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A dru of shouts alerted thee beyond Bertha raised a hand to ready her archers and spear the path came a trio of hardy men, each armed with the kind of weapons farmers make for themselves: one bore a staff sharpened to a point, one had a staff with a scythe bound securely to one end to make of it a halberd, and the third held an actual iron sword of the kind a lady’s guardsth of board cut into a teardrop shape and fixed to his left arm as a shield, crude but effective and unil

It was this arded them with no smile and no welcome

"You can’t come here We’ve blocked the road"

"We need shelter," said Lady Bertha "We are loyal subjects of the regnant, good Wendish folk all I a Henry as part of his schola We have been months on the road out of Aosta We ride north to Saony"

"You can’t coue What’s in those wagons?"

"Feed for the horses Supplies Most ied and weak She needs shelter and a warht"

"A plague-ridden beggar, no doubt" He was a stocky man with the broad shoulders and thickset arms of a man orks every day with his hands "Orunder the canvas We can’t chance it"

"You’re the carpenter’s son," said Hanna suddenly "I recognize you I ae a few years back Do you remember me?"

He sized her up He had dark brown eyes, eastern eyes, they called it in these parts, a one but left soenerations He shook his head, and seeing that he did not know her, she pushed back her hood

"I was here with four Lions," she added "We’d come from the east"

"Ah!" he said "I recall that hair You’re out of the north, so you said"

"That’s where I was born I pray you, friend, do not forget what courtesy is due to clerics and Eagles Let us bide just this one afternoon and night We’ll go on our way in the "