BETWEEN FALKREATH AND RORIKSTEAD, 25th of Last Seed

Ratibor tried to stretch his shoulders, but was not successful at his endeavor due to being cramped between Bogdan and Egor in the carriage. Egor was especially irritated as the six and a half feet Vecheslav sat opposite him and thereby took all leg room. The tall man, on the other hand, was upset about the fact that he was forced to sit the wrong way forwards and that this had been the situation for the past few days.

Ratibor wished to finish the play as soon as possible. He had been hoping that the countless hours spent in the carriage would be somewhat productive, and that he could then start looking for actors as soon as they arrived in Solitude. However, that time frame was not realistic anymore.

"Why don't we just split up?" Vecheslav complained. "There's another perfectly fine carriage behind us carrying nothing but canvases and furniture."

"What would you say about working a little?" Ratibor suggested to his brother. "You and I could relocate to the other carriage."

"No, I'm interested in who on Nirn Serge is. Go on, Leliah," Bogdan said and looked at the girl.

Ratibor knew very well that Bogdan had made that up on the go and rolled his eyes. Bogdan tried avoiding being left alone with him as he expected Ratibor to suggest that they should work. The older brother was pissed with the younger for this.

Leliah looked at Bogdan, surprised and as if she was not quite sure what to tell. "Well…" she began. "He's my brother. We both hail from Bruma. Serge worked at Vadic Bodouof's theatre before…"

"He worked with Vadic Bodouof?" Bogdan exclaimed.

Ratibor rolled his eyes yet again. It was a shame that such a great mind was trapped in the character of such a lazy man. Bogdan's fixation with some of the theatre directors, poets and historians was also mildly irritating to his older brother, who believed that Bogdan could have been one of them if he simply put some effort into learning to know a copying house owner who could publish his work.

"Yes…" Leliah answered with an insecure tone.

"And moved to the Imperial City?"

"Well… yes."

Ratibor laughed a little over his brother's behaviour. "Vadic Bodouof is Bogdan's greatest idol," he explained to Vecheslav.

"He is very talented," Leliah said. "And very kind…"

"You know him?" Bogdan asked.

Leliah merely looked at him with astonishment. Ratibor did not blame her – his younger brother did come across as strange in that situation. Besides, he must have seen that the girl was not too comfortable, yet he did nothing to hide his eagerness. Leliah looked as if she would have preferred if everyone simply forgot about her, yet Bogdan kept asking her questions.

"Why did he move from such a renowned theatre owner?" Bogdan asked, wrinkling his forehead.

"Oh, my brother wished to try his wings in the Imperial City. This was before the war, though," Leliah began. "He returned to Bruma after two years."

"That was a great loss for me," Ratibor smiled and turned his head towards Leliah. "Your brother is a very talented performer," he said.

"Thank you, milord," Leliah answered.

Ratibor hoped that the discussion would be over with that and began considering whether to write a little on the play or read a book. As the space was rather limited, the man opted for the latter and began to think of how to solve the next issue: how to actually retrieve it from the small shelf behind him.

"And what exactly do you do?" Vecheslav asked Leliah, turning his head to his right.

The young girl looked down, and a piece of her light brown hair fell forwards. "I… I-uh hope to find work at a book copying house," she spoke with the same insecure tone as a few moments earlier.

Ratibor wanted to roll his eyes but refrained from doing so. He thought Vecheslav was such an icebrain in that situation.

"You are just fourteen?" Ratibor asked, intending to redirect the topic to something that would make her slightly more comfortable, but not take too much time. "I always thought that Serge was in his mid-twenties."

"He is nineteen," Leliah said.

Ratibor was so surprised that he forgot about his own plan. He had known Serge for quite some time, and found him rather mature, even though he was a bit of a hooligan at times. He had a great sense of humour and appeared to be almost the same age as the older Goldwine brother himself. Serge was never late to a rehearsal and never showed up unprepared, drunk or in a bad temper.

"Not everyone is baby faced," Vecheslav grinned at Bogdan.

"That's right, oldie," Bogdan answered instantaneously.

Ratibor chuckled slightly. "Umbranox isn't that old."

"You'd truly hope for that to be true, wouldn't you?" Bogdan smiled.

Ratibor hit his brother slightly at the knee. He was opting for the shoulder, but he had no room to move and therefore changed his left arm's trajectory half way through the movement.

