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Léof watched for a moment as Javan followed Thornden back to the Hall to talk to Eodwine. Léof had known that Javan could be reckless, immature. Yet they all had kept giving him chances, time and again, and this was how he repaid them. Oh, yes, it was an accident, but Javan seemed to think that somehow that fact made up for the loss. It didn’t. It was an accident, but wholly brought about by Javan’s foolishness. Trying to smoke Falco’s pipe! And using Léof’s own room to do so! Léof felt overwhelming disgust and disappointment. How could Javan ever expect Léof to trust him again? Eodwine might forgive him – at the least, Javan was not immediately being sent home, which was far more than Javan had any right to expect – but Léof would yield much less easily.
He turned to the horses that he and Thornden had saddled up and began to untack them. Imagine saving saddles while horses still were trapped! Léof couldn’t understand it. In his mind, the act was comparable to saving the crib while the baby wailed only feet away. If whoever it was that had retrieved all these saddles had taken a moment to retrieve a horse or two, Herefola would still live.
After a short while he turned the two horses loose in the paddock and draped the saddles over the top fence post for lack of a better place for them. Then he retrieved the other couple of saddles and bridles that were lying about; with a jolt, he realized that one of them was his. This, anyway, was a pleasant surprise, but Léof gleaned little joy from this find in the context of the larger loss.
Since there seemed to be little else for him to do and the sky was growing dark, Léof supposed it was about time for bed – but he didn’t have a bed anymore, Javan had burned that down with the rest of the stables. He briefly considered just sleeping outside with the horses but quickly realized the impracticality of it and headed off to find Eodwine. He wished that this whole day could just be a nightmare that he would wake up from in the morning.
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