Jenny: Hard Things

"No," the Guttersnipe replied slowly. "But I've seen the way you look at horses. And it's understandable." Her mind went back to Mordred's remarks. "I grew up with horses. They are almost like pets to me. You say you're a bard's daughter, so think of them as a sort of song that you are trying to play. Someone else made up the song, but you have to play it."

Concordia and the colt, abreast of each other, touched noses briefly across the gap; then both snorted and shied off again, trotting along the course of the stream-bed.

"I'm sorry if I sound cross," she said after awhile. "I'm used to Artos picking me up and giving me a cuff on the ear. It teaches you quickly, at the very least. And he means it well. We've always had the sort of idea that if you set your mind to something, and it tries to defy you, you fight back until you've conquered it. And somehow it's better when you have to fight for it." She was quiet for a moment. Glancing over at Domitia's hands on the reins, she added, "You're doing a good job."

~~~~

Gwenhywfar came to the solarium to find it uncharacteristic disarray. She halted in the doorway with a muffled noise of dismay at the sight: books were everywhere, on the floor, the table, the chests, the chairs. Panniers were open and flung everywhere, and in the midst of them sat Lucius like a bird in its nest, fussing quietly over his scrolls.

"Oh, Lucius," she purred with sympathy, and glided in to kneel at his side.

He looked up, then round at his mess. "I do not see how I will be able to fit it all," he told her mournfully. "I am afraid if I take them all that Vortigern will be suspicious, but I can't leave them, Gwenhywfar. What will become of them? I need them!"

"Yes, of course you do," she consoled, patting his hand which clutched protectively Xenophon's Oikonomikos, as though the very presence of it would make some order out of the chaos surrounding them. "You should have done this days ago," she added.

He looked very contrite, but he said, "I couldn't bear to close them away until the last moment. Wulf has been taking the full panniers out even now, and each time he takes one it's so hard to let them go."

"But they will be with you all the way," she said. She gave his thin hand a shake. "Think of what you're doing. Don't despair! They will be there every step of the way."

She rose and crossed to the table, heaped as it was with tattered and well-loved literature. Paul had got mixed in with Plato, copies of the Jewish law were interspersed with sheaves of Cato's observations and Lucius' own remarks, and Pliny seemed to be everywhere. She began to take up copies and put them in neat stacks awaiting their panniers.

"Have you told the Guttersnipe?" Lucius asked from his place on the floor.

She shook her head.