I lay in one of the common rooms of the Inn, unable to sleep. Outside, a soft rain continued to fall on the cobblestones of the walled courtyard. I find the sound of rain soothing, and usually it aids a night’s sleep, but tonight I felt my nerves wound up, and I felt tense and aware of everything around me.
Felix lay nearby, as did Adamus. They both seemed to be sound asleep. Perhaps they were.
I rose to a seated position, casting aside my rough spun woollen blanket as I observed the other sleeping forms in the room. Common rooms in roadside Inns are the cheapest way of spending a night safely when travelling. Here, men can rent simple wooden floor space for a few copper tarsks and know they will wake up in the morning without their throats slit. Free women, of course, rarely choose to sleep in common rooms, or if they do, it would be a common room reserved exclusively for the use of women. In times of war, though, all things become scarce, and, with the passing of war torn refugees, even room in an Inn becomes a precious commodity. I observed a couple of free women sleeping to the side of the room. They had made a low wall with their travel bags to delineate their area. Men, of course, were not permitted to cross it. I suspect the women slept little, if at all, conscious of snoring males close by. They slept in their robes and gowns, not daring to so much as remove a stitch.





