warmth, and began his loud purr. She stroked him. “Go to sleep now,” she told him, and he gently bit her hand to say that she had petted him enough.
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.”
“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
“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.
