She awoke, as she always did, to Picky the rooster’s crowing. She slipped out of the bed and took Gillam with her, taking him to the back house before he could wet the bedding. They hurried back, shivering, through the dew wet grasses and dressed hastily in the dimness of the cabin. Pell slept on. She let out the chickens and picketed the cow in a fresh spot. With her hatchet, she split kindling to wake the flames. She brought in firewood and built up the fire. The chickens had produced two eggs, and Gillam was terribly excited about that. He had wanted to carry the warm, brown eggs, but she feared to trust him with the precious bounty. He sat at the table and stared at them as she began to stir together ground oats and water.

  “We’ll put the eggs in the hearth cakes and they’ll taste wonderful,” she told him, and he wriggled with excitement. Marmalade came and perched on her chair to watch the process. His whiskers were pricked forward with interest. “You can have a corner of mine,” she promised the cat. “Even if you didn’t give me any of the mouse you caught this morning!”

  “Mama eat mouse!” Gillam exclaimed and dissolved into giggles. For that moment, they were as happy as they had ever been.

  Then Pell spoke from the dim corner where the bed was. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Her stirring slowed. She admitted to herself that she’d hoped to feed both of them and be out the door and doing chores before Pell awoke. “I’m making meal cakes for Gillam,” she told him.

  For a time, there was only the sound of her spoon against the bowl. She tried not to feel Pell watching her from the bed. Then he spoke again. His voice was softer, considering. “You’d look younger if you let your hair down, like you used to wear it. I remember it well. All loose around your face and bare shoulders.”

  “I’m not younger. I’m older,” she said brusquely.

  He laughed.

  She formed two hearth cakes in the pan and set it by the fire to cook. Gillam pulled his little stool over and sat down on it, watching intently. It was just a slice of log with three legs pegged into it, but he had helped make it and was inordinately proud of it. When he had settled himself, she tried to follow the pattern she’d established for herself, telling them both the shape of their day. “After we eat and wash up, we’ll take a basket and go looking for spring greens, shall we? Maybe we’ll find some mushrooms, too. And we need to visit the beach and find more firewood and bring it home. Then we’ll go to Serran’s house and do washing for her, and maybe we’ll bring a fish home for dinner.”

  “Fish!” Gillam exclaimed happily and clapped his hands. She had noticed that when words were related to food, he learned them very quickly. She hoped that Serran’s husband had made a good catch that week and that Serran would feel generous in barter. Today was wash day at Serran’s house. Next week, she’d help Widow Lees plant her garden. And sheep shearing time was not far away. The widow had said she might help with that, and that she’d pay her in hard coin for her work. She could barter for most of her needs, but hard coin was needed for some things. She turned the cakes in the pan, and Gillam sighed in happy anticipation. “Soon,” she told him.

  “Damn!” Pell roared. “Damn him! I’ll kill him!”

  He kicked his clothes across the floor at her, and Gillam shrieked in terror at the explosion of violence as Pell lunged wildly at Marmalade. But the cat had been in motion at the man’s first exclamation. He leaped from chair to table to shelf and up to the rafters in a motion as smooth as water flowing. He vanished.

  Pell cursed loudly, kicked over the chair, and stood glowering. Gillam had pressed up against her so suddenly as she crouched by the hearth that Rosemary had sat down hard on the floor. Now the boy clambered into her arms, and she held him protectively as he whimpered in fear. Her own heart was racing as he stared at Pell. The muscles were knotted under his bared skin, and his eyes were wild.

  “That damn cat pissed all over my good clothes! They’re soaked with piss!”

  She didn’t laugh. Something inside her rejoiced at his misfortune and took pleasure in his anger, but a wiser part of her held still. She could have told him that the tom saw him as an intruder and that he should have hung up his clothes. A mousy part of her wanted to stammer apologies and offer to launder his clothes for him. Instead she looked away from his naked body. She’d been alone for a long time, but not so long that she’d want him again.

  “What are you crying about?” Pell barked at Gillam, which turned his whimper into a wail. Pell turned his anger on her. “Shut him up! And do something about my clothes! That damn animal has to go. He’s infected with Wit, that’s what he is.”

  Don’t answer. Don’t defend. She managed to get to her feet with the wailing Gillam on one hip. She didn’t look at Pell as she stooped down and took the pan off the fire. It was hard to get the door open with her arms full, but she managed, and she carried her boy and their breakfast outside.

  “Rosemary? Rosemary!”

  Pell bellowed her name after her, but she ignored him. She carried Gillam over to the garden and they sat down together on the firewood pile in the brisk morning air. “Let’s eat here near our garden. Eat your cake quickly, while it’s hot and nice.”

  The cakes were not quite done in the middle, and too hot to eat easily. She scooped them both out of the pan and set them down on the clean cut side of a piece of wood. She blew on them hastily.

  “ROSEMARY!”

  She looked up to see Pell naked in the door. He had draped her blanket across his shoulders. In another moment, he’d come out.

  She wolfed down half a hearth cake without enjoyment of the precious food. She breathed in air through her mouth to cool it as she chewed and swallowed quickly. “You stay here, Gillam, and eat the rest of that. It’s good. Okay?”

