-en-Ferin at all. Thengel merely assumed that a woman who ran her own household would naturally be more advanced in years. A wealthy widow, perhaps, or an old maid with an unfortunate face. This child-woman didn't meet any of those expectations.

A gaunt man shadowed Lady Morwen. He seemed to be made of gristle and deep crags. Thengel wondered briefly if they were father and daughter before dismissing it. Both had blue-black hair (he even sported blossoms too) and wore simple linen garments, not especially clean. Yet, the scarecrow figure deferred to the young woman, at least in posture.

The lady's eyes fixed on Guthere after they scanned the room, wondering perhaps who the strangers were with their straw-colored hair and what had they left on the table? If the sight startled her, she did not show it. Thengel could feel the loss of her attention as a weight falling from his shoulders. Her dress hem brushed Thengel's boots as she passed him by with as much consideration as one might have for a fence post. The scarecrow kept his distance, but Thengel felt the fine hairs on his arms and neck prickle under the other man's scrutiny.

"Stars," she breathed, taking in the gore. "What happened?" Her voice sounded young, but weighted with authority. When the stink of blood and body odor hit her, she pressed the back of her hand against her nose. Her hands were delicate and smooth, but Thengel noticed dirt beneath the nails.

Gildis stepped forward. "Your pardon, Lady Morwen. These men were in sore need of help. I let them in."

Gildis, he noticed, wouldn't quite meet Thengel's eye when she explained their presence to Lady Morwen. Perhaps her nerves still smarted from their earlier misunderstanding. He thought he understood her shock better now.

The lady's scarecrow surveyed the two strangers while Guthere's injuries absorbed Lady Morwen's attention. The man seemed uncertain of which of the strangers deferred to the other so he knew who to address. Cenhelm boasted fifteen more summers than Thengel and bore himself with the proud gravity typical of their people. He dressed like any other man in Riddermark, coarse wool tunic and leather riding trousers and hauberk. Thengel bore the insignia of Captain Ecthelion's men on his hauberk over the fine wool tunic he had received from Turgon in anticipation of his name day. The scarecrow studied the insignia.

"We do not often meet strangers in this valley or those from distant lands," the scarecrow observed, his suspicion of strangers evident in his deep-set eyes. "What purpose brought you to Imloth Melui?"

Thengel felt the cool interest of Lady Morwen's eyes fall on him again. He decided to address her rather than her servant.

"My lady, I led a hunting party deep into the valley yesterday. The wind threw down a rotting tree in our companion's path this morning. He was not fortunate enough to escape its heavy branches."

"Unfortunate fellow," Lady Morwen remarked. She leaned over the prostrated body, examining the bloody head, gently lifting the soaked bandage just above his ear. The inflamed skin distorted Guthere's features and she grimaced.

"He lives?" she asked with wonder.

"Barely, my lady," Thengel told her. "He breathes but we cannot wake him."

Lady Morwen glanced up at Thengel. "I think it would not be a kindness to wake him now, if you could. This wound is swelling badly. Do you see?"

The skin on Guthere's scalp and around the cut exposing the skull looked tight and painful in the patches Thengel could see through his thick hair. His cheek and jaw looked exaggerated and misshapen by the swelling. A deep, purple bruise encircled his eye.

"What is his name?" Lady Morwen asked.

"Guthere," Cenhelm answered.

"Guthere," she said slowly. "A strange name. What has been done for him?" She turned toward the iron-haired housekeeper. "Gildis?"

The old woman stepped forward. "I sent Gundor to fetch Nanneth, my lady."

The scarecrow snorted. The lady gave him a sharp glance with her glacial eyes in what seemed to be a warning. Thengel felt ire swell in his chest like an explosion. He didn't understand the meaning behind the scarecrow's reaction to Gildis's news and he didn't like it. If they could joke while his friend slowly suffocated, they'd have Thengel to reckon with.

"Is something amusing?" he asked with a calm that belied his deteriorating mood. "This woman, Nanneth, she is a healer?"

"Of course," Lady Morwen said. "Ignore Beldir. He was out of humor with Gundor this morning."

The scarecrow, Beldir, did not challenge her explanation but moved a few steps away from the table. His eyes were ever on Thengel and Cenhelm as if waiting for trouble. Thengel didn't thank him for it, but understood how it might be for a household set deep in a valley with only the vigilance of a few to keep order and safety at hand. After all, with his men scattered or injured, Thengel was hardly in a position to vocalize his annoyance.

