I do in the end; take measure and chop. A man can live without a finger. He discards it in the bushes not five steps from my gateposts, a child already weary of its toy; his dog following, whimpering, as angry and lost as I. By the time the wound stops bleeding they are both long out of sight.

Somewhere ahead of him, the boy with the copper hair will be walking. I want to wish him well. But the dark gentleman hurt me, wounded something that goes beyond the flesh. My hand looks like it might infect. So I sit there, boiling potatoes, and curse all those who are gentle-born.

BONE MUSIC

BONE MUSIC

They stay the night with Grendel. Livia is glad when he asks them to, and smiles when he shows her around proudly, leading her from room to room, a tallow candle in his hand, dripping wax on the stone flooring.

“Please,” Grendel says for the umpteenth time when they return to the kitchen where Thomas has not moved from his stool. “You must.” It is as though it is he who is the supplicant and they the ones owning warmth and shelter.

For a while Livia is afraid that Thomas will decline the offer; that she will be thrust again into his company without the protection offered by a witness. But there is after all no choice. Thomas is weak, the night cold and alive with the shouts of strangers. For her own part, Livia is free of fear as she lies down on a wooden pallet and passes over into sleep. She trusts Grendel. She has known him for four hours, and she trusts him as much as any man or woman she has ever known. It is more than a feeling; it is a matter of fact. Grendel does not, cannot smoke. There is no malice in his heart.

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