"Yes, sir' Shandril replied, giving a slight bow.

"Herbs cut and ready?"

"Yes, sir." Shandril bowed again hastily to hide her growing smile.

"Going straight out for water. I like that… I like that indeed. You'll make a good innkeeper yourself someday. Then you could have a cook to do all those things for you! " They both heard Korvan's sniff before the kitchen door slammed. Shandril struggled to swallow her giggles.

"Good lass," Gorstag said warmly, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.

Shandril smiled back at him through the hair that had fallen over her face again. Well, at least someone appreciated her! She hurried off down the well-worn, winding path of beaten earth and exposed tree-roots to the Glaemril, to draw staggeringly heavy buckets of water for the kitchen. Tonight would be a busy night. If Lureene did not bed with one of the travelers, she'd have much to tell as Shandril hissed questions in the darkness of the loft: who came from where, and where they were bound, and on what business. News, too, and gossip-all the color and excitement of the world outside, the world that Shandril had never seen.

Gratefully she waded out into the cool water, her bare feet avoiding the unseen stones with long practice as she filled the old wooden buckets. Then, grunting with the effort, she heaved them up onto the bank and stood for a moment, hands on hips, looking up and down the cool, green passage of the stream through Deepingdale's woods. She could not stay long, or swim or bathe and get herself wetter than she was, but she could look… and dream. Past her feet, the Glaemril-Deeping Stream, some called it-rushed laughingly over rocks to join the great river Ashaba that drained the northern dales and then turned east to slip past rolling lands, full of splendid people and wondrous things, lands that she would see, someday!

"Soon," she said firmly, as she climbed from the stream and took up the worn wooden yoke. A heave, a momentary stagger under the great weight and she began the long climb up through the trees back to the inn. Soon.