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He whistled. “That’s old.”
“Yes, thank you.” He angled up a knowing grin. “And you?”
“Ten. Thereabouts.”
She gestured around the room. “This is quite a nice…place.”
“Oh, aye, they do things right,” he agreed, and reached for a mug on the far side of the table, his hair swinging by the nape of his neck. It was in need of a cut, but she presumed bandits did not care much for such trivialities.
She stirred the spoon through the bowl of soup idly, venturing another glance into the far room. Tadhg was now sitting at the table, their heads bent closer together. “And how long have you all been here? You and the…” Outlaws. Brigands. Criminals of some sort.
How did one refer to the people whose home she was now in?
“Oh, I’ve been here a few years,” the boy said, pushing the bowl closer to her. Soup sloshed over the sides. “They’ve been here far longer.”
“Ah. And you one of their…son’s?”
“Nah. I’m a hostage.”
She gasped.
The darkest eyes peered at her. “Want some bread, milady?”
“I am not a lady,” she said. “A hostage?”
“Aye. Ale, then?”
“No, thank-you. Why are you a hostage?”
He shrugged. “Because my family has something they want.”
“I see. Can I…” She lowered her voice. “Help you?”
He lowered his voice too. “No.” Then he grinned.
She felt the edge of a smile.
He looked at her pointedly. “Are you not going to eat?”
She looked down at her bowl of steaming soup. “I am not very hungry…” The aroma of beef and tangy winter vegetables and salt wafted up to her nostrils, and her stomach pinched, then growled. The boy smiled.
She smiled back. “Well, perhaps just a taste…although I will say, I do not like to eat alone.”
He promptly set aside the tray and plopped onto the bench beside her. Garrulous creature that he was, he swung his feet and informed her, “I help make all the stews and such.”
“Do you?” She spooned in a mouthful. It was hot and thick, a porridge more than a soup, and it was delicious. She looked at him with level regard. “This is quite delicious, Sir Lóegaire.”
“I’m not a sir, milady.”
“And I am no milady, sir.”
They grinned at each other. Magdalena felt a sharp, almost twisting pang in her belly, for the children that had never yet been.
Although…maybe now…with Tadhg.
She banished that line of thought at once. Such thoughts were not for n
ow, as one sat with a small hostage in an outlaw’s den.
