Chapter 7 The Enemy's Clothes

Scarlett’s POV (Now)

Naomi had the coat laid out on the bed before I finished my bread. It was dark grey wool, with black horn buttons all the way down the front.

"Wear this one today," she said. "The escort will recognize it. So will the guards at the camp. They haven't all seen your face."

"They will once I'm through the gate."

"I'd rather they let you through without an argument."

She straightened a sleeve while I looked at the coat. I didn't want to meet my people dressed in clothes Blackridge had chosen, but I didn't want to be stopped at the gate, either. I put it on and insisted on wearing my old cloak over it. Naomi tried to settle the collar around both layers before giving up.

Then I went to the clothes cupboard and took Father's sweater from beneath the shifts. I put the list aside while I pulled on the sweater under the coat. The wool scratched my neck, as it always had. When I picked up the list again, Naomi watched me slip it into my sleeve without saying anything.

In the yard, Edward was giving instructions to the two riders who would escort us.

"Let her speak to them in private. Keep her in sight, but give them room."

He glanced at my old cloak and said nothing about it. As the carriage step was lowered, I looked down at the grey cuffs showing beneath it, the black buttons and my own boots, still split along the left seam.

At the camp, Edward stayed by the carriage while Naomi and I went through the gate. I'd rehearsed three things to say on the journey. I smiled as I walked into the yard and managed the first.

"I'm glad to see you all."

Nobody answered. A few people bowed, but the women sitting on the mat remained where they were. I took several more steps before I stopped trying to smile.

An uncut loaf lay on a board, and a boy stood in a doorway holding his cap. The miller's elder daughter had a shirt across her knees. She paused with her needle raised, then bent over her sewing again.

A man near my age got up from the mat, keeping most of his weight off his right leg. Someone beside him said, "Ren," and I recognized the name from the list.

He looked at my collar.

"How can you wear their clothes?"

I'd expected someone to shout. He spoke quietly, and I couldn't think what to do with the answers I'd prepared. I looked down at the black buttons.

"I hate it too."

He waited. I wanted him to look at my face instead of the coat.

"I hate it, and I don't know what else I can offer to get you home. They want me to marry him. I don't know what else to do."

Nobody spoke. Behind me, Naomi lowered her head. Our cook came across the stones with flour on her wrists and stopped in front of me. She reached up, straightened my collar and patted it flat. I remembered that hand slapping mine away when I tried to steal honey.

I let her fuss with the coat. I'd been able to answer Ren, however badly. Now I couldn't trust myself to speak.

The miller's younger girl came around her and caught my cloak in her fist.

"Is my father coming back?"

I crouched to her height. Pain caught in my right knee, but I stayed where I was, trying to find something to tell her. I didn't know where her father was. I couldn't promise he'd come back, and I couldn't bring myself to say he might not.

I rested a hand on her shoulder and looked past her at the wall. She kept hold of my cloak until I could stand again. The cook picked up her board and went back to the fire. Around us, people began asking about the things they needed.

"His hip keeps him up half the night," the tanner's wife said. "The medicine doesn't help."

A man stepped forward before I could answer. "They took my sister to the other camp. It's been six weeks. We haven't heard a word."

"We've only one coat between us," a woman added, "and the little one's outgrown hers."

I took out the list and found a piece of charcoal by the hearth. On the back, I wrote down the tanner's pain, the missing sister and the clothes. I asked for names where I needed them, then said I would ask for help.

"Ask who?" the man said.

I hesitated. Edward was outside the gate, and I didn't want to give them his name as though that settled anything. I wrote a fourth note beneath the others: who to ask. I would need an answer before I could tell them when to expect anything.

The tanner's wife watched my sleeve as I wrote. Ren remained standing nearby, listening. Eventually he sat down, moved his stick out of the way and left a space beside him. I looked at it, wishing I could sit and begin again without everyone waiting for me to promise something.

But the riders were waiting by the gate. I folded the list and went back to the carriage.

Edward was where I'd left him. He opened the door without asking how it had gone. Naomi climbed up beside the driver, leaving me inside with him. I kept the list in my hand on the way back.

By the time the carriage stopped at the inner gate, it was the middle of the afternoon. A guard opened the door, but I stayed seated. I'd been holding back tears for most of the journey. If I stepped out now, with everyone in the yard, I wasn't sure I could keep doing it.

Edward got out, raised a hand to the escort and waited while they moved back along the wall, beyond hearing. Then he sat on the carriage step outside the open door, facing the yard, with his forearms resting on his knees.

People were still passing. Some glanced toward us and looked away when I caught them. I wished the door were closed, but that would mean asking him to move. For a while I sat without saying anything.

"My father used to say he'd come for me."

My voice sounded steadier than I'd expected. Edward stayed where he was.

"At the hunting ground, or the west gap. If I was staying at someone else's house. He'd tell me when he was coming, and then he'd be there. Sometimes I hadn't even finished what I was doing."

I could picture him standing in a doorway with a lantern, calling my full name until I came out. I'd made him wait often enough. I would have gone straight to him now.

"I can't even ask him what time anymore. There's nobody to answer."

I turned my face away. I'd meant to talk about the visit, if I talked at all. I hadn't meant to tell Edward how badly I wanted my father to come and take me home.

"Pretend I didn't say that."

He said nothing. I waited for him to tell me what Father would have wanted, or say that things would get better. I was ready to argue with either. Instead, he sat facing the yard, without turning to look at me or getting up to leave.

I wanted him to answer. I also wanted to tell him to go, but I couldn't manage another conversation. I stayed in the carriage while he remained on the step. After a while one of the horses stamped twice, and I looked down at the paper in my hand.

I smoothed it against my sleeve. When I was ready, I waited for Edward to move aside, then climbed down without taking his hand. My knee held as I walked past him. I didn't look at his face.

There were four notes on the back of the list. To do anything about them, I would have to speak to him again.