A Hatred Most Pure novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Tent

The Saltmarsh guard at the tent flap knew my face from the hall, and he let me in without a word.

Dietrich was eating breakfast at a camp table, in his shirtsleeves, with a napkin tucked under his chin.

A thin woman with pinned fair hair sat in the corner with her sewing.

I knew her too.

She had been fourteen the last time I saw her, standing on the harbor wall with her hands over her mouth.

"Pia," I said.

She kept her eyes on her needle.

"She's shy now," Dietrich said. "Pia, love, pour Cora some tea."

Pia poured it with a hand that didn't quite hold still, and set the cup in front of an empty chair.

I stayed standing.

"You came alone," Dietrich said, pleased. "I thought you might. You always did hate waiting to hear the worst."

"I told Ansel what you did."

His fork stopped.

"Did he believe you?"

"No."

"No," he agreed, and went back to his egg. "Of course he didn't. It's a lovely instinct, wanting to be the boy's one true villain. I'd keep it, if I were him."

"You dropped the bar."

"My father did. I only carried it." He wiped his mouth. "It's the same thing in the end, and you and I both know who stood at that door the longest."

Pia's needle went in and out, in and out.

"Here is what I've come to think," Dietrich said. "Neither of us wants a Moot. You'd hang for the child, and I'd lose my standing for being a boy with a bar in his hands, which is a ridiculous thing to lose it over."

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