Chapter 16: The Offer

I got into my coat and my boots without a word, and Emlyn did the same.

We walked up the path with the steam still coming off our hair.

Ingeborg waited at the foot of the porch steps in the light from the door.

She had a black wool coat over her black wool dress and gloves the color of ash.

She looked tired, which I had not expected.

"Ole," she said. "Come home."

"Good evening, dear," Ole said from the doorway. "No, thank you."

"You've been kept from your own bed. You've had nothing proper to eat."

"I've had pierogi."

"You have been taken from your house by two people who do not love you." Her voice was soft and low.

"I know you are not well."

"I'm ninety-one. I'm not well on Tuesdays." He folded the dishtowel over his arm. "I'm not confused, Ingeborg."

She turned her head and looked at Emlyn.

"My boy," she said. "You were so close to doing a great deal of harm."

"I'm told I was close to a great deal of nothing."

"Let us not do this in the snow."

"Say it here," I said. "There's nobody else listening."

Dewey had come to stand beside Ole with his thermos.

Ingeborg looked at him.

"Very well," she said. "I have come to make you an offer, Emlyn, and I will make it once."

"I'm listening."

"Your seat is restored tonight, with your back supply and your standing."

"The release you signed is void, and I will strike it from the book myself."

"Why?"

"Because I do not want a war in my own Hall." She breathed out. "Miss Doyle is not listed."

"No one will follow her, speak of her or touch her. You may keep her, quietly, under my protection."

"Keep her how long?"

"For as long as she lives."

I let out a bark of laughter.

"Say that again," I said. "A slow one, for the people in the back."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You just offered him more than three bites. You offered him me, for life. In writing, if he wants."

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