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As the day wore on, the firesite was made ready to receive the king for the welcoming feast. Sheldrake sent the children off with Draya and Rhoda to find flowers and thin leafy branches that could be entwined into garlands to hang around the clearing. Woodfolk gathered edible plants and the troopers prepared the three carcasses to be spit roasted over the fire. Ideally, they would have been hung for a day or two, but not this time.
Jackson and Marjorie collected enough wood to see them well into the evening and then helped Ironbark and Silverwood prepare a shelter of woven brambles and branches for Gavin to sleep in. As a special concession they gathered armfuls of bracken to make up a bed for him to sleep on, aware that he wouldn’t be used to their rough conditions.
In the late after
