“Middle.”
My stomach dropped another inch.
The Battle of Hastings was coming and I knew who won.
Wulfric was still watching me.
“What do you know?”
Not enough to save anyone. “I know enough to be frightened.”
His expression hardened.
“Of William?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have sense.”
I almost laughed, but instead, I drew a careful breath. The answer had changed nothing and everything. I was still here, stuck in the past. The Normans were still south of us and the village still needed to be ready. So I did what I always did whensomething incredible or difficult happened. I gave it something else to think about.
“The man you spoke of, Brian,” Wulfric said. “Is he your husband?”
“My partner.”
Something hardened in his expression.
“Not that kind of partner. We worked together,” I said. “Firefighters work in pairs and teams. Brian was mine.”
“Was.”
The single word hurt more than it should have. “He died.”
Wulfric’s gaze stayed on mine.
“He died in a fire eight months ago.”
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
The wind moved between us, somewhere nearby, a child laughed, a hammer struck wood, and life carried on.
Wulfric looked toward the distant southern sky. “My wife died two winters past.”
He’d told me yesterday in the council, but grief had a habit of making people repeat facts before they were ready to tell the story beneath them.
“Fever,” he said. “No warning. Just gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “I learned then that no preparation covers everything that can kill us.”
There were a hundred comforting things I could have said. I’d heard most of them after Brian died.
Everything happens for a reason.
He’s in a better place.
