The last two orange sections were still in her hand. She threw them into her aunt’s face, then pushed herself back from the table so violently that her chair tottered, tipped, and spilled her to the floor. Her aunt’s shadow fell over her. Susan crawled frantically out of it, her hair hanging, her slapped cheek throbbing, her eyes burning with tears, her throat swelled and hot. At last she found her feet.

“Ye ungrateful girl,” her aunt said. Her voice was soft and so full of venom it was almost caressing. “After all I have done for thee, and all Hart Thorin has done for thee. Why, the very nag ye mean to ride this morning was Hart’s gift of respect to—”

“PYLON WAS OURS!” she shrieked, almost maddened with fury at this deliberate blurring of the truth. “ALL OF THEM WERE! THE HORSES, THE LAND—THEY WERE OURS!”

“Lower thy voice,” Aunt Cord said.

Susan took a deep breath and tried to find some control. She swept her hair back from her face, revealing the red print of Aunt Cord’s hand on her cheek. Cordelia flinched a little at the sight of it.

“My father never would have allowed this,” Susan said. “He never would have allowed me to go as Hart Thorin’s gilly. Whatever he might have felt about Hart as the Mayor... or as his patrono... he never would have allowed this. And ye know it. Thee knows it.”

Aunt Cord rolled her eyes, then twirled a finger around her ear as if Susan had gone mad. “Thee agreed to it yerself, Miss Oh So Young and Pretty. Aye, so ye did. And if yer girlish megrims now cause ye to want to cry off what’s been done—”

“Aye,” Susan agreed. “I agreed to the bargain, so I did. After ye’d dunned me about it day and night, after ye’d come to me in tears—”

“I never did!” Cordelia cried, stung.

“Have ye forgotten so quick, Aunt? Aye, I suppose. As by tonight ye’ll have forgotten slapping me at breakfast. Well, I haven’t forgotten. Thee cried, all right, cried and told me ye feared we might be turned off the land, since we had no more legal right to it, that we’d be on the road, thee wept and said—”

“Stop calling me that!” Aunt Cord shouted. Nothing on earth maddened her so much as having her own thees and thous turned back at her. “Thee has no more right to the old tongue than thee has to thy stupid sheep’s complaints! Go on! Get out!”

But Susan went on. Her rage was at the flood and would not be turned aside.