I glanced around at the speculation on their faces and then back at my food. All pleasure in my meal vanished. I kept my eyes on my plate as I finished eating, ignoring the sergeant and his friends even when they walked out right behind my seat. The company of others, I reflected hotly to myself, had done little to distract me from my own dark thoughts. I left the mess and walked out into what was left of the cold day, I buried the old soldier as the last of the day’s light fled, and I’m afraid the only words I said over his body were a feeble prayer to the good god that I would not end up just like him. The day was unpleasantly cold, the kind of cold that cracks lips and numbs fingers even when a man is working hard. The hair inside my nose froze and prickled me, while the muffler over my mouth grew frosty from my breath. The soil that I threw down on the coffin was as much ice and snow as earth. I mounded it well over the grave and then trampled it down as tightly as I could. By the time I sought my fireside, afternoon was darkening into evening.

I divested myself of my chilled garments, built up my fire, and swung the pot on its hook over the awakening flames. This week’s stock was a good one, with barley and a meaty beef bone as the base for it. I had taught myself, via trial and error, to make hearth cakes using saleratus as leavening. They were not bread, but my recent efforts had been palatable.

I stirred up some to go with my soup. Bending over my belly to crouch down by the hearth to watch them and then turn them was uncomfortable. Some days, I scarcely noticed the inconvenience and simply accepted my body. At times like tonight, I felt as if like I were bound up in someone else’s garments. I could recall so clearly how my body used to work. I felt I should still be able to crouch low and jump high, to chin myself or reach down and tie my shoe without holding my breath.

But every time I forgot the flesh that enclosed me and attempted such a movement, I paid with a twinge or a cramp or failure.

When all my hearth cakes were browned, I stacked them on my plate and with a grunt heaved myself to my feet. I set them on my table and then ladled a generous helping of soup into my bowl. By virtue of great self-control, I still had one of Hitch’s apples left to accompany my meal. I sat down to my repast with anticipation. Food always worked. No matter how distressing the rest of my life might become, food and the sensations of eating it were always pleasant. Food had become my comforter and my companion. I refused to dwell on what Hoster had implied. As he had said, we would see. When the woman recovered enough to describe her attackers, my name would be cleared of the sergeant’s foul accusation. I was an innocent man with nothing to fear. Just as I sat down, I heard a sound outside. I froze, listening. There were the small sounds of a man dismounting from a horse, and then the squeak-crush of boots on packed snow. I expected a knock at the door. Instead I heard a voice say firmly,