“Do you think that made matters worse?” the woman asked.
“He has no right to strike a child,” Eoos defended.
Again, both women looked at him.
Eoos lifted his chin stubbornly.
Mercy looked at the woman again. “I told him Eoos was my cousin.”
The woman’s eyebrows shot up and her gaze locked on Eoos. “I’ll tell Walter.”
“I would like to know why I was excommunicated,” Eoos stated.
Time seemed to stop. The two women froze for a long moment, saying nothing but staring at him. Then they looked at each other. He was certain they knew something. And then, the moment passed.
“Here, Alice!” Kit held the chicken out to her.
“Would you like some porridge?” Mercy asked Eoos as she stepped past the woman.
It was as if he had never commented. As if the statement never existed. “Yes. Thank you.”
Unease spread through him. He stepped up to Mercy as she took a trencher and scooped porridge out of the pot. He opened his mouth to ask about the excommunication again when the fire below the pot caught his attention. Orange and red tongues flicked over the sides of the thick logs beneath the black pot.
Suddenly, he began to see something else. A different fire in a different hearth. His mind superimposed the memory over the real fire. He was confused at first as to what was happening. And then, the sharp pain exploded through his mind. He staggered, putting a hand to his forehead.
He heard someone calling. He felt hands on him, but he wasn’t sure whose hands they were.
“Eoos!”
Mercy’s call snapped him from the memory. The sharp pain receded.
Mercy stood over him. Confused, he realized he was sitting in a chair. Alice stood near a pen with other chickens, holding the one Kit gave her. Kit stood behind his mother, staring in alarm. But it was Mercy’s furrowed brow, her fear, that brought him back to the present.
“A memory,” he said quietly.
She put her hand against his forehead. “Were you in pain?”
He shook his head stubbornly. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
She pulled her hand away from his head. “No fever.” She stared at him with concern. “Does your head hurt?”
“No longer. Only when I remember.” He glanced over her shoulder at the boy. “It is nothing. I am fine.”
Kit looked at him doubtfully. “Sometimes I stub my toe and it hurts, but then the pain goes away. Was it like that?”
Eoos nodded.
“What did you remember?” Mercy asked.
He glanced toward the hearth. “The fire. I saw other flames in a different hearth.”
“Perhaps the hearth at the inn,” Alice offered.
“I wouldn’t know. But I’d like to see the inn I was attacked in. It could bring back more memories.”
Mercy glanced at Alice.
For a moment, Eoos swore there was alarm in Alice’s wide eyes.
