|
As Léof walked down the stable aisle, he paused at Æthel’s stall to watch her much contentedly at her morning meal. “At this rate,” he commented with a smile, “you are going to get fat.” He said it in jest, but there was a seed of truth to the words. She did not get enough exercise; few of the horses did. To this fact Léof was growing ever more aware, and while he tried to remedy it, there was little he could do. Walking the horses up and down the stable aisle could hardly be counted as exercise, but the only other alternative would be to either ride or walk the horses through the streets of Edoras. What the horses really needed was a paddock, however small, where they could be let out of their stalls for even just a little while each day – but Léof did not know how to give voice to this idea.
He figured he ought to, though, and sooner rather than later. Later that day, he decided, or sometime after Eodwine gets back from whatever it is he’s doing.
He couldn’t do anything about it now, though, so he turned away from the stall with a soft sigh and continued down the aisle. He had seen to the horses’ larders, and now he was ready for some breakfast of his own.
Hardly had he left the stables, however, when he saw Trystan and felt obliged to say good morning. Léof was almost surprised that he had stuck around this long; he had been so sure that horse theft had been the other’s goal, and that with that not being achieved he would have shortly left. But there had been no further such attempts, leading Léof to wonder if he had imagined the whole thing in the first place. What was more, the knife had remained on the stable shelf, an enigma whenever he took the time to think of it. So Léof’s naturally trusting personality had eventually taken over, and his smile was perfectly friendly as he said, “'Morning, Trystan. Had breakfast yet?”
|