“Currently? Very.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
“Careful,” she said. “People might think you enjoy my company.”
I should have returned to the business of war, which was simple enough compared with the business of Darcy. Norman riders could be watched, counted, followed, and, if need be, killed.
But the woman? She had arrived as if the sea itself had brought her to me, carrying knowledge she explained only when pressed and secrets she guarded with the determination of a man defending a gate.
“Come,” I said and walked out before she saw the smile I could no longer prevent.
The rain had eased to a fine mist by the time we crossed Ashford, though water still dripped from the thatch and ran in silver threads through the muddy lane. Smoke pressed low beneath the gray sky, carrying the scents of wet earth, dung, woodsmoke, and the onions Hild had put into the black iron pot outside her house.
Children carried small bundles under the eyes of older women while men repaired leather harness, sharpened spearheads, and checked bowstrings beneath the shelter of the storehouse. Near the well, Anya was arguing with Edwin Reeveson.
Darcy slowed. “What now?”
“He moved a sack of flour.”
“Without telling her?”
“Aye.”
She stopped walking. I knew that look.
“Darcy.”
“What?”
“We are going east.”
“This will only take a minute.”
It did not.
By the time we continued, Edwin had been informed, with considerable force, that moving supplies without telling the person responsible for them was how food vanished, people went hungry, and entire kingdoms apparently crumbled. I waited until we were well beyond his hearing.
“Entire kingdoms?”
“I got carried away.”
We reached the eastern rise, where men were strengthening the earthworks beneath the dripping trees. Beyond them, the ground sloped toward a narrow stream before climbing again into woods stripped nearly bare by autumn.
She had spent the morning amongst my people as if she had always belonged there, arguing with Edwin, checking upon Wystan’s bleeding hand, making Tova laugh when the child had begun to cry because her mother was frightened.
Yet whenever I asked where she herself belonged, where she had come from, every door closed.
“Where is your home?” I asked.
Darcy stopped.
“Who did you leave behind?”
Her shoulders tightened beneath the wool of her gown. I should have stopped. Instead, I continued, because the question had been with me since the day she walked out of the forest and gave me a name that told me nothing about her.
“Your kin? Friends? The men and women you worked beside?”
“Yes.”