Lady Morwen glanced down at the dirty water in the bowl beside Cenhelm. "Gildis, bring hot water. Take this bowl away."

"Hareth is boiling a pot now," said Gildis as she took the bowl.

"And Gildis-" Lady Morwen called before the woman disappeared. "Bring something for these men to drink as well."

Cenhelm glanced at Lady Morwen gratefully. Neither Thengel nor his guard had realized their own thirst until that moment. The servant girl, pink-faced Ioneth, appeared again with an earthenware jug of cider and mugs after Gildis disappeared. Thengel thought her hands must be shaking terribly, judging by the amount of liquid sloshing in the jug. When he offered to help her, she squeaked and almost dropped everything. Thengel and Cenhelm got out of her way then and didn't approach the cider until the girl ran off to blush in a corner until Gildis wanted her again.

Thengel nodded to Cenhelm to allow the lady to take their places at Guthere's side while they accepted the offered refreshment. He watched Lady Morwen inspect the other wounds staunched by the cloth. Oblivious to the beautiful woman standing over him, Guthere's deep chest heaved with effort, but only seemed to manage shallow intakes of air and wheezing exhales that suggested little relief.

Touching Guthere's hand, Lady Morwen quickly snatched it away. "He is cold."

She had only to point to a fleece blanket folded over the back of a careworn armchair by the hearth and Ioneth fetched it. She draped it over the rider's legs and torso, then turned to remove Guthere's filthy boots. Thengel stopped her then.

"No," he said, reaching out to grasp her hands before she could so much as untie a lace. "They are dirty and not fit for a lady to touch," he said when she glanced up at him in surprise, then back down at her hands enveloped in his. He jerked his chin at Cenhelm to remove the boots.

Lady Morwen withdrew her hands from his as if they were made of gold and his were covered in bear grease. She stared at him, her brow rising imperiously.

"And who are you?" she finally asked.

"Forgive me." He inclined his head. "I am called Thengel, Prince of Rohan, first lieutenant under Ecthelion. These are my men. Guthere, on the table, and Cenhelm, the leader of my guard."

He waited for the usual reaction whenever he dropped his title on a new acquaintance. The scarecrow took another step back. As for the lady, her eyes widened, though barely.

"Your guard?" She glanced around the room, as if expecting more blond riders to spring out of the shadows.

"My other men, Thurstan and Gladhon, are out seeking our horses who were lost during the storm."

"Forgive me, I am not familiar with Rohan's princes," she said crisply, in a tone that suggested she ought to forgive him for being obscure for an important personage. She mirrored the prince's barest bow. "Be welcome to my home."

"Thank you," he drawled. Thengel couldn't tell if her pride annoyed or amused him. He chalked it up to her relative youth and stress of coming home to discover strangers had converted her hall into a sick room.

"If we're expecting more horses, I best make room in the stable," said the scarecrow.

Lady Morwen nodded with a glance over her shoulder. "Very well, Beldir."

Gildis cleared her throat, having approached them unseen on the way from the kitchen. Lady Morwen moved away from the table to allow the other woman to place a steaming pitcher of water and lay out new cloths draped over her arm on the table near Guthere's side. By now a pool of blood spread out in a crown below Guthere's head like spilled mead. Gildis reached for a cloth, but Cenhelm silently insisted on cleaning his underling's injuries himself and mopping up the mess. Carefully, he washed Guthere's face, beard, and hair, gentle and careful not to further damage the inflamed skin.

Guthere's irregular breathing became uncomfortably obvious as they waited for the healer in silence. Gasps for air, prolonged gaps between inhales, made it painful for all of them to breathe, as if their lungs were invisibly linked to the dying man's.

Thengel supplied more strips of cloth for Cenhelm, occasionally murmuring to one another. They were a tight-knit group around the table. That the lady stayed so close surprised Thengel. There was nothing for her to do, after all, until the healer arrived and the sight and stink made even his seasoned stomach queasy. But she stayed, occasionally touching Guthere's hand and murmuring his name. She seemed equal parts autocrat and kind. He caught himself watching her more than once trying to puzzle her out.

"Why do you call his name?" Cenhelm asked her curiously when she did it again. "He will not wake."

"It helps to hear a friendly voice," she replied. "To encourage him to heal. At least, it works on my seedlings."

She didn't see the strange look Cenhelm exchanged with Thengel over her head, distracted suddenly by the baying of the dogs.

