Moving across the dusty courtyard of the run down and almost abandoned tavern, Master Elbana, once upon a long time now gone of the Duchy of Fastel, adjusted her short, thick wool cloak on her shoulders as she contemplated the the ultimate good she was about to set in motion for the kingdom, and how her King would hate her for it. She knew that in the interest of the Kingdom of Rhiada, Myrl would require some lessons that she herself couldn’t teach him.

She had ridden out from Ghlow two mornings before with two guardsmen and an extra horse. It had been a brisk ride, and she had set a fast pace without ever setting her horses up to a full gallop.

Elbana needed this task done as quickly as possible, and to be back in Ghlow with all haste. Luckily for her and her companions, they had just needed to make their way to the edge of the duchy of Toodveldte. Once past its border, they had turned north off of the Kingdom Road to follow one of the older, lesser used trade roads that led to a small mining town that had died off when the copper mine that had spawned it had run dry. The small group of fast moving travelers had camped along the way, off the road and out of sight from prying eyes. And now, at almost sunset, she stood at the door to an old tavern she had thought to never see again, as the two guards that had accompanied her on the trip tended to their mounts in the small stable off to the side of the old building.

The smoke gently curling from the wide mouthed chimney looked light, almost white in color, and that meant that whoever was cooking that day had gotten clean burning wood that had been reasonably seasoned. Probably gathered from the local forest that was even now attempting to reclaim the land that the small town had been built upon. It was more than likely oak, korwood, or ash.

The sign above the tavern door had faded almost too much to make out the squirrel and the serpent, but the words written in Auld’ach, the dialect still spoken by many here in Toodveldte, could be read by those daring enough to risk the pronunciation.

“Tyshinsay on Heorak agus on Nahair.” She said to herself, wishing she could just stand here in the cold forever rather than risk what she had planned by entering the large wooden building.

“Sorry, Ma’am?” Asked Ihyon, an older guardsman who had the open, honest face of a man who would never stab anyone in the back. Elbana knew the dark skinned Ocre man would prefer to stab them in the face, if he ever had need to do any sort of stabbing. She knew the man had been a sergeant at one time, but when he had gone to the cavalry from the infantry that he had taken the demotion in rank to be able to work with horses and occasionally other mounts, like lisks, the scaled feline mounts, or even hruturi, the giant ram-like creatures. The man just liked dealing with animals more than with people; Elbana could sympathize.

“It’s the name of the tavern, corporal.”

“Ah.” He said. And waited a moment before asking, “And what does it mean, Master?”

“‘The Pub of the Squirrel and the Serpent’ would be the closest you could come in Tha.” She said. Most people in Rhiada spoke Tha. It was the most common tongue of the continent, and most of its speakers would cite the hard to spell words of Auld’ach, and the tongue twisting pronunciations, as the reason why they all chose Tha. But, it was a much more simple explanation as to why it had been supplanted. Tha had an easier sentence structure than Auld’ach, and made the quick expressions of complex ideas easier on the speaker to relate, and on the listener to understand. It flowed better from one mind to the next.

She had always loved the cadence and the sounds of Auld'ach, but, as one of her childhood tutors had pointed out, “the purpose of language is to communicate.” To be honest, the man had hated Auld’ach, and would have made any excuse to badmouth the tongue, but with that one gem of fluency, he had made his point to the 8 year old child that the Master Elbana Tremarc of Fastel had once been.

Elbana knew that Auld’ach would always be spoken somewhere in the kingdom, however. Some patriotic sons and daughters of the old ways would never be able to forgive Tha for being easier. And the chance for the bitter elders in small towns to sneer at the follysome ways of the young would always be a privilege to which they held tightly.

At that moment, Captain Vogel reached the two as they stood before the heavy wooden door to the tavern. He raised the remaining half of his left eyebrow, silently asking why they had not already entered. He then purposefully stared at the heavy wooden door, as if seeking clarity.

