nuts, berries, and edible mushrooms. He refrained through a supreme effort of will.
'There's no reason to worry about me,' he said.
She wanted to object-he saw that in her face-but she didn't. Instead, she drew her knees up higher and wrapped her arms around them.
'I know that,' she said. 'I guess what bothers me most is that I feel like a burden.'
The sudden change in her thinking caught Haarn off-balance. He didn't know what to say.
'I'm not used to feeling like that,' Druz went on. 'I'm a good sellsword. No one has ever said they didn't get what they paid for.'
She stopped herself and shrugged.
'Well, hardly anyone,' she continued, 'and that was through no fault of my own. I fought for those people and bled for those people, but winning what they wanted wasn't possible.'
Haarn leaned forward and fed the campfire from a small pile of sticks and broken branches they'd gathered the day before.
'You're not a burden.'
She looked up at him. Haarn felt uncomfortable.
'If it weren't for you,' he explained, 'I wouldn't have been able to rest while tending to my father.'
'You've rested very little.'
'I wouldn't have rested at all if you hadn't been here.'
Druz nodded and said, 'Thank you.'
Haarn watched her for a while, expecting more questions. Broadfoot's and Ettrian's breathing filled the overhang over the snap and crackle of the campfire. After a time, the sound lulled Haarn. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He couldn't have had them closed for very long at all before the woman spoke again.
'What happened to your mother?' she asked.
Slowly, Haarn opened his eyes and looked at her. An uncomfortable expression filled her face.
'I mean, if you don't mind saying. It's just that your conversation with your father made me curious. Staying quiet all the time… I'm used to having someplace to go, people to talk with, but I've just been sitting here for the last day and a half.'
Haarn tried to think of what to say, whether to answer her question or to tell her it was none of her business.
'I'm sorry,' Druz said. 'Obviously I've stepped over a line here. You go on back to sleep and I'll watch the fire.'
Irritation filled Haarn. He wanted nothing more than for the woman to be quiet. Problems already danced in his head regarding his father's health and what the return of Borran Kiosk might herald. He didn't need to rake over the coals of past hurts, but he didn't like the fact that she sat there feeling alone. He knew how to keep the peace within himself, but she was out of her element and not necessarily among friends.
'My mother,' Haarn said, 'deserted us.'
'Why?'
Haarn hesitated.
'Maybe that wasn't a good question,' she said quickly.
Haarn knew she wanted to know, and he wanted her to know. He looked at her, realizing she was more like his mother than he wanted to admit.
'I don't know,' he said.
Druz nodded.
Haarn drew in a deep breath and assembled his thoughts. He'd never talked to anyone about his feelings regarding his mother, and he'd never had the opportunity to talk to someone so like her.
'My mother was a warrior. I don't even know where she hailed from.'
His father never told him and he couldn't remember his mother ever saying. A twinge of guilt shot through him, but he walled it away with other thoughts and feelings of her that he couldn't bear to think of.
'When she left us, she said only that she had to return to where she'd come from, that there were things she'd left undone.'
'And she never returned?'
'A few times,' Haarn said. 'She stayed away longer and longer each time, until finally one day she didn't come back at all.'
'How did your father and mother meet?'
'She was pursued into the forest by a band of men. My father chose to aid her.'
'Why?'
Haarn shrugged. 'He never said. I never asked. What was done was done. Silvanus teaches acceptance of things past and a knowledge of things to do now with hopes for a balanced future.'
'She might have been an outlaw.'
Haarn nodded, frowning.
'I apologize. I shouldn't have said that.'
'It may well have been true. It's not as though I haven't thought that myself. Most civilized people who end up here come because they've been chased from the cities by their own kind or because they're searching for gold or treasure.'
'Your mother might not have been able to return after her last visit,' Druz said. 'Her absence might not have been totally by choice.'
'I thought she might have been killed, perhaps jailed.'
Haarn was surprised at how much the old pain and confusion returned to him.
'If she was a warrior,' Druz said, 'she may have signed on to fight somewhere. There've been any number of disputes that have drawn mercenaries to Turmish or the Reach.'
Some, Haarn knew, had pitted mercenaries against the druids of the Emerald Enclave. The possibilities twisted his guts. For his mother to have loved Ettrian and fallen to another druid in battle would have been the crudest of fates.
'She might have come from some place on the far side of the sea,' Druz said, as if guessing the twisted tangle of his thoughts. 'Maybe she intends to return one day.'
'It's been years.'
That stopped her only for a moment. 'Maybe she has returned and was unable to find you or your father.'
'There are ways for her to get in touch with my father,' Haarn replied, 'places she could have left messages. She never has.' He blew out his breath. 'There is no excuse for her behavior.'
Druz eyed him. 'Is that you speaking, Haarn, or your father?'
Anger ran deeply in him then, and he had trouble containing it.
'Grant me Silvanus's patience, woman, but you are arrogant.'
'Not arrogant, Haarn. It doesn't take a sage to see you're conflicted in this. Gods' blood, but you'd have to be if you had any kind of heart-and I know you do-but I also heard your father's accusation about you finally getting to see a city. I have nothing against your father, but you didn't deserve that.'
'You know nothing about what comes between my father and me.'
'I know enough to make some assumptions. Your father is bitter about loving and losing your mother, but he was brave enough and strong enough to raise you by himself.' Druz eyed him. 'Do you want to see a city?'
Haarn hesitated, wondering if she knew him well enough after the past few days to know a lie from him if she heard it. He started to speak, caught himself, then said, 'I don't know.'
'You don't know if you want to see one, or you don't know if you want to deal with your father's feelings when he finds out you want to see one?'
Haarn didn't answer.
Druz sighed and wrapped her arms more tightly around her legs.
'I grew up in Suzail,' she said.
The name meant nothing to Haarn. He didn't suppose he'd ever met anyone from there before, or perhaps they hadn't cared for anyone to know.
'It's the capital city of Cormyr on the Lake of Dragons,' she explained.
