Mab was not absorbed. She was sitting on a very large horse in the middle of a courtyard full of strangers, and she could feel every single one of them registering the fact that their war-leader had brought a human woman home in his lap.
A woman with gray-streaked braids crossed the courtyard carrying a basket of bread on her hip, glanced up at Mab, and walked on. Two warriors near the stable doors paused their conversation long enough to note Varek's horse, then resumed it. An orc child, small and green-skinned with a shock of black hair standing straight up, ran toward the cart with a shriek that echoed off the stone walls, scrambling up the wheel before anyone could stop him.
"Puppies!" The word came out half-mangled, the child's tusks still too new to shape speech properly. "You brought puppies!"
Annie, who had never met an orc child in her life, did what Annie always did with children. She grinned, grabbed him underthe arms, and swung him into the cart bed beside Brownie's blanket nest.
"Careful with the brown one," she said. "He bites."
Mab watched this happen. She watched the child's mother come around the corner of the tannery building and stop, hands on hips, shaking her head but not calling him back. She watched Drogga say something to the mother that made the woman snort.
Normal. All of it so terrifyingly normal.
Varek's arm lifted away. He swung his leg over the horse's neck and dropped to the ground, then reached up for her.
She let him lift her down. Her legs buckled on contact with solid ground, and his hands stayed on her waist until she found her footing.
"Steady."
"I'm steady." She wasn't. The courtyard was too open. The sky was too wide. The buildings climbed too high around her on all sides, and every window was an eye that could be watching, and every doorway could hold someone who was about to say—
A young orc woman jogged past with a coil of rope over her shoulder, called out to the boy at the stables in a language Mab didn't know, and disappeared around the corner of the long low building without a second glance.
Nobody was staring.
An orc coming down the stone steps from the second tier caught sight of Varek and changed course. He was broad through the chest and graying at the temples.
"Captain." His voice carried easily in the stone space. "The Warchief is on his way down. He saw the column from the upper hall."
"Korah." Varek's hand didn't leave Mab's neck. "Anything I need to know before he gets here?"
"Smith wants a word about the weapons manifest. Thessaly wants a word about the wounded count." Korah's gaze settled on Mab. Assessed. Not her body—her face. The assessment took two seconds. "And he'll want to know about the humans."
"He knows. Drogga sent word from the holding."
"He knows what a letter told him. He'll want to hear it from you." Korah looked at Mab again. "And from her, I expect."
Mab met his eyes. Gray-green skin, deep lines carved by weather and years, tusks worn smooth. Kind eyes.
"I'm Mab," she said, not sure what else to say.
"Sergeant Korah."
"It's good to meet you."
A bark of laughter. Korah looked at Varek. "I like her."
"Me too." Varek's thumb moved against Mab's nape. "Where are the children's quarters?"
"Arranged. Second floor, east corridor, two doors past the healer." Korah paused. "Mab's, too. If she wants them."
"She stays with me."
Korah took that in with the same mild professionalism he'd applied to everything else. "I'll let Thessaly know." He turned and walked back toward the steps, already pulling a folded paper from his belt and squinting at it.
"Mab!" Annie called.
Mab turned and found the girl climbing down from the supply cart with a spotted puppy tucked under one arm. Brownie and the remaining four puppies were with the orc child in the cart bed. Drogga was watching over them.
