Chapter 5
Five
DARCY
Anya arrived at the little chamber behind the meeting house shortly after dawn with a bundle under one arm and a wooden bowl under the other.
She was broad through the shoulders, with chapped red knuckles, brown hair tucked beneath a linen covering, and the same look she’d worn when I first came out of the trees.
The one that said she hadn’t decided to trust me, not yet. Fair enough. I still hadn’t decided whether I’d traveled through time or was having some kind of elaborate seizure on the floor of the antiques fair.
We all had our problems.
She set the bowl on a low stool. “Eat.”
Inside the bowl was something the color of wet cement.
“What is it?”
“Pottage.”
I lifted the wooden spoon and gave the contents a cautious stir.
Barley, perhaps. Onions. Something green. A few beans floated near the surface, looking as though they’d lost the will to live.
Anya folded her arms.
“You do not eat?”
“I’m waiting to see if it moves first.”
Her mouth twitched as I took a bite. The pottage was warm, thick, and far better than it looked, which wasn’t difficult, but still. There was salt in it, a little garlic, and something smoky that might have been bacon if someone had waved a piece over the pot from several feet away.
“Huh.”
Anya’s brows rose.
“It’s good.”
“I know.”
The basin of water she’d brought was warm enough to wash the salt from my face and neck, along with my other bits.
She shoved a bundle at me. Inside was a linen shift gone soft from years of washing, a brown wool kirtle that laced along the sides, and a rectangle of heavier cloth.
The shift looked like the sort of nightgown a gothic heroine might wear while fleeing the husband who’d married her for her money and now wanted to lock her in the attic.
Not sure what my captors were planning to do with me, I’d slept in my clothes. My jacket and jeans were still wet and smelled of saltwater, smoke, and mud.
Anya pinched the sleeve of my jacket between two fingers.
“The blue cloth frightens the little ones.”
“It’s waterproof.”
Her expression suggested this was not an improvement as she touched my jeans.
“And these?”
“Also clothing.”
She made a face. The dressing process was less dignified than I’d hoped.
The linen shift came first, loose and long enough to reach my calves.
Then the brown wool dress, which Anya called a kirtle, went over it and laced at the sides.
The wool scratched, the ties required more coordination than I currently possessed, and I discovered that a thousand years of women had survived without elastic. Heroes, all of them.
Anya showed me how to fold and pin the heavier cloth around my shoulders as a cloak, then she handed me the shoes which were little more than leather that was shaped around my foot and tied into place.
“I’d rather wear my boots.”
“No.”
“They’re very good boots.”
“The children fear them.” She pointed to the leather shoes.
With a sigh, I let her help me into the boots. The first surprise was that the wool was warm. The second was how quickly the dress stopped feeling like a costume.
The cloth was rough, the shoes were terrible, and it felt a bit scandalous to go without a bra while my breasts moved around inside the dress. It took conscious effort not to cross my arms over my chest.
Anya had given me woolen foot wrappings which weren’t socks, but had clearly been invented by someone who loved feet more than whoever had designed the shoes.
Ten minutes later, I stepped outside dressed like everyone else. Fewer people stared at me as though I might turn into a goat.
Smoke curled from thatched roofs into a sky the color of old pewter. Axes rang against timber. A pair of boys rolled a barrel toward the hall while three women packed sacks into a cart. Chickens scratched in the mud as though invading armies were someone else’s problem.
It was like I’d stepped into an authentic historical village for ye olde tourists, except nobody was selling refrigerator magnets and the smell was considerably more pungent.
Men moved shields and spears toward the southern edge of the settlement.
The hunters had already marked the paths through the woods.
Food was being divided into what stayed and what could be carried.
Grain was hidden in more than one place.
The livestock would be moved before armed men came near enough to take them.
These people had survived raids before, they knew how to prepare for enemies.
I found Wulfric near the meeting house, bent over a rough hide stretched across a board. He’d traded the mail he’d worn yesterday for a dark green tunic belted at the waist and a heavy wool cloak. A sword still hung at his side.
Apparently being the village lord meant never knowing when a meeting might suddenly require stabbing.
His fair hair was tied back, and he had a serious case of morning stubble. I was annoyed with myself for noticing.
Godwin stood beside him, along with two hunters and Wystan, who straightened the moment he saw me.
His gaze went to my clothes, then my feet. “You look less strange.”
“Thank you, Wystan. You remain exactly as strange as yesterday.”
