Helewise had used her store of favours to bring a dozen tall young men from Albinkirk. She was a good neighbor; she’d helped with many a birth, with the serving of fine dinners, the presentation of a supper to the great Duchess of Ticondonaga, the laying out of corpses. People liked her, and because of that, the acting Lieutenant of Albinkirk, the recovering Grand Squire, Ser Shawn LeFleur, saw to it that the squires and junior men-at-arms left behind by the alliance when the army marched west were at her service. He’d come himself; his left side swathed in bandages, his face largely covered in an elaborate silken hood he wore buttoned tight to hide the burns. Now he sat behind her in her best settle, his muddy boots on a scrap of burlap; he’d worked the day through despite his fine clothes and the obvious pain of his burns.

“Your hippocras is the best in the county,” he said with his usual courtesy.

Her daughter had just hit Jamie Le Hoek in the head with a very accurately thrown wedge of soap. Her best soap. Phillippa had worked all day in the fields; her hair was a brown tangle, her forehead shone with sweat, and Helewise was sore afraid that her daughter was the most beautiful woman for a hundred miles. And she had never looked better, despite sweat stains and some honest dirt, or perhaps because of it.

Pippa’s friend Rose, who’d lived with them since the first attacks killed Rose’s papa, came into the yard, tossed her hair, and crowned her friend with a garland of roses.

“Queen of the field workers, that’s me,” Pippa said. “Ouch! Thorns!”

Rose vanished behind her hands, laughing, and young Coucy joined her. “Perfect,” he said. “A crown of thorns for the prickly Pippa.”

“Prickly Pippa picked a peck of perfect pears,” Rose said.

Jamie frowned. And said nothing. He usually said very little, which didn’t help him press his love. Helewise noticed he’d caught the thrown soap, though.

“Why don’t you louts finish up so girls can wash?” Phillippa said. “Otherwise I’ll show you prickly.”

“You can wash while we’re here,” Coucy said.

“Not in my lifetime,” Phillippa shot back. “The smell alone . . .”

By the saints, she’s good at that, her mother thought. I wonder where she got it from?

Other squires and two big men-at-arms came in from the fields; all dirty, and all tired. But the older women were laying food on the tables in the back, where the hawthorns hid the standing stones, and the smell of roast mutton and turnips filled the air. Old Mother Crabbe came by, directing a pair of younger women in carrying a magnificent, steaming pie, and many of the men lost interest in all else and followed the pie.