Bogdan leaned in to the left side automatically, trying to avoid his brother's halfhearted slap. He laughed as Ratibor retreated and reached for a small container in his left pocket before beginning to uncork it.

"Bogdan!" Ratibor hissed.

Bogdan looked at him, surprised. "We have at least a days travel before we reach the next stop. It's not like this is something I wish to remember."

"Get out," Egor said. "If you're going to sleep the entire trip, the least you can do is to give the rest of us some space."

Ratibor was immensely annoyed with his brother. He wished for the play to premier as soon as possible, and Bogdan just would not cooperate.

Bogdan awoke when it was dark outside. He immediately noted the clop-clop sound of the horses' hooves against the stones of the road. At first, he saw only a dim light about a yard and a half away from him, but as he grew accustomed, the man noticed Leliah sitting opposite him, looking out of the window. She was leaning her chin against her right hand and with her head slightly bowed forwards. It was too dark outside, so she could not possibly have seen anything out there.

"They banished you from the main carriage?" Bogdan asked in a low tone without moving.

The girl turned her gaze towards him. The man's sudden sentence did not scare her even though she had been deep into her own thoughts. He had spoken in such a calm manner that it reminded her of how her mother used to wake her up when she was little. Leliah smiled towards him. "Oh, it's alright," she spoke.

Leliah had observed the younger Goldwine brother as he slept. She found his appearance rather peculiar, and not only due to his odd attire: his tent-like blue tunic which reached halfway down his thighs, or his dark and wide trousers that gave him to shape whatsoever. This, combined with his hair first caught the attention of the beholder.

Even though his hair had the colour of red, Hammerfell wine, his chest hair was light brown, the same as his eyebrows. Leliah had noticed this a few days prior as Bogdan never tied his tunic around the neck, and thereby exposing a v-cut. His haircut was strange too – it looked as if he had a side parting, which gathered in a cone-like structure at the height of his left ear. All in all, his hair was about six or seven inches long, not taking into account that it was more to the curly rather than wavy side.

His face looked almost completely round – the man had quite some puppy fat in his cheeks, which contrasted greatly against his beard, which was thick and darker than his eyebrows. He probably had not shaved since leaving Falkreath.

Bogdan was looking at her with the upper, back part of his head resting against the wall of the carriage and chin turned upwards. Leliah had trouble deciding whether he was flirting with her or not. The girl quickly gazed at his v-cut, which exposed a rather hairy chest, even in the dimly lit carriage.

A single candle was burning in a lantern in one of the top corners, directly above Leliah.

"Where are we?" Bogdan asked after a while in the same, calm manner as before.

"On our way to Rorikstead," Leliah answered. "Lord Goldwine believes we will be there at noon."

"Ratibor," Bogdan said. "If you wish to be part of this group, it's Ratibor."

She lowered her head and smiled awkwardly. "Thank you."

Bogdan turned his head slightly looked out through the window, probably seeing as little as Leliah had for the past hours. "There's nothing to thank me for," he said.

A long silence followed. Bogdan appeared to be thinking about something, turned away from Leliah. The girl, on the other hand, continued to inspect him.

Bogdan almost never opened his turquoise eyes fully, giving him a slightly drunken expression. They were big with prominent lids, further enhancing the roundness of his face.

His brother had a rather wide mouth, with the lower lip almost hanging down. Bogdan, on the other hand, had a smaller mouth and thinner lips. He also looked significantly younger than Ratibor, and his nose was slightly longer, with the tip being narrower and pointing straighter.

"What's with making fun of Egor?" he suddenly asked, turning his gaze towards her.

Leliah felt how she blushed and hoped this would not be too visible in the dark. "Oh, Um… Vecheslav found it amusing to hint at something which is not true," she began. "I am but a child in Egor's eyes."

Bogdan looked up in the ceiling as if he had found a small spider or a butterfly up there. "Egor must be a good friend of your brother's," he spoke, almost sighing. "Perhaps I should go and see one of his plays one day."

"I can truly recommend it."

"I usually don't appreciate theatre," Bogdan said quickly, almost interrupting the girl.

"Why?" she asked. "Theatre is mesmerising, it's… it's beautiful!" Leliah sighed, smiling.

"It is false," Bogdan said. "Actors cannot catch the persona the author created."

"I will not argue with you, Bogdan," Leliah said. "But perhaps you haven't seen a good play?"

