The soldiers seemed to go on forever, in and out of Talkro. Maud had gone to sleep with the road lined with oxen drawn wagons longer than the house going up and over the field. Some had metal tubes and wood logs that were even longer, sticking out from the backs far enough that they bowed at the ends. Some had wooden contraptions that were wrapped with ropes that had enormous hooks on the ends. And others had folded green and brown burlaps, stacks of straw and hay bales, and other, smaller, metal beams or wood logs. All of them had soldiers in red tabards and rimmed metal helmets sitting on the sides of the wagons and walking beside them, pikes in hand or on their shoulders. When she woke up in the morning, there were horse drawn wagons of wood crates with markings on the sides and barrels she assumed were filled with spirits or beer. Maybe both, considering who drove them. The traffic didn’t seem to have an end.

  “Alden, please!” Maud looked over her shoulder at him. She felt the soldiers’ eyes on her. She tried to walk straighter, hugged the basket to cover her chest and hips, and kept her head down. But they were all looking, all leering at her from the wagons and where they rested in bunches along the road on her family’s land. She had already asked Alden to stay beside her, between her and their gawking gazes, but he constantly fell behind at the sight of them. This time, she jerked his arm, “Alden, keep beside me.”

  It was the third day the Baron’s Men had been in Talkro and already things had changed so much it was like looking at another village entirely. They had rebuilt the bridge across the stream before midday with small boats they roped together and laid long and wide boards on—Pa called it a ‘pontoon bridge’—so they could bring the wagons across the new lake. By nightfall, there were long burlap tents surrounding the Administrator’s building near the center of the village. The Ribbon Pole rose from the middle of the tents that were set in rows that looked to go into the horizon with the flag of Berone flapping from it; a golden fleur-des-lis on blue and red checker squares. That was the first day.

  The second day was when the big changes started. The rubble islands in the lake became connectors for the metal frame of the bridges crossing the lake. The middle rubble pile was widened and a wooden wall and gate appeared seemingly in hours. The pontoon bridge was used for the oxen drawn wagons to cross back over from the village loaded with the stones of the rubble. The wooden contraptions were long armed pulleys that rose higher than the tallest trees Maud had ever laid eyes on. With chains and ropes, they lifted logs and those long beams to be lowered where soldiers with their red tabards discarded and looking more like the Talkrois men waited to sway and aim for it to make landing. She had never seen such things in her life and imagined she never would again.

  It had been the morning after Draka returned that the idea of sewing him socks as a thank you present had filled her head. Ma had been surprised at the idea and gladly gave her some of the soft cotton fabric that she had gotten from Coralin to make Pa a winter shirt some time ago. It was enough to make the socks tall and, because it was her first time cutting fabric on her own, to replace the mistakes. She had expected her mother to push her aside before she was finished to take over, like she always does, but this time she only gave advice on how to double stitch the seams and reinforce the heels and toes. The results were two thick cotton socks that should be high enough above his boots that he can pull them down over the buckles to keep cool air from getting through during the winter.

  “Now, that’s a woman, my boys,” a soldier said loud enough that she could hear. She pulled Alden closer, her grip on his arm tightening enough that he whimpered at her to loosen it. Another winked and clicked his teeth like Draka did to Vigora. Others tipped their helmets from their heads and said such things like, “I’ve a good bit of copper if you’re looking for a fun night.”

  “Prettiest I’ve ever seen,” one said with a near toothless smile.

  “Move. Faster.” Maud dragged him.

  Draka’s house felt like a million kilometers away but she was determined to get there. Draka had done so much for them, saved their lives, encouraged Pa and Ma to stop arguing, and, the more she thought about it, even was more in agreement with her about the whole ordeal than Pa was. He had made it very plain that he didn’t want her to tend him, that he knew it was improper for her as an unmarried young woman to do so. The same with the horse ride, though a part of her didn’t see it the same way she once did. It all had a sincerity that she had missed at first. But the longer it took for them to get up the hill, often having to shift off of the road into the wet grass or mud for passing soldiers and horsemen or the long rows of oxen pulling those wagons of stones in the same direction they were going, the more she was finding herself wanting to lift her skirt and run. Not home. To Draka.

  The road was more full than she had ever seen it. It made her shiver even without their leering at her. Too much was going on around her. Soldiers, oxen that were the largest and most muscular animals she had ever seen, horses, riders, flags, beams…it was overwhelming her to the point that her head swam. She quickened her pace.

  At Draka’s it will be more settled, less of the soldiers and more of him and Vigora. She put a hand to the side of her dress skirt. The pears were there. The way Vigora’s ears always would turn and perk, her neck straighten so suddenly that it was like her whole body shot upright at the sight of her, made her smile. It made her mind wander a little from wanting to cover herself in mud and lie down in the field to disappear from their beady eyes.