The dogs announced Nanneth's arrival. The somber atmosphere in the room shifted and Thengel realized how choked he'd felt by anxiety and the wait. The doors opened on a squat old woman seemingly made of flaps and bulges. She carried a heavy bag over one shoulder and her grandson on her hip, the child only five or six. Beldir and the lad Gundor arrived behind her. Nanneth set the boy down, then cleared the area by the table by butting them all away with her wide hips. Without a word to anyone, she peeled the cloths away and inspected the wounds. The accordion-like skin of her lips stretched and contracted as she hummed to herself. Thengel thought she inspected wounds the way other people inspected meat before they paid the butcher's boy.

Nanneth mumbled something, her voice a toothless mash of sounds, but Gildis and Lady Morwen seemed to understand. They went to a tall chest that stood between the windows where heavy silver candleholders rested. They lit them when they returned to the table and placed them near Guthere's head. Nanneth murmured names under her breath and the boy found her the object in the bag, strange tinctures in waxed jars, spools, cloth, anything.

Nanneth surveyed the head, mostly clear of blood, but for a slow seepage from the troubling wound on the side of his head. She opened Guthere's mouth, lifted his tongue, harrumphed, then peeled back his eyelids.

Raising Guthere's hand in the air, Nanneth let it drop with a dull, fleshy bump on the table. Then she went back to his head. Thengel wanted to ask her what on Middle-earth she meant to learn from any of this, but he didn't dare interrupt. With a few indecipherable words to her grandson, the boy retrieved a pair of sheers. Nanneth cut away the thick, matted hair around the wound.

The probing continued, along with a stream of Nanneth's garbled words. Slowly, Thengel began to understand a few of them here and there. Despite Lady Morwen's assertion that he had nothing to fear in terms of Nanneth's skills, he began to doubt again as she probed the skull and sniffed at it. He almost stopped her when she bent her ear down to his skull and started tapping around with her knuckles. She straightened up.

"Headbroke," Nanneth said by way of diagnosis.

"That we knew," said Thengel, barely concealing a growl. "We don't need a healer to tell us-" He felt Cenhelm's arm on his shoulder.

Nanneth shrugged off Thengel's outburst like a fly. "Don't sound right. The swelling's gumming things up."

Suddenly her finger tipped into the open area above Guthere's ear and lifted the skin away from the skull. Lady Morwen, who had remained during the inspection, turned away from the table with a small groan.

"Can anything be done?" Cenhelm asked.

Nanneth held up a finger, then mumbled again to the boy who pulled out an awl and small mallet. Nanneth accepted the tools, then pantomimed hammering actions along Guthere's skull while making cracking sounds.

Cenhelm went pale. "You want to poke more holes in his head?"

Nanneth nodded pleasantly. They could hear one of the dogs scratching at the dirt outside, the room had fallen so quiet. Thengel had heard of such procedures, but they took place in the theater in the House of Healing by the most skilled healers the world of Men had to offer. Not on someone's dining table by an old woman whose assistant still had his milk teeth.

"Certainly not," he told her.

The old woman shrugged, as if Prince Thengel's opinion was neither here nor there.

Lady Morwen, still turned away, asked, "Nanneth, have you ever done this before?"

"I saw it done once," Nanneth mumbled. "In Minas Tirith years ago."

"Years ago?" Cenhelm sputtered.

"Nanneth wouldn't suggest it if she didn't think Guthere had a chance," said Lady Morwen.

Thengel agreed with Cenhelm. "The risk is too great."

Nanneth laid a fluffy, spotted hand on Guthere's forehead. "Then he dies."

Thengel rubbed his jaw, a day's worth of growth comfortingly abrasive on his skin. He had to weigh the decision carefully, after all, as responsibility for this retinue ultimately fell on him. Cenhelm and Thengel stepped away from the table to confer without being overheard.

"I regret coming here," Cenhelm confided in Rohirric. "There's more of witchcraft about that woman, than healing. I've never heard of anyone knocking holes into a man's head to heal him. She's ancient enough to be senile and I wouldn't blame her if she was. It doesn't give her leave to butcher injured men. And who is her assistant? A child. Helm's beard."

"I don't pretend to understand, but I know it has been done before," said Thengel tiredly. "The conditions are not ideal, but Lady Morwen seems to think the woman knows what she's doing."

"Lady Morwen is a child herself, if you haven't noticed," Cenhelm muttered. "Who is she that we take her word? This isn't a field hospital. How often do they see wounds of this magnitude in Imloth Melui?"

