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Snaveling awoke to the sound of an oliphaunt stamping the side of the stables. Prying open his eyes a crack he was assaulted by the violence of sunlight and he once again forced them shut. But the stamping of the oliphaunt was more than he could bear and as having his eyes open seemed, somehow, to quieten the beast he once again forced apart his lids. It wasn’t so bad this time, and the roaring – which he now realised was inside his head and not outside the stables – quieted some. He stood, tentatively, for the stables were spinning slightly, although they were no longer doing the pirouettes that they had last night. The Man steadied himself against the side of his stall and held a hand to his head. It had been a long time since he’d been hungover and he was beginning to remember why.
At his feet, Tobias snored like a donkey and for the hobbit’s sake, Snaveling hoped that he would sleep a bit longer. Snaveling thought back to the evening and managed to reconstruct how he and his friend had made it to the stables. There had apparently been a thick fog of some kind that had made finding their way through the yard very difficult, and then the lantern had not worked very well, for they had tried three separate stalls before finding Snaveling’s, disturbing a number of irate horses in the process.
There was the gentle sound of a flute from outside and Snaveling recognised it immediately as the music of Galadel. The tune did much for the pounding in his mind, but there are limits even to Elvish magic, and the amount of alcohol that Snaveling had consumed last night had taken him well beyond that limit. He dunked his head into a bucket of ice-cold water and came up spluttering: this did even more to clear his mind. As he got dressed his mind wandered back to one of the last things that he could remember clearly from the night before. There had been that strange Gondorian who had spent a deal of time staring at Snaveling from the bar, and whispering with another disturbing looking Man. Snaveling fingered the amulet about his neck and slipped it beneath his clothes. That amulet had brought him enough grief last night.
He left Toby snoring in the straw and moved toward the Inn to find some breakfast. His mind turned back to what had occurred last night but it was still a mystery to him. He gathered now that somewhere in his ancestry there was a figure of great power and renown, but that this person was, for some reason, disliked and even feared by his companions. Primarily, he admitted with trepidation, by Roa herself. He had been reluctant to ask more as he feared what he might find, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to determine who his ancestor had been…and what that meant for him.
The Common Room was in a state of shambles, but already the Inn staff was up and about laying on breakfast and making a few stabs at cleaning up. The smell of bacon came from the kitchen, but it turned Snaveling’s still whirling stomach. Galadel was, of all things, sweeping the floor as he entered but she paused and smiled at him. “Good morning, Snaveling,” she said brightly, but still there remained the faint shadow that had come over them both last night.
Snaveling mumbled a greeting. “It is morning, my Lady, but I’m not so sure it’s a good one. My head and my stomach are not happy with what I did to them last night. I don’t suppose you have one of your rare Elvish medicines for my ailment?”
Galadel laughed and replied, “Aye, that I do, but for some ills I find that the best I can do for the patient is to let him suffer the consequences himself.”
Snaveling managed a pale smile at this. “Fair enough,” he said. “As I do not want any breakfast, and the best thing for me would be to get my blood moving, give me that broom so that I might sweep the floors – such work is not right for you my Lady. Nay, if you insist on doing something, I’m sure Aman would appreciate having some of these glasses cleared away.” He paused for a moment as Galadel passed him the broom. “And as we work together my Lady, perhaps you could explain just a bit more clearly what happened here last night. I think that my life’s story is connected in some way to matters far beyond my ken…”
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