My mother used to say not sleeping was the sign of a guilty mind. It could have been. There was a lot in my mind to feel guilty about. When you__e drunk and trying to sleep, your thoughts are visited by the ghosts of those deeds whose heat still glows hottest in your personal darkness. Our actions burn much longer than the moments in which they occur. And drunks like me, we hide from the glow of the embers by fueling other fires and hiding within the flames.
An inn, of course, was a place you came to at night (not at three o'clock in the afternoon), preferably a rainy night__ind, too, if it could be managed; and it should be situated on a moor (__leak,_ Kate knew, was the adjective here). And there should be scullions; mine host should be gravy-stained and broad in the beam with a tousled apron pulled across his stomach; and there should be a tall, dark stranger__he one who speaks to nobody__arming thin hands before the fire. And the fire should be a fire__rackling and blazing, laid with an impossible size log and roaring its great heart out up the chimney. And there should be some sort of cauldron, Kate felt, somewhere about__nd, perhaps, a couple of mastiffs thrown in for good measure.
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An inn, of course, was a place you came to at night (not at three o'clock in the afternoon), preferably a rainy night__ind, too, if it could be managed; and it should be situated on a moor (__leak,_ Kate knew, was the adjective here). And there should be scullions; mine host should be gravy-stained and broad in the beam with a tousled apron pulled across his stomach; and there should be a tall, dark stranger__he one who speaks to nobody__arming thin hands before the fire. And the fire should be a fire__rackling and blazing, laid with an impossible size log and roaring its great heart out up the chimney. And there should be some sort of cauldron, Kate felt, somewhere about__nd, perhaps, a couple of mastiffs thrown in for good measure.
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