His ears reddened as Godwin coughed, and Wulfric’s mouth moved into that almost-smile again.
I pointed at him.
“I saw that.”
“You saw nothing.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He looked back at the hide. Lines had been scratched across it in charcoal. It was a furry map.
I stepped closer. “This is Ashford?”
“Aye.”
The children and elderly would go north through the forest with three hunters. A second group of adults would move livestock farther west. Food stores had been divided so one discovery wouldn’t cost them everything. The southern road was watched, as were the paths from the coast.
The fighters knew three places where mounted men would have difficulty moving.
“How many people go north?”
“Forty-three,” Godwin said.
“Exactly?”
He looked offended.
“Yes.”
I scratched at my arm where the wool itched.
“Who counts them?”
“Oswin.”
One of the hunters nodded.
“And if Oswin dies before they leave?”
Wulfric sighed.
“You always begin with death?”
“No. Sometimes I work up to it.”
Wystan looked alarmed as I pointed at him.
“He counts too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I am to fight.”
“You can count before you fight.”
The betrayal on Wystan’s face was magnificent as Wulfric nodded.
“Wonderful,” I said. “Two counters. If one number doesn’t match the other, nobody leaves until you know why.”
Godwin frowned. “That will cost time.”
“Losing a child will cost more.”
Nobody argued with that as I crouched beside the hide.
“The three hunters know the main path and the second path?”
“Aye,” Wulfric said.
“The people going with them?”
“No need,” one of the hunters said.
I looked at him. He was lean and weathered, missing the tip of one finger.
“What happens if all three of you are separated from the group?”
“We will not be.”
There it was. The four most dangerous words in any emergency. I sat back on my heels.
“At a fire, when someone says something won’t happen, that’s usually when the universe starts warming up.”
Wulfric’s brows drew together.
“The universe?”
“God. The old gods. Whatever deity you pray to.”
Everyone relaxed. Apparently I was more reassuring when I blamed divine forces.
Godwin studied a half-frown on his face.
“You have strange ways of speaking.”
“You should hear me before tea.”
He looked as though he wanted to ask what tea was, but decided against it.
I moved on before we lost the morning. By midday we had a system, one we’d all built together. That distinction mattered.
Wulfric chose the routes because he knew every fold of the land. Godwin knew which families would move easily and which would argue until the Normans arrived and helped them make the decision.
Anya knew which elderly villagers could walk, which needed carts, and who would insist they could walk even when they couldn’t.
I organized the people into groups so that every group had one leader and one second.
Every child belonged to a named adult. Nobody was allowed to assume someone else had taken old Gilda, who was apparently eighty if she was a day and had already announced she wasn’t leaving without her spinning wheel.
“She cannot take it,” I said.
Anya shook her head.
“Gilda has outlived two husbands and four sons.”
“Impressive. The wheel still isn’t coming.”
“You tell her.”
Coward.
I found Gilda outside a cottage with white hair escaping her head covering and the disputed spinning wheel clutched beside her like a favored child.
“No,” she said before I opened my mouth.
I blinked at her. “We haven’t met.”
“I know why you are here.”
“Excellent. Saves time.”
She narrowed bright black eyes at me.
“The wheel comes.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It has been mine since my mother gave it me.”
“And it’ll still be yours when you come back.”
“If I come back.”
There it was. The truth beneath all the arguing, that the village might not be here, her home might not be here, and that everything familiar could be gone.
I understood wanting to carry one piece of your life with you. My hand moved toward the pocket of my borrowed kirtle before I remembered that there was nothing there. No heavy silver brooch. Only empty cloth and the fading circle burned into my palm.
With a sigh, I looked at the wheel.
“How heavy is it?”
By the time I returned, Wulfric was waiting.
“You let her take it.”
“It’s not that heavy.”
His expression said something unpleasant about my judgment.
“You were sent to tell her no.”
“I renegotiated.”
He stared at me as I smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
By afternoon, people were moving through practice runs. Not because they didn’t know the forest, but because knowing a path when you were alone was different from moving forty frightened people along it.
Children wandered, people stopped to talk, an old man forgot why he was supposed to be moving and went home for a knife.
One woman disappeared entirely. We found her trying to catch a chicken.
I stood in the muddy lane with my hands on my hips.
“Why?”
She clutched the bird to her chest.
“It is a good layer.”
The chicken looked smug.