At the other end of the little house was an earthen hearth before a crude stone chimney and mantle. A rough trestle table and benches stood beside the hearth; Sawyer and Singer were crowded against the near end of the table, leaning up against it.
Pel was standing a few feet from the table, staring at it-or under it, Amy realized. As she watched, he closed his eyes tight, and stood, swaying slightly, with them shut. Puzzled, Amy glanced under the table.
Hiding beneath it was a child-Amy couldn’t be sure whether it was a boy or a girl-who stared out at the strangers with frightened eyes. The poor thing wore a dull brown sacklike garment and nothing else, had mousy brown hair hacked off unevenly at shoulder length.
The child didn’t really look anything like Rachel Brown, but Amy knew that that was who Pel was thinking of. Uncomfortable, Amy looked up, away from the child, away from any memories of Pel’s dead daughter.
Above the table was a loft. The central portion of the cottage was open from dirt floor to thatched roof, but the kitchen alcove and the hearth area both had plank ceilings. Another child sat in the loft, this one, dressed in faded blue, almost certainly a girl; she clutched a baby in her arms. For a moment Amy thought the baby might just be a doll, but then it waved an arm.
No one who lived in a place like this would have a doll that could wave its arms, Amy was sure. She swallowed.
The space above the kitchen alcove was smaller and lower, and appeared to be used for storage; at any rate, there were no children to be seen there.
The woman closed the heavy door, the bang and the sudden dimness startling Amy.
“Ah, goodwife,” Raven called. “We claim but a single meal. What would you give us?”
“We have nothing to give you,” the woman said, her voice high and unsteady, her tone flat.
“Oh, come,” Raven replied. “I see much here before me-fruits and grain and vegetables, and surely that keg holds ale.”
“’Tis not for you,” the woman insisted. “We’ve children to feed, and our taxes are not yet paid.” Amy noticed that she didn’t seem to have quite the same accent to her speech that Raven and Valadrakul and the others did.
“And what of the Goddess’ decree that all Her children owe hospitality to one another, whenever they might be wanderers upon the land?” Raven demanded.
“We pay no heed to the old faiths,” the woman replied. “We heed only Shadow’s orders.”
“And what does Shadow say, then, in how one is to treat travelers?”
“Know you not, then?” The woman stood, hands on her hips, eyeing the intruders.
“I’d hear it from you,” Raven answered.
“Shadow commands that we feed and shelter those who come on Shadow’s business, and to deny all others,” the woman told them, “but not when that would risk our own lives, for they are not our own to sacrifice, but are Shadow’s, and valued more highly than whatever else might be stolen from us. Better to lose a year’s crops, and Shadow’s tax thereupon, than a lifetime’s, and there are many of you, while I am alone here, save for my children.”
Amy glanced up at the loft again, at the children there. Pel, standing near, still had his eyes tightly closed.
She wondered if Shadow could use its magic to spy on this somehow, here in its own territory. Would Shadow, whatever it was, feel the instinctive desire to protect those children that she felt? Did their mother have any way of informing Shadow of the presence of intruders?
“And you admitted us, then, in fear of your life?” Raven asked the peasant woman.
The woman gestured in the direction of Stoddard and Valadrakul. “That,” she agreed, “and in hopes that you might prove yourselves to be servants of Shadow.”
“You do disgrace to your ancestors and your spirit, in this sad acquiescence to that evil power and the renunciation of the true faith and its customs,” Raven said.
“And you prove yourselves fools, to oppose the Shadow that shades the world!”
Amy, already uneasy, had listened to this exchange with mounting discomfort. Now, as the woman and the three intruding natives of Faerie glared at one another through the little crowd, she called, “Raven, let’s get out of here, if we’re not welcome.” She didn’t mention anything about the possibility of drawing Shadow’s attention, but she thought that Raven would see it.
If Prossie was right about why Raven had left Lieutenant Dibbs back at the ship, then Raven certainly ought to have that in mind.
“Nay,” Raven said angrily. “By the bleeding Goddess, I say you nay! We’ve a right under the ancient law, and we’ll take a meal here before we go!”
“She’s got a right to her own home,” Amy protested. “It’d be stealing!”
“I don’t care about that,” Sawyer said, before Raven could say anything more, “but I might worry about her men getting back. She’s got a husband, at least, or there wouldn’t be that baby up there.”
Amy bit back a comment about the naivete implied by that comment; there wasn’t necessarily a husband anywhere-but there certainly might be one.
“We can handle a husband,” Wilkins said, “if it’s only one.”
“Aye,” Stoddard agreed, “an it’s but one; what, then, if that one brings friends?”
“Then we’ll take what we can carry,” Raven said. “I’ll not leave here without our due.”
Amy watched unhappily as the men of Faerie and the Galactic Empire picked through the contents of the kitchen alcove, but she did not protest further. It was stealing, no matter what ancient rights and privileges Raven might claim, stealing from a woman and her children-but Amy was hungry, very hungry, and the woman wasn’t arguing any more, and there were seven men doing the stealing, compared with two men, four women, and a few children who were not-and Amy was fairly sure that if it came down to open conflict, Susan and Prossie and perhaps even Pel would side with the thieves, while Ted would be useless to either faction.
Pel might be useless, as well, lost in his grief; he was still standing with eyes closed.
She stood and watched, and wished she could think of something to say to comfort the woman they were robbing, but nothing came.
She was sure that the woman would report their presence to Shadow, if she could-but then, she probably would have reported the presence of strangers even if they hadn’t robbed her.
And ten minutes later, when the entire party was moving again, across the valley toward the ruin where they were to meet Taillefer, Amy ate the raisins and dried apples and sticks of hard-baked bread that were her share of the booty without complaint.
She did not so much as glance back at the cottage, where the woman still stood in the open doorway, watching the thieves depart.
* * * *
They had finished their meal as they had started it, while walking. The intermediate stage, when they had settled briefly by the roadside to sort out their loot and prepare anything that required preparation, had lasted no more than fifteen minutes, at most, Pel was sure.
Of course, he had no way to check; digital watches didn’t work in either Faerie or Imperial space, and his was long gone, anyway. He relied on his own time sense, which he knew was not particularly good.
Still, he was sure that they were moving again less than half an hour after the robbery-despite Raven’s claims, Pel could not help thinking of the way they had acquired their meal as a strong-arm robbery.
He almost wished he had joined in, though, and taken a shirt. He hadn’t seen any, but there had probably been some, somewhere.
He hadn’t seen any, because he hadn’t wanted to look.
He tried very hard not to think of the girl under the table, not to associate her and her mother with Rachel and Nancy.
Maybe they would realize, when they thought about it, that Pel and the others hadn’t taken very much; maybe they wouldn’t hold the robbery against him. Maybe they would accept that it had been a necessity.