Quoted By:
“I know you’ll do the best you can.”
You were already striding past Zina, ignoring her face the best you could as it ran from one incredulous expression to another. You thought she might have said something but it fell flat against your ears, there was one road that concerned you, and it led to Patric’s wine house.
Around the center of the <span class="mu-i">Mila</span>, around the sheltered bellows of the smithy, around the carved fences of and door frames hanging with green cloth, the grocer had made it back to his shop and made his sign as he walked up the three small steps. Patric’s house and business stood before you, a wooden sign in the window of grapes and olives, a carved door showing the ash and the yew.
You didn’t know what to say or where to begin, you briefly considered "Did you set the Church on fire?” before convincing yourself with some effort that it would be a bad idea. How could you even speak to him? You were supposed to help these people, your people…Mirèlha’s face crept into the corners of your world. There you stood outside the wine house door, tracing the slight grooves and grain of the wood up and down, stalling. You ran a hand through your hair and grimaced at the length, then grimaced at yet another attempt to put off the problem at hand. No, there would be time for censure and regrets later on, you had to do this. You opened the door…
…and found Patric passed out on the long bar to the left of the entrance, half a dozen wine bottles in various measures of depletion, with more besides on their bellies near his head. A puddle of drool and fitful breaths were the only clues to his continued vitality. He was all but falling out of his stool, one of a dozen along the length of the bar.
The breath you’d been holding went long and slow from your nostrils. You walked over, to shake him awake or right him on his stool you didn’t know. Yes you did. You pushed his elbow across the bar and brought his other arm up to rest on it, then moved his face the best you could out of his spit. Why had Mirèlha sent you here? Maybe she didn’t understand your question, maybe she didn’t know the answer to it, maybe she just wanted her father. You pry the stool next to Patric loose, fighting his foot crooked around the bottom rung. You sit, shoulder to shoulder.
