In terms of towns it wasn’t much.  Located a ways off the old Greenway road, it likely had served as a hub for crops or some other resource back during the last cycle.  I thought through it but couldn’t remember having ever been here, which was not surprising as my time in what was now being called the Provinces had been limited…that after all had been why I decided to come here vice lingering in places where my actions were a bit more known and felt.

“Can you smell that?” came the lithe voice of my companion.  I could.  The odor struck me as the smell I often associated with the gathering of people.  Something I knew all too well from war camps.  However, I knew well enough to know that it was not what my companion was asking after.  If there was something that often did get her attention it was warm food, she had bemoaned any night where the weather kept us from lighting a fire.

“Something to eat?”  I offered.  My companion had gotten a few steps ahead of me and she spun on a foot, walking backwards as she smiled back at me.  I took that as an indication of a correct answer.  She spun back around thankfully before she bumped into anyone.

“Quartes, have you been here before?”  Came her voice over her shoulder.

At least it was a question I had already worked through.  “No, I recall mention of it but I never visited.”  The town was gathered around a square, a common enough layout in my experience, and it looked like there was a market or such going on given the thin crowd we were making our way through.  There was something about the crowd that struck me as wrong.  However, another source of concern was keeping me from figuring out my discomfort.  While most of the glances our way went to Keto, enough were shifting to me and growing dark that I was once again faced with the conundrum of my legend.  Walking around with hood drawn up gave the impression or a brigand or a bandit.  Walking around without it meant seeing the reactions to who and what I was.

The former continued to seem the preferable option, even if I did have to remind myself of it.

To her credit my companion noted my discomfort and took action to solve it.  She came back and hooked her arm through my elbow and continued guiding me through the crowd.  Hooded figure walking on his own conjures concern.  Hooded figure walking with a red-headed woman with a bright smile and a spring in her step is just one part of an odd but probably not threatening pair.

Without my mind worrying about the impact of my legend I got a better look at the crowd.  People were huddled together, whispered words seemed harried, a fact reinforced that even those who had brought wagons or carts had taken no steps to relief their pack animals.  Everyone seemed in a hurry to get the work here done and leave.

“It reminds me of home and like home,” Keto interrupted my thoughts as she turned me to a building taking up nearly all of one end of the square, “it has a tavern.”  That we would end up at whatever the town had for a tavern did not surprise.  I will admit that it was housed in a better building than I had expected.  I’d known taverns started in the past by successful adventurers that had returned home and used their riches to start a place would they could spend the rest of their days.  I wondered if such a tale applied here.

Keto guided us inside and while the dark stained wood and sturdy furniture spoke to some early wealth, the limited customers, the cold hearth, and the general disheveled appearance meant that those ideal times had fallen into the past.  A woman, hair going to gray, a book of some sort balance on a knee as she sat on one of the bar stools turned towards us.  An eyebrow raised in question, the other joined it as Keto spoke.

“Greetings tavern keep, you wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of wine would you?”  The gray haired woman fumbled with her bookmark, got it placed, and hopped to her feet.

“I’m afraid not miss.  Apples though are the specialty of some of the farmers here and we brew it into a cider.”

“Then a pair of ciders please,” Keto answered as if this was just as good as her preferred beverage.

“Of course,” the woman made her way around the bar, pulling two leather tankards from beneath and began to fill them from a keg.  “Would you be needing anything else miss?”

“I’m the Bard Keto,” was offered to a question that I didn’t think was asked, “and we could use a room for the night.”

“Well Miss Keto welcome to the Golden Grain to and a good afternoon to you and your…” the tavern keep looked to me.

I offered a shrug, “I’m her traveling companion.”  True enough of an answer and what Keto and I had settled on for when we weren’t looking for my legacy to draw attention.  With the low light I lowered my hood, figuring it would draw further undue attention inside and trusted that in the dark it was unlikely anyone would take note of my eyes.

“I can get my man to prepare a room for you, I’ll have to have you stay here for a while.”  The drinks were done now and Keto stepped forward to retrieve them.  We found a table as the woman stepped through a door and muffled shouts reached us.  Keto handed me a tankard and then held hers up.  I obliged with a dull plunk and we both took a sip.  It was tart and dry but with just a hint of sour that to me meant that it was probably soon to spoil.  Keto seemed to like it well enough though and was looking about now, taking in our surroundings.

“Strange to see the crowd outside but not see it in here,” she offered after a moment.  “Shame really for such a fine place.”

“Most of the people outside seemed like they were ready to conduct their trades and move on.”  I paused as a harried looking man exited the backroom, sheets and comforter tucked under an arm, and headed down a hallway.  “Could be something has them wanting to be back in the familiarity of their homes.”

Keto answered my idea with a muffled grunt as she took another swig from her mug.  She lowered it slowly though, revealing a smile on her face.  She glanced around quickly until she settled on a corner sharing a wall with the cold hearth.  A section of that corner was raised.  She turned back to me with a smile.  “Or there hasn’t been a good enough reason to stick around.”  As the tavern keep came back into the common hall my companion pushed up from the table.  “I’ll be right back.”