Thengel weighed these things in his mind. The pressure to decide made his eyes ache. "One thing we know without Nanneth telling us is that Guthere will die." His voice filled with regret. "I say we try."

"Very well, my lord," Cenhelm answered stiffly.

Returning to the table, Thengel gave the healer a nod. The boy produced a razor and strop for his grandmother to use. She went to work after a little sharpening, shaving Guthere's head, then pinning back the skin to expose bone. She took the awl and hammer and with careful precision, made the first hole.

The servants scattered after the first scrape of the awl against bone. Only Lady Morwen remained and her servant Beldir. She had not turned toward the table since Nanneth lifted the flap of skin above the broken skull, but she held her place with her back to the table through the hammering and sound of cracking bone. Thengel found he could not look away as the old woman made a wreath of holes in the skull, then carefully chipped away at the bone to unite them till a small disk came loose.

Thengel realized then that he had been holding his breath. But releasing it had been a mistake. Lady Morwen turned, as if the sound meant the worst had passed. Instead, she witnessed Nanneth dipping her finger into the open wound.

"Hnh," Nanneth grunted, then pulled out her finger. It made a small sucking sound and a purple globule and a bit of bone came out with it. There was a collective gasp of, "Oh!" around the table. Lady Morwen spun around took a few teetering steps away from the scene.

"Whoop," said the old lady as previously blocked blood pooled on the table.

Nanneth wound clean linen around the wound after what seemed like a very short time to Thengel. One by one, the curious servants returned who had scattered when the trepaning first began. Now they had only to wait to see how Guthere would respond to the surgery. This meant that other business presented itself - like whether or not the lady would accept strange men as house-guests. Thengel tapped Cenhelm on the arm and indicated that Guthere was in his care. The guard nodded his understanding and stood sentinel over the table. Thengel walked toward Lady Morwen, who waited apart from the others.

"Might I have a word, Lady Morwen?" he asked quietly.

Cheeks washed of color, her eyes were glazed and stared unseeing down the dark corridor opposite the table. Thengel seemed to be calling her out of some deep well of thought. After a moment, she blinked up at him.

"Is it safe?" Lady Morwen murmured.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Guthere's head had been crowned white with linen and Nanneth had turned her attention to the other cuts and scrapes on his face and neck. "For the moment," he answered. "I'm sorry the blood troubles you."

Lady Morwen's eyes focused sharply on his as if he had insulted her. "I can tolerate blood as well as anybody. Lifting the skin away from the wound, however." She shuddered again, pressing her palm to her mouth.

"Try not to think about it," he advised.

She flashed him a look over her hand as if to say she would have done so already if possible - and if he hadn't brought it up again.

"You seem to have no trouble." Her voice sounded tight with suppressed sick.

Thengel tried to look apologetic. He thought dispassionately about the surgery instruments, the white bone, the viscous dye blooming over the cloths. Soldiers performed their own operations, less delicate, typically successful. Killing came easier than healing and he'd grown accustomed to it. Human blood, at least, had a beautiful jewel tone he could appreciate. Not the oily black muck orcs sprayed whenever they were gutted by a blade. He decided not to explain that.

Instead, he asked, "Is there another place where we might talk?"

Lady Morwen led Thengel across the hall toward the cavernous hearth where two chairs stood. She gestured for him to take the chair across the buckskin rug near the fire that burned low in the grate. The fire provided a little light for the room. Though just past noon already the shadows of evening were falling across the valley where the walls acted as screens to block the sun. He looked around the hall, seeing for the first time beyond the tunnel vision brought on by the crisis. Narrow windows, set in walls almost as thick as his arm was long, allowed bars of light to dissect the stone floor. High-backed chairs and wooden benches were pushed back against the walls after the last meal near the chest where the candles came from. The table commanded the center of the room, though there were divots in the stone nearer the corridor that suggested years of a head table in that area during feasts. Lamps hung unused from old beams. They were smaller and poorer than ones used in Mithlond, but beautiful in their simplicity. He could imagine it would cost Lady Morwen a fortune in oil to light them regularly. His attention returned then to the young woman and her hearth. She chose the chair that faced away from the table. A few sheaves of paper were piled on one of the broad arms and he could just see the makings of a list. Wine - Adrahil. Cabbages…

"What can I do for you, Prince Thengel?" she asked, drawing his attention away from the list. The imperious manner she had adopted earlier had fallen away and here he found the woman Morwen, not the Lady of Bar-en-Ferin.

