LITMIR.BIZ

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had finally settled into an easy, regular rhythm.

      She thought she ought to sleep herself, now that it appeared the woman was going to be fine. But it was already approaching dawn, almost time to get up and rekindle the cook fires for baking bread. Almost time to go roll, knead and punch the dough, and set it to rise for breakfast.

      But not yet. For now she could lie on this settle and watch the light of the flames dance on the walls like creatures out of myth. The cold wind keened noisily, and the curtains over the windows stirred a little but kept the draft out. Those curtains had been made and mended by generations of Deepwell women, including her mother. She imagined that if she closed her eyes and touched the fabric she might be able to sense all the hands that had touched them and tended them.

      She sighed lightly and closed her eyes. She was so weary, far too weary for someone of her years. She was only twenty, but already life had become an endless grind of sameness. She loved her father, yes, and loved the inn, but the sameness of it all was not suited to someone so young. Then there was Tom. Sometimes he made her heart smile. Sometimes she looked at him and saw her future laid out in an endless progression of days all the same.

      She shook her head sternly, trying to brush away the thought. Such as she were not made for great adventures. She was made to run the inn in her father’s stead, and provide ale and food and shelter to all who needed it, to someday bear children of her own and raise them to the same solid life.

      The faint, sparkling dreams that sometimes tried to take hold of her were just that: dreams. She was blessed with a good life, and she knew she should be grateful for it.

      There was a light knock at the door. Rising, she cast aside the blanket and crept to the door to answer it.

      Her father stood outside, and in his arms he held a familiar white bundle topped by boots of the finest, softest white leather.

      “She’ll be needing something to wear,” he said gruffly.

      Sara looked at her father’s burden, her eyes suddenly stinging. “But, Dad…”

      “She’ll not be coming back, lass,” he said. “Six years…Nay, she’ll not be coming back. Better this should be worn by someone who has nothing than waste away in a chest.”

      She accepted the bundle from him reluctantly. It felt as if she were giving up her last hope. Her heart squeezed, and her eyes burnt.

      “It’s all right, Sara,” he said gruffly, his eyes reddened. “It came to me in the night. That woman…she should have these. I love you, girl.”

      “I love you, too, Dad.”

      “Sleep late,” he said. “I can manage the bread, and Mistress Lawd is going to help me. You worked hard yesterday. Get some rest.”

      Mistress Lawd? Sara watched her father walk toward the stairway and wondered if the Widow Lawd had done something no other woman had done in six years: catch her father’s eye.

      It would do him good, she thought as she reentered the room and closed the heavy plank door behind her. He needed someone besides his daughter in his life.

      But inside her, something was cracking wide-open with a new kind of grief, as she recognized the final farewell to her missing mother.

      The woman on the bed was sitting up, awake, blanket pulled to her chin. Her eyes were wide and fearful.

      Sara at once hurried to her, smiling, setting the clothes down on the bed.

      “Good morning,” she said cheerfully. “’Tis good to see you awake. I reckon you must be hungry.”

      The woman managed an uncertain smile and said, “Water?”

      “Of course.” Sara hurried to the ewer and poured water into a cup, bringing it to her.

      The woman accepted it with a murmur that Sara couldn’t understand. A different language, perhaps?

      She touched her chest as the woman looked at her. “Sara,” she said.

      The woman nodded, then hesitated. Suddenly her eyes widened with astonishment, and she touched her own breast. “Tess,” she replied, her tone hushed.

      “Hello, Tess.” Sara kept her voice bright and her smile cheerful.

      “Hello, Sara,” the woman replied, her syllables a tad uncertain.

      “Now don’t you worry about a thing,” Sara said, patting Tess’s shoulder. “I’ll bring you some broth, and while I get it, you get dressed.”

      There was only more confusion on the woman’s face, so Sara carefully unfolded the bundle, displaying the fine leather pants and the finest wool over-tunic, which would reach the floor and was slit for riding up front and back. The belt, hand-embroidered with gold thread. The boots soft as butter.

      She pointed to the clothes and then to Tess. “For you. Clothes.”

      Comprehension dawned on Tess’s face.

      Miming, Sara said, “I’ll get you something to eat.”

      “Food?”

      “Aye, food.”

      Tess nodded and smiled.

      Sara hurried out, wondering what in the world they were to do with the woman if she didn’t speak their language. It might be months before they learned anything about her.

      The kitchen fires were already roaring, and Mistress Lawd and her father were up to their elbows in flour. Tess scooped some of the stew from yesterday’s pot and found a slice of day-old bread.

      “She’s awake and hungry,” she told her dad. “And her name is Tess.”

      “Good news,” he agreed. “Take the food up to her, then get yourself into your own bed, child. You haven’t slept a wink, I wager.”

      Tess was dressed when Sara returned, and the girl caught her breath as she saw the woman standing by the window, the curtains drawn back. Beautiful, she thought. So beautiful. It was as if the clothes had been made for her. They certainly had not been made for Sara, who had inherited her father’s sturdy build rather than her mother’s willowy slenderness.

      But on Tess the clothes seemed to become something more, and Sara felt an urge to call the woman my lady.

      But it was a sorrowful face Tess turned toward her, blue eyes haunted by loss, by sights better not seen. She moved her arms as if cradling a child and made a questioning sound.

      She wanted the dead child. Perhaps her own child. Probably her own child.

      Sara carried the stew and bread to the small table in the corner and set them down. “Eat first,” she said, once again miming. “Then I’ll take you to your child.”

      As if she understood, Tess obediently sat and began to eat.

      Sara sat with her, chattering as if to stem the pain to come. “You don’t understand me at all, do you?” she said. “I don’t understand you, either. Pity of it is, it’ll probably take you weeks or months to say the simplest things.”

      Tess astonished her by answering. “I learn.”

      Then Tess herself looked amazed, as if surprised that she had spoken the words.

      “Maybe,” Sara said, “you just forgot how to speak, because of the terrible things that happened.”

      “Terrible,” Tess agreed, nodding, her blue eyes shadowing. “Terrible.”

      She bowed her head for a few moments, then resumed eating as if she understood that she must fuel herself regardless.

      After breakfast, Sara took Tess downstairs to the room where the child was laid out. Tess approached slowly, noting that someone had garbed the girl in a green dress that covered the wound at her throat, and had washed her and brushed her hair to a golden sheen. She lay within a rough-hewn coffin of planks set upon two sawhorses.

      “I’m

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