Sighing at the inevitably of her own plans, Elbana pushed open the heavy, iron bound door, and stepped inside of the dark common room of the tavern. Stepping into the darkened room, Elbana was surprised. Mildly but still surprised, at the homey smells of cooking food, and the gentle warmth of the fireplace that lent a gentle golden light to the far side of the room.

She hadn’t expected the interior to be kept in such fine shape, as judged by the near wreck of the building’s exterior. Vogel, stepping in just behind her, shivered in pleasure as the warmth of the room swept over his chilled form.

Corporal Ihyon was less impressed with the warmth than he was with the smell of bread and roasting… something… that filled the air of the tavern. “Oh, Master Elbana, you chose a great place to stop! I thought we might be camping cold again tonight, but the smells here make me think the me own ma couldn’t have put out a better spread.”

From the back of the kitchens came a rough, deep voice, “I’ll be out in a moment, if you please! Have a seat by the fire and warm yourselves!” There was a scuffling noise, followed by a muted voice mumbling in irritation, and then the sound of several pieces of crockery shifting against each other.

Removing her helmet as she moved further into the room, Elbana looked at the decor. The exposed beams that made up the structure of the walls had all been heavily carved. The general motif was one of out of control flora. Vines and flowers carved into the heavy wooden beams by deft hands had created a visual riot of villagers and soldiers being overtaken by all forms of vegetation. Many of the little carved people vainly fought for their lives, but were ultimately consumed by the plants. In the carvings, several pieces of armor had been grown through by the invading plant life, and many weapons stood alone amongst fields of grass and flowers.

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This, she knew, had to be Ol’s work. The old man, much older now than when she had last seen him, had been raised by a tribe of the Children of the Forest on the western side of the Kingdom in the Green Mountains.

The Children of the Forest were often accused by their nearest human neighbors of stealing children; Elbana knew they would take in any stray, homeless or lost child, but that they would never “steal” a child. Children were too precious to the reclusive and long lived people. She had learned from one tribe when she had been in her teens that the women amongst them would bear one child every thirty years during their first two centuries of life. Barring accidents, deaths during childbirths, or raids from humans, they could live up to five centuries, or so she had been told.

She had originally found the idea of living so long terrifying, but had later come to the realization that people lived as long as they lived in their own communities, as was normal to them. She couldn’t quite imagine living in Ghlow, or any city in Rhiada for another 455 years while all around her, the neighbors she had would barely make it to 90 if they were lucky.

Turning back to her two companions, she sat at one of the smaller tables near the cheerily glowing fire just as a heavy older man trundled out of the kitchen bearing a large tray on one splayed hand, and held three heavy mugs in the other.

She raised a questioning eyebrow at her companions, neither of whom admitted to having ordered food and drinks.

When the old man reached them, he set the large, heavy, steaming mugs of what smelled like mulled cider fortified with wine on the table in front of each person now seated there. Once done, he began to set heaped plates of warm bread, soft butter, and crispy edged vegetables surrounding a large pink filet of roasted fish.

Not quite bald yet, but the man’s hairline had made a strategic retreat towards the top and back of his head decades before, and now was happy enough to join his well trimmed and combed beard in glowing a subdued silver in the firelight of the large room.

“Now, then. That sees you three all set. And those horses in the stable will be fed as well, once I get the boy moving. He’s around back right now, scrubbing the bathhouse. Will you be moving on, or do you need rooms for the night?” He looked to each of them in turn, trying to see which of them would turn out to be in charge. He looked at each of them without registering any knowledge of who they were.

“How much for the meals, and the stabling for the horses?” She asked, brushing the hair back from her forehead, allowing her to see the long scar she had above her left eye. His eyes tracked her hand’s movement, and gave a slight pause at seeing her scar, but still nothing.

“Oh, Mistress,” Ol said. “I’d say three meals, and the care of three horses for the night…?” He left that last hanging, waiting for her to confirm their need for lodgings.

Elbana was now certain the man didn’t recognise her, she was both hurt, and not just a little bit offended.

“We’ll need two rooms, one for me, and one for my two men. We are here on the King’s business, Ol. Is Red here?”

