“Mayhap.”
Godwin came to stand beside us. The elder’s face had gone grave.
“A woman who knows that much of fear did not come by the knowledge gently.”
No. She had not. I thought of the way her face changed when she spoke of burning rooms. The way she had crushed the spark in the rushes before anyone else moved. The way her hand had curled when she spoke of carrying children through smoke.
Everything else that had crawled out of the sea meant to kill us. I would take my chances with the woman who walked into fire to bring people back out.
“We use what she knows,” I said. “And we watch her.”
Leofric grunted as Godwin nodded. Neither was pleased. That made three of us.
Night came cold. The Norman fires showed against the southern sky, faint through the trees. I stood outside the hall and watched them. My father would have made ready to stand as would his father before him.
Every dead man of my blood seemed to rise from the earth beneath my feet and wait to see whether I would shame them. Then I thought of Aelfwyn. She would have looked at Darcy for half a moment, decided she was too thin, fed her, and put her straight to work.
The thought hurt. It always did. but not quite as sharply as before.
Keep living.
I had never understood what she meant. Not truly. Then a woman with a warrior’s eyes who carried no sword walked out of my forest and made me wonder whether survival itself might require courage.
For the first time in two winters, I wanted to see what the morning would bring. It frightened me more than the Normans did.
I went to my bed but did not sleep. Across the dark village, behind a guarded door, I would have wagered my sword that neither did she.
Five
DARCY
Anya arrivedat the little chamber behind the meeting house shortly after dawn with a bundle under one arm and a wooden bowl under the other.
She was broad through the shoulders, with chapped red knuckles, brown hair tucked beneath a linen covering, and the same look she’d worn when I first came out of the trees.
The one that said she hadn’t decided to trust me, not yet. Fair enough. I still hadn’t decided whether I’d traveled through time or was having some kind of elaborate seizure on the floor of the antiques fair.
We all had our problems.
She set the bowl on a low stool. “Eat.”
Inside the bowl was something the color of wet cement.
“What is it?”
“Pottage.”
I lifted the wooden spoon and gave the contents a cautious stir.
Barley, perhaps. Onions. Something green. A few beans floated near the surface, looking as though they’d lost the will to live.
Anya folded her arms.
“You do not eat?”
“I’m waiting to see if it moves first.”
Her mouth twitched as I took a bite. The pottage was warm, thick, and far better than it looked, which wasn’t difficult, but still. There was salt in it, a little garlic, and something smoky that might have been bacon if someone had waved a piece over the pot from several feet away.
