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It took Snaveling about three seconds to decide that he wanted nothing to do with the two strangers who had accosted Toby and himself. The woman was of a type all too familiar to him. He had found one like her in every village and camp he had visited in the years that lay between the Shire and his homeland: quick to judge and soon to speak in matters that did not concern her. As to the tall, corpse-like fellow at her side…Snaveling knew that this was a person it would be safest to keep well clear of, at least until the people who seemed to be in charge of the Inn spoke to him about proper manners in this land.
Snaveling was surprised by Toby’s outburst, but he was getting used to the halfling’s odd behaviour, and he knew how upset Toby was at the loss of the gold. While Toby was railing at the strangers, Snaveling slunk through the shadows and out the small side door. As he passed out into the sun, he felt a twinge of conscience at abandoning his…do I really think of him as my “friend” now?!…but if Toby did not have the good sense to avoid such people, then be it on his head. He moved away from the stables with a determined step, but then paused for a moment and looked back. He thought for a moment, stroking his small amulet abstractedly. Toby’s words came back to him: “What purpose had you in that? Make all clear immediately, Snaveling, or I will unveil your foul actions to all without hesitation. Speak now!” He shook his head and, cursing under his breath, stamped away from the stables once more as though he were kicking the ground in anger.
Snaveling was not particularly concerned by Toby’s threats; if people were to begin casting blame there was more than enough to spread between the two of them. Besides, judging from the behaviour of Fordogrim he doubted that the little chap would ever make an official complaint against them, just so long as he could get his gold back. But Toby’s question haunted him. Snaveling gripped his amulet until his knuckles turned white. He had confessed to the theft because he had known – somehow – that it was what he had to do. The pain of the burning in his skin had been horrific, but Snaveling was willing to endure much for his own profit: it had been something else beyond that. He glared across the yard at Galadel. That she-Elf has done something to me with her spells, he thought. Made me as weak-minded and ridiculous as that fool Valthalion. Still, there had been some benefit to him from her magics – the pain of the burning had gone from his skin, and for the first time in a week he was able to take pleasure in the brightness of the sun and the warmth of the air. Still, there remained a profound sense of loss with regard to something – he followed a thought that eluded him. What had he lost? For a second, as though catching sight of something from out of the corner of his mind’s eye, there was a glimpse of a green place that he had known, but then it was gone. He tried to think of what it might be, but there was only a blank grey space where something else had once been. His heart sank once more as a nameless grief threatened to overwhelm him. He steeled his mind against the emotion. It’s just the gold, he told himself. Toby is right, you are a fool to have given it up.
Suddenly hungry, Snaveling moved toward the cooking fires hoping that perhaps the cooks had managed to roast one or two of the quail that he had brought them this morning. As he did so, however, he heard Roa’s clear laughter ring out in the afternoon sun. He looked over to where she and Valthalion were struggling to lift a heavy beam onto a pair of trestles. He paused, halfway between the Inn and the cooking fires, looking back and forth between the food and the labour. He took a step toward the fires, paused again, and then cursed, loudly. He spun on his heel and stormed toward Roa and Valthalion in a rage at himself.
Without uttering a word to either of them, he helped them wrestle the beam onto the trestles.
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