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Sara

The clucking and scratching of the hens outsidebefore dawn I breathed in the cool air, staring into the darkness, riding out the last of a dream that both puzzled me and left me aroused in a way I’d not known before

The ie of the dreamy, handsome, dark-haired ht the urge to run my hand down my body, the way he had done to hs and rub away the clutching ache my dream lover had left behind

I could almost still feel his warmth The shiver as he touched me The filthy words he had whispered inand htdress to where the tension tightened in e

I stopped just above where the pulsing still lingered knowing s the mysterious man in my dreams had delivered

Instead, I forced myself off the threadbare mattress that served as le stride and lit the stubby reht’s tallow candle The oily wick crackled, then settled to a dull glow The bare slate stones were icy on my feet, and I shivered as I pulled my woolen shawl around my shoulders It was a patchwork of colors after years of , but simple and worn as it was, I cherished it It was a tapestry of ether fro that was beautiful and almost whole

Wrapping my arms around my body for warmth, I shuffled quickly out into the kitchen and awakened the s embers in the fireplace with the poker I added two heavy bricks of peat to the grate, and rubbed my hands in front of the low flames, then swept the errant ash around the hearth back into the glow of the coals

Glancing at the neatly stacked pyraed to put just one or two on as well But I cast that foolish thought fro fires were expensive and were only to be lit when my mother, father, and sister were awake No h to war

From a chipped crock that I kept in the woodshed, with a stone on top to keep out the mice, I took a few handfuls of feed and scattered it around the chicken run The hens dove for the food, while the cock strutted back and forth along the fence line, waiting for dawn

Mornings were my favorite time The quiet, the calm, the orderly pace of the chores of the day The way the dew gathered on the papery purple leaves of the thistle I didn’t have s under the wide sky and that was ht to ask for

Sometimes, I wondered why I was so lowly So much a cast-off inonly turned to sorrow—and there was enough of that in my life already

Instead, I raced happily and busily against myself to finish all that needed to be done before my family awoke

Using the frigid ater, I scrubbed my sister’s frock, ainst the washboard until I couldn’t feelline before war box I placed each egg carefully in a basket and set them aside to take to market

Back in the kitchen, the fire had coht’s chill I set about preparing a stew for later I chopped the onions and carrots as quietly as I could, so as not to wake the house To the stew I added a single laotten froave s

The rheumy old butcher always squinted and told lance at theh to keep him satisfied to the end of his days

“Aye, like the first queen’s eyes, they are,” he would say, somehow the wrinkles around his mouth both sad and happy at once “I knew her, you know Butcher to the royal household forher own staff But edoms”