Bree-town is more baffling than ever. I was glad to be there, glad to be in the midst of the bustle, but I am glad to be back home, entertaining guests, and preparing, once Strangsig has changed my bandages and given me permission to move about again (I apparently strained my gut injury and caused a fair bit of blood to seep), to make my first try at brewing, at long last.
Yes, I have the barrels. Marnewyn and I kept missing one another, and I had just about decided there weren't going to be barrels (even wondered if perhaps I'd been tricked), when I met a few other folk who offered to provide me with some. Odd, really. A friendly woman from Dale named Escannan offered to pay for them outright, and asked nothing in return. You never know what to expect. Then it turned out Marnewyn came back and I had six barrels waiting for me, but I found that out only as I was leaving Staddle with a cart full of winter wheat and barley, just in time to collect them on the way. There was no chance to relay word to Escannan, so perhaps on my next visit, there'll be even more barrels waiting.
Escannan wasn't the only friendly person I met in Bree, but the others, it is best not to name, or remember. One made quite a big fuss about the 'secret' of what her business was, though it was plainly obvious to everyone. I find the ways of Bree-land baffling in many things, but none so much as in the way it treats the pleasures of what she called "company." They put so many rules and ceremonies in the way, so that people who wish to spend a night together cannot simply do so. Then they make even more elaborate contortions by which they can bypass those rules and ceremonies, and even charge each other coin for it when they do. It's a wonder they get anything else done, with how much work they have to go through before they can simply touch one another.
Another fellow set out to lure a woman to his bed with the most grandiose bragging, heedless of how public a place he was in; the woman declined, or at least seemed to, though I suspected she wanted to agree but felt obligated not to, perhaps due to all those rules and ceremonies. I've known men who brag, though never as bad as he did. I suspect she would have been disappointed. Between the woman selling company and the man promising sensations as yet undreamt, I felt out of place in the tavern since I only was there to drink beer. Imagine, going to a tavern to drink beer! I am clearly an uncivilized wretch from lands so savage that people simply spend time together when they wish to.
By time I was riding back, my cart full of grains and barrels, my gut was aching. Scarcely out of sight of Staddle I was held at the point of an arrow, with another fired as a warning into the side of my cart. Not by the brigands everyone says infest those woods like fleas on a horse. No, far worse: by a Ranger. Luckily, it did not come to blows, for in my condition, I would have fallen quickly. He claimed to find it suspicious, me leading a cart of grain out of Staddle onto the Great East Road, so I gave him a quick lesson about what farming was, and trade, and roads. He allowed me on my way, but still seemed suspicious. Are many nefarious villains cunningly smuggling large quantities of grain out of Bree-land through the insidious chicanery of buying it and loading it onto a slow-moving, obvious cart? If so, good thing the Rangers are alert and on the case, rather than, say, rooting out all those brigands everyone is always talking about.
I arrived in Ost Guruth last evening with my cartful of much-needed grains. Food supplies had run out a few days earlier, and though a few of the scouts had come back with some wolf-meat, it had been a hungry few days. The porridge runs thick today, and I had the pleasure of sharing it with a few traders that called on our Ruin-hold as they passed, and even now camp near the east hall. They spoke of journeys to distant lands, and wars that might be happening in them, and many other things, and they were grateful and glad to share our humble porridge and our warm fires. (One of them, known as Alyosha, was being teased by his friends Altheric and Gwythryth, that he would have to wait to court me until after their business was done, but I don't think they were serious.) I don't know what their business is, or whether we will someday benefit from trading with them, but when the bustle and crowds of Bree can be so hit or miss, it's nice to have a bit of bustle here in Ost Guruth. The good kind.
I almost wrote "to have a bit of company in Ost Guruth", but I wouldn't want anyone to think I was selling it! (Or buying it.) (Or even having it, for that matter. Strangsig wouldn't stand for it, with my injury still in recovery.)
