[Amanaduial the archer]

Aman regarded Tobias silently for a moment, her eyes troubled, before she turned with a sigh to look out the window, her arms crossed at her chest. Tobias sagged wearily, hanging his head. "I knew you wouldn't believe me, Aman," he began, sadly. "I suppose I can thank you for not-"

"Don't be ridiculous, Tobias," Aman snapped in reply, turning her head so that her sharp profile, made sharper by anxiety, was outlined by the afternoon light which shone blithely at odds to the tense air in the room. Silence reined in the room for a few minutes as the Innkeeper looked silently out of the large window, and when she spoke, her voice was soft, but slightly dangerous. "Why did you not tell me before, Tobias?"

As a privately educated hobbit, Tobias had experienced from many a-tutor that actually, disappointment is far worse than screaming rage. In fact, compared to the quiet disappointment in the Innkeeper's voice, Tobias would have preferred screaming rage much better. He didn't reply, looking glum. Aman sighed and turned around, her head outline by a halo of light until the pulled her hair out and ran the fingers of one hand through in distractedly as she looked at Tobias. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly, then came forward to where the hobbit was sitting, with Snaveling standing silently by, a darksome guardian angel. She poured out a glass of fine red port from the decanter beside the chair and, to Toby's surprise, handed it to him. She offered Snaveling some, but he declined, and so took the crystal glass herself, but did not drink from it: she knew she was going to need a clear head, and would soon need to get the Thain's mens' heads most clouded indeed if she was to pull this off for Toby.

"Absolution..." she murmured softly, sinking into a chair and speculatively rubbing the rim of the glass gently round and round. She sat forward suddenly. "Have you told this Opal that you did not kill your cousin?"

Toby shook his head vehemently. "Oh, no, no, no. I have not talked to my dear sister for some time: once she exposed my crimes, I fled, and so you find me with not a penny to my wretched name."

"Oh, Tobias, don't talk like that: I quite believe that it wasn't deliberate and therefore doesn't count as a crime." She paused, then conceded: "Well, not such a severe one anyway."

"But that's just the thing, Aman!" Toby wailed, apparently snapping. "It doesn't matter one snip that I didn't know: Lotho Sackville Baggins didn't know and look where that got him!"

"I don't think that is quite the same thing-"

"He's right, Aman. Ignorance is no defence, or else everyone would be using it." Snaveling spoke for the first time in a few minutes, his voice sombre, and Aman looked up sharply, before looking back at Toby again, shrugging into her seat a little further. "Oh, I suppose you are right... But Toby, your sister...surely if you talked to her...?"

"Talked to her?" Toby snorted desolately. "I don't think so, Aman. Talking isn't something Opal does awfully well: screaming, finger-pointing and sniping she has down to a fine art, but talking...not so much. As I said, not much love has been lost between us over the years."

"Aye, but she is your sister, Toby." She paused, still circling the rim with a finger ruminatively, her brow furrowing as a thought grew. "I don't know, it just seems rather...sudden, you know."

There was a pause. "Twenty years ago...?" Toby began cautiously. Aman waved it away. "No, no. I mean Opal's sudden detective ability coming out against you: it seems rather sudden, after all these years..." She paused again, and realisation suddenly dawned on Toby.

"You think she was trying to set it up against me?"

Aman didn't move. Toby hesitated, then shook his head, sinking back into his chair as he rubbed his forehead. "No...no. Sure, what reason would she have other than, well, to take me down for the crimes which I did commit?"

Aman raised an eyebrow. "Well...you're not badly off economically, Toby," she replied frankly.

Toby hesitated, then shook his head again, still justifying it in his head. "No..."

Aman sighed, then leant forward towards Toby. "Tobias Hornblower, no matter what the case may be, we need to get this sorted one way or that other, and there really is only that one way: sooner rather than later, we need to pay your dear sister a visit."