The girl had grown up in the performer world. Her and Serge's mother had been a dancer, and used to travel from town to town. Ever since Leliah was a little child and saw her first theatrical play, she had been captivated. She was appealed by the myriad of characters, their fate and lives. A romantic at heart – Leliah especially enjoyed stories where the characters were forced to make difficult decisions and the melodrama this brought… Stories of honour, the eternal struggle of the good against the bad, the good in the bad, and the good when in submission to the bad. Leliah specifically liked to watch plays with themes of friendship and love, betrayal of love, and love, regardless of the hate which sometimes surrounded it. The world of theatre meant everything to her- it was her air, her blood, and her passion. The girl could not comprehend the fact that anyone, let a genius like Bogdan could have the opposite feelings towards what was sacred to her.

Bogdan remained silent and turned his gaze towards the window. Leliah thought about what he had said and tried to figure out why he would be of the opinion he was. Leliah considered the man to be a good novelist. She had gotten hold of one of his books through Serge, who had been given it by Ratibor, who by then had not had time to rewrite it before engaging Serge in the play. This was almost three years ago, and Leliah had since read everything Bogdan wrote that she could get her hands on. His characters were indeed difficult, but Leliah saw no reason to boycott theatre as a genre, even though most performers were unable to fully portray the people they were supposed to play.

She remembered the conversation that took place more than twelve hours prior, which made everything make even less sense in her head. Usually, Leliah considered herself to be level headed and not prone to lose her inner balance to provocations, but the girl simply could not accept the fact that Bogdan disagreed with her on this. She had built a picture of him in such a manner, that it was impossible that the man, who wrote the novels she absolutely loved, would not, at least to a small extent, share her passion, which, in her head, she had made his too.

"How can you then idolise Vadic Bodouof?" she asked almost angrily, being bitter with the man.

Bogdan turned his head towards her. It was visible that he did not expect her to speak in such a disappointed tone. In a way, the man looked as if he was being innocently being convicted guilty of a small crime, not comprehending how it could have turned out like that.

"He writes his plays himself," he spoke softly, as if to make Leliah realise the absurdity of being upset with him. I've read the manuscripts. His stories are deep and substantial."

Leliah observed Bogdan. He in turn, looked through the window again. The girl took a few breaths, not knowing what to make of the man. The real Bogdan Goldwine was not at all like she expected him to be: she had at first been slightly worried about being alone in a carriage with him considering the rumors that went around Cyrodiil. A man like Egor, who was well dressed and ever so charming was the embodiment of a heart breaker. The rumours that circulated regarding Bogdan as a womaniser made no sense to the girl as she observed him. Most people would consider him plain rude and wearing clothes even homeless people would not be seen dead in.

"You've met him," Bogdan said, looking at Leliah with drunken, half closed eyes and leaning his head against the wall.

Leliah gazed at the man, surprised. It took her a few seconds to realise that he was speaking of Vadic Bodouof.

"I have," she said and instinctively smiled as she thought of him. "He is as captivating in reality as he is at the back of the stage. A truly wonderful person."

Bogdan moved his head slightly, probably trying to nod. "Is it through your brother you know Vadic?"

"Yes," she said. "And I've helped his daughter with her homework," she quickly added happily.

Bogdan remained silent and lifted his left arm in order to rest his head against the palm. His fingers were bent, and his pinkie touched the corner of his lips. Even in the dimly lit carriage and the total darkness outside, he had the brightest of eyes. Leliah had seen an old sketch of him once, when a relative of his, perhaps a cousin once or twice removed, had visited Bruma. She had been assisting Vadic when the older woman, who by then was in her fifties or late forties, came to visit him at the theatre. She appeared to be a close familiar of Vadic's, and had shown him portraits and sketches of her relatives. Leliah's boss had allowed her to come up to his table and look at the work of art.

By then, Serge had left for the Imperial City and sent her a rare copy of Bogdan's work, which was why the girl recognised who the man was when the older lady said his name when going through the thirty or so pieces.

Having some experience of the cultural circle, Leliah had expected Bogdan to be somewhat odd, especially as his way of writing was rather unusual. His appearance took her by surprise, though, but not as much to the fact that he had a strange haircut, as to the fact that his facial features did not make full sense. They was neither round, nor sharp, neither wide, nor narrow. His full cheeks contrasted against his somewhat narrow mouth; semi-plump lips, which after all, were more to the narrow side; the nose was also to the narrow side, yet the eyes were round, and the eyelids even more so. Leliah did not realise what colour the eyes were the first time she saw him on the sketch, and that also became a surprise to her – Leliah had never seen eyes so alive, yet hidden by so drunkenly sleepy lids.

