Chapter 7

Rhea’s POV

I wrapped what was left of my bread in its cloth and put it in my pocket.

On the way back, Maisie stopped at every second shop, and Tessa let her.

By the yard gate, Tessa had most of the girl's weight on her hip.

Maisie still had butter on her chin, and she was asleep before I had laid her on the bed.

Tessa pulled the blanket up and kept her hand flat on it.

"There's something I want to see before dark. I'll be back before the lamps are lit. If anyone asks, I went to the kitchen about a needle."

She did not answer, and I left.

I could have walked out the front gate. What I needed was off this ground, and the front gate was the one way out that always came with a witness.

The cart was already rolling when I came round the storehouse.

Empty baskets, roped three and four high, a boy sitting on the tailboard with his heels knocking the boards, a woman walking alongside with her sleeves pushed above her elbows.

The baskets were going out empty, so I expected them to come back full. I doubted anyone at the small gate would climb up to count them on the way out.

The woman had already seen me. "You're the one with the little one."

"She's sleeping." I put my hand on the tailboard and walked with it to keep pace. "Does this go out the back?" I climbed up beside the boy as the cart approached the small gate.

The guard let us through without turning round. He was half turned away, shielding his eyes as he spoke to a man up on the wall.

The cart went out at a walk, and I went out with it, chin down, hands loose in my lap.

By the time he looked back, we were ten feet past him, and my face was in shadow.

Beyond the gate, I climbed down and continued along the road on foot. I counted the way Bren taught me, in threes.

Thirty to the fallen log, its bark gone soft underneath.

Fifty more to the grey blocks of a wall that had come down.

Then I worked out how long a horse would take to catch up with me, and whether it would have to walk.

Past the wall the road ran down to the bridge, and the carters had said the bridge could take a loaded cart.

The trees thinned abruptly, and the road ran ahead of me to the water.

I saw the far bank first—the road continuing on the other side—then the gap between the banks, with nothing spanning it.

Then my feet stopped on their own.

The bridge was broken.

The deck was gone in the middle. Two piles had been pushed out of alignment and leaned into the current. On the near side, planks hung from their nails above the water.

Ice knocked somewhere against what was left of the piles, out of sight, and it had been knocking the whole time.

I crouched at the break and put my hand on the wet wood. When I pushed at the loose end, it moved more than it should have.

I stood and walked along the bank to see where the river grew shallow over a bar of stones. On the third step, my boot sank into the mud and stuck. I had to brace myself and pull twice before it came free.

I climbed back to the fork with mud to the ankle, and Adrian was standing at the top of it.

His hands hung loose at his sides. Behind him, a man held his horse by the bridle off the road.

I stopped, and my face went hot.

His hand was already outstretched by the time I reached the top of the bank, and I stepped past it.

He withdrew his hand, turned, and walked on. The man brought the horse round.

I followed four paces behind with one boot squelching. It was louder than the horse.

I had come out here with the whole of it worked out in my head, and now I was walking behind him up a public road with mud to the ankle and both hands empty. I wondered whether the boy on the cart would see me being brought back.

My face and ears burned, and the boot kept squelching.

He said one thing on the way, where the road came up through the beeches. "From now on you don't cross the inner yard without someone with you."

I nodded and followed him back.

Tessa saw the boots before I had the door shut. "What's this?"

"It's mud."

She burst out laughing and went back to folding the coat over the back of the chair.

Maisie wanted to know why one boot was fat and the other thin, and I let her have that instead.

Adrian came at full dark.

"Someone walks with you. Any time you go out of the inner yard, morning to dark, and after, if it comes to that."

I stood at the table with a bowl in my hands.

"Wherever I go?"

"That's the arrangement."

He stood with his hand still on the door. "You gave me your word. It isn't finished."

I kicked the stool over. It went down hard on the boards and bounced once, and the sound filled the room, and neither of the girls behind me made a sound.

He glanced at me.

"Have someone take your boots in the morning and get them dried. Leave them wet and the leather will rot."

The door closed.

I stood there until I heard him leave.

Then I got the boots off, and the wet one went across the room and hit the wall and left a mark on the plaster.

I pulled the rag from behind the heel and wrung it.

Water ran out the first time and barely dripped the second. By the third, there was nothing left to wring out, but I kept twisting the rag until my knuckles turned white.

I could feel my ears still burning and did not look up to find out whether anyone had noticed.

"Why did Rhea kick the stool?" Maisie said, from where she lay.

"Because it was there," Tessa said, low.