  He was still crying, but the permission to eat diverted his attention from the angry man in the door of his home. He sniffed and nodded once and then poked a finger at the cake. “Ow!”

  “It will cool fast out here. Break it up in pieces. And don’t let the chickens steal it from you!” For the curious flock already had come running to see what the boy had.

  “Mine!” he said decisively, and she almost smiled. She rose, pan in hand, and turned back to the door as Pell bellowed her name again.

  “What do you want?” she asked him calmly. She stood at a safe distance.

  “That damn cat pissed all over my clothes!” He tried to gather the blanket closer. He was shivering.

  His fine clothes, cut and sewn to fit him, soaked with cat piss. She didn’t let herself smile. “So you’ve told us. Why are you yelling my name?”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  She gripped the pan in her hand and found herself marching up to the door. “Nothing,” she said, and she actually shouldered past him. “It’s your problem, not mine.”

  He stared as she hung the empty pan on its hook. “Where’s my breakfast?”

  “I really don’t know.” She rounded on him with a quizzical stare. “Did you bring something for your breakfast? If so, I haven’t seen it. If you brought any food into this house in the last three years, I haven’t seen it.” She caught up her basket and shawl and managed to get out the door before he could decide how to react to that.

  As she started down the path, he shouted after her, “What did you do with my other clothes?”

  Did he mean the ones he’d left behind when he abandoned them? “I used them for rags and quilting,” she said. She didn’t lift her voice. He’d either hear her or not.

  “If I see that damn cat again, I’ll kill him.”

  She knew Marmalade and had no fear for him. But, “Kill Marm? Kill my Marmy?” Gillam came toward her at a trot, his face full of childish concern.

  She stooped down to speak quietly to him. “No, Gillam. Marmalade is too smart for him. Don’t worry. I tell you what. Let’s go to Serran’s house and do washing first and hang it up in the nice wind to dry. Then we’ll look for greens on the way home.”

  “With fish?” he asked her hopefully.

  “Maybe with fish. Let’s see how far the tide is out. Perhaps we can cut across the beach.”

  “Beach!” he exclaimed, and she smiled. Gillam loved the beach, and exploring it would add time to their journey, not reduce it. Usually she didn’t take him down the steep rocky path, but today she wished to get as far away from Pell as fast as she could, and stay away as long as she could.

  “You had no right!” Pell bellowed after her when he realized she was leaving. “Those clothes belonged to me!”

  She didn’t look back.

  “You can’t take a man’s rightful possessions! What is mine is mine, and I will take it back!”

  Cold clutched at her heart. He meant Gillam. His son. Her son. Her most precious of all things precious. That was why he had come back, she suddenly knew. Not for her or the cottage. To take Gillam.

  “Let’s run!” she suggested, as she seized her boy’s hand and set off at a trot with Gillam jogging beside her.

  From the rafters, the tom watched the man below him. The intruder kicked his wet clothes again, cursed some more, and then began to rummage through the sparse contents of the shelves. The cat watched him; there was no meat there, but he found a turnip and ate it. While he chewed, he took the lids off several other containers, grumbling all the while, and then abandoned his search for easy food. The cat could have told him there was nothing in the cupboard worth eating. All it was good for was attracting meaty little mice, which the cat had no intention of sharing.

  Hilia was right. The big male human was going to be a problem. He took up too much of the bed, he smelled as if he might try to claim the territory, and he’d caused the cat to miss out on a nice eggy bit of cake this morning. And he’d made the boy wail, and the cat detested that awful sound. And he’d driven the woman away before she had built up the fire for the day. The cottage was rapidly cooling.

  He glared down at the man. You need to leave. This is my territory and you are not welcome.

  The man paused in his turnip chewing and looked up into the rafters. He had that stubborn look that people got when they knew that a cat was thinking about them but they didn’t want to accept it. “Cat? You up there? I’m going to kill you, you little bastard!”

  I doubt it. You’re clumsy and heavy and slow. Everything that I’m not. The cat dug his claws into the beam and noisily sharpened them. When the man turned to peer up at him, he deliberately strolled across the rafter over the man’s head. He leaped up at the cat, batting futilely at him while roaring angrily. The cat sat down and wrapped his tail neatly around his feet. The man threw things, a vegetable, then a cup that shattered when it hit the wall, and then his boot, which landed in the fire. None of the objects hit the cat. The man was throwing them too hastily.

  When he dragged a stool over and began to climb up on it, the cat stood, stretched, and then strolled along the beam until he reached the eaves. From there it was easy to push his way out through the storm-worn thatch. With a quick twist of his body he was up on the roof. He climbed quickly to the peak and sat down. He caught a glimpse of Rosemary and Gillam just as they turned and took the path that would take them down to the beach. He wondered if they would come back. The big human male was making an obvious claim to the territory. The female might be wise to take her kit and move on. He knew the ways of rogue males. He might very well kill the kit in the hopes of taking her as his mate again.

  He didn’t like that idea. The female brought home food and shared it. She kept the shelter warm, and she was comfortable to sleep with. He doubted that the male human would provide any of that for him. So. How to be rid of him? He settled on the roof, folding his paws neatly under his chest and tucking his tail around him. He stared out to the horizon and pondered. How did one kill game that size?

