He’d had her virginity; perhaps the novelty of that was all that had drawn him to her. As she tottered up the stairs to her room, a new fear battered her. He was gone, and if she found herself expecting a child, she couldn’t even plead with him to help her. “Sweet Eda, let that not be,” she prayed to the goddess. “I’d rather be dead than a mother with no husbandman!”

She spent another near-sleepless night. She berated herself for being a fool to have given in to him, and for being a bigger fool for longing to feel his touch again. She finally fell asleep clutching the dream that he swiftly returned to the keep with some reason for his cruelty. It did not help that she herself could imagine no explanation for how he had treated her.

Instead, she dreamed that she disgraced herself by running out to him as soon as he returned. In her dream, she was heavily pregnant, and he denied and mocked her, and Gretcha led all the servants in first laughing at her, and then driving her away from the keep for her terrible lies about the minstrel. In the dream, she had to flee barefoot, wearing only her servant clothes, and she wept because she had lost her blue boots, the last vestige of her father’s love for her.

She awoke late, her tears still wet on her cheeks. She had to rush to dress,and when she hurried down the stairs, she heard Cook calling her name in frustration. She rushed into the kitchen, was scolded harshly for being late, and put to washing up all the dishes by herself.

That night, Lord Just seemed pensive and weary. Chrissock chanted long historical lays about ancient battles. They were boring and depressing. Lord Just drank too much and was carried off to his bed early. Everyone in the keep seemed out of sorts as they drifted away early from their master’s hall and off to their own rooms. Gretcha was wearing a new cap and apron, so perhaps she had been elevated to a lady’s maid.