PART II
It is said that Zamfira kept her tavern diligently and wisely, she continued to prepare aromatic drinks, which she served to the travelers who crossed her threshold, and all of them were good and beautiful. At one time, however, rumors multiplied about the outlaws and bandits on the high road, who were dying to prey on everyone, not just the rotten rich boyars and sellers of the country and the nation. However, Zamfira had no reason to worry – because, she told herself, the people around the place, like them, barely had enough to drink and after drinking a cup of water, they didn’t care about riches.
He tells the story further, that one evening, a rather strange hiker appeared over the top of the magura. His clothes were rumpled and he was breathing hard, as if after a hard chase. Zamfira, who was in the fence of the inn, gave him a favor and invited him in, long enough to have a break, with a freshly-cooked pot roast and a mouthful of strong brandy from his casks. The hiker looked at her narrowly, then curiously, took a wide look around. Immediately after that, he fell on his knees and began to pray to Zamfira to help him, for behold, the wolves had cornered him and his traveling companion. They had escaped with their lives, but the other one, badly wounded by a wolf, was still down there at the foot of the mountain. He therefore needed a helping arm to carry him up to the pub.
Jumping, as she had been known for a long time, Zamfira immediately bent down and without taking anything else with her – not even a knife or a bucket – she started to descend the sledge, along with the ragged hiker. His heart told him, you see, that something was rotten in the middle, but he couldn’t pass up a cry for help – because he knew very well that “gifts are made”. At the foot of the mountain, right where the forest was beginning to change for the better into the forest, they stopped, and Zamfira looked around, because she didn’t see a single scream of a fallen hiker. Turning bewildered to the one who had asked her for help, she met only his gnarled fist which knocked her to the ground with a short, sharp blow. Unconscious, she doesn’t even feel how the outlaw grabs her by the legs and drags her to the shelter of the tall and tall trees.