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You are somehow able to excuse yourself from committing to anything right then and there. It helps that you have a mother and sister to get back to, and that Odneyn and his party are as weary as you are from the road. Thom holds to you an answer come morning, however, and Odneyn delivers the somewhat ominous charge to "imprison your tongue in the silent hall", an old Sahson expression whose meaning remains quite unambiguous.
When you step out, the arched gate of sky and road between the stone is faintly aglow with dawnlight. The kitchens of the manor are already beginning to stir, in part to feed the new arrivals, to prepare the daily bread. Your mother will not be long in joining them. In fact, you can see one of the kitchenhands, a young boy, already at the threshold of the low wall, heading down the dirt road to her cottage in order to fetch her. You hail him. He's surprised to see you. Apparently, the reeve had been quite vocal with his prognostications of your imminent demise. You can only imagine how that made your mother feel.
You quickly release the boy of his duties. You'll take the message to your mother yourself, and in the meantime, you order him to fetch a jug of cider and a fresh loaf of bread from the kitchens. Not the black bread you're so used to, but the good stuff made from the milled wheat, the same soft, white bread that the reeve keeps on his table. Then you hand the boy a stater to put wings on his feet.
The cottage windows are still dark when you arrive, but you can hear the sound of someone striking logs in the small fenced garden in the back. That sound summons a throb of pain in your heart. Your father used to be the one who chopped the wood. No matter how pie-eyed he was from drink, or how late he'd been out the night before, that was a chore he never shirked. Only once had your mother usurp the duty while he was still alive, and he was so furious with her that even she became afraid. The sight of his wife, who once bore such lofty bynames, and to whom he had promised so much on their wedding day, struggling to lift an axe was simply one he could not endure. Your mother never tried again. After your father's death, you took on the duty with the same fervor, until, of course, your recent departure. Even now, part of you wishes to drop all your things here at the door and run and tear the axe from your mother's hands and even scold her a little.
Instead, you slip resignedly through the door. The cottage is cool and dry. The firepit in the center of the room is dead, but a cauldron with water has already been suspended over it. You can make out the outline of your sister asleep on her side in the loft above, the open shutter behind her framing her delicate form.
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