  When they were close enough, Maud slumped at the sight of yet more soldiers at Draka’s. They were on the roof and surrounding both the shack and the house, doing this and that. Some were carrying logs from the woods behind the shack to the other side of the house while others were swinging hammers about his porch. The ones on the roof were pulling on twine, others were unspooling the twine for them, and more were handing bales of hay up to men on the roof in a line from a shorter wagon to the ladder leaning against his porch. Trees from the woods behind both his house and the shack were falling in lines, two and three at a time, followed by loud cranks and saws grating through them. They had a contraption set near where they were felling trees that had two soldiers turning cranks on either side of a jagged toothed metal blade as long as Vigora that made it swing as it lowered, cutting through the log. She, too, had to stop and watch it with Alden when she first saw it.

  When they reached the house, the soldiers stopped and straightened. More wide, admiring eyes that made her wonder if her dress had fallen off. She pulled Alden closer and lowered her head to behind the basket, hoping her hair was covering the reddening of her face. It wasn’t until they were on the porch that she finally looked up to find a wooden door replacing the long cloth one.

  Alden knocked. Nothing. The soldiers shifted their feet, their gazes fixed on her. Some were smiling, others had a grin that reminded her of Balian’s just before he said he would kill Pa. Her blood went cold. Shivers were flying up and down her spine. He knocked again. Nothing.

  “Draka!” Maud threw herself at the door, shoving the basket into Alden as she went. He barely caught it before it tipped over. “Draka, it’s Maud and Alden, let us in!” She pounded and pounded, but nothing.

  “He’s been gone since before sunrise.” A soldier said, pulling his rimmed helmet from his balding head. He didn’t look much older than her, but his hair was completely gone from the top of his head and where it remained were long and wiry. “If you’re here as his servants, I’d be glad to help you with any chores.”

  Alden grinned, “That would be…”

  “We’re not his servants. We’re his neighbors. Thank you. You can go back to what you were doing.” Maud said speedily. She whipped back toward the door and jerked the handle to see if it was locked. It flew open. She grabbed Alden’s arm and dragged him in. She kicked the door shut behind them.

  “The rivers, stop dragging me everywhere,” Alden pulled his arm from her with a howl. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Give me that,” she jerked the basket from him and looked around. The house was somehow emptier than it had been. Still no table, no chairs, no mattress. In place of the pile of hay, there was a pelt stretched across the floor with two folded ones at the wall with the imprint of a head in them. The hearth, however, was alight and their pot had the bubbly sound of boiling above it.

  She set the basket down. “Put the socks on the pillow,” she said as she went to the pot. Her nose crinkled at the smell wafting from it. It smelt of dead animals and rotting hay. There was a slimy, yellow crust along the inside of the pot over the similarly colored stew from him having eaten nearly half of it already. She swallowed down the compulsion to vomit. Wincing, she dipped the ladle into it and lifted a bit of the stew to her lips. Maybe the smell was an illusion. Maybe it tasted amazing, a barbarian delicacy somehow. She took a taste after blowing on it. Nope, regret overtook her, it tasted like how feet smelled.

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  “It’s smaller than I remember,” Alden was doing circles, his head turning all around, his spear’s shaft dragging on the wood floor.

  “I need to bring seasons. How can he eat this?” Maud thought aloud.

  “So, he’s a better cook than Pa then,” Alden giggled at her. She glowered at him. Draka was a far worse cook. “You didn’t die from tasting it, so must be better.”

  Maud chuckled. “It’s bad,” she turned back to it.

  The bubbly oily yellow liquid didn’t look like anything she had ever eaten or helped Ma cook. She began running the ladle through it to see what he had in it. Chunks of meat. Lemon grass. Okay, at least he…wait, wait…she looked closer. Grass. Just grass. She blinked at it. No, it couldn’t be. She lifted a slimy leaf and tore a bit off. She put it in her mouth and spat it out. No doubt about it, it was plain grass. And tree bark chunks.

  “He’s a madman,” Maud shook her head at it. “This isn’t food, this is…poison. Take this outside and dump everything but the meat. As much as you can. And bring it back.”

  “That’s his food,” Alden stared at it. Then, with a cock of his head, “Sort of.”

  “I want him healthy,” her lips spoke before her brain could stop them.

  Alden choked a laugh and lifted the pot with hands wrapped in cloth from the hearth. “Where do you think I should dump it?”

  “On one of the soldiers,” Maud huffed as she began shifting through the jars in the basket. She needed to go back to the house for ingredients. That would take so long. She didn’t want to upset him if he came home to boiling meat and nothing else. But, then again, he might not notice. When she saw Alden’s expression, standing in front of the door with the large pot in his hands, she rushed to the door, “It was a jest. Dump it behind the shack. Keep as much of the meat as you can, but get rid of everything else. Pick it out if you need to. Especially the,” she felt a chill jerk her head from side to side, “the grass.”

  “Grass? Really?”

  “And chunks of bark. Like I said, only keep the meat.”

