They brought him snowy rounds of flatbread cookies spread with a paste made of crushed sesame seeds, sheets of thickened leathery stuff made from the juice of peaches, a stoneware bottle of date wine, smoked meats, and cheese made from goat’s milk as the ship left the wharf at Risenmouthe. He pulled a fork from his pocket with which to eat his meal as he reread the letter from his queen.
Our daughter plays her brother like a violin, beloved, assuring him you will bring no monkey.
He sighed--if only that were true. He glared at the locked cage on the chair opposite wherein his gift for Eldarion slept, its tail about its body. He had spent a fair amount of money purchasing a scrying crystal and a silver pendant of the moon’s disk that it had then stuffed through the hole in the sound board for Melian’s zither!