“I’d like to buy a meal and a night’s lodging from you. I can pay. I can show you the coin.”

He shook his head. “I’ve no use for coins. What would I do with them? Make soup?” He looked at me more sharply, and then, perhaps deciding a fat man was not much of a threat, asked shrewdly, “Got anything to barter?”

I shook my head slowly. I had nothing I could afford to part with, nothing I could give up that would not leave me in worse need.

“Well, we’ve nothing to spare for beggars. Be on your way.”

I opened my mouth to say that I had not begged. I could feel my resentment rising in me. I thought of the soldiers and how the magic had boiled with my anger. No. I would not do that again. I would not loose that which I did not understand. I turned away from him and led Clove on.

I was hungry, cold, and weary. Thick clouds had been gathering all day and were starting to darken, promising rain by nightfall. If it had been otherwise, I think I would have mounted up and ridden off. The rising wind tugged at my cloak. If all I could buy myself was a dry night’s sleep, I was resolved to have it. At the next cottage with chimney smoke rising from its stack, I gathered up my courage and knocked at a rough wooden door.

It was slow to open. I stood still before it, smiling, for I suspected that someone was peering out at me through one of the numerous chinks in the wall. The small woman who finally opened the door held a large pistol in both her hands. I stepped back. The muzzle of it pointed squarely at my midsection. She could not possibly miss me at this range. I lifted my hands to show they were empty. “I’d just like to buy a night’s lodging and food, ma’am,” I said with great respect.

A small towheaded boy suddenly shoved his head out past his mother’s skirts. “Who’s that?” he demanded. And then, almost with admiration, “He’s really fat!”

“Hush, Sem. Get back inside.” She looked at me speculatively. I could almost see her decide that I wasn’t much of a threat. She was small but stocky. She had to use both hands to steady the pistol. She lowered the heavy gun, but now the barrel menaced my legs. “I don’t have much to spare.”

“I’d be content with anything hot, and a dry place to spend the night,” I said humbly. “I can pay.”

She laughed in a sour way. “And where would I spend it? I’ve got no use for money. Can’t eat it. Can’t burn it.” Her blue eyes were hard. I didn’t doubt the truth of her words. She looked as worn as her clothing. Her dark hair was knotted back in a no-nonsense way that spoke only of practicality, not attractiveness or even neatness. The skin of her hands was rough. The boy’s eyes looked too large in his thin face.

I could think of nothing else to offer. “Please,” I begged.

She tightened her mouth and narrowed her eyes. It made her look like a thoughtful cat. I stood humbly before her, hoping. Two more children peeped out around the door frame. One was an older girl of about five, the other a curly-headed toddler. The woman shooed them back, then looked me up and down skeptically. “Can you work?” she asked me coldly.

“That I can,” I promised her. “What do you need done?”

Her smile was tight. “What don’t I need done? Winter’s coming. Look at this place! I’ll be lucky if it stands through the first storm.” She sighed and then said, “You can put your horse in that house over there. We use it for a shed. The roof doesn’t leak much.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She almost winced. “I’m not ma’am. I’m not that old. I’m Amzil.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening chopping wood. She had an old ax with a splintery handle. I put an edge on it with a stone. She had been turning the adjacent buildings into firewood, but the ax was big for her and the house timbers too heavy. She’d been limited by the size of log she could chop through. “The little ones burn up too fast. I can’t build a fire that lasts the night,” she told me.

I worked steadily in the chill wind. I selected a small house that was mostly collapsed, and worked at turning it into firewood, cutting the timbers into chunks and then splitting them. One at a time, her scattered neighbors made excuses to drop by. I felt their eyes on me, but as none of them spoke to me, I ignored them and labored on. Their attempts at conversation with Amzil were brief. I heard one man say to her, “I only come to see if he had something to trade. It’s nothing to do with you at all, woman!” I sensed no community there, only a sour rivalry for the diminishing resources of the failed settlement. The old woman did not come to Amzil’s door but grimly eyed me from a distance, scowling as I pulled logs free and then chopped them into firewood.

I had been aware of Amzil’s children spying on me all day. The muffled giggles of the older two had betrayed them as they hid around the corner of her house and took turns peeking at me. Only the smallest child, a tiny girl, was honest in her complete curiosity. She stood squarely in the open doorway to gawk at me. I had not thought I remembered much of Yaril’s babyhood. But looking at the child, I found I did. Yaril had stood like that, her babyish tummy thrust out before her. Yaril had turned her head and smiled shyly like that. When I stopped to wipe sweat from my neck, I smiled back at her. She squeaked and darted out of sight around the door. A moment later, she emerged again. I waved at her, winning a high-pitched giggle. As the sun was setting, the first threatened drops of rain came pelting down. Amzil emerged suddenly from her house, scooping the baby up in passing. She called out stiffly to me, “The food is ready.”

It was the first time I’d been inside her home. There wasn’t much to it. It was a single room, with log walls and a dirt floor. The hearth was rock plastered together with river clay. Their bed was a shelf across one side of the room. Other than the door, there was a single window with a crude wooden shutter. No glass. The only freestanding furniture was a bench by the hearth. The only table was a shelf in the corner with a washbasin on top of it and a water pitcher beside it. Clothing hung from pegs in the wall. Sacks on hooks and a few rough shelves held the food stores. There wasn’t much.

I ate standing. The children sat on the floor, and Amzil sat on the bench. She ladled thin soup from a kettle hung over the fire. She served me first, the thin broth off the top and a single scoop of vegetables from the depths of the pot. She served herself the same, and then measured out a scoop for each child that left the ladle scraping the bottom of the kettle. The children got most of the bits of food; I didn’t complain. She had a single mound of hearth bread. She broke it into five equal pieces and handed me one. We ate.

I savored the first spoonful of the warm broth. I tasted potatoes, cabbage, onion, and little else. As I had schooled myself to do, I ate slowly and enjoyed what I had. The bread was coarse, but good, for the flavor of the badly ground grain was stronger than if it had been made from fine flour. The texture was a good contrast to the thin soup. I saved the last bit of bread to wipe the final trace of soup from my bowl. Empty. I sighed and looked up to find Amzil regarding me curiously.

“Is something wrong?” I asked her. I was not unaware that her pistol rested on the bench beside her hip.

Her brow furrowed. “You’re smiling.”

I gave a small shrug. “Good food.”

She scowled at me as if I were mocking her. “It wasn’t good soup before I added enough water to stretch it for five.” Little spots of anger danced in her brown eyes.

“Any food is better than none. And any food tastes good after a time of privation.”

“Privation?”

“Hard times,” I clarified.

Her eyes narrowed again. “You don’t look like you’ve ever known ‘privation.’”

“You’d be surprised,” I said gently.

“Maybe. Here, we’ve eaten the same thing for so long, I don’t even taste it anymore.” She rose abruptly, picking up the pistol as she did so. “Children, stack your bowls. You, you can sleep in the shed with your horse. The roof doesn’t leak much.” It was a clear request that I now leave her house.