She stood there for a second, watching as everyone found something to do.
Drogga was checking the horses' hooves, moving down the line with the ease of long habit. Two warriors she didn't know were securing the tent lines against the wind. Another was hauling water from a stream she could hear but not see. Tibbs had appeared from somewhere and was gathering deadfall for the fires, his arms already full of branches. Annie was crouched by the supply cart, arranging blankets around Brownie and the puppies, her face serious with concentration.
Everyone had a job.
The realization settled over her with an uncomfortable weight. She had spent her entire life being useful. Being necessary. The scullion who washed the chargers and hauled the water and scrubbed the pots until her hands cracked. She had hated it, sometimes. Had resented the work that never let up, the way her body was just another tool in the kitchen's inventory.
But standing here with nothing to do, she found she didn't know what to do with her hands.
She turned to Varek, who was unsaddling his horse a few feet away.
"Can I help them prepare the food?"
He glanced up from the girth strap he was loosening. His eyes moved from her face to the cookfire.
"You want to?"
"I want to do something." She looked down at her hands, curled uselessly at her sides.
Varek pulled the saddle free and set it on a flat rock. "Then go."
Mab crossed the clearing toward the cookfire.
The warrior with the rabbits looked up as she approached. He was younger than Varek, with a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw and war-marks that covered only one shoulder. His eyes flicked over her, assessing, then moved past her to where Varek was still tending his horse.
"I can help," Mab said. "With the food."
The warrior's scarred eyebrow rose. "You know rabbits?"
"I know kitchens."
He grunted. Not dismissal, exactly. More like he was filing the information away. "Grald," he said, jerking his chin toward himself. Then toward the warrior with the potatoes: "Fenrik."
Fenrik didn't look up from his knife. "She's the captain's."
"I know whose she is." Grald held out the rabbits. "You skin, or you chop?"
Mab took the rabbits. "Skin. But I'll need a knife."
Grald pulled a blade from his belt and flipped it, catching it by the tip, offering her the handle. The weight of it surprised her. Heavier than the boning knives she was used to, with a wider blade.
She found a flat rock near the fire and set to work.
The rabbits were young, their fur coming away clean. Her hands knew the motion though she'd never once been allowed to do it—Hester had let her watch, nothing more. Garrad had kept her on vegetables and dishes, away from anything that required skill. Away from anything that might prove she had any.
The knife was wrong for the job. Too heavy, too wide. She made it work anyway, adjusting her grip, letting the blade's weight do what finesse couldn't.
"You're holding it strange," Grald said.
"Your knife's strange." She didn't look up.
"It's what we've got."
"Then this is how I hold it."
Fenrik snorted. "She's got you there," he said, still not looking up from his potatoes.
Grald grunted again.