"Have you met Namec?" the man asked after a while.

"I have."

Bogdan made an impressed look by twitching one side of his mouth.

"Does he hang out in Vadic's circle?"

"No, but they do know one another," Leliah answered, bringing her tone closer to Bogdan's calm one.

"How does a fourteen year old know all these masters of art?" Bogdan suddenly asked with a wrinkled expression.

Leliah did not know if this or something else was the reason to why she blushed in that situation. "I've been helping out at the theatre for quite some time. You'd be surprised what people ask to borrow a few props or costumes."

The man sighed slightly – he looked exhausted. Leliah thought of him for a while. She was curious about his position when it came to theatre as a genre and decided that she would wish to discuss the subject further. Upon reading his work, Leliah had declared him a genius, and perhaps, she thought, he could have a reasonable explanation after all. The more she thought about his answer, the more she realised that there could be something to it. She did, after all, respect him as a writer.

The girl could still not fully categorise him as a person, though. She got the impression that Bogdan always was brutally honest, even when this was obviously not in his best interest. Perhaps she could do a portrait of him and hand it in as sample work at the copying house in Solitude, Leliah thought. It would be an interesting article, considering how much she could get the man to spill. For a while, Leliah thought of how to approach the subject.

"What time do you think it is?" Bogdan suddenly asked.

"It's late," she answered, not having a clue of what hour it was.

As she looked at him, Leliah realised that the man was very pale.

Bogdan sighed. "I should have something that takes me out."

The man slowly reached to his pockets, leaning slightly away from the wall of the carriage. Leliah threw a quick gaze at his tunic. The light blue fabric was dark in the middle of his chest.

"Bastard!" he suddenly hissed and hit his hands against his thighs.

"Is something wrong?" Leliah asked with a wrinkled expression.

"Ratibor took my substances," Bogdan sighed.

The man was breathing heavily as he reached behind his right ear and took a smoking stick. He held it with his thumb and the lower part of his index finger, bringing it into eye level. "Do you mind?" he asked.

"No," Leliah smiled awkwardly.

The man clumsily got up to his feet, but his knees remained bent. He reached in over Leliah, opened the lantern in the far left corner and lit the nightshade stick against the candle. Three seconds later, he closed it, just as he lost his balance and collapsed back into his seat.

"What a fucker," he hissed with the smoking stick in his mouth, looking out through the window again.

"Are you addicted?" Leliah asked.

The girl had straightened her back and was looking at Bogdan with the curiosity of a child.

"Yes… No…" Bogdan said. "I don't know…" he sighed. "Life's easier with them," the man continued, at first looking to the floor, then at Leliah. "Not for you perhaps," he added after a while and leaned his head against the back wall. "You seem too stable."

Leliah did not know if it was a compliment or not. Coming from Bogdan, it might as well have been an insult.

"Congratulations," he continued. "You are smart but balanced, that's something."

"You are quick to judge," Leliah said.

"I don't judge, I observe. I don't place any value into the observations, I simply state the facts," he spoke calmly. "Life will be easier for you than it has been to me."

The girl looked at him again. He still had his head leaning against the back wall of the carriage, gazing at her with his drunken eyes and sardonic smile. In that moment, Leliah understood him as a person. He was not flirting, neither was he being rude – the man was not at peace with either himself or life, Leliah figured. That was why his novels were so good, and that was also the reason to why his books had forced her to feel. During the weeks the group had been travelling from Bruma, Leliah had been unable to put her finger on what made a rather rude and unsociable man produce novels that touched her soul. In that moment, the girl decided that liked him, not only as a writer, but a person.

"Oh?" she asked.

Bogdan looked at her and nodded once. He inhaled the smoke and blew it through his nose. "You will have some trouble finding a man you consider worthy, but once you do, you will have a harmonic and stable love life to balance your harmonic and stable career."

Leliah smiled, looking down to the floor before turning her gaze at the man. "And how about you?"

Bogdan appeared to have lost his good humour and looked through the window. "I'm still waiting for something that will probably never come. I can be fascinated by some women, but at soon as I learn to know them, the mystery dies. And so do my feelings for them."

"Have you have many women?" Leliah asked, unsuccessfully trying to catch his gaze.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I guess that's what you've heard about me."

"It is."