"Pardon us for troubling your house," he said humbly. "We're in a bind. Guthere cannot be moved and the rest of my men are still tracking our horses. I'm afraid we have nowhere to go and must trespass on your hospitality."

Lady Morwen tapped her lips with a long finger. "I see your predicament. It would be impossible for you to move your friend, even if you had the means. And where would you go? I have rooms to spare with a little shuffling. There were five of you, I believe?"

"Yes," Thengel answered. "Though I do not know when to expect the last of our party to return with our horses." He leaned back in the chair as his body remembered it ought to be tired. "Our luck was against us today."

"Frankly, it's good luck that only one of your men suffered injury after the storm we had," she mused.

"That is one way of looking at it," Thengel agreed. "And we were fortunate to find aid so readily in a place where we are unknown."

"Guthere will receive all the care we can give," she assured him. "We do not turn away those in need in Lossarnach."

Thengel bowed his head. "Thank you, my lady."

She waved away his thanks. "Perhaps you can answer some of my questions. How exactly did you withstand the storm?"

"We passed the storm in the hut of an artist." The memory made him cringe. The stink of goat hit him again.

"Teitharion?" she gasped, then covered her mouth to hide a knowing grin. "I'm sorry."

Thengel smiled grimly. "He has a reputation, I see."

Lady Morwen nodded behind her hand. Then she sobered and a line appeared between her eyes as a thought struck her. "You seemed surprised when I arrived," she recalled.

"You noticed?" he said. Thengel wished she hadn't. "Well, when Gladhon described a plantation in a retired valley, I thought it belonged to…"

The lady failed to conceal a smirk. "A retired woman?" she finished.

"Forgive me," he said, not without humor. "I mistook your housekeeper for you."

"What? Gildis!" Lady Morwen looked like she might hug herself.

While Thengel appreciated this mood over her more imperious one, he felt a bit sour at being laughed at. After all, it was an honest mistake.

"I have met few…to be honest, no women your age who are head of their household," he pointed out.

"I suppose not," she replied blandly, as if she couldn't be bothered to care what anyone thought about her household or her age. Fortunately, she changed the subject. "What brought you to Imloth Melui in the first place, may I ask?"

"Certainly." Thengel rubbed his aching eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. "I met Lord Hardang during my last tour of Ithilien. He spoke often of Lossarnach and its beauty. A month ago I returned to Minas Tirith from Ithilien after a long absence, as I am sure you have heard of our struggles in that land."

Lady Morwen frowned, her eyes dim and thoughtful. "We have felt it even in Lossarnach. Not the danger, exactly," she was hasty to add. "But Lord Hardang was my kinsmen and he fell in Ithilien. Did you know him well?"

"Well enough. Hardang stood with me in the final push that freed Ecthelion and his company from the orcs assaulting one of his fortified dens in Emyn Arnen."

This was news, it seemed. The skin around Lady Morwen's eyes grew tight with some emotion. He wished she hadn't asked about the why he'd come to Lossarnach, but he could understand her desire to know. It must not happen often. He doubted many visitors had such a sad connection to her own family.

"I have heard precious little about my cousin's final moments," she confided, eyes fixed on her knees. "And nothing of his time in that part of the country after the Steward called on him to send men."

"It is not a pleasant topic," Thengel replied. "Even years after the Dark Lord's defeat, evil still breeds in Mordor. The land lies empty and open to any foul creature and that evil is now spilling out onto our borders."

"Yes. We have a great many refugees from Ithilien in this fief who remember the ambushes and raids on their homes," she told him. "When Hardang left, he expressed a hope that Captain Ecthelion would one day push the orcs out for good, maybe even allow families to return." Her gray eyes pinned him, wanting good news, but daring him to lie if there wasn't any. "Is there hope?"

Thengel felt troubled, weighing in his mind what he ought to tell this young woman with the sad, gray eyes. But then, something about her seemed steely enough to bear it, besides she had already lost enough that the truth would little matter.

"If they were Gondor's only trouble…" He combed his fingers through the back of his hair. "Even then, it looks bleak, my lady. These creatures multiply beyond reckoning, bent on harassing free lands. We cannot breach their strongholds. The captain's men merely provide a retention wall, if truth be told. Without Hardang's aid, in fact, we wouldn't have broken the siege on his den," Thengel admitted.

"Did he tell you about my house?" she asked quietly. "How did you know about Imloth Melui?"

