The Village

"The animals brought you out of the woods!" The taunt came from behind. It was familiar and Mari ignored it.
The way down from the hills passed every home. There were dozens of windows from which peevish boys and jealous girls could shout as she passed by. The boys because it was something to tease about, the girls because she lived in the manor. It was like every other manor in Venictur a stone house of some size. They said that the seven houses were built first, and for the first winter all lived in them. Now only a few people lived in the manor and some rooms were shut up for not being in use for so long. Mari thought to herself that they would not tease so much if they knew her room was the servants quarters, and that it was behind the cellars.
There were no more taunts and Mari slipped in the back door and shut herself in the chamber that was her sanctuary. She looked around evaluating with the disembodied disinterest she had taught herself to use. Straw mat. Low flat writing table with pens and inkwell. Chair carved by the master carver of the village. She regarded the chair carefully. It was the only possession she had of any real value. The satchel in the corner held a few things of usefulness, but her chair had value--if only that it was luxury. It was well made and fit well to her slender body. It was a carving of two wolves their heads for armrests their tails made the back and seat. She sat in it now stroking the left wolf feeling for the dent she had made last summer. It was there. Why had he made it for her? Months he must have worked on it. Why wolves? There had been none there when the animals had brought her. She sighed. The master carver was dead. There would be no answers.