Sassa, brow furrowed, turned to her. “Yes, but—et? Doesn’t it bother you extra? It sure bothers me.”

“It’s what mud-men do,” murmured Dag.

Sassa eyed him, disconcerted. “Used to it, are you?”

Dag shrugged.

“But it was a child.”

“Everyone’s someone’s child.”

Petti, who’d been staring wearily at her plate, looked up at that.

In a tone of cheery speculation, Jay said, “If they’d have been five days faster, we’d not have been raided. And our cows and sheep and dogs would still be alive. Wish for that, while you’re at it, why don’t you?”

With a grimace that failed to quite pass as a smile, Dag pushed himself up from the table. He gave Petti a nod. “’Scuse me, ma’am.”

He closed the kitchen door quietly behind him. His booted steps sounded across the porch, then faded into the night.

“What bit him?” asked Jay.

Petti took a breath. “Jay, some days I think your mama must have dropped you on your head when you was a baby, really I do.”

He blinked in bewilderment at her scowl, and said less in inquiry than protest, “What?”

For the first time in hours, Fawn found herself chilled again, chilled and shaking. Her wan droop did not escape the observant Petti. “Here, girl, you should be in bed. Horse, help her.”

Horse, mercifully, was much quieter than his younger relations; or perhaps his wife had given him some low-down on their outlandish guests in private. He propelled Fawn through the darkening house. The loss of light was not from her going woozy, this time, though her skull was throbbing again. Petti followed with a candle in a cup for a makeshift holder.

The ground floor of one of the add-ons consisted of two small bedrooms opposite each other. Horse steered Fawn inside to where her feather tick had been laid across a wooden bed frame. The slashed rope webbing had been reknotted sometime recently, maybe by Dag and Tad. A moist summer night breeze wafted through the small, glassless windows. Fawn decided this must be a daughter’s bedchamber; the girls would likely be arriving home tomorrow with the wagon.

As soon as the transport was safely accomplished, Petti shooed Horse out. Awkwardly, Fawn swapped out her dressings, half-hiding under a light blanket that she scarcely needed. Petti made no comment on them, beyond a “Give over, here,” and a “There you go, now.” A day ago, Fawn reflected, she would have given anything to trade her strange man helper for a strange woman. Tonight, the desire was oddly reversed.

“Horse ’n’ me have the room across,” said Petti. “You can call out if you need anything in the night.”