[Firefoot]

Léof absorbed Gárwine’s words quietly, hardly noting the maid that had come around to fill their cups except for her apparent discomfort while pouring. Why...? But the thought quickly fled in the presence of others coming from Garwine's explanation Could such stories about the Dunlendings really be true? They were people, after all, if perhaps uncivilized, and Léof had no idea whether they were even that, or how much so. Yet, calling Eodwine names in his own hall…? This disturbed Léof about as much as this news of the Dunlending being an outlaw. That would probably explain the eye. Yet, what did the title of outlaw mean? What had the man done? Something truly bad, or a mistake? So many different meanings a word could have. In a sense, one might call him an outlaw, banned from his own home by a cruel father. Was he to be judged as such? Léof would hope not. So why this man?

Perhaps he was simply too trusting. What did he know of political matters, of the long history that had sundered the two peoples? He did not even have that much experience with people – his own family and sparse contact with people in the nearby village.

So many new and disturbing ideas, and all of them found on just his first day here. He had never felt like he missed much by living a simple farm life, yet it seemed that he really had. Good thing that horses were the same here as at home, or he wouldn’t stand a chance at finding work anywhere. And a good thing that as a simple stable boy, he wouldn’t need to know much about any of these troubling issues. He did not envy Eodwine in the least.

He realized that Gárwine had come to the end of his explanation, and scrabbled around for something to say. What was there to say? He was in over his head. “I see.” But it did not do his feelings justice, and he plunged on. “But – do you know for sure how many of those stories are true, and how many are made up by men’s… hatred – and fear? Perhaps some is true, but how can we judge? Can an entire people really be so evil as that?” He saw Gárwine’s look and cringed inwardly. Apparently, he was digging himself a hole that would only become harder to climb out of. “Of course… I do not have much experience with these matters. My father never spoke of the war, and this distrust of the Dunlendings is almost as foreign to me as they themselves are.” He sighed. “Never mind. Perhaps only hunger and weariness make me say so. Perhaps I should not have said anything, but I cannot shake the feeling.”