Lys: Listening.

So. An incriminating letter? What was there about Lord Ambrosius that would require his death? Nothing, that she could see. It was, perhaps, possible to fool some people, but the circumstances taken as a whole indicated something beyond what he might have or have not done. They pointed to a pack of convincing lies, or some ill-made ruling, born of malice. But why would Lord Ambrosius hold it in his own possession? She understood his reason for not destroying it, but she wondered why it was there in the first place.

Still, she found the status of the room to be "let it lie", and so did not continue her line of inquiry. Instead she sat, worked, and listened for any choice words to be dropped. She thought she would never get used to this way of life. At home, everyone was in everyone's business. Nosy wasn't half an explanation for it. There was nothing wrong with asking.

Here, it seemed almost as if everyone conciously avoided other people's business. As a slave, she had learned to keep her questions to herself, or ask other slaves. But here, she was free, living among the lords of the valley, and still, it seemed, too much inquisitiveness was frowned upon.

So she fell into her old ways of listening and making connections between bits of unrelated information. For all her penchant for jumping to conclusions, her information gathering rarely led her wrong. She already knew more than she'd been told. She imagined by the time the day was over, she'd have the whole story and then some.