My time in Bree hasn't gone like I hoped, or even like I feared. Now I think it's time to be moving on. My undertaking seems sure to end in failure.
There's been no sign of the Éothéod anywhere on, or over, the High Pass. The farther I traveled from the Pass, the less hopeful it seemed. Even when the flat, grassy plains of what they call the Lone Lands seemed a place the horse-folk might like, I was doubtful, and I saw no sign of their passage. Bree, though at what was once a major crossroads, has turned up nothing more hopeful. The fellow at the Scholar's Stair Archives has one more tome he wants to pore over, and he charged me nearly all of what was left in my coin-purse to do it, so I'd best wait for him to finish. But I have little hope it'll turn anything more up.
Which means I have no more avenues to travel in my search. Those fair-haired folk amongst the Woodmen are all that remains of our long-lost cousins. But where then the lantern? I searched so carefully for any word of it there, during both of the times I wintered amongst them. Could it be lost in some ruins, buried by a stream, hidden under a floor-board? I might have trod over it a hundred times and never know. Should I go search one more time? To what end? I have no new ideas for how to find it, even if it does hide in plain sight there, not buried leagues away in some dusty, forgotten troll-hoard.
But what else? The only other path before me seems to be to return to the Thane in defeat. I am loath to do that. I so hoped to make my family proud. But wishing doesn't make things change.
Whether I return to the Woodmen or head back home, either way, my next step is to cross the High Pass. And just as last year, I wonder if it's too late. I have no stock of provisions amassed; it's been a struggle to keep myself and Kestrel fed at all. And this time, my coin-purse is near empty, and I know the Beornings will charge me a toll once more as I cross. Winter draws near; the harvest is already upon us. There might be time enough for me to gather provisions for the trip before the snows, barely, but then I'd have no coin, and no time to earn it. Or if I had plenty of coin, I could buy waybread, but how could I earn enough coin that quickly, when thus far I've barely made enough to have a pint of ale every week or two?
I've asked after day-work, but there's very little. Nearly everyone only wants to hire for a season or more, or not at all. I met a dark-haired woman from a farm near the city who would have hired me for the season, I think, but I won't promise to something until I know I can fulfill it, and by that time, the harvest will be too far along.
It seems the only choice, as it was last year, is to stay the winter, and use it to make ready for my journey come spring. Last year, I wintered amongst the Woodmen, but I'd spent a month proving myself to them and making myself a welcome guest, as well as learning how I could do my share of the work. However, Bree is not a tribe; it has no chieftain, and does not organize hunts to feed itself that I can go along with. Everything is ruled by coin here, and coin alone.
But now I am in Hookworth, a guest of Miss Brynleigh. She and her husband led me here, and along the way, we met a pretty lass named Leonnie who calls Miss Brynleigh her mother, though she isn't properly her daughter. Miss Brynleigh tells me I can stay here as long as I need to, even through the winter, and there are stables to care for Kestrel; and she also has promised that there'll be work found for me, though she insists it's not necessary. Such generosity is baffling to me, and I fear my insistence on doing my share of the work may be itself unwelcome, but I am just too uncomfortable being a burden. That's not how my pa and ma raised me, I suppose. I thought the house they led me to was for at least a family or two; it's nearly as large as the farmhouse back home, but they tell me I won't be sharing it with anyone. I may stay in one corner just to not get too used to such luxury! And on the morrow I mean to check the river for fish and share some at the tavern if I can catch any.
So if the village's elders do indeed see fit to let me stay, and find me work, and I can also find time to earn enough coin for tolls, then at least one part of my path is clear. To stay here until spring, and be sure that by the snow-melt I'm prepared to cross the mountains. After that, though, the road turns muddy again. And seems certain to end in a shameful return to Marton. How else could this undertaking conclude?
Where could the lantern have gone? What did the Thane mean when he told me the Wise saw in me some keenness of sight that might find it? I feel as keen-eyed as an old dog on a moonless night. Could the Wise have been wrong to choose me for this undertaking after all?
