Chapter 15: Midwinter

The whole wall went quiet to hear what I'd say.

"I did," I said. "And I broke it."

"You did."

"The day the snow goes off the Hollow Cross, I'll walk you up that road myself. I'll carry you if I have to."

"You'll carry me." Her mouth twitched. "With that arm."

"I'll get Gerd to carry you. I'll carry the bread."

Somebody on the wall snorted.

Anke looked down at the sword across my knees, and then out at the river, where the ram lay in pieces on the ice.

"I made that tube," she said, "so you'd still be alive in April to keep your word. Don't make me sorry."

She went down the ladder.

The alewife leaned over from the wall beside me and patted my shoulder with her ladle.

"That's a yes, Highness," she said. "In the hills, that's how they say yes."

Nine days later it was midwinter, and the town came up the hill to feed me.

The alewife walked into my hall at dusk with a barrel on a handcart, and behind her came half of Velde, carrying things.

They brought bread, smoked fish, and a whole cheese the size of a cartwheel that the cooper's wife had been hiding since summer.

They brought the Finders' salt.

The Finders had left nine barrels of it in their camp when they ran.

The town had carried every one across the ice by moonlight.

"Not a pinch, he said." The alewife slapped a barrel. "Then he left us nine."

The widow sat at the end of my table with her big hands around a cup.

The orchard girl sat beside her and ate.

The seer and the miner's son sat close together, holding hands under the table where everyone could see.

Then the cook came out of the kitchen with a pot.

She set it down in front of me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Reborn as the Prince the Witch Stabbed, I Bought Her Off the Pyre from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.