Orval still frowned. “The boy needs to know how to read.”
“You need to know how to defend yourself,” Roth added. “All it takes is practice.” He repeated Orval’s words with a grin. “You can learn from each other.”
Yfin’s frown probably matched his, but Orval couldn’t help himself.
Roth laughed, his voice echoing on the cobblestones. The door to the gatehouse opened and Amari and Rosalind emerged. Rosalind carried a tray of food, Amari a basket of wet clothes.
“What is so funny?” Amari asked. She’d stripped down to her bodice and skirt, leaving her arms bare. She put down her basket and started to spread the freshly-laundered clothing out on the cleared cobblestones so it could dry in the sun.
“The goose and the gander both cook in the same grease,” Roth said, then explained.
Rosalind was setting out their meal, with Yfin’s eager help. But Orval only had eyes for Amari.
She was brilliant, there in the sun, dark skin glowing against the snow and stones. She moved with unconscious grace, absorbed in her task.
Catching him staring, Amari smiled widely. Orval flushed and looked away. “How is Aunt Xydell?” he asked to cover his confusion.
“She’s clean and warm, sleeping by the hearth.” Amari’s smile vanished. She spread out the last few tunics and continued, “We got her to take some porridge and water. She even managed a few steps to the privy.”
“She barely stirred when we bathed her,” Rosalind sighed. She folded up to sit on the ground by Yfin. “And she’s not talking to us at all. Not sure she knows us. That letheon is dreadful stuff.”
“It’s not good at her age to lay about like this,” Amari came to sit on the bench beside Orval, who shifted to make room. “She just doesn’t seem to be all there.”
Orval tucked his book safely between them, feeling the warmth of her body. “As nasty as Aunt Xydell is, she didn’t deserve this.”
“There is still hope,” Amari reassured him. “The hearth heals in its own way.”
“The warmth?”
“And the life around the hearth.”
“Where there is life, there is hope.” He frowned at Amari. “Umm - are you - umm - warm enough, like that?”
“Hard work,” Amari said. “I’m fine for the moment.” She checked the babes in their baskets, still sweetly sleeping. “It’s warm enough here in the sun, for now.” Her gaze drifted to the well in the center of the courtyard.
“That still bothering you?” Roth asked gently as Rosalind handed out bowls from the tray, filled with hard crackers, sausage and cheese.
“What kind of people fill a perfectly good well with stones?” Amari’s eyes were shadowed. “What kind of hate sparks that kind of cruelty?”
“It was done to prevent anyone from sheltering here,” Roth said. “A common enough tactic, I’m afraid.”
Orval nudged Amari to take her bowl from Rosalind.
“This is the last of the spicy sausage,” Rosalind told Yfin.
Yfin bit into a link. “Is good,” he mumbled, then cast a look at Amari and straightened, chewing with his mouth closed.
“You can have mine.” Amari laughed, adding one of her links to Yfin’s bowl. “I’ve enough flour to make pigeon and dumplings.”
Yfin nodded, then swallowed before he spoke. “I love pigeon n’ dumplings. My ma made the best, but,” he hurried to assure her, “yours is good too.”
“There’s only so much pigeon a man can eat,” Roth said. “Maybe we could try to snare some rabbits.”
“Rats are good,” Yfin piped up. “There’s quite a few rats.”
Orval wasn’t the only one to look at him with horror.
“No really,” Yfin said. “You gut them and then roast’em whole. Stinks something terrible as the hair burns off, but they taste really good.”