"Then so let it be," he said, still turned towards the window.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the clop-clop sound of the horses' hooves against the stone road. The atmosphere was calm, both outside and inside of the carriage. Leliah felt content with where she was, where she was going and with whom. Ratibor, Vecheslav and Egor treated and spoke her like a child, but in Bogdan, she saw more than just a master of novel writing. He spoke to her as if she was an equal human being who could understand him.

Ratibor was a good man too – he treated her with more respect than she anticipated a nobleman to. All the men had been far kinder towards her than she could ever imagined, but Bogdan was beyond that, and she was especially grateful for it.

Bogdan had begun to sweat, and the dark spot on the tunic had turned bigger. His breathing was irregular, and the man looked rather bad.

"I'll try to sleep," he spoke.

The sweat drops on his forehead grew more prominent reflected the candlelight. Bogdan had his mouth slightly open, struggling to breathe. Leliah did not know whether to put a pelt on him or if there was anything she could or should do in that situation. At last, she decided to be quiet and place a cover on his legs and stomach.

"I'm feverish," he said with his eyes closed and pushed it away, dropping the smoking stick to the floor.

Leliah looked at him. The man's hair stuck to his forehead, and his long bangs covered the eyes and almost reached the base of his nose. His sweat smelled of… it smelled almost like snowberries. The girl picked up the smoking stick, opened the door and threw it out before returning to her seat and closing her eyes, preparing for sleep.

Ratibor looked down at his chest and saw that the top button had come undone. He immediately fixed this matter and straightened out the collar, which was decorated with the same black seams as the fabric of the tunic. The man did not comb his hair like the others, as his was wavy and would not look good otherwise.

He reached for the small mirror that he had packed in his traveling bag and ensured that he looked decently enough for showing himself in public. He quickly gazed at the others. They all had a rather substantial stub after a day of traveling, Ratibor realised.

"We are all in need of a good shave," he said. "I hope the town has a barber."

"I wouldn't count on it," Vecheslav said.

The tall man was adjusting his knee-length trousers and was therefore leaning forwards. His high socks were as white as always, and even appeared to have been ironed. Vecheslav had either managed to find a maid at an inn who agreed on doing this for him, or owned a substantial collection of white, knee-length socks, Ratibor thought. Neither the first, nor the second alternative seemed impossible.

Egor, who appeared to be as fond of dressing nicely as Vecheslav, was struggling with attaching the ruffle pieces to his wrists. He wore a knee-long red coat with golden buttons on both sides, which were not meant to be of any use as there was too little fabric to be able to fully cover his chest and stomach. Underneath, he wore an ordinary white tunic, and tight, brown trousers. His shoes were far less elegant than Vecheslav's though, as Egor preferred to wear ordinary leather boots.

"Will you help me?" Egor asked Vecheslav.

The tall man turned slightly towards Egor and took the jabot, which the half-Nord needed assistance with. Vecheslav tied it at the back of Egor's neck with ease, having done it on himself many times before. Ratibor had noticed that even though Vecheslav could be somewhat of a theatre diva at times, one could not find anything with his dress sense to criticise. Egor, on the other hand, appeared to experiment a lot. He liked to wear at least one bright colour, and match elegant, expensive pieces with ordinary ones. His boots did not appear to be part of the same outfit as his coat.

Ratibor, on the other hand, did not care much for clothing at all. It was not to the extreme extent as his brother, who in Ratibor's opinion had no idea of how to dress himself, yet he liked to make things easy for him. As his father, Ratibor usually opted for black trousers, vests and tunics, but did ensure that they were sewn to make the most of his figure. When travelling, he usually wore his black boots, as he knew the road could be muddy and wished to remain practical.

As they reached Rorikstead, Ratibor understood that he had made the right decision. Vecheslav was looking at the ground with horror, knowing that he would have to spend quite some time removing stains from his shoes as soon as he would enter the inn. The carriage stopped in front of what appeared to be a small tavern, and Ratibor jumped out of the carriage almost immediately.

It had been raining during the morning, and the clouds still hung low. He could not see the sun, and this amplified the sleepy atmosphere of the village. Egor exited the carriage with slightly more care than the first man, but immediately began to laugh mockingly at Vecheslav, who stood with the door open, looking down and searching for a larger stone or piece of wood to step on.

Ratibor, walked up to the other carriage as it stopped behind the first one and hit the wall three times. He then leaned against it with one arm, waiting for either Leliah or Bogdan to react. As he heard no noises and felt no movement, he knocked again, urging the man and the girl to leave the carriage. A newly awoken Leliah looked out through the window and opened the door.

