Into The Woods

This was probably very foolish. It was a bad idea. Bad enough that he’d not told anyone where he was going today. Just as he’d offered no explanation as to why he’d needed a basket. That had garnered him some very strange looks from his footmen, but Robin was used to simply staring down such looks. Though he knew that he wouldn’t get away with it if his mother asked, as she was the one that taught him that trick.

( However, she didn’t ask. )

It was a perfect day for a ride. The weather was crisp, but not too cold. Too much of a chill in the air would prohibit letting his horse run too far or too fast. An over-warm horse on a cold day was a recipe for an ill mount, and Robin always took great care to treat his animals right. After all, he had a better idea of what they went through than any other person could possibly know.

( It was a perfect day for a rid for other reasons as well. )

It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Rowan had not strayed from the path, she'd learned her lesson on that well enough, and continued to walk along though she glanced over her shoulder from time to time. Just to be sure. She didn't venture into the woods often anymore. Mostly because of the incident with the wolf. But she was venturing now.

She needed herbs and mushrooms. The kind that only grew in the woods. The kind that her mother had taught her form very young were alright to use for certain things. Some where good to have if you needed to make a poultice, some were edible. It was all a matter of knowing what you were picking and Rowan felt relatively comfortable with that.

With a basket slung over on arm, she took stock of what she had: some cinquefoil, some mushrooms and some wild raspberries she had found. There were other plants she was looking for, but if she didn't find them soon, she'd have to abandon her search and head back to the village. It was going to get late.

Smiling, she paused over particular bush. Kneeling before it, she rustled through the branches looking for the berries she was sure she'd find and ignoring anything else around her.

This was not the market that she had wanted. There was no vendor with little metallic bits and bobs, no odd little sprockets or strangely oblong gears. She’d had ideas for those gears. This was not even the right village. All of the buildings here had grey slate roofs, and the village she had actually wanted, she recalled, had red tile roofs. This was the wrong place altogether.

It would be very tempting to blame the cookie-hoarder, to think that he had given her false directions. But after replaying the conversation in her head, Fred was forced to admit that she might have made a mistake in her calculations over which village contained the market she had an interest in. She had asked for help in finding a village, and the twitchy man had provided it. It just happened that it was not the village she was hoping for.

( Oh well. She was here, she might as well make the best of it. )

Rowan was hungry.

It was often food that had her diverting from her path toward whatever she was doing or wherever she was going to the location of something that smelled or sounded delicious. Whenever she had the chance, she partook of eating at the pubs, that was when she had money of course. At home she was relegated to stew and stale bread.

The bread was stale because she would purchase it in bulk from the marketplace and was unable to make her own and stew because it was easy to just continue to add things to a boiling pot of water until it was cooked through. Though generally it was all overcooked and boiled to the point where it lost its flavor. ( Rowan was a horrible cook. )