[Susan Delgado]

"No."

Remdil was aghast. "'No'? What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I'll not have that boy living in my house." Eolinda was quite firm on this point.

"Why not?"

She turned to face her husband, her expression shocked and unbelieving. She lowered her voice dangerously. "You want him living in our house? With Livia?"

Remdil shrugged. "What's the problem? He doesn't have any other place to go."

"No."

Remdil sighed. She kept saying that, without explaining herself. "Why not?"

"Haven't you seen the way he looks at her?"

Remdil peered around to where Carathon was riding behind them, just out of earshot. He'd asked Remdil if he could stay over the inn with the them, because he didn't have any home, in Garolin or elsewhere. Remdil had promised to talk to Eolinda about it.
And he had not, in fact, noticed Carathon looking at Livia in any particular "way". He looked back at his wife and said, "What way?"

With a snort of frustration, Eolinda kicked her horse into a canter and disappeared over the next ridge. Remdil frowned, but obviouly knew better than to follow her in such a mood.

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Lenilos had watched the whole thing with a feeling like sympathy. As a completely uninvolved bystander, he could see both their perspectives. It was true that the boy had no home, but he had noticed the way he stared at the girl and he understood where her mother was coming from perfectly. Judging from the way the conversation had gone, he thought poor Carathon was probably still out of a home. He rode back to Carathon and tried to cheer him up, but the boy wasn't stupid. He'd seen the way Eolinda rode away and knew that wasn't a good sign. He didn't want to talk. Hithduiniel was already deep in conversation with Livia. That left only Dineniel to talk to.

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"Hello."

She looked around, suprised to find her thoughts interrupted. "Oh, hello."

He brought his horse alongside hers and looked up into the cloudy sky. It wasn't raining at the moment. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

She gave him an appraising look. "Was there something specific you wanted to talk about, or are you just bored and want to bother people?"

He frowned. How rude! "Fine. If you don't want a friendly conversation, I'll just go." He turned his horse back toward the middle of the group, but paused when she said, "Wait," in a slightly more civil tone of voice. He turned back.

"I was just wondering where you were going to go after the Men get back to Garolin."

She shrugged. "Don't know."

Oh. They rode on for a while in silence.