The grains left behind looked small and dry.

Edgar rested a moment. The sun was shining and he felt good. The eel meat in the family stew had made him stronger. Ma would smoke most of the creatures in the rafters of the house. When the smoked eel ran out they might have to kill the pig and make bacon. And they should get some eggs from the chickens before they had to eat them. It was not much to last four adults through a winter, but with the oats they probably would not die of starvation.

The house was habitable now. Edgar had mended all the holes in the walls and roof. There were fresh rushes on the ground, a stone hearth, and a pile of deadfalls from the forest for firewood. Edgar did not want to spend his life like this, but he was beginning to feel that he and his family had survived the emergency.

Ma appeared. “I saw Cwenburg a few minutes ago,” she said. “Was she looking for you?”

Edgar felt embarrassed. “Certainly not.”

“You seem very sure. I had the idea she was, well, interested in you.”

“She was, and I had to tell her frankly that I didn’t feel that way about her. Unfortunately, she took offense.”

“I’m glad. I was afraid you might do something foolish after losing Sungifu.”

“I wasn’t even tempted. Cwenburg is neither pretty nor good natured, but even if she were an angel I wouldn’t fall for her.”

Ma nodded sympathetically. “Your father was the same—a one-woman man,” she said. “His mother told me he never showed interest in any girl except me. He was the same after we were married, which is even more unusual. But you’re young. You can’t stay in love with a dead girl for the rest of your life.”

Edgar thought he might, but he did not want to argue the point with his mother. “Maybe,” he said.

“There will be someone else, one day,” she insisted. “It will probably take you by surprise. You’ll believe you’re still in love with the old one, and suddenly you’ll realize that all the time you’re thinking about a different girl.”

Edgar turned the tables on her. “Will you marry again?”

“Ah,” she said. “Clever you. No, I shan’t.”

“Why not?

She was silent for a long moment. Edgar wondered whether he had offended her. But no, she was just thinking. At last she said: “Your father was a rock. He meant what he said and he did what he promised. He loved me, and he loved you three, and that didn’t change in more than twenty years. He wasn’t handsome, and sometimes he wasn’t even good-tempered, but I trusted him utterly, and he never let me down.” Tears came to her eyes as she said: “I don’t want a second husband, but even if I did, I know I wouldn’t find another like him.” She had been speaking in a careful, considered way, but at the end her feelings broke through. She looked up at the summer sky and said: “I miss you so much, my beloved.”