Chapter 8: Midwinter

Tanguy's horses were still on the hill when Erwan's men started making jokes about it.

"He hangs first," one of them said in a high voice, tossing his hair.

"Does he hang before or after supper?" another asked.

Erwan laughed with them.

When they'd gone back to the hall, he stood by the gate and watched the road until the last white horse was gone.

"Midwinter's eleven days off," I said.

"Then we've got eleven days to eat," he said.

The first of Katell's grain came up the King's Road three days later in the empty wool carts.

By midwinter there was bread in Penhal.

Enora took over the kitchen the way she'd once taken over mine, by telling everybody where to stand.

On midwinter night the whole of Penhal ate in the hall under the half roof.

There was a fire in the hearth, and snow fell through the hole at the other end.

There was bread, and eel stew from the fisherman's baskets.

There was a barrel of hill cider that Katell's carters had left as a joke.

The little girl in the man's coat sat on the bench beside me.

She ate her bread in very small bites, watching it get smaller.

"There's more," I told her.

She didn't believe me until Enora put a second piece in front of her.

Then she ate that one in very small bites too.

Gwenn sat across from me with her bowl and counted the room with her eyes, the way she always did.

"You've had two helpings," she said to me.

"Are you counting mine too?"

"I count everybody's," she said. "You're thin for a princess."

"Clerks eat at their desks," I said.

One of Erwan's men stood on the table and sang a song about a goose that married a bishop.