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Thoughts
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Fox listened to the Myrlight's strumming as she lapsed into usual
silence. It was not unlike being home at Moonfang, listening to her lord's
minstrels playing in the background as they met -- lord and squires
together -- for the evening meal.

Home seemed too far away that morning, as she knitted her mail and
tried to ignore the deep, throbbing pain in her side. Truth be told, she
had not healed as completely as she had told Myrlight, or would dare to
let on. The knife had done more damage than she would tell, and although
the healer was skilled, there was just some hurt that would have to be
left to the healing touch of time. 

Still, she missed her lord, and Luther, even her bothersome squire 
brother Dies. She missed her own bed, the hearth in the small common room 
she shared with the other two squires, even being roused out of bed at 
the first touch of dawn to begin the day's routine. The empire sat too 
far from this inn for her comfort.

'Bother,' she thought.'This was no way to think. I'm on an important
mission, and I'm acting like a child.'

She glanced up at Myrlight, who was bewitching music from the odd
instrument. Fox did not consider herself a connoisseur of music, not having
enough exposure to such niceties in her short lifetime, but she had to
admit that it was pleasant.

Carefully, she shifted her weight, biting back a small sound as
her side screamed at her.

'Damn that fanatic, anyway,' Fox thought bitterly, as she set aside
her pliers for the tenth time. Her hands were strong, but unused to the
rhythm of knitting mail. Why had she ordered the six-on-one mail? It was
such a pain to repair. The hole left by her would-be assassin's knife
would take days to fix. 'My demand for such fine mail, too. You've no
one to blame but yourself.'

She set her chin on her hands and let herself think, the lulling
music letting her thoughts drift. 

Her swords were safe. That was the important thing. The bastard
sword would be expensive to replace, but it had a lot of memories attached
to it. In some ways, she would have been just as happy to be rid of her
second blade, but she also knew her life was inextricably linked with that
of the sword. Why she had left them with the horse while she went to see
if the local inn had free rooms she would never figure out. 'I must have
been more tired than I thought,' Fox mused. But she had sent a boy to fetch
her belongings from the livery; now both weapons, sheathed and wrapped in
a linen bag specially made for them, lay safe in her room. No one who was
not given express permission could touch the smaller blade, anyway. Even 
then, it might not suffer a strange touch. It was hard to figure out what that 
sword would and wouldn't like.

She knew that the city guard had been invoked and were coming by
in the morning to question her. She would have to think of exactly how
much she wanted to tell them. Certainly not what her assailant said to her.

Fox regarded her gloved hand with a frown. 'You've got no one to
blame but yourself', she chastised herself again.'If you hadn't been so
careless to bare your hand in uncertain company, he never would have known
who you are.' For a moment, she wondered if anyone else had seen her hand
uncovered. She dismissed the thought. Besides, only certain people with 
very special kinds of vision could see it under the best of circumstances 
-- and of those, even fewer would have known what it meant.