Thengel shook his head. "No, that was Gladhon. My men and I wanted an escape from the city and entering the valley was a last minute decision when I saw the greenway. Hardang invited me to come to Arnach before he fell. I came to pay my respects to his household. We were going to bring a hind as a gift, but it ran ill."

"You are welcome. Hardang's word holds in this valley, dead or alive," she said gravely. "You may find it necessary to stay, for your companion's sake. You are welcome in my house, or you may leave him in our care if you wish to travel on to Arnach."

"I do not know what to do," he admitted as he stared down at his open palms in his lap. "Guthere would not like to be left behind."

Lady Morwen ran her fingers over the chair's polished wooden arm, thinking. "We are celebrating the blossoms soon. Hardang's brothers Halmir and Hundor will arrive at my house before the end of the week. You may pay your respect when they arrive, then travel with them to Arnach where Hardang's widow, Ferneth, has chosen to remain."

He inclined his head toward her. "Thank you, my lady. That would answer my dilemma."

Thengel then noticed his guard hovering on the edge of firelight. "Yes, Cenhelm?"

"Beg your pardon," he said with a respectful bow toward the lady. "The healer has finished." His eyes flicked between them, as if to ask what came next.

"Lady Morwen has offered to let us stay and care for Guthere here," Thengel told him.

"Yes." Lady Morwen rose. "I will show you where to move Guthere."

Cenhelm and Thengel carried Guthere with the scarecrow's help into one of the spare rooms down the corridor and laid him out on the bed placed in an alcove near another of the slim windows. Gildis followed with Guthere's boots and a bottle of some potion Nanneth left in the event the rider did wake. Cenhelm indicated his intention to stay the night in the room to watch over Guthere's progress, which Thengel echoed. Though visibly uncomfortable with this arrangement, Lady Morwen instructed Gildis to have comfortable chairs brought in.

"It seems like poor hospitality not to give you rooms of your own," she worried as the chairs came in. "My household can take turns siting up with Guthere while you have some much needed rest."

"I appreciate your offer and it's no reflection on your hospitality," Thengel replied. "But we try to take care of our own when we can."

"Will you join the household for supper, at least?" Lady Morwen asked as Beldir and the boy Gundor entered with richly upholstered chairs and stools from another room.

Thengel was about to reply that at least one of them should remain with their companion, but a snort from Gildis interrupted him.

"The dining table is unfit for use," she reminded them all. "Supper will be served in the kitchen tonight while the table receives a scouring." Lady Morwen looked surprised, but when she tried to raise an objection, Gildis cut her off too. "I've already spoken with Hareth. It's the best we can do under the circumstances."

"Very well," Lady Morwen answered. "Forgive us, Prince Thengel. We do not customarily serve princes dinner in the kitchen."

"We are to blame," he reminded her. "In fact, Cenhelm and I will make sure the table is put to rights." Cenhelm nodded.

Lady Morwen held up a hand. "No. You are my guests."

"I insist," he said stiffly.

"So do I," she replied. The imperious brow returned, and she moved in such a way as to block his path to the door. "Watch over your friend. A servant will fetch your supper when it is ready."

Lady Morwen left them alone with a sweep of skirts before Thengel could argue the point further. Her servants followed behind. He stared at the back of the door after Gildis closed it behind her mistress.

"She likes to have her own way," he reflected.

Cenhelm coughed.

Thengel turned to face his guard. "Speak, Cenhelm."

"With all due respect," Cenhelm said dryly, "The lady's no worse than you for stiff necks."

"Oh? My neck's stiff, is it?" Thengel's eyelids dropped in a show of indifference. He liked Cenhelm, but the guard had an annoying habit of criticizing Thengel in the same manner as Uncle Oswin.

"You might have asked the lady to provide water to wash with instead of arguing over the table," Cenhelm pointed out. "I'm relieved Guthere survived two holes in the head so far, but I'm none too grateful I still have to smell him. It's hardly a May morning in here."

Thengel was about to retort when someone knocked on the door. He slewed toward the sound. "Yes?"

"Pardon, lords," a servant said through the wood. "Lady Morwen sends her compliments and says you're to have a bath."

Cenhelm hastily opened the door on a stream of servants carrying pitchers of hot and tepid water and a tub.

To be continued! Many thanks to Lia and Gythja for helpful critique!

Also, there's a character list attached to the last chapter in case there were any names that were unfamiliar. ;)