"Well… I wouldn't say I'm allowed as such…" Penelope said.
"Hoh? I suppose you mean to say that the circumstances are more complicated than they would first appear?" Lady Tiller said. "That does make a little more sense… But what an interesting situation you have made for yourself. A brave thing that you have done. To have no noble knights around you for protection – only the mercenaries from strange lands that you yourself have picked."
"I am safer with them than anyone else," Penelope declared emphatically.
"No doubt they are stronger than most, as they have already proven," Lady Tiller said. "But you trust them at a most intimate distance. That is a rare thing to achieve."
"Is it?" Penelope said, not particularly understanding. She could feel that she wasn't quite performing the best of her noble etiquettes, but the day had been long, and the ale had been too disarming for her to want to put on a front.
