Their adventure began on a snowy night.
The unusually powerful snowstorm raged for two days. Disturbingly keening winds had howled and whistled around the small collection of huts in the hamlet settled just outside the tree line of the deep Hockwood Forest. The village was called Norlander, the most northern settlement in the world. The blizzard dumped several score stone-weight of snow and the powder formed high drifts which had all but buried the little town. But by sundown of the second night the tremendous blizzard had practically blown itself out with only light flurries swirling new flakes down on the high piled smothering white drifts.
It was near midnight when the last of the dying gusts blew light powder in through the inn's door as the hooded traveler entered. He closed the door quickly behind him, shutting out the wind, the snow, the cold and the night. He stood with his back to the door and let his dark eyes adjust to the mellow light of the room, given off by the dying flames in the fireplace and the single lit candle on top of a long table. Snow dusted his hood and on his broad shoulders formed small piles, which steamed as they melted in the tavern's warmth. He stomped his boots hard, dislodging the accumulated snow on them and threw back his hood before drawing off his thick fur cloak.
With dark brown eyes the traveler ran his gaze around the shadowed tavern room of the inn. The ceiling was of age-darkened wood planks and exposed beams stretched perhaps eight feet above the sawdust sprinkled stone floor. The walls were also of wood, split-logged and mud-dabbled. Old and dusty tapestries draped the log walls, the better to preserve the room's heat against the winter cold.
The long dining table, about half the length of the tavern's great room itself, was set in its center. The aforementioned burning candle had been placed into a thick pedestal of wax. The traveler guessed that the mound of paraffin was the remains of other many other candles which had resided on the table. He could see other mounds with other unlit candles arranged along the centerline of the rough table top.
Even with his nose numbed from the cold the traveler could still smell the somewhat sour scent of humanity, old sweat and other stale body odors rising from the straw and down-filled cushions of the tavern's furnishings.
The fireplace was a large fieldstone affair with a sooty black maw large enough for a tall man to stand upright in and wide enough to accommodate five men shoulder to shoulder. A log, mostly eaten away by low-dancing flames, set in iron dogs above a bed of dying embers. The fireplace's hearthstone was of one huge single piece. It was there that the man saw the woman for the first time.
She was on the floor before the hearth, dressed in an unbleached white linen blouse, the hems of her gray flannel apron and long green wool skirt tucked under her long legs. Her feet were bare and she held a smoking pipe in one hand. She looked at him with her clear blue eyes, giving the late visitor a frank stare, plainly surprised at his appearance.
"Greetings, Master," she said, rising gracefully, her skirt swirling around her naked ankles. "Welcome to Soren's Inn. I didn't expect anyone would come in from the road, from the storm at this hour."
"I'd hoped to be here before sundown," the traveler said in a deep, modulated voice. "The snow slowed me."
The serving woman nodded and put the pipe between her white and even teeth. "I'm guessing you'll be wanting a room."
"I'll be wanting a hot drink," he corrected her. "Then a hot meal. Then a room."
The woman smiled. "Aye. My name is Ciara. And what might yours be, Master?"
The stranger hesitated for a moment before replying. "Civilicus."
"Master Civilicus." She nodded. "A raw night to be abroad."
"Aye. Nearly frozen, thus the need for hot drink." He threw her a cooper coin which Ciara deftly caught in a slender fingered hand.
"I'll go fetch the Master's supper then."
She did a quick curtsy before sashaying through the dining hall. Civilicus watched the sweet-faced wench go. He noted the rolling sway of her sensual hips beneath her sweeping skirt and the way her bare feet skipped over the cold stones of the inn's floor before she disappeared through a door in the east wall. Involuntarily, he grunted deep in his throat. It'd been some time since he'd looked upon a woman as a possible bedmate. For many years he hadn't been able to afford the distraction from his mission of pursuit. But that mission, that all-too necessary quest, had now successfully ended. He could afford to attend to his more animalistic needs.
While waiting for the maid's return he threw his snow-sodden cloak completely from him, draping the thick variegated gray fur over a chair near the fireplace. Then he shrugged off his heavy backpack and unbuckled his sword belt before warming himself at the low-burning fire.
# # #
Ciara brought heated vodka in a crudely thrown but large earthenware cup, a wooden plate with a slab of pork, beans, and yellow-corn bread. There was also a bowl of potato honey pudding.
