“We have grain.”
“Little.” He sniffed.
“We will have more.”
“You have burned all the fields.”
“Not all.”
His gaze sharpened, and I knew I had him listening now. I moved aside and gestured toward the settlement, toward theshelters built from salvaged timber and the stores protected beneath oiled cloth, toward the men repairing tools beside the fire and the women who knew exactly how much food remained hidden in abandoned villages for three days’ journey in every direction.
“The people here come from Ashford and the surrounding lands. We have millers, smiths, woodworkers, hunters, men who know every road between here and the coast, and women who know where grain was hidden before your armies passed through.”
Somewhere behind me, a child began to cry and was hushed almost at once.
“We can scatter,” I continued. “You may spend the winter hunting us through the woods, losing men to arrows, sickness, and weather while farms rot and the roads remain unsafe.”
His jaw tightened. “Or?”
Darcy shifted beside me as I looked at her and found her watching Raoul with the expression I had come to know very well.
Calculation.
I turned back to the Norman.
“Or you speak with the woman who built the system you mean to tax.”
That earned everyone’s attention, Darcy’s most of all as her gaze snapped toward me. “I’m sorry?”
Raoul frowned. “What system?”
I almost smiled, because Darcy looked ready to murder me, which meant the nervousness was already leaving her as I gestured in her direction.
“You may bargain with the woman who knows how much food we possess, how many mouths we feed, which roads remain passable, which villages have been abandoned, and how much labor we can spare without starving ourselves.”
Raoul looked at Darcy, then back at me.
“And if I bargain with you?”
“You will receive a poorer answer.”
Godwin coughed into his fist.
Darcy closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, the woman who had been nervous was gone. I had watched that change take place before, though it still fascinated me.
Raoul addressed her in French. “You speak my tongue?”
Darcy looked at me as I translated, then she nodded once. “All right. Ask him whether he wants numbers or theatrics.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I am not saying that.”
“Fine. Ask him what he actually needs.”
I translated a version less likely to get us killed.
