[Elora]

Vanwe remained for as long as she could, Lespheria sleeping through the exhaustion of the morning's turmoil. She had the distinct impression that Amandur was trying to pluck information from her, without openly doing so. Vanwe herself thought she knew nothing of value and worriedly answered as best she could. She knew how people in positions of authority reacted to evasion. Her time spent in Umbar and Gondor had made that clear.

So she walked a thin line between honesty and trying to dispel whatever uncertainty Amandur harboured about her. The questions about her father she met with blank expression, for she knew nothing. She had been told he was dead. The questions about her mother, indirect as they were, she was guarded about and offered little. Vanwe set a folded cloak on the table where other possessions had been neatly packed and excused herself at the first opportunity.

"I have duties in the stables that I have not yet seen to. Lespheria still sleeps. I will return later to see how she fares, if you will Lord." Amandur watched her curtsy and inwardly sighed. Vanwe had proved as communicative as a stone, but whether it was deception or innocence he could not yet say. He nodded, dissatisfied and released her with, "Yes, perhaps that is best. We may yet have need of you later."

Vanwe nodded, cast an almost longing look at Lespheria who could perhaps vouch for her and dispell Amandur's doubts, and left the room. Wrapped in her thoughts, she patted the pouch in which the key to Lespheria's room had been placed and wound through the inn, an island amidst the crowd. When she pushed through the entrance and stood on the outside steps of the inn, Vanwe breathed deeply to shake the cobwebs from her thoughts.

She was not sure if she should avoid Amandur altogether or not. Certainly, Lespheria trusted him, but he seemed to look at her with a knowledge that pierced. She did not know what he saw, and it troubled her. Looking about and catching the stable building, Vanwe felt the stab of guilt at her neglect of her duties. She tucked errant strands of hair behind her ears, no time to braid it back out of her eyes, and set off across the courtyard for the stables.

She heard a distinctly hobbit-like voice curse a horse that seemed to be restless and skittish. Yet she could see noone just yet who owned the voice she had heard. With a faint frown, Vanwe entered the stables and made for the skittish horse. Kaldir's horse, she realised with a start and paused. Gripping her skirts, Vanwe pushed herself onwards, and came face to face with a very put out Gilly, who scowled at Vanwe as she stared at the hobbit in patent surprise.

"What are you doing here," Gilly whispered.
"My work," Vanwe replied in a mystified voice. Gilly levelled a frankly suspicious glare at Vanwe, and Vanwe blinked at it's force. Gilly was clearly upset.

"I'll bet you are! Do it somewhere else," she urged Vanwe, none too happily.
"But what are you doing," Vanwe pressed, eyeing the skittish horse and wondering how long it would be before it's owner appeared out of the shadows with a shiver of dread.
"That is none of your business, Miss," said Gilly. Her tone suggested Vanwe should know perfectly well.

Vanwe stared a little longer. "Go on, then," Gilly said, waving her hands at Vanwe in a shooing motion. Worry appeared in her small face, as if Vanwe was the individual to be fearful of. Vanwe stepped back, still bewildered.

"The horse may harm you," she said with the beginings of refusal to heed Gilly's command.
"I can handle the brute," said Gilly with admirable forced bravery. Vanwe held her hands up and surrendered. With a long look over her shoulder, she collected shovel and buckets in one hand and a half full sack of grain under the other arm and set off for the corraled horses behind the stables.

It was mid-afternoon already, she realised, and her stomach complained of it's emptiness just as the horses did when they saw her approach. They reprimanded her with reproachful snorts and mournful expressions as Vanwe cleared out what was left of the grain from the long wooden troughs that hung from the fence rung and replaced it with fresh feed to supplement the grass of the corral. Derufin would not be well pleased, and her cheeks were bright with her own remorse.

Once the heaviest of her burdens had been seen to, Vanwe set the now much lighter sack of grain down by her shovel as the horses greedily jostled at the new grain in the hanging trough. She picked up the buckets and walked further to where the water trough sat, fringed by vibrant green grass in the shade of the afternoon. It had been a hot day, by northern standards she supposed.

The trough showed the evidence of the horses' thirst and clearly needed to be filled. It was her own fault, and so she repressed a sigh and started the wearying task of ferrying water from well to trough. After the third trip, Vanwe was feeling distinctly light headed herself, having missed breakfast and lunch and now carrying the heavy water buckets back and forth.

Two more trips had the water replentished again, and Vanwe had to sit down. The sun was overbright and so she made for a pool of shade by a knot of trees. Gratefully, she sat beneath one, leaning against the bole of the tree and closing her eyes. Just a little rest, she told herself with yet more guilt and she would start on the rest of the day's work and then appear before Derufin who would surely be justified in discharging her from her duties.

She hadn't seen him all day. Just a little rest. The afternoon breeze sung through the trees and was cool against her face. It danced over another who was smiling with a predator's satisfaction and began to silently move with elven grace towards her prey. It whispered past a second, who was distracted between two quarries of a very different nature. Yet, his decision was made, and he too moved to that pleasant pool of shade that had called Vanwe.