Day 9

I'm several days - and gazillions of words behind! Oh my!

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The silence hung between them like a heavy, opaque brick. Nearly a full minute passed before either moved.

"I will send for the bay's groom on the morrow," Helmuth finally consented. "My work with her is done and the master may take her. If you bring me your foal then, I will inspect and consider it."

The visitor nodded and began to cough again.

"Understand, though, that if it is not of good quality, it is not worth my work," insisted Helmuth. "I will judge tomorrow and then can we talk of information."

"I would expect not less," said the visitor, as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "And I assure you that you will be pleased. Wahrlich." Verily.

While Helmuth felt surprise in this last expression, he was careful not to show it. In the course of this negotiation (if one could describe it as such), Helmuth had regained control of his emotions and expressions thereof. This stranger should know no more about him, at least until Helmuth could know what part this man played in the world they were both seemingly involved in.

"Until tomorrow, then. And now I must beg you leave as I must send a message to the castle for the groom."

The visitor, who had not moved from his standing beside the door, cleared his throat a final time, put his hand on the door, and turned to leave.

"What shall I call you?" asked Helmuth.

The stranger paused, looked Helmuth in the eyes, and furrowed his brow. He shook his head slowly, looked away, opened the door, and left.

Helmuth watched the man's departing back as he walked the path toward the trees and disappeared. He should have been angry at the imposition and the lack of information, but what he really felt was relief at his absence, no matter how short-lived it might be.

These were unknown emotions to him. Was it fear? It was fear. Fear growing larger and darker as he considered his mind.

And his past. There was so much about his past that he feared. The fear had been gone, but this man had brought it back. There was lots of fear that rose to be be considered.

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Renaldo had made good progress today. Soon he would reach the moors and, by default,

Baeddan. Baeddan was a large man by Welsh standards. He towered over most of the village and had since he was almost 10. Now a man, he was regarded as a giant. And while outside of his home village it was assumed he carried the presence of an ogre (the name "Baeddan" translates to "boar" in English, a birth day "gift" from his drunken oaf of a father), the villages knew him as kind and generous. On a typical day, he could be found helping merchants heft heavy bags onto and off of carts, or moving bales of bedding and feed on local farms. He was of average intelligence, but given his size and the hands that came with it, he was not given to handiwork, and so apprenticeships eluded him. However, the people around him were kind and took care of his needs by keeping him constantly employed with various jobs that required mere strength. Renaldo was anxious to catch up with Baeddan and reconnect their old friendship. It was Baeddan who had shown him the various methods with which to use one's own body to catch the better of an opponent in hand-to-hand combat. Those were youthful pursuits, but none the less important skills to master when one spent as much time on the road as Renaldo did. Mind you, Renaldo did not use his weight against Brother Frederic. By the saints, Renaldo was not even in the room at the time! But if one were to compare the shifts of tonnage and leverage of body to body with the seemingly abstract placement of abbey furniture at the time of… "Hail!" called Renaldo as he spotted a shepherd boy. "How near are we to Llanfair?" The boy looked up at him in surprise and shook his head. He hadn't understand the question. He tried again in Welsh, "Ble mae'r Llanfair?" His grasp of this western language was sparse, but he was confident it would serve him in wayfinding, at the very least. The boy raised an eyebrow, but allowed the question. He pointed his staff to the east and the nearly setting sun. "Ar ôl machlud haul." After sunset. He drew his staff back to his body and turned toward the rocky outcrop nearby. Renaldo could see the remnants of a meal scattered on the stone surfaces. The boy caught him looking toward the foodstuffs and paused, briefly before quickening his pace. He reached his makeshift dinner table in a few strides, swept the remains into a sack, and hurried off between the many boulders that grew into a veritable forest of stone that continued as far as the eye allowed.