Children wandered, people stopped to talk, an old man forgot why he was supposed to be moving and went home for a knife.
One woman disappeared entirely. We found her trying to catch a chicken.
I stood in the muddy lane with my hands on my hips.
“Why?”
She clutched the bird to her chest.
“It is a good layer.”
The chicken looked smug.
I stared at Wulfric.
He stared back.
“You save cats,” he said.
“What?”
“You said you entered a burning house because people were inside.”
“Yes.”
“Wystan said there was also a beast.”
I looked slowly at Wystan who suddenly found the sky fascinating.
He had me there. “It wasn’t a beast, it was a cat.”
“And now you question the chicken.”
“The cat was trapped.”
“The chicken is trapped.” He crossed his arms.
“The chicken lives here.”
“So did the cat.”
I hated lordly medieval logic.
“Fine. The chicken comes.”
The woman beamed and Wulfric actually smiled. The effect was deeply inconvenient because his whole face changed when he did it. The hard lines eased and he looked younger, warmer, and ridiculously handsome. I turned away before my brain could make the problem worse.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I have won the chicken.”
Behind us, the woman hurried away with the bird tucked beneath one arm as he watched her go.
“Your plans are flexible.”
I shrugged.
“People aren’t sacks of grain. You can’t stack them where you want and expect them to stay there.”