She looked worn out, Ratibor thought. Hairs were sticking out of her hairdo, and she was unsuccessfully trying to cover this with her traveling hat. Ratibor reached out his arm to help her down as she stood on the highest step and halted for a moment, but soon realised that she was looking on the ground, not knowing where to place her feet upon seeing puddles. The man took a step closer to the carriage and pressed his right arm against her kneecaps whilst still holding her left elbow. With a quick movement, she ended up in his arms.

"Hey, Bogdan!" he exclaimed whilst leaning slightly forwards, making Leliah grip his neck with her right arm. "Get out, we're in Rorikstead!"

He had anticipated a reply, or at least a moan, but heard nothing. Ratibor tried to get a better view of the inside of the carriage, but realised that this was impossible whilst carrying the girl. Instead, he turned his gaze towards Vecheslav, who had just managed to find a somewhat less muddy spot but still looked unhappy about his current situation, standing by the roadside. Ratibor carried the girl towards him without noticing the fact that she was blushing heavily. He did, however, notice that she weighed about as much as a sparrow. The girl was of average height but rather frail.

Ratibor gave the red faced Leliah over to Vecheslav and turned back towards the carriage. He placed his right hand on the door handle, and the left against the inside wall, quickly pulling himself up. He noticed that his brother was half sitting, half lying on the seat by the other window. His legs were thrown out forwards, sticking out of a textile cover. Bogdan's hair was messy, his blue tunic was untied at the chest and he looked simply awful.

"I took your substances, you drunkard. How did you end up in this condition?" Ratibor asked.

Bogdan awoke, but barely moved. He carefully turned his head slightly towards the man, looking as if he was trying to make sense of what or who was disturbing him. He was squinting like a vampire in daylight, and appeared absolutely horrible. To make matters worse, his first reaction was to draw his cover higher up, covering his shoulders.

"Are you alright?" Ratibor asked, this time in a softer tone and with a concerned expression.

"Let me sleep," Bogdan muttered.

Ratibor realised that the man's condition was not his own fault and calmly sat down next to him. He lifted Bogdan's cover and pushed him slightly forwards before placing it over his brother's shoulders instead. "You should get some food. Come here," Ratibor said in a low tone. He placed his left hand on his brother's left elbow and took Bogdan's right hand into his, pushing him to his feet.

"Egor!" he yelled, turning his head towards the door.

A few seconds later, a surprised Egor looked into the carriage. The man quickly figured out what to do, though, and helped Bogdan to the ground. As Ratibor emerged, he grabbed Bogdan's right arm, pulled it over his own neck, and made sure Egor did the same. Then, the men slowly, carefully walked towards the inn, half-pulling, half-leading Bogdan onward. About half way to the door, Ratibor noticed that his brother's cover was slipping to the ground and quickly reached for it before it had time to fall of his shoulders.

"Shouldn't we just let him rest?" Egor asked, struggling with the weight of Bogdan.

"He needs water," Ratibor answered.

They dragged him up the stairs, where Vecheslav had just put the girl to her own feet and was inspecting the damage inflicted to his shoes. The man had tied his hair back in a dark band and looked as upset with the situation as a royal who had been asked to perform work, which below his dignity.

Ratibor made sure Bogdan sat down by a table and adjusted the cover before going to the bar to order. Afterwards, he returned to the table and sat down next to Bogdan, whilst the rest of the group had taken their places on the opposite side of the table, probably being anxious about catching whatever Bogdan was suffering from.

"I got you some soup," Ratibor spoke in a low tone.

Bogdan did not reply – had his head lowered and eyes closed, looking as if he would fall asleep any second. Ratibor straightened his back and looked at the girl. She had spent a considerable amount of time in a cramped carriage with Bogdan and was at risk of falling ill, something Ratibor hoped would not happen.

"How are you feeling?" Ratibor asked.

"I am good," Leliah replied in a low tone, looking newly awake.

"You should have stopped the carriage," Ratibor said. "Either way – we'll stay for lunch, then you change to the first one. I'll go with Bogdan."

The group agreed by silent nodding, as the Bogdan's soup arrived to the table. "I really don't want to eat," Bogdan said with his head in his hands and elbows on the table.

"Don't be ridiculous," Ratibor said and placed the spoon in the soup.

Bogdan obeyed reluctantly.