She hung it back on its hook by the small hearth. The motion was automatic, muscle memory, and she stood there for a moment with her hand still on the wood.
"I'm taking my stockings," she said. "And my dress. And my apron." She turned to face Tibbs. "What are you taking?"
He held up the small sack. "Salt. Rosemary. The good paring knife with the bone handle." A pause. "And this."
He pulled something from his pocket. A leather cord with a small wooden disc hanging from it, the kind of thing a child might whittle on a slow afternoon. The disc was carved with uneven letters that Mab couldn't read from this distance.
"My mother made it," Tibbs said. "Before she died. It says my name. She was teaching me to read, but I only got through the first three letters before—" He stopped. His throat moved. "Garrad found it once. Said it was a waste of leather. Said I should throw it away and do something useful."
"Did you?"
"I hid it in the flour bin." A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "He never checked the flour bin. Couldn't be bothered."
Mab watched him tuck the cord back into his pocket, his hand lingering there for a moment like he needed to make sure it was real.
"That's a good thing to carry forward," she said.
Tibbs nodded. He didn't say anything else, but his shoulders had lost some of their tension, and when he went back to sorting through the kitchen supplies, his movements had steadied.
Mab changed in the scullery.
She stripped off the borrowed nightgown, shivering in the cold air, and pulled her own dress over her head. The roughspun was coarser than silk, scratchy against skin that had grown accustomed to softness. The fit was different too. The dress had always been loose on her, made to allow for movement and work, and she'd never thought about how it hung on her body because there had never been anyone to notice.
Now she noticed.
She tied her apron around her waist. The wool stockings went on next, and she wiggled her toes inside her clogs and felt some of the tightness leave her.
This was who she was. Not a woman in borrowed silk, playing at being someone the lady's wardrobe had been made for. This was Mab. Gray dress, stained apron, mended stockings. Kitchen hands and kitchen knowledge and a body that had worked every day of its life.
She looked down at herself. At the soft curve of her belly beneath the apron, the width of her hips that had always made her turn sideways in narrow doorways. At the hands that knew how to butcher and chop and stir and scrub.
Varek had seen her in silk. Had stripped the silk off her and looked at what was underneath and called it abundance. Had put his mouth on her and his hands on her and told her she was exactly what he wanted.
Would he still want this? The real version, the working version, the version that smelled like lye soap and looked like exactly what she was?
She didn't know. And the not-knowing sat in her stomach like a stone.
But she was not going to Northwatch dressed as someone she had never been. If he wanted her, he would want her. If he didn't—
She would survive it. She had survived everything else.
The day passed in small tasks.
Mab helped Tibbs finish sorting the kitchen stores, setting aside what the orcs would take and what would be left for whoever came after. Annie drifted between the stable and the kitchen, reporting on the puppies' progress with the intensity of someone who had been given a purpose.
"The spotted one is the smallest," she said over the midday meal, which they ate in the great hall with the warriors. "But she pushes the hardest to get to the milk. The brown ones just wait their turn, but she shoves right in."
Drogga laughed at that, his whole body shaking the way Annie had described. "A fighter. She'll need a strong name."
"I was thinking Bramble," Annie said. "Because she's prickly."
"A good name." Drogga tore a piece of bread and handed it to her.
Mab listened to them talk, her spoon moving between bowl and mouth without her tasting much of the stew. Varek's seat at the head table was empty. Had been empty when she'd arrived, remained empty now.
He was busy. She knew he was busy. A raid of this size didn't end when the fighting stopped. There were supplies to inventory, messages to send, decisions about what to take and what to leave. She had seen the ink stain on his arm last night, evidence of hours spent on exactly this kind of work.
And yet.
