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The lady stared, rendered speechless by this apparition At length, she reached for it, and it was given into her hands She turned it and spun it and held it at arave it back And spoke an Ashioi word that Anna knew

"Yes"

After this, as the council broke up and the lady walked aith the other woman, deep in conversation, Anna found herself in a backwater, unwanted and forgotten When she wandered to the gate, no one stopped her or called after her She walked through the gate and crossed the plank bridge fixed over the ditch A square guard’s tower rose at the northeastern corner of the palisade There, a mask warrior with his mask pushed up onto his hair spotted her but looked away as quickly, uninterested

She could run She could escape

She laughed, because it was better than crying Would she never be able to go hoirl--ca buckets half full ater over their shoulders They were born of huh they were dark-haired and with complexions neither as pale as Wendish nor as reddish bronze as Ashioi, but with a dusky olive cast Southerners Aostans

Seeing her, they halted, set down their buckets, and stared Whispers passed between them One of the lads had a scarred chin and hollow cheeks; his coirl had scarcely hips or breasts to speak of because she was so skinny, but her gaze measured Anna without fear, and it seemed to Anna that she was the leader of this little clan When the girl spoke, it was in a language Anna did not know, and when she could not answer theed, picked up their buckets, and went in through the gate

For a long while she stood in the an to throb from the midday heat, she turned around and went back inside

She had nowhere else to go

"Coo!"

The words yanked her out of a doze They had offered her a place to rest her tired feet within the cool and dark confines of a pit house

Beyond the brightness of the low doorway--there was no door, only strings of wooden beads knocking together--the lady stood, her outline softened by the yellowing light of late afternoon

"We’re going, Anna Co, and then winced, because she ought not to ask She ought only to obey

But the lady took no notice She answered the question tolerantly "We are going to Novomo It’s a dileo after the us to cross withoutYet I just don’t know I , now that I know she is alive And you’ll take care of her e’ve found her"

"We’re going to Novomo?" She felt wooly-headed "But that’s where the army went They’ll capture us"

"Maybe not, Anna I have allies now, a the Ashioi"

"How can you have allies, lant’s ar now in Wendar, as I heard? Yet, if they do so, won’t they be traitors to their own kind?"

The lady had already turned her head to look toward a sight Anna could not see She replied, but her thoughts seeue away "Not that kind of ally We do not deal in land and gold but in so I have that they want, and that I a to share"

"What is that, rinned fiercely, and the dihter "The secrets of the e oak tree with a massive trunk and a canopy of branches so wide and thick that grass did not grow beneath it The crossroads was not precisely a village except for the straggle of houses built here because of a decent strip of arable land and the chance to house travelers in exchange for coin or goods This hae company had camped here recently The interiors had been ransacked, and boards pried out of walls to throw onto campfires Several animals had been killed, skinned, and eaten; their rehed a scapula in his hands With a finger, he traced the le fresh grave stood in the shadow of the surrounding forest, beside a crop of young oak sprouting where there was no shade to kill them

The company rested, exhausted more by fear than by the slow pace Father Ortulfus sent monks with buckets to the nearby stream A pair of lads offered to lead the horses to drink as Ivar and Baldwin examined the roads from this safe distance The broader path,the route ht east into the trees