It is cold justice to be used as a beast of burden. Ten thousand wordless equine grumbles are finally soothed with some small measure of justice as the bread is stacked atop the apples and the leg of ham and the blackberry preserves and - oh!

With strength and balance so impressive as to draw a gasp from the entire crowd, Robena shifts the entire great weight piled upon her to one arm in an instant. She bends down with the speed of a viper and her hand closes around the honey-jar - and around Constance's smaller and more delicate fingers. For a moment they're caught there, half-bowed, hands entangled, making the mistakes of looking into each other's eyes.

"Thank you,"

"You're welcome,"

Words that may as well come from bystanders for all they communicated that strange electricity that in this moment existed between them.

Robena stands tall again, drawing another appreciative murmur from the crowd as she once again hefts the entire weight of the gifts without any loss of balance. Those arms can hold a shield of metal steady through the horizontal waterfall of a horse in gallop and so they hold all of the river-daughter's gifts steady. Perhaps were Constance herself to climb as she did as a wild-faced child and sit atop that bounty the knight's arms would still not tremble - or at least, not from the weight.

"You are happy here?" she asks, again bystander-words borrowed from the tongues of those who might speak without tangling their tongues. "No evil has beset you or yours?"