  “Yeah, no problem,” Alden’s brows smushed as he stepped out the door and Maud quickly shut it behind him.

  She went back to the basket. She put the jar of foot salve beside the socks on his pillow of pelts with some folded wraps for his foot and ankle, if it still ached. She had grabbed one of the wide foot pots from behind their house and washed it. Aurie hadn’t used it for Pa in months, she was certain she wouldn’t miss it. She put it beside the foot of the pelt bed.

  She found herself noting things she had never thought of before as she stared at the bed. He was sleeping on the floor. It wasn’t soft at all. The stacked pelts were, but the one spread across the floor was as hard as if it weren’t there at all.

  Such a simple creature. He was content having nothing. Just took everything as it came. Torn mattress and rotting hay? That’s a bed. No seasons or vegetables for a stew, grass and bark will do. Pa would rather starve but this man would find a way, no matter what it was. She saw that as something more to admire about him. Just by seeing this, she understood that there was nothing, no one, that could stop him. Mob of angry villagers and all he has is what he’s wearing and a sword? No hesitation. They were being attacked. He went anyway. And he would have died had they not run. Had the gods not flooded the village. She knew that for certain.

  At least it didn’t smell like his horse. Just him. That was something that also needed remedying. His odor was thick and filled the entire house with a nose clogging musk. Like Pa, she figured he just needed to be reminded that he needed to bathe. Is there a way to tell him without being mean? She wondered.

  Meat and grass and tree bark, boiled together with nothing else. The bowl was crusted with the same slimy yellow remnants of it beside his bed. He was actually eating that disgusting stuff. How could he survive off that? But then, she began to imagine what it would be like to be a barbarian in the north, like Ma told her about. All furs and tents and no homes. No farms. During the winters it would be meat and whatever was still around. Grass and tree bark. She had heard of deer surviving off tree bark before. And no shoes. A life with your feet in the cold, the wet, the sharpness of jagged rocks and pointy twigs. He had lived with worse, then. He could take the world coming against him and still smile. She warmed at that.

  Alden returned with the pot, “I was able to save most of the meat.” He put it back on the hook.

  Maud sent him back out to bring back a bucket of water, which he returned with much faster than she expected. She dumped it in the pot and nodded. “Alright, that’s done. What else can we do?”

  “Dust the furniture and fluff the mattresses,” Alden raised a brow at her.

  “Funny,” Maud glared at him. She looked around the room and threw her hands. “I wish there was something, anything we could do more to make him more comfortable.”

  “What do you want us to do? There’s nothing here. Pretty sure we’ve done it. Hey,” he looked down at his feet, “where did you come in from? I want to see it.”

  “Oh, over here,” Maud went to where the loose board was. It was obvious to her now. The board had a notch in it for fingers to slip underneath in front of and to the side of the hearth. It would be under Ma’s chair if it were in their house. She lifted it with a strained huff and slid it to the side. It was heavier from above. “See?”

  Alden stepped over and gawked. “What is that?” He pointed at the metal plate with unbelted leather straps hanging from it.

  Maud shrugged. “No idea.” She wasn’t looking at that. She had missed the shelves on the one side even though her muddy fingerprints were on their edges from her lifting and lowering herself off of them. On the top shelf, there were folded cloths, one was quilted—a blanket, maybe—and the other a thin, slippery material she had never felt before. Below that was something she didn’t expect to find. A thick book. She slid her legs into the hole to sit on the edge and slid the book out to on her lap.

  “That symbol, what is that?” Alden crouched beside her and looked over her shoulder.

  She ran her fingers along the etching on the cover. It was a cross. “The symbol of the Cathols,” She told Alden as she carefully turned the cover open. The pages were thin, just as thin as that slippery cloth, and were filled with columns of tiny symbols.

  There was a thick page with a colorful picture on it after a few pages. Her mouth fell open. She could feel Alden’s breath on her ear. It was a naked man, detailed enough that Maud wanted to both cover him up and look at it closer at the same time, standing beside a naked woman whose body was far too perfect. The woman was holding a bitten red apple up for the man. Behind the woman was the lush fruit tree the woman must have plucked the apple from. A beautiful dark-haired woman, her body becoming that of a snake once below her breasts, was grinning at them. Definitely drawn by a man. Maud could only imagine what the rest of the pictures were. Men, she sighed. Draka needs a real woman if this is what comforts his loneliness.

  “Can I see it for a minute?” Alden reached for it.

  “Gross, no!” Maud slapped it shut and slid it back in place. “Get back, I’m closing it back up. We need to get back so I can get stuff I need.”

  “When we come back then?”

  Maud pulled the board back into place with a thud. “Alden, I don’t think he put that there for others to see. Would you?”

  “Good point. Maybe if I put it back just the way it is, he won’t…”

  “Alden.”

  “What? Could work.”

  Maud rolled her eyes and brushed her dress off before collecting the basket. “Come on and this time don’t trail back. I don’t like the way they look at me.”