They need only walk out. The house typically did not rouse until midmorning, and all was quiet at this early hour. Still, she felt a foreboding that caused her to clutch hard at the small bag of belongings over her shoulder while she rested a hand on the knife at her belt. When she asked the girls if there was aught they would take with them, only Rosy nodded and said she would gather her cloak from her room.

Just as they neared the end of the corridor, Fuss let out a bark. He had followed Rosy around the corner into her room and now there were voices shouting, all while Fuss made enough noise to wake the dead.

In an instant, Nan had a blade in one hand and a nail in the other. She pulled little Cecilia around the corner with her by instinct, not wanting to let the girl out of her sight. The smell that greeted her told her it was the tanner come back, as promised. In the room she saw him – a tall, thin man shouting drunkenly as he fell onto a small bed. Then she saw a flame of red hair flick out from beneath him and heard Rosy cry out.

Nan only made the nail graze his ear because she did not want him to keel over onto the girl. When he reached up to clap a hand to the side of his bleeding head, Rosy darted out. She was clutching her cloak to her, and she wasted no time getting away from him. But he snatched at her dress and yanked her back, so Nan stepped forward and drew her blade across the back of his leg, just above the knee, to sever the sinew. He dropped like a stone.

“Fuss!” she said sharply, with a stamp of her foot, and he settled down to a growl. The drunken man was howling, though, and the girls were staring at the blood, so there was no hope of a quiet exit now.

She would feel no guilt for crippling a man who would bed a child, but it meant that trouble was more likely to follow them. They must move swiftly now and without hesitation, for she was a stranger in this town and the might of Morency was far away.

She hastily slung her bag crossways over Rosy’s shoulder, so she could move unencumbered. After a bare instant of thought, she chose the dagger from the back of her belt to put in the older girl’s hand, then pulled the small silver knife from the garter at her knee to give to the younger girl.