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Things certainly looked liable to change, Thornden realized as he stood up to obey Eodwine’s bidding. There would be little dallying about now if Eodwine hired an innkeeper immediately. They would be out of the present mead hall quickly and go on to the new holdings. Eodwine’s tidings that morning had seemed as though they could be yet far off and change might not be sudden. The morning’s work in the armory had helped set it back a little way, but now it appeared that that would not be so.
He approached Norjm and Fliede with a polite smile. “Come in, sir, and make yourself comfortable.” When he looked down at Fliede’s upturned face his smile broadened. He had not understood her attack upon the man Hameth earlier, but now as he stood near her and saw the hot flush still in her cheeks and a shred of temper still present in her eyes, he found himself amused. “Take a seat and shortly, Ginna will be out with something for you to eat.”
He stepped to the side and motioned with his hand. Fliede’s face cleared almost entirely and she smiled slightly in return. “Thank you,” she said. She waited until Norjm had walked on ahead of her and then she followed quietly behind him.
As they drew near to the table, Rowenna and Ginna arrived together from the corridor to the kitchen, bearing food and drink for the two newcomers. Fliede and Norjm seated themselves near Harreld and Thornden sat down in his original place.
“Have you come to seek the innkeeper position, too?” he asked Norjm after a moment of silence.
“I have. My daughter encouraged me to come. I think lord Eodwine will find his man in Hameth, however,” Norjm said, speaking what he truly believed. “He will be more fit for the job.”
“It’s not true,” Fliede said, her temper roused again.
“Fliede,” Norjm said sternly, and with annoyance entering his patient face.
She shut her mouth firmly on further words, but Thornden caught the keen look of impatience in her face.
“Forgive me, sir,” Thornden said, “but may I not ask your daughter what it is she has against this Hameth?”
“If you wish,” Norjm said mildly.
“He stopped us outside the hall here,” Fliede said at once. “And he made father stop and said that he should be used to making way for men better than himself. And he isn’t better than my father - for father hasn’t done anything wrong in his entire life, and just because he is half blind doesn’t mean that he’s a beggar or is unworthy or any such thing.”
Thornden turned his eyes from Fliede to her father with surprise. He had not guessed that the elderly man was partially blind.
“That would explain what you said earlier, then,” he said, lookig back at Fliede.
“Aye. I just hope the eorl has eyes to see what an incompetent, rude, and overbearing chap he has with him now.”
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