Up before dawn, because of the cold if nothing else. Adri's squarehouse was well kept warm by its brazier but the chill of middle spring in the bitter empty-lands of the north swallowed the fire's warmth long before the sun came up, leaving Cerrynt shivering atop the ornate bed, her oilcloth tugged tightly around her, forced awake before the limning of the eastern sky. The last few days she'd had a thick cloak of fur to wrap around her, but even so, the cold still woke her before the sun.
Out of the curiously ornately furnished squarehouse, wondering as always why the northerners hadn't realized how much stronger a round house is. The keys were a puzzle: one kept the house itself secure, which she understood, but another to keep one room secure from another within the same house? Dutifully, as a guest ought, she followed Adri's instructions carefully, turning the keys and then tucking them safely in the small oilcloth bag, which in turn went into the larger bag made up of the oilcloth she'd been using as a blanket. The house seemed sad when she left it. Rarely visited save by her. Was it glad that at least she was using it?
Through the winding streets of the city. She had known the way as if by instinct since the first time her feet had trod the paths, but she'd also climbed high up Bree-hill to look down on the city, and memorized at a glance its many wending ways, at least those one could see from the hilltop. Climbing walls and roofs did not come easily to her the way climbing hills did, so there were some parts of town she could explore only on foot, but by now she was sure she'd seen every alley and byway. Still she always went back by the route under the bridge that Adri had first shown her, avoiding the large house at the hill-top that traded for rotten water (unless she wanted to speak to Cesistya).
Out the west gate, ignoring the stares of the guards. One she thought was staring because of her disfigured nose; he often touched his own, thoughtlessly, after she passed. Another perhaps more admiringly, undaunted by that unforgiveable mar to her beauty, interested only in what little of her shape could be glimpsed despite the fur pulled tight around her. Another, a grimace at the sight of her foreignness, her darker skin, her crude clothes, her shivering in what was to him a warm spring day. Westron words he muttered after he thought she could not hear him seemed unflattering, though she chose not to ask the Elf what they meant.
Over the bridge and down along the river. As winter turned to spring, the fish were getting bigger, and hungrier. If she felt like pole-fishing, first she had to gather bugs. She had found a place where some fallen trees boiled over with crawling insects when she poked at it. Not ideal, compared to flying insects, but far easier to collect. Most days, though, she used her nets. They were getting frayed and she would need to find rope to repair them soon, but they worked well in this swift current and narrow stream. Sometimes she caught fat trout, and wished she could eat them herself, but she saved them for trade and settled for the graylings, the catfish, the dace, even the tiny bitterlings. She rarely brought her bow since she was a poor shot, and the Bree-folk seemed to number many hunters but, despite a fine stream beside it, few fishers.
To her humble campsite, little more than a ring of stones. The day before, she had left a fire ready to start. Almost every morning it was still there, though occasionally a traveler might have used it, or animals might have left it a jumbled pile. Once she had enough fish for her meals for the day, or she was so chilled she could not go another moment without a fire, she lit it, then cleaned and cooked all the fish she had caught except those she was saving for trade. She didn't catch enough for trade every day, but most days she at least had a rudd or bream to bring to market, sometimes much more. She ate some as she cooked them, tucked others into a scrap of oilcloth to be supper. Always she huddled close to the fire, getting what warmth she could from it while her fish cooked, but banking it once the cooking was done, even though she still longed for its warmth.
Into the woods up the hill to gather more deadfall for the fire. The only time she used her battle-axe now was to chop wood; the woman of the Dwrgi-lûth who'd made it would roll her eyes at such callous misuse of a battle-axe, but she had no hatchet, while she did have a whetstone to sharpen it afterwards. The big oilcloth became a bundle-bag full of firewood, some of which was used to set up a fire for the next day, atop the banked coals of that day's cook-fire. The rest of the wood into the bundle-bag, over her shoulder, along with the small pouch of tools and larger pouch of fish both cooked and raw.
Through the gates and thus to the market. There was a small-man -- Dwarf, she'd learned the word for them was -- who was kind, and often gave her more of the pennies (she'd learned to call them copper, silver, and gold, not dirt-pennies, moon-pennies, and sun-pennies) than did the surly man in the market near the stone pigs. Some friendly people called Vaniie and Aranoll had helped her find out that that man had been taking advantage of her unfamiliarity with pennies by giving her too few, and had given her what the man should have been, which is how she'd been able to trade for furs. When the Dwarf had no need of fish she went to this surly man, and now she knew to insist on a proper price, sometimes a whole silver penny if she had a good stack of fat trout.
Back to Adri's house. Keys. Replace the wood she'd burned, and start another fire. Sit before it, close as she dared, and eat the fish she'd saved for supper. Then sleep on the bed (Adri had said she found beds uncomfortable, so used to the hard ground, but for all that she'd never even seen one until a moon before, Cerrynt took to this one immediately).
She knew how to live. Even in the chill, unfamiliar north, she knew how to live. Adri had said she could stay as long as she liked, and the people from Pickdean had also offered a room in their (presumably also square) house, but even if she'd not had a squarehouse to stay in, she would know how to live.
The question that dogged her footsteps and her thoughts was simply this: is that enough?
And the answer that always bubbled up from within was no, it is not enough. Cesistya had said at first that it could be, but Cerrynt couldn't accept that. Adri, not speaking of the hurt she bore (and perhaps tried to hide, though you cannot share a road with someone alone for moons and keep such things secret), proposed a thing called keeps-busy as a method of holding the hurt at bay. While Cerrynt's poor but growing Westron did not allow her to understand exactly what a keeps-busy was, she knew it involved doing things, things with a purpose. Cesistya said that Adri did not use keeps-busy to heal, but to avoid, and this could be just a way to make things worse.
But Cerrynt felt sure, even after speaking to Cesistya, that a purpose, a path, a keeps-busy, would not be an ill way for her to treat her own hurts and losses. Because what she had lost was not merely a home, not merely a clan, not merely her honor, but more than those things, she had lost purpose. Not once but three times. When Trindân had prevented her becoming the champion her father had trained her to be since she had only six summers. When the spirits forsaking her had left her directionless in finding a way to set her clan to rights. When the treachery of the Eryr-lûth and their brenin's son had turned her into an oathbreaker against her will.
Finding a purpose, a path, she had decided, would not be avoiding the hurt like Cesistya thought Adri was, but salving it. Now she had only to find one.
Until then: Up before dawn. Out of the squarehouse. Through the wending streets of the city. Out the west gate. Over the bridge and down along the river. To her humble campsite. Into the woods up the hill. Through the gates and thus to the market. Back to Adri's house. She knew how to live.
