“Yes. You mustn’t tell anyone I’m a soldier, though. It’s a secret.”

Davi shook her head vigorously.

“If you eat more, and rest, in a few days we’ll leave. I’ll take you home.”

“Home?” She looked confused.

“I’ll take you home because you’re a weight in the scale. Because your father is willing to be hated and persecuted just to have you back again. Why, I don’t know.”

“Mmm.” Davi gave a tentative, confused smile.

“Are you getting cold? I can take this harness to my room and start working on it. I want you to eat more cake to make you strong.”

Davi held up her arms for Clement to pick her up.

*

Another five days had passed before Clement took Davi and the loaded sledge out the gate. The runners had been sanded and sharpened, the snowshoes re‑webbed, the harness adapted, and Davi had a straw‑stuffed mattress to sleep on and an oilcloth cover to keep out the snow. Both of them wore the heaviest, warmest clothing that could be found, non‑issue right down to the skin. Uneasy though she felt without weapons, Clement had left even them behind.

Her soldiers stood speechless; even Purnal seemed amazed. But the children, who knew an adventure when they saw one, cheered the travelers out the gate.

Clement had never worn snowshoes before, but managed to avoid tripping over her own feet until the watchers could no longer see her. That first day, she fell down regularly. That first night, she lay with Davi on the sledge, sleeping in short bits until, awakened by cold, she got up to put more wood on the fire and to turn her drying clothing. The child slept undisturbed in a solid, wool‑clad lump, with a wool cap tied under her chin. When the snow began to glow faintly, reflecting a distant dawn, and the stars that populated the frozen sky began to wink out, Clement dressed in clothing that was almost dry and halfway warm, loaded up the sledge, strapped herself in the harness, and set forth once again.

That day, she finally mastered the snowshoer’s leg‑swinging waddle. The sledge seemed almost weightless as she guided it down the hillside, and even when they reached the flat, she was amazed at her own speed. Davi rode behind her, complaining once of thirst, but subsiding when Clement explained that the water had frozen solid in its jug. But Clement became aware of her own thirst now. Dry‑mouthed, she could not swallow the sweetened oatcakes in her pockets. Snow‑blind, she could not see the passing countryside. A tugging at the harness brought her out of her daze.

Davi pointed, it seemed, into the sky, which was, Clement noted giddily, a gorgeous color: winter twilight. Across it lay the faintest smear of smoke.

“Ah!” Clement turned them down the hillside, where she could not see a wagon track, and in a last burst of blind energy got them practically to the farmhouse door before she fell for the first time that day, and was too tired to get up.

“Haven’t got your snow legs yet?” A farmer in woolen clothing redolent, though not unpleasantly, with cow manure, hauled her to her feet and undid the harness buckles. “I saw you coming,” she added. “So we’ve put the kettle on. Snow took you by surprise?”

“Not really,” Clement gasped. “I planned to travel home before autumn mud. But the child took sick.”

“Bad luck.” An angular woman Clement’s age or older, she made light work of lifting the sledge to the shelter of the porch, while Clement stood in dumb tiredness with Davi in her arms. She had concocted a much more elaborate explanatory tale for herself, but the farmer didn’t ask for it. The farmer said, “We’ve got an empty bed. Two of the children married out this year. Twins. Went to the same household so they could still be in the same family. Come in, come in.”

In the kitchen, a half dozen people looked up from chopping vegetables to chorus a distracted welcome. The angular farmer collected a tea tray and led the way to an equally crowded parlor. Clement sank into an empty chair and was plied with hot tea and generously buttered bread as Davi drank a mug of hot milk, sitting in her lap. The angular farmer waved away Clement’s thanks, saying obliquely, “It’s been a good year. Good milk, healthy calves.”

And if it hadn’t been a good year, Clement wondered vaguely, what would the farmer say instead? That there was always enough to go around, or that what is given comes back eventually? Davi got down from her lap and joined some other children on the floor, who moved over to let her watch their game. The angular farmer, Mariseth, Seth to her friends, refilled Clement’s teacup, cut her some cheese, and sat knee‑to‑knee with her. Clement recognized the cheese, which was even better here, where it had been made. The fear in her slowly came undone, like an old, stiff knot. Seth’s knee was warmer than the heat from the fire as she recounted bits and pieces of information that might interest a traveler, and Clement asked questions, expressed surprise, uttered an occasional cautious comment. There was not much she needed to do; the farmer’s incurious friendliness was like a path she needed only follow.

During the raucous supper, some twenty‑two people ate willy‑nilly, sitting or standing wherever there was space, all talking at once about cows and cheese and distant news from far‑off places. Seth had status here, Clement noted, a lieutenant in her way, risen to that unacknowledged position over many years. Davi circled back to Clement’s lap again, and ate obediently from her spoon. “I didn’t tell!” she whispered.

“Good girl.” Clement fed her some cheese, but Davi didn’t like it, and the farmer offered a bowl of curds instead, which Davi emptied happily. Then the child fell asleep, and Seth, who had not been out of conversation distance all evening, commented, “A smart girl you’ve got there. But serious for her age. What is she, three?”

Clement nodded vaguely. “I wonder if I should have given her longer to recover from her illness. But I needed to go home.”

“She’s a bit too pale and quiet. But maybe she’s a quiet kid? Those thinkers often are, like you.”

“Me?” Clement gave a laugh.

“Thinking hurts, doesn’t it? Too much, maybe. I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.”

In a bare cubby of a room, heated by a stove tiny as a kettle, someone had brought the contents of the sledge and hung everything that was damp to dry. With the farmer there, Clement had cause to be grateful for her recent sick nursing, for she undressed Davi and put her to bed without any obvious display of inexperience. Seth lit a little lamp that she put on a high shelf, out of child’s reach. She set out a chamber pot, and folded Davi’s clothes. Clement felt a rising warmth, as though that muscular leg still pressed hers.

Seth said, “You’re not so tired as you looked when you first arrived.”

“It was food and drink I needed. Tomorrow, I’ll have Davi hug the water jug to keep it from freezing.”

“Oh, we’ll send you on your way with a foot warmer full of coals. That’ll do the job, and keep your girl from getting chilled if the wind starts to blow. Some of that cheese, too, since you liked it so much. How about a nip?” she added.

Clement followed Seth down the hall to her own room, where apparently she slept in grand solitude beneath brightly colored scrap quilts, beside a small stove that she swiftly lit and stoked, then poured Clement a little cup of brandy from a long husbanded bottle. Clement sipped very cautiously, thinking to preserve at least some of her fleeting wits. “I feel a bit like a cow you’re herding,” she said.

Seth gave a wide, startling grin. “If you were a cow, I could force you into the barn.”

“Oh, I’ll let you herd me in. But why–?”

Seth sat beside her on the settle, thigh to thigh. “You’ve seen some things worth seeing, and I like the way it’s marked you. But you don’t want me asking.”

Clement thought, this woman istoo smart to be a cowherd!And she knew she ought to be afraid, or at least more cautious than she was. She said, “While you were having a good year I’ve been having an awful one. I want to forget. To pretend, maybe, that my life isn’t mine.”