  Rosemary had to take the long way home. The tide was in, and that meant she had to follow the meandering path on top of the sea cliffs rather than cut across the bared beach. She paused for a moment to stare across the wide blue bay. On the opposite tooth of the land, she could just see the hazy buildings of Dorytown. Meddalee’s home. She wished Pell would just go back there. Let him chase his pretty girl with the fancy clothes and rich father. Just let him go away.

  The wind blew harshly, pushing against her. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Come on, Gillam. Let’s get home and get warm.”

  “Too tired. Too cold.” He sat down on the beaten earth of the path. His nose and cheeks were bright red, as were the tips of his ears. What had become of spring? And would she have warmer clothes for him before winter returned? He was growing so fast. She refused to think that far ahead. With a sigh she stooped down, hoisted him to her hip, and fashioned her shawl into a sling to take some of his weight. He’d already eaten more than half the smoked fish that Serran had given them for doing the wash. Rosemary had eaten some of it and concealed the rest in her bag for later. Damned if she would share it with Pell! But she might give the cat a bite or two.

  Something in her had hardened. She was weary and Gillam was heavy, but heavier still were the words that Serran and Tarsha Wells had loaded onto her. “You should run, girl,” Serran had said bluntly after Rosemary had admitted that Pell had come back to the house and spent the night there. “Run while you can. Today. Don’t wait until he gets another child on you. Everyone knows what a charmer that man is. He’ll talk you into his bed, plant a baby in your belly, and then be off again. Don’t let him. Don’t even go back there.”

  “But everything I own is there, and not much of it is portable! And the cottage rightfully belongs to Gillam, not him.”

  “The cottage will still be there when he is a man grown and he can come back to claim it then.” Tarsha was emphatic. “Run, girl.”

  “I can’t. I won’t! Should I run off and leave the cow? The chickens? Everything I’ve worked so hard to build up in the last three years? Just take Gillam and set off into the world without a coin to my name?”

  Tarsha had been visiting Serran when Rosemary arrived. They’d all been washing together, for Serran had decided her house needed a spring cleaning that included laundering all the bedding. It had been a companionable time, with Gillam playing with little Marsh and the women all chatting together. It would have been fun if the topic hadn’t been her personal danger.

  “Better a live beggar than . . . well, than anything else you might become.” Serran’s words were ominous.

  “What are you saying?” Rosemary demanded.

  “I know why Pell has come back here,” Tarsha had said suddenly.

  Both women had turned to stare at her. Serran shook her head as if to warn her against indiscretion. Tarsha had looked down at her hands and spoken anyway. “I heard it from my cousin. It started a couple of months ago, with little things. A push in the market, calling her a bitch after a squabble in a tavern. But about a month ago, Pell put hands on Meddalee and not in a kind way. He’d pushed her before and once he knocked her down right in the market. But this was his hands on her throat. Her father saw the marks and he threatened to kill Pell. But he came, all tears and apologies, and knelt outside her father’s house and begged pardon. So she took him back. But then he actually hit her, a week ago. Loosened a tooth, and that was it. Her father’s servants put Pell out of the house and told him never to come back, that he no longer worked for her father or had permission to see Meddalee. Said Pell had no prospects and no right to touch his daughter. I heard Pell lingered for a time, hoping he could make it up, but when he couldn’t and he ran out of coin, he came home.” Tarsha looked up from her washing and said bluntly, “You should leave him, Rosemary. Take Gillam and go. If he hit one woman, he’ll hit another.”

  Shame flushed her face. She’d never admitted to anyone that Pell had struck her. She wouldn’t admit it now. “I’ve got nowhere to go,” she said bluntly. Both women looked away from her. Times were hard. No one could afford to take in a woman and her child, while risking the displeasure of Pell and his family. It wasn’t fair of her to ask it, and so she didn’t. “The cottage belongs to Gillam. He has a right to live there. And I can take care of myself.” She said it, but no one really believed it. And when Tarsha hugged her good-bye, she slipped a coin into her hand, a small silver one.

  “Just go!” she whispered. “Run. Don’t you have cousins in Forge? Go there.”

  Rosemary had nodded grimly and then started the long walk home. Home. Was it really her home anymore? Could she run off to Forge? Her father’s sister had settled there; she barely remembered the woman. She had cousins there, yes, cousins she’d never met. No. There was no easy sanctuary. But it was her problem, not her friends’. It was up to her to solve it for herself.

  She saw the smoke from her chimney long before she could see her house. And when she stood looking down on it, her heart nearly broke. She’d put so much into it, and Gillam was so heavy as he slept in the sling. She tried to imagine running away, taking him off down the long road to somewhere. Buckkeep Town? She could probably find some kind of work in a big city like that. But the journey would be hard. Sleeping by the road with little more than her shawl to cover them, eating what they could find. There were dangerous men on the road; there always were and always had been. They might do worse to her and her son than Pell would even imagine. Bad as Pell was, there was worse out there. And Gillam was his only son. He wouldn’t hurt him. She’d face him and see what came next.