The Border Village

Isolde had a woman’s entire kitchen balanced against her hip, an iron pot nested inside a basket of jarred preserves, when the old man on the porch above her raised his cudgel. He told her plainly he’d use it before he’d leave the house his father built.

“Then you’ll use it on your queen, Tam Ferris, because I’m not leaving without you either.” She set the basket down at the base of the steps, unhurried, the way she’d learned to move around a frightened animal at Thornmoor rather than a frightened man. She suspected the two weren’t so different when it came to it. “I buried three winters of turnips with hands no softer than yours. I’m not above digging you out of this house myself if it comes to that. I’d rather not, because my back’s had enough of digging to last a lifetime.”

Cressida’s maps, delivered two nights…