The old man’s eyes lit up at the mention of Red, and then he looked hard at Elbana once it dawned on him that she knew who both he and Red were.

“Oh, my stars! Lil Banni!” The man’s accent almost made the diminutive into “bunny” and Ihyon mouthed “bunny” to Vogel in disbelief.

Standing now, she was eye to eye with the older man, and smiled at him warmly. “It’s Master Elbana now, Ol. And I really need to see Red.”

Ol was on the verge of tears, and laughter as he took in his old trainee, and companion from many campaigns twenty and more years having rudely passed by. “Oh, ‘Master’ is it hen? Oh, you always were destined for better than the Band of the Red Stones could ever offer! And look at you now!”

He stepped back from her, and looked his former protege up and down. “And that armor you’re wearing isn’t the shiny parade ground stuff, either! Look at you! Oh, we’ve missed you! Red will be so… okay, not glad, but he’ll be sooooo…” Ol was losing the thread as he tried to imagine what his old captain would actually be at seeing how well their “lil Banni” had done.

”But, he’ll be some few ways, I think, when he sees you!” Ol exclaimed. Then the old man paused. “Well, he’s actually seen you already, though I doubt he knew you was, well, YOU. He sits up in the highest room at the top of the inn most evenings, once he’s done with his chorin’ around. And he saw you three ride up, and gave me notice to ready the rooms, and dinner as you were coming down the main road at that mean trot you had put your horses to.”

With that he gave her a serious look. Ol had been the one to teach her to TRULY ride, and to truly appreciate taking care of one’s mount, and he looked down on anyone who would treat a horse poorly.

Elbana held up her hands in a gesture of innocence and forbearance, making them both smile.

She had always been amazed that such a kind man as Ol had been the second in command of such a large mercenary squad. And that he had been the training officer for a squad of such moderate, and bloody, success. Even in his aged state, the man’s face radiated nothing so much as calm happiness, and a little joy at having met an old friend.

Slightly short, and now more portly than the brawny, heavily muscled, thick armed man she remembered, Elbana could see the various scars of past campaigns scrawled across the skin of his forearms, neck, and the portion of his face not covered by his will tended chin strap style beard. She had personally seen the kindly, doting, grandfatherly innkeeper before her efficiently and mercilessly slaughter hundreds of soldiers in the five years she had spent as a part of their troop of hired killers.

Glancing to the table, she now saw that both Ihyon and Vogel watched their exchange closely and with great interest while the two men ate the food that had been put down in front of them. Ihyon was already close to having cleaned his plate of everything but the two small pieces of what looked like roast beets.

Looking back to Ol, “I’ve missed you, Sergeant. I have. Why dont you pull up a chair and tell us about your life here?”

The man laughed, and it was filled with joy and warmth that she had always been amazed by. The years had, if anything, made Ol more pleasant than she remembered. Either that, or Elbana might have to reevaluate who she had been spending all of her time with to make this man’s company feel so inviting.

“I would love to, Banni, but I have to kick the boy out to the stables to feed your horses, and then go up and let Red know you want to see him. Then I’ll be finishing up in the kitchen while you all talk. The two rooms at the top of the stairs, and to the left are yours. They’re both the same, so never you no mind on who goes to which one.”

With that, Ol rustled in his belt pouch, just under his wide, pristine apron, and produced two large, heavy iron keys. Handing them to Elbana, he wandered back to the kitchen, where they could hear him raising his voice to someone. As she sat, she could hear the words “grain” and rub them down good and well, boy…” as she tucked into her own food.

She tried to eat without letting Vogel and Ihyon know how nervous she now felt. How angry and annoyed she was with herself, and how claustrophobic the walls of this lovely inn loomed above her and folded in around her, making it difficult for Master Elbana to breathe as she reached for her mug of mulled wine.

But, she was here now, and Red knew she was there. The best thing to do was to just wait for him to come down, and then they might talk.

Elbana glanced at the door and wondered if it were too late to make a run for it.