[Lalaith]

Rarely had such rancour festered in cheese and venison. Embla’s mind was filled with ugly thoughts as she brooded over the slights she had suffered that day.
How hastily the hag had scuttled forth when that Ulfing woman had arrived with her offer of trade. How eager she had been to put the second wife in her place, to issue orders, to send her off. Hunta came to me with a great slab of venison, Briga had said. Ignoring the fact that it had been she, Embla, who had been given the meat by the returning hunter.

As far as she was inclined to feel friendly towards anyone of her own Borrim party, it was to the venison-bringer, Hunta. Not for himself, but for his hound, Laylah. In the happier days of her girlhood, she had been charged with the care of Dimma, her uncles’ hunting dog. Dimma had been a swift, graceful creature with a noble heart, and this Laylah had the look of her old pet. So, when Embla took the meat from Hunta, she had so far forgot herself and her current misery as to stroke the animal and smile at her, briefly. The memory of her unwonted softening rubbed like salt into her recent wounded pride, and angered her further.
The loathing she felt was so strong it gave her goose-pimples. Briga, bustling about, so full of self-importance over this forthcoming feast, so honoured and excited that she, a mere woman and wife, should be allowed to attend. Embla glowered. Among her people, the Bairka, the lady of the hall was the dignified centrepiece of any feast. She remembered her own mother, Rind the Proud, as hostess, moving imperiously among the tables - the great keys of the household hanging from her heavy belt as she passed the cup graciously to the most honoured guests.

And now Embla was clearly expected to feel gratified to attend this gathering of the dolts, summoned by the biggest dolt of all, her husband. Tonight they would cluster, frightened and flustered, around a goat’s cheese to wallow in their collective ignorance. They saw nothing, they knew nothing, and they would never ask the right questions. Look at Briga now, sending Hunta off to question that cheese girl. Time wasting nonsense. Embla did not know the name of the smith’s wife, but her sharp eyes had taken stock of her many days since. Not especially stupid, but very young and entirely absorbed by her immediate domestic sphere: husband, baby, and that strange blind girl who lived with them. Hardly a confidante of power or a rich source of gossip and intrigue.

As for her own intelligence-gathering…the arrival of the tall men, the elves, had interested Embla mildly. She had never seen the fair folk before….but always sensitive to potential snubs, she knew instinctively that these fine haughty fellows would have little to say to a downtrodden interloper like herself. There was however something, or someone, in the settlement that intrigued even her more than the Noldorin newcomers. The strange, dark-clad woman they called Jord. Her great beauty had the chieftain’s son in thrall – that was clear enough. But Embla could sense something else, something she did not quite understand. She did not think any at the feast tonight would ask her counsel, and she would certainly never offer it unsought. But she would wager her mother’s ring that this woman had a secret worth knowing.